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redavistinnell

Culture of Antigua And Barbuda - history, traditions, women, beliefs, food, family, soc... - 0 views

  • culture of Antigua and Barbuda (local creole pronunciation, Antiga and Barbueda) is a classic example of a creole culture. It emerged from the mixing of Amerindian (Carib and Arawak), West African, and European (primarily British) cultural traditions.
  • Before Christopher Columbus arrived in 1493, Antigua and Barbuda had the Carib names of Wadadli and Wa'omoni, respectively.
  • . The population census of 1991 estimated the population of Antigua and Barbuda to be 64,252. Approximately 93 percent of this total are Afro-Antiguans and Barbudans, 0.2 percent are Portuguese, 0.6 percent are Middle Eastern, 1.7 percent are whites from Europe and North America, and 3.4 percent are mixed.
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  • Given the creole nature of its culture, it is not surprising that the language spoken by the vast majority of Antiguans and Barbudans is a creole, often referred to as Antiguan creole.
  • As the union got more deeply involved in the struggles of workers against sugar plantation owners, it became increasingly political. It very quickly developed a "political arm," which later became the Antigua Labor Party (ALP).
  • Antigua in 1623, five distinct and carefully ranked race/ethnic groups emerged. At the top of this hierarchy were the British, who justified their hegemony with arguments of white supremacy and civilizing missions. Among themselves, there were divisions between British Antiguans and noncreolized Britons, with the latter coming out on top. In short, this was a race/ethnic hierarchy that gave maximum recognition to Anglicized persons and cultural practices.
  • These struggles, reinforced by those in other Caribbean territories, by the struggles in African countries, and by the opposition of the United States and Russia to European colonial policies, finally pushed the British to dismantle their empire.
  • Fifth and finally were the Afro-Antiguans and Barbudans who were located at the bottom of this hierarchy. Forced to "emigrate" as slaves, Africans started arriving in Antigua and Barbuda in large numbers during the 1670s.
  • As a result, Afro-Antiguans and Barbudans were reinscribed in a dehumanized and racialized discourse that established their inferiority, and hence the legitimacy of their earlier enslavement and later exploitation as wage laborers.
  • 1700 and 1775, Antigua and Barbuda emerged as a classic sugar colony. Because of its exclusive specialization in sugar, the economy was not very diverse. Consequently, it imported a lot, including much of its food from the American colonies and Britain.
  • Like many other Caribbean societies, Antigua and Barbuda is a classic case of the superimposition of race on class and vice versa.
  • Between these two extremes was a middle class that consisted of the same three groups that occupied the middle layers of the race/ethnic hierarchy—the mulattos, Portuguese, and Syrians. The mulattos dominated the professions (law, medicine, and architecture) and the white-collar positions in banks, businesses, and the
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    In this article we see how Antigua was settled and can begin to see how the indigenous people were eventually wiped out. It also gives background into the country and how they have progressed through the years.
oliviaodon

ICT for Disaster Management/ICT for Disaster Prevention, Mitigation and Preparedness - ... - 0 views

  • The United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UN/ISDR) identifies several key parties that play major roles in the disaster management process, especially in disaster warning (UN/ISDR, 2006).
  • Communities, particularly those most vulnerable, are vital to people-centred early warning systems. Their input into system design and their ability to respond ultimately determine the extent of risk associated with natural hazards. Communities should be aware of hazards and potential negative impacts to which they are exposed and be able to take specific actions to minimize the threat of loss or damage.
  • Local governments should have considerable knowledge of the hazards to which their communities are exposed.
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  • The private sector has a diverse role to play in early warning, including developing early warning capabilities in their own organizations. The private sector is also essential as they are usually better equipped to implement ICT-based solutions. The private sector has a large untapped potential to help provide skilled services in the form of technical manpower, know-how, or donations of goods or services (in-kind and cash), especially for the communication, dissemination and response elements of early warning.
  • Considered the most traditional electronic media used for disaster warning, radio and television have a valid use. The effectiveness of these two media is high because even in developing countries and rural environments where the tele-density is relatively low, they can be used to spread a warning quickly to a broad population.
  • Telephones can play an important role in warning communities about the impending danger of a disaster.
  • The role Internet, email and instant messages can play in disaster warning entirely depends on their penetration within a community and usage by professionals such as first responders, coordinating bodies, etc.
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    This article discusses how ICTS can be used to warn a population of oncoming disasters to prevent more damage from occurring. 
malonema1

