The Effect of Education on Brazil's Economic Development

              This post says about the benefits of the improvement of education in Brazil and tell us some of its systematic problems. The high school reform was a good initiative and I hope all states in Brazil can make its implementation next year. The population of Brazil can not and do not want to wait more for this reform. We all should give education the importance it has. There are many reasons to urgent and greater investment in education explained in this post, such as: the demographic window, besides many countries like Brazil possibly being in the middle income trap.   This post is a summary of an article with the title above published in 2012 at http://www.american.edu/cas/economics/ejournal/upload/global_majority_e_journal_3 sandoval.pdf

              Brazil has become an economic powerhouse in both Latin America and the developing world. Despite recent success, inequality still persists at high levels. The substandard education system is a contributor to this inequity; however, education reform also represents one of the most effective tools for further growth and a more equal distribution of income. This article investigates how Brazil's failure to raise school learning standards incurs negative long-term effects and outlines the economic benefits of a higher quality education. Brazil is arguably the preeminent economy in Latin America. As the fifth largest country in the world (in both area as well as population), Brazil benefits from vast natural resources and human capital. Human development has not risen proportionally to economic growth. A significant contributing factor to persistent income inequity is the low attainment and low quality of education in Brazil. Abadzi (2007) points out that most children attend both primary ans secondary school, but suffer from some of the highest rates of grades repetition and dropout rates in the world. Investment in quality education is imperative to economic growth. Brazil is undergoing a demographic window of opportunity, and dependency ratios are projected to fall until 2025. To foster a educated workforce, policymakers must make more investments in effective education methods. Reform that demand more efficient use of time and enhance the quality of education are absolutely necessary to sustain growth. As an emerging economy, much research concentrates on Brazil's economic development. A wide variety of publications also discuss the economic benefits of a higher quality education, demographic shifts, systemic failures in the education system, and policy implications to correct resulting inefficiencies. The following four publications are some of the most recent and most comprehensive research papers related to these issues, either referring or focusing on Brazil.    1) A World Bank policy research paper written in 2007 by Helen Abadzi, analyzes systemic problems in education in several countries including Brazil. Her findings reveal that: teachers are often absent from their posts and use time inefficiently. More importantly, the paper has a discussion of policy implications that encourage better teaching pedagogies as well as recommendations for decreasing rates of absenteeism.     2) Another 2007 World Bank policy research paper by Eric Hanushek and Ludger Wobmann explores the link between educational quality and economic growth. According to their analysis, policies that aim to improve education systems in developing nations have significant economic returns. The authors find that long-term reforms to education will substantially increase GDP compared to countries that make no changes. Additionally, the research establishes that quality of education has more implications on economic growth than merely increasing the quantity of schooling. The claim of this report rests heavily on these findings, asserting that education is among the most important investments the brazilian government can make to sustain economic growth.    3)  Bernardo Queiroz and Casio Turra's (2010) report entitled "Window of Opportunity: Socioeconomic Consequences of Demographic Changes in Brazil" discusses recent economic growth in Brazil in relation to population dynamics. They attribute a large working age population and failing dependency ratios as significant causes of recent growth. However, if Brazilian policymakers fail to reallocate public funds to help younger generations, the economy will miss a closing demographic window. The analysis suggest that education reform is paramount to continue economic development and action must be immediate.      4) The analysis by Alain de Janvry, Frederico Finan and Elisabeth Sadoulet (2006) is helpful in assessing the efficacy of cash transfer programs in Brazil. And illustrate how the programs increases attendance and decrease dropout rates. It comes to conclusion that Brazil's cash transfer programs are an efficient use of government money that has the potential to alleviate poverty and further policy innovations should follow these types of programs.     Brazil has also experienced demographic changes that present economic challenges as well as opportunities. Life expectancy has increased since 1960, which implies that more stress is placed on some public programs, especially the pension system. Despite increasing life expectancy, the age dependency ratio, defined as the ratio of dependents (people younger than 15 years and older than 64 years) to the working-age population has fallen in Brazil. Declining fertility rates result in a growing working-age population, and constitue a demographic window of opportunity, which will however close soon. The forthcoming closing of the demographic window suggest that Brazilian policymakers need to make pragmatic investments, especially in the education sector. Hanushek and Wobmann (2007) articulate a clearer relationship between the quality of education and economic growth. By focusing on developing cognitive skills with better methods, "income levels improve mainly through speeding up technological process rather than shifting the level of production function or increasing the impact of an additional year of schooling." Further analysis suggest that enhancing the quality of education has large benefits for economic growth. Brazil is currently experiencing a demographic transition. Due to a decline in birth rates and increase in life expectancy, the working age population will continue to grow until about 2025. This period is often referred to as a "demographic window" because changes in age structure can have significant economic benefits if necessary investments are made before dependency ratios increase. This process boosts GDP over time. As Cardoso and Verner (2008) suggest, "high enrollment rates do not translate into high completion rates or into a high level of schooling by school leavers." They hypothesize that a rise in teen pregnancy contributes to these discouraging statistics. As Cunningham and Jacobsen (2008) point out, "family background has an impact on education attainment and grade repetition." For mant girls, families hardly discourage the decision to leave school. Additionally, studies suggest that an inadequate use of classroom time is one reason why funding does not correlate with higher quality. High rates of teacher absenteeism have devastating effects, such as decline in reading fluency, high dropout rates, and high repetition rates. Studies conducted in the Brazilian state of Pernanbuco illustrate these issues. After conducting unannounced visits to classroom, researchers found that 40% of teachers had been reported missing in the town of Sertão de São Francisco. Moreover, even when teachers are in classroom, they often talk among themselves and waste teaching time. 74% of log books, which track teacher attendance, were not filled out in Pernanbuco schools. Teacher absenteeism remains a challenge for reform. Evidence also suggest that pedagogies used in Brazil often do not bolster cognitive skills. Students need both individual support and hands-on activities to maximize growth in cognitive skills, but inefficient methods undercut the quality of education. Although schools in Pernanbuco were relatively small (25 students on average), they did not received individualized attention. Moreover, hands-on activities and discussion with other students, which promotes better absortion of the material, were only used in 5% of class time. In Pernanbuco also teachers used 28% of classroom time to organize and students often become distracted in this unstructured time. These problems undermine the positive effects of education. Even with greater government spending on education, inefficient use of funds and time in the classroom will not result in achievement gains. Quality education can dimish gender inequalities as well as break the cycle of poverty in poorer regions of Brazil, but as detailed in Abadzi (2007), these regions also suffer from a variety of inadequacies: _ Teachers usually emphasize copying because it provides an easy way to command a classroom, these passive methods fail to engage students and encourage retention of the material. _ Teachers in impoverish regions are often undereducated themselves, and even avoid teaching material they have less command with. As discussed earlier, a major problem in education is teacher absenteeism, and several policy tools can mitigate this problem. For instance, clearer guidelines and positive reinforcement for punctuality would encourage teachers to make more efficient use of time. Moreover, salary increases may incentivize teachers to act more responsibly. Education can generate growth over the long term. These benefits are dependent on quality education, which is evidently not accessed equally by all Brazilians students. Across the country, there are several failures within the education system. According to studies conducted by the World Bank, many schools waste too many valuable resources and time in the classroom. Clearly, the need for reform is urgent.  The success of cash transfer models like Bolsa Escola-Familia programs offers some optimism. This program not only reduces dropout rates but also advances a social agenda that aims to alleviate the multidimensional causes of poverty. Additionally, principals and administrators need to take more responsibility by providing staff with stricter guidelines regarding absenteeism. In conclusion, if Brazil is to achieve its projected success, policymakers must seriously tackle the inadequate education system. Not only does quality education provide an engine for future economic growth but it also bolster Brazil's human development.   

