The True Price of the Afghan Election

(Image taken from: HERE)

With the Afghan election around the corner a bunch of articles have been popping up just about everywhere online as well as in printed papers about the fear that people have in regards to the vote, the violence leading up to the vote, the potential violence on voting day and most of all the corruption that will most likely plague this election.

The Globe and Mail had one on this very subject, trying to weigh the amount of corruption or what was already being faced as far as vote buying and whatnot. There was an interesting sentence in the article: "The discussion among analysts, both Afghan and Western, revolves around “acceptable levels” of voting irregularities..." The article goes on to talk about bribes and vote buying by Karzai who is running for reelection and the same things being done by the opposition leaders.

Some Afghan citizens were even quoted in the article saying that they might fear the police even more than they fear the Taliban. A shop keeper said that he had turned down bribes and offers of lavish meals by the Karzai family and in the face of bribes and intimidation says he still plans to vote for the opposition.

One important thing that the international community, who is footing the bill for this election to the tune of 250,000,000$, must remember is that Karzai is the one who played behind our backs and passed the infamous "rape law" and promised to revise it but has left us holding our collective breath, the same Karzai whose brother is playing middle man with the Taliban. Not only are we paying for this election with our money, but we've paid for it in blood with the lives of our young men and women, dozens of whom have not returned home to their families and friends.

So what is acceptable corruption? The Globe asked the question but didn't get an answer... I don't think I will find one either. I mean let's just face the facts: in a country where most of the people can't reach polling stations, where registered voters have the names of American pop stars, where husbands are legally allowed to rape their wives and people are afraid of the police; the country seems corrupt enough without us asking the question: how much corruption is acceptable?

I hope the people of Afghanistan have a better shot at democracy and freedom of choice that I think they will. Because a lot of Canadians don't even bother voting but for some reason those same Canadians are willing to give up their sons and daughters for the right to vote of the Afghan people. That my friends, is the price true price of an election.

Iran:A picture worth a thousand words

(Link to original pic HERE)

Visions of the Future or Ghosts of the Past?

The European Union held their elections this week, it didn't get very much press here, but it happened. In these times of global economic downturn, elections are always a good way to see exactly how the people feel about what's going on and who they think is to blame.

If the results from Europe are any indication as to how some of the world's citizens are thinking: troubling times are coming and it'll have nothing to do with money. Well not directly anyways.

93 of Europes 736, or almost 13%, who were elected are considered "others" meaning they are not attached to any of Europe's mainstream political party. Now if you were in Canada you'd think that "others" just meant Elizabeth May would get to save a few more trees, but apparently in Europe the "others" aren't just bus taking tree huggers; take a look at this:

-In England the British National Party who is known for it's racist views regarding anyone who isn't white, protestant or British got 8.38% of the vote.
-In the Netherlands the PW garnered 17% of the vote making the second most popular party, their platform: the Koran should be banned, immigration ended and Muslim believers treated as neo-Nazis.
-In Hungary 14.77% of the vote went to Jobbik, the anti-Semitic neo-Nazi party.
-In France 6.3% went to Frances equally racist Front National.
-Not to mention the fascist parties in Britain, Austria and Italy (whose exact numbers I did not find).
(And each of these parties receives around 4million Euros per year for each representative that is elected.)

Is this what the world has come to? Have we reverted back to post-1929 Europe where in Germany all of the world's problems were blamed on one race (the Jews)? Economic fear tends to bring out the worst in people, it tends to make people do extreme things, but I no matter how scared I get about money I would never vote for neo-Nazis who blame everything on the Muslims, the Jews and the gays.

I just find this vote to be very disturbing and if these elections are any indicator of things to come in Europe's national elections we might be in for some trouble by the look of things. I've always said that the beauty of democracy was that it gave everyone a voice but then you see people like this, who use their voices to spew messages of hate, who waste their precious freedom of speech to spread intolerance and fear. It's just mind-boggling.

I'll keep my fingers crossed that these feelings of disenfranchisement do not cross the Atlantic into North-America. And I hope that the people Europe remember the skeletons of thier past so that it can avoid making grave mistakes in the future.

Muchaho Enfermo

Landmark Win for the Pirate Party

The Pirate Party won a seat in the European elections. That’s right your eyes are working just fine, they actually won a seat. For those of you not familiar with the party it the Pirate Party was started in Sweden in 2006 to promote online privacy and to fight Sweden’s file-sharing laws.

This is indeed a historic victory for an independent party in Europe and certainly for web-based communities everywhere. While I applaud the effort that the Pirate Party has put into its membership and its elections I think that a 49,000 member organization such as this one could use its online presence for bigger and better things than file-sharing.

How about if they used their online influence to try and challenge people to find ways to help countries whose governments block websites or limit internet access or help find ways around government monitoring of online activities without having to use the traditional proxies. It seems to me that there are bigger issues online than file-sharing (not that I don’t appreciate the free movies) there are a million things that an online group that size could do.

I know that if I could get together an online group of 49,000 people I would try and do some good with it. Around the world people are being jailed for blogging, others are being arrested for reading certain websites and people have to connect themselves at their own risk to send email to families. File-sharing will happen; it’s been happening for years, copyright laws or no copyright laws. But freedom online and freedom of expression and thought seem like something the Pirate Party could have promoted very effectively and it might have actually made an impact on the global political scene and on the lives of thousands of netizens.

Muchacho Enfermo