Environmental Sustainability Issues in Nicaragua - 0 views

  • As both the largest country in Central America and the least populated, Nicaragua has the opportunity to enforce environmental protection laws and conserve a relatively large amount of natural resources. However, a variety of forces are driving deforestation and rapidly increasing pollution.
  • Known as the "Land of Lakes and Volcanoes," and reveling in its status in Central America as the country with the most fresh water, Nicaragua has very little safe drinking water. Those who cannot afford to purchase water are extremely vulnerable to a variety of health issues.
  • Export agriculture in Central America has long been a booming business for U.S. corporations. Yet pesticides employed at fruit and cotton plantations and other export crops throughout the last 40 years contributed to health problems for entire generations.
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  • Around 75 percent of Nicaraguan forests have already been transformed into crop and pasture land, and at least 50 percent of that deforestation has occurred since 1950. Yet there is still hope for preservation.
  • Due to policy shifts, 85 percent of the land that formed part of the reserve on the San Cristobal-Casitas volcano now belongs to one private owner
  • overnment control of the remaining 15 percent is all but nonexistent. Landless peasants, large coffee growers, and cattle ranches are slowly settling into these public lands such as San Cristobal, and the government is failing to stop it
  • When the Chamorro government created the Bosawás Biosphere Reserve in 1991, the territory encompassed 1.8 million acres—7 percent of Nicaragua's land, including a rich section of rainforest. However, they neglected to inform the Mayangna and Miskito indigenous peoples who lived there that the land was now federally protected (and hence, off limits from their traditional uses of fishing, hunting, and crop raising)
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    This article talks about the land rights in Nicaragua and the lack of protection for forests.
horowitzza

In the Field: Notes from Nicaragua | United States Institute of Peace - 0 views

  • Nicaragua armed with audio and video recorders and a plan to capture the human dimension of the country’s conflict
  • In a country where the past is intensely alive, we realized we needed to learn some history before we set off.
  • For much of the 20th century, Nicaragua was subjected to dictatorial regimes under the control of the influential Somoza family
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  • In the 1970s, however, the Somoza government’s National Guard found itself increasingly challenged by the insurrectionary Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN). In 1978, violence escalated into civil war, which the Sandinistas and their allies quickly won.
  • When the Sandinistas took power in 1979, however, many Nicaraguans began to suspect that the new government was just another variation on the country’s authoritarian tradition.
  • The 1980s saw Nicaragua become a battlefield in the wider Cold War as East and West funded a war between the Sandinistas and the Contras (short for the Spanish word contra-revolucionarios--“counterrevolutionaries”).
  • In the past few years, allegations of electoral fraud, harassment of nongovernmental organizations and human rights activists, and efforts to amend the constitution to let the president run again in 2011, have tarnished Ortega’s democratic credentials.
jackhanson1

Construction of Nicaragua Canal Threatens Indigenous Lives and Livelihoods | Cultural S... - 0 views