160th Birthday of Aluísio de Azevedo - Part II

                  This week we are going to know more about the same author of the past week, the Brazilian Aluísio de Azevedo. As many literary critics says, what Aluísio really wanted was to modernize Brazil and thus fight its economic and political exclusionary precepts.  This post is a summary of three posts. The first was published at http://wikivisually.com/wiki/O_Corti%C3%A7o. The second was published at   https://lljournal.commons.gc.cuny.edu/2007-1-bletz-texto/. The third was published at https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/aluisio-azevedo/the-slum/

                 O Cortiço (titled in English: The Slum) is an influential Brazilian novel written in 1890 by Aluísio de Azevedo. The novel depicts a part of Brazil's culture in the late nineteenth century, represented by a variety of colorful characters living in a single tenement. The Slum tells the stories of Portuguese and other European immigrants, mulattos, and former African slaves living and working together in a single community. It explores the author's naturalistic beliefs, having various characters being defined and changed by their environment, race and social position. Example are: the division between the mulattos and the hard-working European immigrants, how the climate and culture of Brazil can slowly transform these immigrants' behavior in atavistic ways. In addition the role of women is a key theme, with all female characters in one way or another revealing their purpose in the slum. In 2013 the book became a Musical on Brazilian broadway. Today the play is with Daniel Tupauan and Christian Coronel.

