The Globalist Notebook

by Aube Rey Lescure

Neil Heywood helped the Bo family “here and there,” he told his British expat friends. Some business ventures, he said, though he remained vague on the details. Also some ‘favors,” such as getting Bo Xilai’s son Bo Guagua into the elite British prep school Harrow, Heywood’s own alma mater.  The relationship between Heywood and the Bo family, it seemed, was a symbiotic one: Heywood married a Chinese woman in the city of Dalian, where Bo Xilai was mayor in the 90s, and earned enough money to sustain his own luxury yacht-and-Jaguar filled lifestyle, with a little added fuel from the Bos.

Bo Xilai and his wife Gu Kailai now both face investigation and the end of a promising career (Flickr Creative Commons)

Then Heywood was found dead in a hotel room in Chongqing last year. His family never got to see the body, as it was promptly disposed of by the Chongqing authorities. The official report cited alcohol poisoning.

The incident received moderate press coverage back in 2011. Russia might fight to the last judge standing when the U.S. convicts a Russian arms dealer, but the UK wasn’t too hot about stirring international melodrama about a dead citizen who drank himself dead abroad.

Poor Heywood probably turned in his grave (or, more realistically, his surreptitiously-dug hole in the Chongqing wilderness) for over a year as the Bos went about their regular (shady) business. Bo Xilai was, until recently, viewed as a favorite in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leadership turnover. If you must name one political superstar in Chinese politics for the past decade, then Bo would be your man. With suave, movie poster looks that mix vague benevolence with intelligence, Bo’s countenance in itself is much more striking than the army of wobbly-chinned grandpas that constitute the Politburo Standing Committee. The ex-mayor of Dalian gained heroic prominence when he cracked down on the gangs-gone-wild city of Chongqing as he assumed the party chief position in the western Chinese metropolis. Soon all ranks of Chongqing officials underwent a purge and gangs were neutralized. Bo mixed in some more ideological elements to his tenure by adopting a neo-Marxist stance and greatly promoting “red” materials and books of all kinds.

And then, last month, a scandal arose right in the midst of the CCP’s National People’s Congress when Bo’s former police chief and subordinate Wang Lijun went to the American consulate in Chengdu and exposed high-level party secrets—accusing Bo Xilai’s wife Gu Kailai of orchestrating Neil Heywood’s murder because of some “business deals gone sour.”  Much juicier information about CCP leadership conflicts and divisions was probably also unveiled, but naturally the American consulate kept that in its own files and only publicized the Gu/Heywood mystery. The whole episode ended quite tragically for police chief Wang Lijun, who asked for sanctuary in the consulate after revealing state secrets, which was denied, and he was soon arrested by Chinese police for treason and never seen again.

Bo Xilai was immediately suspended from the CCP for mismanagement of his family (wife potentially murdering foreign citizen) and staff (police chief running off to U.S. Embassy to reveal state secrets). The nation went into shock because Bo was a living legend, a true populist hero, one of those party chiefs who actually fought the bad guys instead of milk his citizens. With the shock, though, came a certain simultaneous lack of surprise: who really believes that uncorrupt officials exist in the People’s Republic of China? Businessmen getting cleaned off the scene because of shady liaisons with ruling officials must be a weekly if not daily occurrence across China. It just becomes a case the CCP cannot ignore when the police chief of a major city goes to the American embassy to tell on their dirty laundry. Wang, whether he is dead or alive, was very innovative and intelligent as well as a true martyr in a sense: telling any other media outlet in the country about his secrets would just have resulted in suppression and effective suicide on his part. Going to the Americans was the only way his story was going to get any attention, plus he at least had a marginal chance of obtaining sanctuary. He didn’t, because even though the Americans knew they were sending him to his death as they let him out the gates, getting embroiled in a political drama isn’t exactly of any strategic interest to the State Department right now. The U.K. itself was also reluctant to jump on the international media uproar boat and simply made a statement commending the Chinese investigation of Heywood’s death. No public opinion card concerning Sino-British relations and the murder of a U.K. citizen by the family of a high profile communist official was played by London.