  • Construction of Nicaragua Canal Threatens Indigenous Lives and Livelihoods
  • In June 2013, Nicaraguan officials approved a $50 billion (US) deal with a Hong Kong firm to oversee the construction of a 278-kilometer long canal. The HK Nicaragua Canal Development Investment Company’s proposed project would attempt to link the Pacific to the Caribbean, allowing the passage of container ships
too large for passage through the Panama Canal.
  • The construction of the canal promises environmental abuses and human rights violations as the proposed route cuts through the land of multiple Indigenous territories on Nicara- gua’s coasts and within its mainland. Thousands of people are expected to be impacted with many being forcibly displaced, primarily including the Kriol and Indigenous Rama people,
in a clear violation of Indigenous autonomy laws in Nicaragua and international human rights documents.
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  • The Nicaraguan Government has failed to properly consult Indigenous communities regarding the canal’s construction.
  • The Nicaraguan Constitution of 1987 recognizes the Indigenous cultures that reside on the land and their right to maintain their languages and cultures. Two additional laws, 28 and 445, grant autonomy and “the use, administration and management of traditional lands and their natural resources” to Indigenous people. Additionally, Nicaragua signed on to the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People in 2008 and ratified ILO Convention 169 in 2010, a legally bind- ing document guaranteeing prior consultation before such projects.
  • The government is reportedly anticipating that 7,000 homes may be expropriated to make way for the 278-kilometer canal. However, an independent report by the Centro Humboldt states that the impact will be much greater. The report found that 282 settlements and 24,100 homes were identified within the direct area of influence, estimating that the number of people anticipated to be directly affected by construction at over 119,000. The canal’s construction will not only bring the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people, but also irreversible environmental damage. The loss of Indigenous communities will be accompanied by the loss of some of Nicaragua’s most precious and rich resources: its ecologically diverse lands and waters.
  • Meanwhile, the social impact assessment conducted by the Nicaraguan government, if being conducted at all, has lacked any transparency. While quick to boast the economic impact of the canal, officials have blatantly disregarded the needs and fears of community members from coast to coast. A coalition of 11 groups including affected In- digenous communities and environmental and legal organiza- tions submitted a petition to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights criticizing the rights violations inherent in the Canal Law.
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    This article relates to my topic of promoting intercultural dialogue and inclusion because this article deals with the absence of communication and dialogue between the government of Nicaragua and the indigenous groups of Nicaragua. This article talks about a proposed plan to build a canal across the largest lake in Nicaragua, Lago Nicaragua. Without consulting the indigenous groups living around the lake, the government went ahead and approved the construction of the canal. Thousands of indigenous homes will be wiped out due to the construction of the canal. These indigenous groups have petitioned the government to come up with a different plan for constructing the canal, but the government refused to grant their requests. As a result, many indigenous villages will be wiped out and many people will have to relocate and start again.
Javier E

Latin Lovers' Quarrel - By James Traub | Foreign Policy - 0 views

  • the big news out of Cartagena -- outside of the Secret Service wing of the Hotel Caribe, that is -- was the united front that Latin American countries put up against the United States on several big issues.
  • whether Cuba should be admitted to the next summit, in 2015, which the United States and Canada opposed and all 30 Latin American countries, both left-wing bastions like Ecuador and traditional U.S. allies like Colombia, favored, thus bringing the meeting to an end without a planned joint declaration
  • The idea of an "American camp" in Latin America has been an anachronism for some while, but this became glaringly clear in Cartagena. "We need them more than they need us," as Christopher Sabatini, senior director of policy at the Americas Society, puts it. The United States remains the region's largest trading partner, the source of 40 percent of its foreign investment and 90 percent of its remittances. U.S. foreign aid still props up shaky countries like Colombia and Guatemala. But trade with both China and Europe has grown sharply over the last decade. And both big economies like Brazil and Argentina, and smaller ones like Chile and Peru, have experienced solid growth at a time when the United States has faltered. "Most countries of the region view the United States as less and less relevant to their needs,"
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  • The big issues that divide the United States (and let's not forget, Canada) from its Latin American allies are Cuba, drugs, and immigration. On a trip to Latin America last year, in fact, Obama promised Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes that he would push immigration reform through Congress -- an effort he later abandoned. But for all their recent maturation, Latin American countries are affected by U.S. domestic issues in a way that no other region could be. Latin America therefore suffers from the paralysis of U.S. domestic politics as Europe or Asia does not.
  • even Washington's closest allies in the region have lost patience with U.S. politics
  • This year, Guatemalan President Otto Pérez Molina, a former general elected as a hard-liner, dramatically reversed course and spoke up in favor of drug legalization. This earned him extraordinary visits from both U.S. Vice President Joe Biden and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. According to Eduardo Stein, the former vice president of Guatemala, Biden said that the United States was eager to discuss drug reform, just not at the summit, while Napolitano reportedly plainly said, "Don't think of raising the issue at the summit." Pérez then went ahead and called a meeting of regional leaders, who could not agree on an alternative set of policies but decided to raise the issue in Cartagena. Pérez later said that drug policy was the only issue discussed at the summit's final closed-door session.
Javier E