                When Aluísio de Azevedo first published O Cortiço in 1890, it was immediately recognized as an important literary event. Still on every mandatory reading list in Brazil today, the novel is interpreted as a high point in Brazilian naturalism, heavily influenced by French deterministic thinkers. Already in his own time, literary critics emphasized the similarities between O Cortiço and Zola's works, particularly L'Assomoir (1877). It is certainly true that Brazil lacks the history of racial hatred that characterizes the U.S. But lack of racial hatred does not turn out to have led to lack of racial discrimination. Indeed, racial prejudices and deterministic legacies form a fundamental part of a novel as O Cortiço and should be recognized as such. Rather than seeing Latin American naturalist novels as imitations of European counterparts, one should consider XIX century Latin American intellectual endeavours as appropriating existing models for their own unique situations and means. Debates about race were of course prominent in Brazilian culture of that time, and only partly correspond to European positivist and deterministic ideas. Brazilian naturalist novelists created a more or less fictional space in which creatively conjured elements - people, forces, exogenous events - interact. They inhabited the landscape as both voyeur and active participant, and their writing comprised an act of creation, not just of literary art but, in certain ways, of society itself. Still readable for a XXI century audience, O Cortiço is a deeply pessimistic reflection of the social ills that plagued the Carioca society of the period right before Abolition, the 1870s. Brazilian Positivist ideas coincided with Abolition in 1888, whose aftermath saw the mobilization of numbers of former slaves from rural areas towards the cities. Around the same time, foreign immigration started, and both movements caused a wide process of destabilization of traditional society and culture. Displacement plays a crucial role in O Cortiço, both in the fate of the black slave Bertoleza as in the lives of the Portuguese immigrants linked to the cortiço São Romão.  According to Thomas Skidmore one should be careful not to confuse racial ideologies in the U.S. with Latin America. In Brazil, racial attribution depended on how the person looked and on particular economic circumstances of that person, which led to the racial fluidity for which Brazil is famous. In other words: Social class and material wealth will directly influence the categorization of a person. O Cortiço is a result of urban modernization that can not be controlled. It is well documented how, in typical naturalist fashion, Azevedo researched his subject matter as if he were a scientist, a doctor searching for a cure of a sick patient, the nation's body. Ethnographer and sociologist Gilberto Freyre for instance, affirmed that: "Aluísio de Azevedo let in his book a portrait disguised in novel that is less literary fiction than the sociological documentation of a phase and a characteristic aspect of Brazilian formation." With these research methods, Brazilian naturalist novelist created a more or less fictional space in which creatively conjured elements: people, forces, exogenous events interact in a given sequence. Azevedo inhabits the city as both voyeur and active participant, and his writing comprises an act of creation, not just of literary art but, in certain ways, of Carioca urban society itself. Azevedo mostly rejects determinist notions in the portrayal of the male characters, but his attitude towards women, particularly the immigrant women is still largely dictated by the supposedly scientific ideologies of his time. Although I agree with Elizabeth Marchant that Azevedo shows a peculiarly hostile attitude towards his female characters in general. For many Brazilian, the figure of the immigrant was closely related to modernity and progress. However, the construction of the female immigrant differes significantly of that of her male counterpart. The immigrant woman is assumed to be unchanging and authentic, but her immigrant status makes her a suspect holder of any national tradition. She is supposed to represent both continuity, as a female, and modernity, as a immigrant and thus seems trapped, caught in either insanity or prostitution. For Azevedo, attempts to modernize the country by means of European immigrants are doomed to fail. Brazil is simply too overwhelming and the Europeans who come 'to make the America' discover that they themselves are being remade. For Azevedo, a tireless abolitionist, Brazil will never become a modern country unless it addresses its heritage of slavery and injustice. Immigrants will not contribute to improving their new country, if the local institutions of slavery and the pseudoaristocratic culture of the wealthy as set on destroying whatever modernizing effects immigration could possible have.