The CCP dealt with the scandal by making Xinhua issue an official report on the case which stressed the CCP’s intolerance for corruption (etc., etc.,) that got reprinted in virtually every single newspaper in China. After Bo was officially suspended, a character assassination campaign ensued so that the CCP could be seen as the impartial chastiser of even the most beloved party officials. Bo, by all means, was a politician who did try to make a difference on the political scene, and his downfall reflects a fundamental characteristic of CCP rule: corruption eventually reaches even the most well-meaning officials. Once an official takes up a post, there will be bribes and offers; and if the official refuses then his refusal destabilizes a broader network of interests which his predecessor had maintained: inevitably, the official who does not conform to the pre-existing web of corruption will be chastised and gotten rid of through, for example, the bribing of his superiors.   CCP officials do not necessarily start out corrupt, but Chinese politics is so corrupt at all levels that not letting certain interest groups have their way is guaranteed self-destruction; and ultimately the official either caves in or is replaced. The Bo affair is a textbook case demonstration of China’s deep structural problems, and tells the story of a mostly good man who had to conform to a mostly awful playing field.

By Max Watkins

Hugo Chavez has ruled Venezuela as president since 1999, creating a socialist welfare state based on nationalized oil production through the distribution of oil revenue. Now in his third term and intending to run for a fourth term, after modifying Venezuela’s constitution so he can be reelected perpetually, Chavez and Venezuela are at a crossroads. The Venezuelan government and country are kept in order through the cult of personality of Chavez and his distribution of oil revenue, but with his health in jeopardy and antagonistic policies increasingly creating internal unrest and international resentment, Venezuela is faces the possibility of future conflict.

Chavez is crucial to the Venezuelan government because he has systematically eroded the representative democracy since his first election in the late 1990s. He is, in effect, the government. Although there is opposition to him and his policies within Venezuela, his secret police and alliance with Cuba, which has provided him with thousands of intelligence agents, has thoroughly marginalized this threat to his rule. But he has been unable to neutralize the threat of cancer, which he admitted to having last year. After undergoing treatment in Cuba, he has come back to Venezuela, expressing his strength and good health. But over Easter, he was witnessed as begging and pleading for his life in his hometown’s church. This event is atypical for Chavez, who always conveys confidence and determination. There is the very real possibility that his cancer will take his life, sooner rather than later. The consequences of Chavez’s death would be serious.

A joyful Chavez cheers on his people in 2003.

For Venezuela, Chavez’s death will usher in a period of severe unrest and disruption of daily lives. A successor will not come from the country’s democratic institutions, since Chavez has greatly weakened them. The most likely successor will come from the military, an institution that has flourished under Chavez’s rule, as he was once a leader of it and has bolstered its capabilities so he can credibly threaten his neighbors, specifically Columbia. A military general or group of generals, many of whom have strong ties to drug production and distribution, would increase the authoritarian nature of the Venezuela’s government and turn the country into a narco-state, a throwback to Columbia in the 1980s. Naturally, most Venezuelans won’t like this turn of events, so we can expect domestic unrest. As with many petro-states, domestic unrest oftentimes leads to disruptions in the production and distribution of oil, whose revenue accounts for over fifty percent of Venezuela’s budget. Declining oil revenue would cause further domestic unrest, as the socialist welfare state can no longer subsidize basic goods like food, fuel, and housing.

In a larger context, the disruption of oil production would have far reaching consequences. With sanctions imposed on Iranian oil, the OPEC and other oil producing states are already under significant pressure to boost their production to offset the loss of Iranian oil because Western leaders do not want their sanctions to increase the price of oil. For example, in the United States as the presidential election nears, President Obama wants to keep the price of oil, and thus gas, as low as possible so public anger at high fuel costs can’t be directed at him, which would weaken his chances of reelection.