The Global Elite's Favorite Strongman - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • No country in Africa, if not the world, has so thoroughly turned itself around in so short a time, and Kagame has shrewdly directed the transformation.
  • Kagame has made indisputable progress fighting the single greatest ill in Africa: poverty. Rwanda is still very poor — the average Rwandan lives on less than $1.50 a day — but it is a lot less poor than it used to be. Kagame’s government has reduced child mortality by 70 percent; expanded the economy by an average of 8 percent annually over the past five years; and set up a national health-insurance program — which Western experts had said was impossible in a destitute African country.
  • Progressive in many ways, Kagame has pushed for more women in political office, and today Rwanda has a higher percentage of them in Parliament than any other country. His countless devotees, at home and abroad, say he has also delicately re-engineered Rwandan society to defuse ethnic rivalry, the issue that exploded there in 1994 and that stalks so many African countries, often dragging them into civil war.
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  • The question is not so much about his results but his methods. He has a reputation for being merciless and brutal, and as the accolades have stacked up, he has cracked down on his own people and covertly supported murderous rebel groups in neighboring Congo
  • In some areas of the country, there are rules, enforced by village commissars, banning people from dressing in dirty clothes or sharing straws when drinking from a traditional pot of beer, even in their own homes, because the government considers it unhygienic. Many Rwandans told me that they feel as if their president is personally watching them. “It’s like there’s an invisible eye everywhere,” said Alice Muhirwa, a member of an opposition political party. “Kagame’s eye.”
  • why has the West — and the United States in particular — been so eager to embrace Kagame, despite his authoritarian tendencies?
  • Kagame has become a rare symbol of progress on a continent that has an abundance of failed states and a record of paralyzing corruption. Kagame was burnishing the image of the entire billion-dollar aid industry. “You put your money in, and you get results out,” said the diplomat, who insisted he could not talk candidly if he was identified. Yes, Kagame was “utterly ruthless,” the diplomat said, but there was a mutual interest in supporting him, because Kagame was proving that aid to Africa was not a hopeless waste and that poor and broken countries could be fixed with the right leadership.
  • Though Rwanda has made tremendous strides, the country is still a demographic time bomb. It’s already one of the most densely populated in Africa — its 11 million people squeezed into a space smaller than Maryland — and despite a recent free vasectomy program, Rwanda still has an alarmingly high birthrate. Most Rwandans are peasants, their lives inexorably yoked to the land, and just about every inch of that land, from the papyrus swamps to the cloud-shrouded mountaintops, is spoken for.
  • much has improved under his stewardship. Rwandan life expectancy, for instance, has increased to 56 years, from 36 in 1994. Malaria used to be a huge killer, but Kagame’s government has embarked on a wide-scale spraying campaign and has distributed millions of nets to protect people when they are sleeping — malarial mosquitoes tend to feed at night — and malaria-related deaths plummeted 85 percent between 2005 and 2011.
  • Kagame hopes to make more money from coffee, tea and gorillas — Rwanda is home to some of the last remaining mountain gorillas, and each year throngs of Western tourists pay thousands of dollars to see them.
  • aid flows to Rwanda because Kagame is a celebrated manager. He’s a hands-on chief executive who is less interested in ideology than in making things work. He loves new technology — he’s an avid tweeter — and is very good at breaking sprawling, ambitious projects into manageable chunks. Rwanda jumped to 52nd last year, from 158th in 2005, on the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business annual rating, precisely because Kagame set up a special unit within his government, which broke down the World Bank’s ratings system, category by category, and figured out exactly what was needed to improve on each criterion.
Javier E