               This enormously popular and influential Brazilian novel, published in 1890, is a landmark work of accusatory naturalism whose energetic author at his best deserves comparison with Balzac and Zola. The story concerns two obsessive love affairs and their disastrous consequencs: that Romao, an avaricious landowner who gives up everything (including his mistress) to pursue a wealthy woman, and that of the hulking, well-meaning Jeronimo and the mulatto spitfire Rita Bahiana, for those sake he destroys several lives, including his own. Azevedo is a passionate, sometimes hortatory writer, who tends to overmanage and needlessly explain, but his portrayals of urban discontent, rampant materialism, and especially of restless souls shaped and driven by their desires have an immediacy and authority that transcend (while not quite eschewing) melodrama, and have aged remarkably well.

160th Birthday of Aluísio de Azevedo

             Last Friday, 14th of April, the Brazilian writer Aluísio Azevedo would complete 160 years old. So this post is a tribute to him. As a Naturalist writer he showed us a reliable picture of the late XIX century in Brazil. The Naturalism-Realism literary movement was very important for the advancement of many other movements and fairer laws, and consequently justice, human rights,  and above all the truth, because only facing the realities of our lives and talking abou it, we can do a fair analysis and then humankind can evolve. This post is a summary of three articles. The first was published https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alu%C3%ADsio_Azevedo.The second https://www.amazon.com/Slum-Library-Latin-America/dp/0195121872. The third was published at file:///C:/Users/Luciano/Downloads/POST-PEER-REVIEW-PUBLISHERS.PDF

            Aluísio Tancredo Gonçalves de Azevedo (1857-1913) was a Brazilian novelist, caricaturist, diplomat, playwright and short story writer. Initially a Romantic writer, he would later adhere to the Naturalist movement. He introduced the Naturalist movement in brazil with the novel O Mulato, in 1881. Azevedo was born in São Luís to David Gonçalves de Azevedo (the Portuguese vice-consul in Brazil). He was the younger brother of the playwright Artur Azevedo. As a child, Aluísio loved painting and drawing, and would move to Rio de Janeiro in 1876, where his brother Artur was living already, to study at the Escola Nacional de Belas Artes. After graduating, he drew caricatures for many journals. His father's death in 1878, made him return to São Luís. He then initiated his writer career, publishing in 1880 a typical Romantic novel. He helps on the creation of a journal named O Pensador, where he wrote abolitionist articles. In 1881 he publishes the first Brazilian Naturalist novel: O Mulato, that deals with the themes of racism. Consolidating his career as a writer, he returned to Rio. He would write endlessly during the period of 1882-1895. Dating from this period are his famous novels, Casa de Pensão, (1884) and O Cortiço (1890), and many other works written in partnership with his brother, or with Émile Rouède. In 1895 he became a diplomat. He served in Japan, England, Italy and Argentina, where he died.

             First published in 1890, and undoubtedly Azevedo's masterpiece, The Slum, is one of the most widely read and critically acclaimed novels ever written about Brazil. Indeed, its great popularity, realistic descriptions, archetypal situations, detailed local coloring, and overall race-consciousness may well evoke Huckleberry Finn as the novel's North American equivalent. Yet Azevedo also exhibits the naturalism of Zola and the ironic distance of Balzac. While tragic, beautiful, and imaginative as a work of fiction, The Slum is universally regarded as one of the best, or truest portraits of Brazilian society ever rendered. This is a vivid and complex tale of passion and greed, a story with many different strands touching on the different economic tiers of society. Mainly, however, The Slum thrives on two intersecting story lines, In one narrative, a penny-pinching immigrant landlord strives to become rich investor and then discards his lover for a wealthy woman. In the other, we witness the innocent yet dangerous love affair between a strong, pragmatic, gentle sort of immigrant and a vivacious woman who both live in a tenement owned by said landlord. The two immigrant are Portuguese, and personify two alternate outsider responses to Brazil. A deftly told, moving, and hardscrabble novel that features several stirring passages about life in the streets, the melting-pot realities of the modern city, and often unstable mind of the crowd, The Slum will captivate anyone who might appreciate a less political take on the nineteenth-century naturalism of Crane or Dreiser.