The health of Chavez is thus of great interest to many in Venezuela and throughout the world, for even a weakened Chavez will likely lead to unrest and conflict.

Max Watkins ’14 is in Timothy Dwight College. He is a Yale Globalist Beat Blogger on International Conflicts. Contact him at maxwell.watkins@yale.edu.

By Neha Srivastava

Iceland is a strange and beautiful little country. Craggy rock, heated lagoons and volcanoes define the landscape. Just 319,000 people inhabit the place, less populous than Wichita, Kansas. It is known for a comprehensive and expansive welfare system along with a high Human Development Index. Yet, since the 2007-08 recession, Icelanders cannot be too happy, especially as their currency the krona has been devalued to uselessness.

Iceland, largely dependent on foreign imports, is caught in the midst of a sticky currency crisis. The days of the Icelandic Krona may be coming to a close. (Wikimedia Commons).

Along with Italy, Greece and other European countries, Iceland was devastated by the late-2000’s financial crisis. Its three largest banks went bankrupt, so the government accepted an IMF loan in 2008 on the condition that it sharply increase the national interest rate. This term change along with a mad dash by Icelanders to ditch the krona for other currencies resulted in the devaluation of the krona to 250 per Euro, a stark reduction from the 70:1 rate in 2007.

Now, it’s virtually impossible to buy anything with krona in Iceland. Imported goods are insanely expensive – which is equivalent to all Icelanders taking a huge pay-cut. The krona cannot function as a medium of exchange, and is hardly a unit of account or store of value anymore. Today, Iceland is on a path to economic recovery with a 2.5-3% growth rate, but it still needs to solve the currency problem.

Economists and the Icelandic government have proposed dollarization, abandoning the domestic currency for a more stable and solid foreign currency. This has advantages but also poses risks.  Foreign currency based stability would certainly control for inflation and unequal exchange rates, which could boost investor confidence and increase international trade. However, devaluation would no longer remain a monetary policy tool to address potential extreme circumstances in the future.

A recent Gallup poll indicated that 70% of Icelanders support switching to a foreign currency. Interestingly, the Canadian dollar, affectionately called the “looney”, has more support than the U.S. dollar, the Euro, and the Norwegian Crown. Canada has a strong and stable economy and monetary policy, and it’s similar to Iceland in economic structure and its large natural resource endowment.

Yet only a tiny fraction of Iceland’s trade is conducted with Canada. The majority of trade is with the European Union, so adopting the Euro seems most pragmatic. Generally, the more widespread the currency, the less vulnerable it is to economic shocks. However, Iceland is not yet a member of the European Union and most Icelanders oppose joining. Further, the uro and the Eurozone are not without their own problems.

The Krona reflects the unique country of Iceland, a small place of fisheries, aluminum, and geothermal power. Yet the country will need to adopt a new currency if it hopes to achieve economic stability, ecourage international investment, and facilitate growth.

Neha Srivastava ’14 is an Economics major in Ezra Stiles College. She is a Globalist Notebook beat blogger on global economic policy. Contact her at neha.srivastava@yale.edu.

by Aube Rey Lescure

Ever since the London terrorist attacks during the summer or 2005, the UK government has made major efforts to revamp its domestic security sector. Back in the day, London’s new and extravagant surveillance system made headlines: cameras were installed on streets in a tight network where every inch of London could be monitored. If a video camera on a certain street was broken or intentionally damaged, the next closest video camera would zoom in and take on its role. Four days ago, British surveillance efforts gained international attention again when the Sunday Times broke the story of governmental plans to allow monitoring of citizen communications without a warrant.

The phone calls, emails, text messages and Internet conversations of UK citizens could be recorded and accessed by the government without justification. The Home Office was careful to specify that the content of the above listed conversations would not be available to the government, but simply the length of communication and names of people on both ends.