The Most Important Alliance You've Never Heard Of - Moisés Naím - The Atlantic - 0 views

  • the presidents of Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru met with little fanfare in Cartagena last week to seal an economic pact launched in 2012. They call their project the Pacific Alliance, and it will soon include Costa Rica
  • The four founding members are the most successful economies in Latin America; they boast the region's highest economic-growth rates and lowest inflation rates. Together, they represent 36 percent of the region's economy, 50 percent of its international trade, and 41 percent of all incoming foreign investment. If the Alliance were a country, it would be the world's eighth-largest economy and seventh-largest exporter. Its members lead the lists of the most competitive economies in Latin America and those where it’s easiest to do business.
  • the Pacific Alliance has already yielded more results in its 20 months of existence than similar initiatives that have been around for decades. The four countries have eliminated 92 percent of all import tariffs among them. Chile, Colombia, and Peru have linked their stock markets so that a company listed in one of the exchanges can be traded in the other two. Mexico is expected to follow suit this year, meaning this integrated stock market will rival that of Brazil as the largest in Latin America. The four countries have eliminated the need for business and tourist visas for visiting nationals of bloc members. In a break with tradition, the joint communiqués of Alliance presidents tend to be brief and concrete in terms of goals, timelines, and roadmaps.
Javier E

Brazil's European Dream - 0 views

  • The news that Brazil has overtaken Britain to become the world's sixth largest economic power is being touted as a sign that that the longtime "country of the future" has finally arrived.
  • In the past 20 years, Brazil has become well known for turning crisis situations into geopolitical opportunities, becoming a leading voice in international forums devoted to AIDS, poverty, and even the environment. And now, it is doing it again with a challenge that Brazilians understand all too well: a debt crisis.
  • The IMF contributions stem from Rousseff's intention to maintain a tradition that began under her predecessor, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, of using foreign assistance as a means to strengthen Brazil's international reputation and influence. Yet another example is Brazil's annual contributions to the World Bank, which have averaged $253 million from 2004 to 2009. Brazil was the first nation to contribute -- $ 55 million -- to the World Bank's Haitian Reconstruction Fund. From 2003-2007, Brazil also gave approximately $340 million to fund the U.N.'s operations. Lula also increased Brazil's contribution to the U.N.'s World Food Program from $ 1 million in 2009 to $ 27 million in 2011.
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  • in 1998, it was the Brazilian government, under President Fernando H. Cardoso, that was running to the IMF for assistance. Brazil was trying to recover from a capital flight of roughly $30 billion dollars, triggered by a lack of foreign investor confidence due to exorbitant debt and recession. To help quell investor speculation that Brazil would default (like Russia did months earlier), the IMF provided a bailout package of $41 billion on the condition that Cardoso prune government expenditures by 20 percent and reform the pension system.
  • in 2001, after a steep decline in foreign investment, currency depreciation, and a debt crisis in neighboring Argentina, Brazil essentially begged the IMF to help avoid a default on its external debt. This time the government received $15 billion in exchange for reducing federal expenditures and maintaining a primary budget surplus of approximately 3.75 percent through 2005.
  • Rousseff also wants an expanded role for Brazil within the IMF, along with the other BRICS, mainly through increased quota shares and voting rights. She has joined her colleagues from China, India, Russia, and South Africa in emphasizing that the IMF needs to recognize the importance of the world's largest emerging economies
  • Rousseff's European strategy is a smart move. By providing financial support in time of need, Brazil can strengthen its partnership and economic relationship with several European countries, as well as with the IMF. And by lending a hand, Rousseff may be able to garner more European support as she strives to boost Brazil's influence within the U.N. system and the IMF. Through these calculated endeavors, Rousseff can signal that Brazil isn't just arriving on the international scene, it's here to stay.
Javier E