              This article will analyse spatial relations and practices in O Cortiço in order to demonstrate the novel's strong social-political critique of XIX century in Brazil. Brazilians critics of the time and thereafter were almost unanimous in seeing local naturalist novels as too close to Zola's works. Later critics tended to repeat what Baguley called the 'already established and seemingly set of arguments' against Zola and Naturalism by Marxist critics. Nelson Sodré, for instance, describes Brazilian Naturalism as having the same vulgar materialism, the same artistic narrowness, the same pedantic scientism of evolutionism and determinism, the same fascination with feminine hysteria and for pathological manifestation in general. After asking why Brazilians writers tended to prefer Zola as a model to Flaubert, and Comte and Spencer to Marx. Flora Sussekind answer by claiming that the 'bedroom affairs' of Brazilian Naturalism provided conservative and confortable substitute for the social problems that the writers were aware of, but preferred not to discuss. For Azevedo's novel does not fit the 'bedroom model', as it discusses social relations between different classes, and even slavery and abolition. It is not Azevedo's depiction of social conflict, however, that receives most praise from critics: the majority of them list as the most definitive quality of the novel its capacity to portray the movement of the crowds and collective forces. A quality also attributed to Zola. The critic Lúcia Pereira says that the best thing about O Cortiço is its panoramic vision and its capacity to show the spectable of the masses. Another critic, Álvaro Lins rehearses the same argument, claiming that Azevedo was never able to maintain a psychological attitude towards the isolated man, but he knew surprisingly well how to penetrate human groups. O Cortiço in spite of being considered one of the best novels in Brazilian literature, has received few detailed analyses of its social processes, its structure, or indeed almost any other of its aspects. It has deserved a treatment similar to that accorded to Zola's novels until 1950s, that is, a lack of engagement with the text itself on the part of the critics, even though, unlike Zola texts, it was considered a good novel. An important exception is Antonio Candido's superb article 'De cortiço a cortiço', the first study to take seriously Azevedo's engagement with the world of labour, profit, competition, visible economic exploitation. Even so, for Candido there is little sense of injustice in the novel and none of class exploitation, just nationalism and xenophobia, an attack on the immigrant's abuse. As a social product, the tenement is also a space of control.The long row of houses allows the landlord to keep a close eye on the lives of the inhabitants, repressing them any time he sees fit. In his role as the owner of the tenement, he has the right to evict anybody that annoys his authority, and that right is never questioned by the inhabitants of the tenement. In other words, the spatial and social organization of the tenement is highly determined by the logic of rent monopoly, a logic that assures in daily practices the hegemony of one class over others. In his descriptions of the tenement and its inhabitants, Azevedo at times resorts to some of the familiar tropes of Naturalism. As an environment, the tenement is also said to have an unavoidable influence over the people who live in it, such as Pombinha. If in order to read Azevedo we need to make reference to Zola it is not because of the 'fatalism' or 'determinism' of both authors, nor simply to compare the collective scenes in their novels. The main lesson Azevedo seems to have learned from his French Master was the critique of the dominant economic and social order. In Zola, an extremely acute visual sense and very detailed descriptions creates a world where people seem dwarfed by the things around them. They create a sense of space that is oppressive and unchangeable, reflecting a well-established social and economic order where upward movement by the poor, although promised, is actually very rare. In Azevedo, short, almost schematic descriptions of sceneries serve as a minimal structure for a space that is made up of people and that is constantly being produced and changed by people. The reason why the lack of descriptions in O Cortiço may have to do with the fact that in Brazil, unlike France, the upper class did not need detailed descriptions to visualize the space of the poor, In brazil, all they had to do was open their window. 

           

International Day for the Right to the Truth concerning Human Rights Violations and for the Dignity of Victims 2017

               Two weeks ago, more precisely on Friday, 24th of March, all over the world was celebrated the Day for the Right to the Truth Concerning Human Rights Violations and for the Dignity of Victims. So, this post is a tribute to all human rights defenders who helps bring justice and the truth for anyone looking for them. As I said before, it is very important to fight against injustice, because the violations could spread and the nightmare called dystopia become a new system increasingly difficult to combat.  This post is a summary of four articles. The first was published at http://www.gchragd.org/en/blog/2017-international-day-right-truth-concerning-gross-human-rights-violations-and-dignity-victims. The second was published at http://contranocendi.org/index.php/en/news/101-international-day-for-the-right-to-the-truth-concerning-gross-human-rights-violations-and-for-the-dignity-of-victims. The third was published at http://www.unis.unvienna.org/unis/en/pressrels/2016/unissgsm726.html. The fourth was published at https://humanrights.ca/blog/right-truth-concerning-gross-human-rights-violations