As one may expect, the nation went berserk as soon as the Sunday Times broke the story. Accusations of Big Brother-esque totalitarianism flew left and right. The more mild-mannered accused the UK of becoming a giant “nanny state”.  The potential law’s most outspoken critic, Conservative lawmaker David Davis stated: ‘If you want to intercept, if you want to look at something, fine; if it is a terrorist or a criminal, go and ask a magistrate and you’ll get your approval.’

Davis’ words echo a popular rationale: yes, we do need government intelligence agencies to protect our national security, but don’t come bother regular chaps like me. In other words, we absolutely support your monitoring of criminals and terrorists since you have a good reason to suspect they are up to no good, but restrict yourself to targeted monitoring and not screening the entire population. The blatant problem with this rationale is that it fails to be an effective prevention tactic. We can, with some reservations, of course, draw a parallel to airport security: it would be silly to say that only registered offenders and undeniably suspicious-looking people should go through security, while the vast majority of your average-looking innocent tourist and businessman can be let into the gate without inspection. Sometimes you just can’t tell, and you just can’t take the risk. Furthermore, the Home Office’s new proposal is not as burdensome as being subjected to suspicion at an airport: your data would be recorded behind the scenes, and wouldn’t have any effect on you unless you are planning to blow-up Westminster, in which case a little encounter with the Government Communications Headquarters is probably on the horizon anyways. They are not going to bother to alert spouses about emails unfaithful husbands are writing to mistresses.

Big Brother Watch is one of the outspoken activist groups against the planned UK surveillance laws (Wikimedia Commons).

But the unfaithful husbands & co., naturally, are antsy that the information is out there to begin with, despite the fact that there is virtually no chance the government will interfere unless someone is up to some serious mischief. Furthermore, this 2012 Labor/Lib-Dem surveillance plan is distinctly different from the 2006 Conservative plan in that it does not entail a central government database. Rather, Internet companies will be paid to track and store data on their own for the government to retrieve on an as-needed basis. Data will be deleted yearly. The following question is then raised: who do you trust with your private information more—a central government database or profit-oriented Internet companies? Critics of the law worry that a Pandora’s box will be open once that giant tally of private information gets stored away in the cyberworld—even if we trust that the government is well intentioned; what if this information inadvertently falls into malicious hands? To which the cynics will reply: as if Facebook and Google don’t know the content of all your private communications anyways.

Bottom line is, there comes a point where people need to take down the flowers from their hair and stop calling for giant rallies as soon as something that looks remotely like an imposition of big government is put forward. The UK government isn’t proposing something that drastic here. If anything, it’s just trying to keep up with the levels of monitoring it had in the previous decade, and struggling nonetheless.  Six years ago, the British government could access 90% of communication data in the country. Now, as more and more crime-related planning and organization is conducted on the Internet and through Skype, the British government, while conforming to old guidelines, can only access about 75% of all communication data. Let’s phrase it this way: if we told UK citizens that “the mechanisms for maintaining your national security are now obsolete and have decreased 20% in efficiency since 2006”, many Brits would probably take up banners and go protest that up and down Downing Street.

The terrorist threat is real and not merely just “scare-mongering.”  London has seen it in 2005. There’s certainly people who want London to see it again in 2012, with the summer Olympics approaching soon. What the GCHQ is proposing is not as wild as it sounds—if airport security checks have become accepted, then, as a larger societal application of the same model, so should governmental access to data.

By Max Watkins

On March 21^st, rebellious Malian soldiers attacked the capital city Bamako and overthrew the President of Mali, Amadou Toumani Toure, in a coup d’état. The rebels were able to quickly convey their actions and message to the country by seizing the main radio broadcast station in the city. They have carried their initial momentum through the past several weeks, consolidating their power and control of the country. The primary reason stated by the rebels for their coup is that the government was not supporting the military in putting down the Tuareg rebellion in the northern part of Mali. Ironically, the Tuareg rebels have used this internal Malian struggle as a distraction as they have now declared their own state, Azawad. Overall, this coup is remarkable in its lack of violence and bloodshed.