Eduardo Galeano Disavows His Book 'The Open Veins' - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • For more than 40 years, Eduardo Galeano’s “The Open Veins of Latin America” has been the canonical anti-colonialist, anti-capitalist and anti-American text in that region
  • now Mr. Galeano, a 73-year-old Uruguayan writer, has disavowed the book, saying that he was not qualified to tackle the subject and that it was badly written. Predictably, his remarks have set off a vigorous regional debate, with the right doing some “we told you so” gloating, and the left clinging to a dogged defensiveness.
  •  ‘Open Veins’ tried to be a book of political economy, but I didn’t yet have the necessary training or preparation,” Mr. Galeano said last month while answering questions at a book fair in Brazil, where he was being honored on the 43rd anniversary of the book’s publication. He added: “I wouldn’t be capable of reading this book again; I’d keel over. For me, this prose of the traditional left is extremely leaden, and my physique can’t tolerate it
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  • “If I were teaching this in a course,” said Merilee Grindle, president of the Latin American Studies Association and director of the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard, “I would take his comments, add them in and use them to generate a far more interesting discussion about how we see and interpret events at different points in time.” And that seems to be exactly what many professors plan to do.
  • “Open Veins” has been translated into more than a dozen languages and has sold more than a million copies. In its heyday, its influence extended throughout what was then called the third world, including Africa and Asia, until the economic rise of China and India and Brazil seemed to undercut parts of its thesis.In the United States, “Open Veins” has been widely taught on university campuses since the 1970s, in courses ranging from history and anthropology to economics and geography. But Mr. Galeano’s unexpected takedown of his own work has left scholars wondering how to deal with the book in class.
  • “Reality has changed a lot, and I have changed a lot,” he said in Brazil, adding: “Reality is much more complex precisely because the human condition is diverse. Some political sectors close to me thought such diversity was a heresy. Even today, there are some survivors of this type who think that all diversity is a threat. Fortunately, it is not.”
  • In the mid-1990s, three advocates of free-market policies — the Colombian writer and diplomat Plinio Apuleyo Mendoza, the exiled Cuban author Carlos Alberto Montaner and the Peruvian journalist and author Álvaro Vargas Llosa — reacted to Mr. Galeano with a polemic of their own, “Guide to the Perfect Latin American Idiot.” They dismissed “Open Veins” as “the idiot’s bible,” and reduced its thesis to a single sentence: “We’re poor; it’s their fault.”
  • Mr. Montaner responded to Mr. Galeano’s recent remarks with a blog post titled “Galeano Corrects Himself and the Idiots Lose Their Bible.” In Brazil, Rodrigo Constantino, the author of “The Caviar Left,” took an even harsher tone, blaming Mr. Galeano’s analysis and prescription for many of Latin America’s ills. “He should feel really guilty for the damage he caused,”
mikecoons

The State of Democracy in Latin America | Brookings Institution - 0 views

  • However, the same studies reveal an increase in informal youth movements promoting democratic changes in many countries, interconnected and mobilized in non-traditional ways, especially via social networks
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    This article is about democracy in Latin America. This part is about youth's role in democracy through movements.
mikecoons

Democracy to the rescue? | The Economist - 0 views

  • Thousands of middle-class Brazilians drowned her out by banging pots and pans, a traditional way to show dissent in neighbouring countries.
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    This article is about democracy in Brazil. The population showed dissatisfaction with their government through protests.
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