The claims of the Azawad in Mali (Wikimedia Commons).

Regardless of the quality of the Malian government led by former President Toure and the intentions of the rebels, the international community quickly condemned the coup and the rebel soldiers. Withdrawing diplomatic relations and issuing sanctions against the rebel government has been the standard approach to the coup. The African Union also expelled Mali and supports the former government and president. Even though the government was overthrown, the international community should not be so quick in condemning the coup; this is not simply another power struggle. Something deeper and more fundamental is occurring.

To understand the Tuareg rebellion and the government’s difficulty in governing the country, we must consider geographical and colonial influences. As with many other African countries, Mali’s borders were decided by colonialists, with little regard to preexisting cultural, ethnic, religious, and economic areas and borders. Essentially, colonialists drew straight lines wherever they desired, dividing and combining regions and peoples that should not have been. Mali is a landlocked country with two main areas connected by a small and thin area of land. The northern region is primarily in the Sahara desert, while the southern region is primarily forested. Thus, we see that Mali as a country is simply an artificial construct that should never have existed in the first place. The Tuaregs in the north do not want to listen to the Mali government in Bamako, deep in the southern region. So what we are really seeing in this coup and the Tuareg declaration of a new independent state of Azawad is the revealing of the natural borders of Mali. This is a fundamentally good development and the international community should embrace this, not denounce it. Conflict will occur whenever two or more groups, which historically do not get along, are forced to live together. This situation can be found throughout Africa. If both African governments and the international community adopted a more nuanced and far-sighted perspective, we could see the elimination of many artificially constructed states, reduction in internal unrest and civil war, and the promotion of peace in Africa. The future of the Malian coup and the nascent state of Azawad are uncertain, but if the situation continues to remain peaceful and both Mali and Azawad can coexist, we will very likely see a model for the rest of Africa.

Max Watkins ’14 is in Timothy Dwight College. He is a Yale Globalist Beat Blogger on International Conflicts. Contact him at maxwell.watkins@yale.edu.

1.2 million people in India call Dharavi their home. Sprawling over 500 acres of Mumbai, it is one of Asia’s largest slums. It sends its own member of Parliament to the central legislature and six representatives to the state assembly.

Dharavi’s inhabitants face more challenges than hunger and unemployment. Developers now want to evict the residents and use the land—a hot commodity in Mumbai—for commercial and residential projects. Glass and steel high-rises already ring the slum land, which poor fishermen settled on hundreds of years ago. As a result, land prices are rising. Real estate agents are even facilitating speculation in the slum land.

Vertical growth is the preferable model of development where land is scarce and money is on the table.  Mixed-use space, however, defines the slums, rather than the discrete housing units in the towers. The house usually doubles as a workspace, making it imperative that development projects provide a space to work as well as to live. Relocating to a housing project tower can destroy employment opportunities and disintegrate the socio-cultural glue that binds the community together. In Dharavi, such rehabilitation projects have been vehemently opposed, however.

Some would prefer to call Dharavi a “developed” slum. A city within a city, Dharavi has its own informal economy. A large recycling plant in the center of the slum provides work for many of the inhabitants. Walking through the alleys of the recycling center, one can smell sewage and burning plastic. Trash carpets the ground. Inside small rooms, men work at tearing apart old electronics, sorting refuse into piles, and shredding plastic. Though the conditions can seem hellish, the wage is better than most other jobs. Developers will have to fight hard to pry this land from the slum dwellers who have made this place their home.

Dharavi shows that there are at least two sides to every development project. For the denizens of Dharavi, asking the question “what is development?” is no theoretical exercise.  The aftermath of industrialization has poisoned the waters in Dharavi a neon blue and filled its canals with islands of trash. Undeterred by the squalor, outside developers continue to pressure the government to let them use the land. Although hundreds of acres of houses will not fall into the hands of developers overnight, unless politicians stop clamoring for development in India’s megacities, and start asking “development for whom?,” Dharavi will continue to live in its state of silent siege, watched intently by the glass towers surrounding it.

by Rachel Brown

On Friday, the Obama administration announced that conditions in the global oil market were stable enough to allow for the implementation of new sanctions on the purchase of Iranian oil. While eleven nations are exempt from these sanctions, China and India, two of Iran’s largest oil customers, did not make the list. As tensions continue to rise between Iran and the U.S. over the Iranian nuclear program, the deep trading relationship between Iran and India may become a thorn in the side of the normally close U.S.-India alliance.

India is the second largest purchaser of Iranian oil, and imports approximately 12% of its oil from the Islamic Republic. This trade amounts to approximately $12 billion. Some Indian oil refineries are even specifically designed to use crude oil from Iran and the designs of these refineries would need to be adjusted to accommodate oil imported from other nations. If necessary, however, India can decrease oil purchases from Iran, and has in fact already begun to do so. One solution would be for India to buy more oil from Saudi Arabia, already India’s largest supplier.

Even in this situation India is not likely to stop purchasing Iranian oil entirely, and once the U.S. sanctions are imposed Indian companies will be forced to alter their payment methods for Iranian oil. In order to adapt to the new rules, India and Iran have decided to allow for up to 45% of Indian oil imports to be purchased in rupees. Rupees are not as useful to Iran as dollars or euros would be, because they allow the nation to make purchases in a much smaller number of markets. India may also may for some its Iranian oil through barter of agricultural and commercial products. As long as India continues to cut back purchases overall, using such methods to procure oil is not technically a violation of the sanctions.

This new rupees-for-oil policy will also help India increase its exports to Iran, a goal India had been working towards even prior to the most recent sanctions announcement. In March, India sent a 70-person trade delegation to Iran. The delegation, led by the Federation of Indian Export Organizations, was looking for ways to increase Indian exports to Iran and bring down the nearly ten-billion dollar trade imbalance between the two nations. Discussing the trip, Indian Commerce Secretary Rahul Khullar, noted that “huge opportunities” exist for Indian companies to sell pharmaceuticals, textiles, and other products in the relatively isolated Iranian market. Iranian officials have also expressed a positive outlook on ties between India-Iran, with President Ahmadinejad saying that relations“…are on the right track,” and a former foreign minister stating that “India and Iran are working for each other’s national and regional interests regardless of what the US wants us to do.”

Another important link between the two nations is India’s dependence on Iran for land access to Afghanistan, since routes through Pakistan are blocked. The Indian government helped modernize the Iranian port of Chabahar and financed the construction of a road connecting this port with Afghanistan. As India increases its investments in Afghanistan’s natural resource industry, the strategic value of this transit route through Iran will grow as well.

The tensions surrounding the Iranian nuclear program pose a challenge for Indian foreign policy.

The Indian government walks a fine line in its relationship with Iran however. The Indian government opposes Iran’s possession of a nuclear weapon (but not of a peaceful nuclear power program) and has expressed irritation with Iranian leaders over remarks by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on the Kashmiri independence movement. Additionally India has strong relations with both the U.S. and Israel – two of Iran’s harshest critics, and these ties impact New Dehli’s calculus on Iran. Recently, India has indicated more willingness to restrict trade with Iran and the government has begun pressuring oil companies to decrease their purchases from Iran. Two weeks ago, a spokesman from the Indian Embassy in Washington announced “crude imports from Iran constitute a declining share of India’s oil imports.”

India’s stance on Iran remains a hot topic in Indian foreign policy circles. Many see India’s struggle to balance its competing interests surrounding Iran as part of the larger discussion on the extent to which the West should influence India’s international relations. India was a key member of the Non-Aligned Movement and some maintain that India should not appear to succumb to Western demands. In an article on India-Iran relations, Kanwal Sibal, a former Indian foreign secretary, argued that “the US should not expect India to share its apocalyptic view of Iran’s nuclear ambitions” and that “India’s rising global role should not require it to give up independence of judgment or always endorse western policies.” Others argue that taking a stronger stance against Iran could in fact strengthen India’s role on the world stage. Writing in Foreign Policy magazine, Sadanand Dhume, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, noted that “an Indian policy that privileges ties with Iran ahead of the U.S.-India relationship misses the forest for the trees, damaging India’s long-term global aspirations in the pursuit of short-term regional ones.” No matter what the Indian government ultimately decides regarding trade with Iran, these competing perspectives on Indian foreign policy will remain and continue to shape U.S.-India relations.

by Aube Rey Lescure

The tragic saga continues: Mohamed Merah, now-dead author of the seven racial killings in Toulouse, turned out to have video camera strapped to him while he was shooting all of his victims. In the few days between murdering a rabbi and three children at a Jewish religious school and his stand-off between the police, he managed to compile the footage of his shootings into some sort of a homemade-video with intense music mixed with chanted verses of the Qur’an in the background. The video was stored on an USB key and mailed to the Al-Jazeera headquarters in Paris along with a letter written in semi-broken French. It is unclear whether Merah went to the origin of the package—a small suburban town outside of Toulouse—to mail the video himself or whether he was benefiting from the complicity of his brother or another acolyte.

Abdelkader Merah, the killer’s elder brother, has been taken into custody by French authorities. Although this may look like an attempt to quench the national thirst for revenge against Merah, there appears to be plenty of evidence that Abdelkader Merah is an Islamic extremist who played a significant role in the active indoctrination of his brother and the provision of the surprising amount of automatic weapons his brother managed to stockpile. As time passes more and more information is surfacing about Abdelkader Merah’s numerous and regular trips to Cairo and Iraq, where he maintained ties with extremists. What the nation and the world had taken as the actions of a lone terrorist are now proving to be the calculations of a duo—if not more.

While it would be too outlandish to speculate about the existence of a well-established network surrounding the Toulouse killings, there still seems to be a level of preparation and execution worthy of much worry. It is likely that Merah was not the one who left his house to mail his footage to al-Jazeera—and even if it was, the very fact that the footage was sent on an USB indicate that an unknown amount of its replicas could also be stored elsewhere. Merah is now dead, but it seems overly optimistic to assume that the al-Jazeera footage is the only copy and Merah the only person who could have distributed it.

Al Jazeera is one of the most influential news networks in the world, and must often deal with issues surrounding graphic footage. (Flickr Creative Commons)

Al-Jazeera has refused to broadcast the footage it received and handed it over to the police. Whether or not the murder tape will pop up elsewhere (most likely on the internet), it is significant to recognize the merit and consequences of al-Jazeera’s decision. The Qatar-based network certainly has not been chosen by Merah at random; it has had a history of releasing al-Qaeda and other terrorist footage in the aftermath of 9/11.  These are stormy waters to navigate in, for despite all the heat al-Jazeera has gotten from western critics for broadcasting these it can always get away by using the justification of “journalistic value”, which some of these videos undoubtedly have. As appalling and repulsive as it sounds, had al-Jazeera chosen to release the footage from the Toulouse killings, it would have certainly have earned terrifyingly high viewing rates from viewers suffering from the general real-gore-attraction-repulsion syndrome. From a purely economic perspective, showing the murders would have been lucrative; but after a few days of meetings and deliberations al-Jazeera decided against the release on journalistic grounds and stated that the footage brought nothing new that had journalistic value. Needless to say Sarkozy and the French government have been intensely pressuring the network throughout the process, but al-Jazeera very defensively clarified that the decision it reached has by no means been influenced by foreign governmental pressure. It was the right choice for more than the obvious reason that real-life footage of children getting shot is gruesome—we must remember that Merah committed the crimes with the obvious intent of having them publicized to the world with al-Jazeera as a platform. Had al-Jazeera complied and broadcasted his montage, what example and precedent would it have set for other copycats who might want to replicate Merah’s shoot-while-shooting tactics? Al-Jazeera executives have recognized in a New York Times interview that they receive many violent videos every single day, mostly from Syria. Imagine how the number of ‘kill-scare-publicize’ terrorists would have risen had al-Jazeera granted Murah’s wishes. Let’s give credit where credit is due and applaud the al-Jazeera leadership for their foresight in this situation, as well as feel sorry that they had to watch the video at all.

Aube Rey Lescure ’15 is in Davenport College.  She is a Globalist Notebook Beat Blogger on E.U. affairs.  Contact her at aube.reylescure@yale.edu.

by Aube Rey Lescure

France was shaken on March 19^th when news about the killing of a rabbi and three Jewish children at a religious school in the city of Toulouse reached the public. The city had, in that same week, also witnessed the murder of a paratrooper and three soldiers. The weapon used for the murders was identified as being the same and a link thus immediately established, although the identity of the killer was still unknown for the first few days after the murders. Last Thursday, France’s most elite unit RAID tracked down the suspect Mohamed Merah in his house but did not manage to capture him alive after a 33-hour stand-off.  The suspect threw himself out of his house window while firing at the police.

Already a nation in which a sole kidnapping and disappearance often makes headlines for days on end, France is in upheaval because of this series of killings, the first real major terrorist act the hexagon has seen in years. Merah not only cold-bloodedly selected only soldiers of African and Muslim descent to murder, but also went as far as gunning down a 3-year old, a 6-year old and an 8-year old as well as the father of two of the former. His reason?  They were Jewish, and “the children of Palestine had to be avenged”.

Merah claimed to be acting on behalf of al-Qaeda, although it appears that the connection was just a one-way delusion of his. What made the case a national scandal is that Merah was not an unknown hermit.  French intelligence forces long had Merah on their radar as a petty criminal and potential extremist. Merah was also on the U.S.’ blacklist of people forbidden to board a flight—the whole situation being oddly reminiscent of the underwear bomber episode from a few Christmases ago when security forces failed to prevent a suspected terrorist from boarding a Detroit-bound plane. Similarly, the French intelligence is now being accused of general negligence towards what could have been a preventable tragedy.

The funeral for Rabbi Jonathan Sandler and the three children slain in the killings was held in Jerusalem. (Source: Flickr, Ricardo Mallaco)

Preventable? Nicholas Sarkozy disagrees. The French president is staunchly standing on the side of the “forces of order”. As Merah had actually not committed any traceable crime after his last prison years, it would have been unconstitutional for the French police to monitor him (which casts an interesting albeit distant parallel to the recent US case concerning the legality of the NYPD monitoring Muslim student organizations). Where must the line be drawn between constitutional rights and what to some people seem to be the obvious option of keeping track of a deranged, already previously imprisoned man? Sarkozy, interestingly, has thereby told the nation exactly where he stands on the issue. Given his previous efforts to swing anti-immigration voters from Marine Le Pen’s National Front to his own UMP, Sarkozy’s words and deeds regarding the Toulouse tragedy are now under daily scrutiny by all major newspapers of the country. Islamophobia and anti-terrorism are now most definitely one of the most important election issues. Sarkozy seems to be playing the field rather well, urging the population not to radicalize against France’s extremely large and significant Muslim population one day while criticizing his presidential competitor Francois Hollande for not being tough enough on anti-terrorism and absenting from burqa-law voting the next.

The bodies of the victims have either been given national military honors or shipped back to Israel for burial. The nation is still torn between mourning and the spiraling politicization of the issue, with large public protests against anti-Semitism and generally heightened racial tensions now engulfing voter attention in these few precious months left before the presidential elections.

Aube Rey Lescure ’15 is in Davenport College.  She is a Globalist Notebook Beat Blogger on E.U. affairs.  Contact her at aube.reylescure@yale.edu.