                The 2017 International Day for the Right to the Truth concerning Gross Human Rights Violations and for the Dignity of Victims recognises the importance of promoting justice to victims who have experienced gross human rights violations. The bold decision of the U.N. to proclaim 24th March as an day in commemoration of the right to the truth became a reality thanks to the many human rights champions who sacrificed their lives to denounce violations of human rights. Archbishop Oscar Romero from El Salvador was a source of inspiration for human rights defenders and activists around the world. He was murdered in 1980 by perpetrators for speaking out and seeking the truth for human rights violations inflicted on the civilian population during the civil war. Although the Archbishop is remembered today, the voices of victims are often left unheard. There are numerous examples to choose from. The Rohingya people of Myanmar are experiencing serious human rights violations as they face persecution and maltreatment. In Syria, a devastating war is currently taking place. Millions of Syrians have fled their country and thousands have vanished owing to the grinding civil war. Propaganda rather than truth underpins the drama unfolding in Syria, the rest of the Middle East, and indeed wherever conflict prevails or mass-border migration occurs in search of survival. Concealment  or distortion of truth in a context of a surfeit of data is the wilful result of ideological distortions. If justice is ever to prevail in our global society, truth needs to be sought, identified and acted upon, especially in terms of calling violators to account and providing remedy and reparations for victims.

               The goal of this day of commemoration holds special meaning for us. Our work in advocating greater adherence to international human rights standards, means that we often, sadly, wade into situations where there are serious human rights concerns. Whether these concerns are related to acts by government actors or non-state actors, and whether or not the violations are inflicted upon individual victims or as part of collective victimization, the truth of the ciscumstances surrounding these acts and the dignity of victims must be of fundamental importance. Last year, We made submissions to the Committee for the Prevention of Torture in Africa on the right to redress for victims of torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment or treatment. Victims, their loved ones and their communities have a right to know the whole truth about the human rights violations they were subjected to and the circumstances surrounding their victimization. These truths, can be very important for the recovery process of victims. Additionally, disclosure of the truth and acceptance of roles in the events that caused the victimization can be the first step in the path towards preventing future violations. Recovery from victimization can be a long and difficult process, and knowing the truth is an indispensable part of this process. Respecting the dignity of victims throughout the process must be foremost. This is the only way victims can receive the full redress and reparations that they are entitled to. 

             This annual observance day pays tribute to the memory of Monsignor Oscar Romero, who was murdered on 24th March 1980. Monsignor Romero was actively engaged in denouncing violations of the human rights of the individuals in El Salvador. Across the world, every victim has the right to know the truth about the violation that affected her or him. But the truth also has to be told for the benefit of all people and communities as a vital safeguard against the recurrence of violations. The right to the truth is closely linked to the right to justice. To advance this effort, the U.N. support fact-finding missions, commissions of inquiry and truth commissions, which document violations and make recommendations to ensure accountability, reconciliation, and other reforms. throughout the world, from Colombia to Tunisia, from Mali to Sri Lanka, from Nepal to South Sudan, the U.N. has advocated for inclusive and genuine consultations with victims and affected groups, who are too often excluded. Their meaningful participation must be ensured in all relevant stages of transitional justice processes, and their specific needs must be fully recognized in any reparation measures. Securing the testimonies of victims and witnesses is also essential to ensuring the rights to know the truth and to justice. Appropriate mechanisms for the protection of victims and witnesses, including their physical and psychological integrity, privacy and dignity, must be put in place. Moreover, the preservation of archives and other documentation relating to human rights violations is crucial for ensuring undistorted historical record and preservation of memory. On this day, I urge States to adopt measures to promote truth, justice and reparation for victims, which is so crucial to ensuring that gross human rights violations are not repeated.

             Monsignor Romero was murdered for refusing to be silent in the face of violence, abuse and injustice. His appointment as Archbishop of San Salvador in 1977 was seen  as the Vatican's attempt to restrain him from speaking out against the government. However, after witnessing numerous human rights violations  and atrocities, he became a vocal defender of the poor and the oppressed in his country. Monsignor's courage  for speaking truth to power and for demanding justice and peace for his fellow citizens led to his assassination. On March 24th, 2010, on the 30th anniversary of Monsignor' death, the U.N. General Assembly proclaimed this day as the International Day for the Right to Truth concerning Gross Human Rights Violations and for the Dignity of Victims. During this day, the U.N. asks us to: 1) Honour the memory of victims of human rights violations and promote the importance of the right to truth and justice. 2) Pay tribute to those who have devoted their lives to, and lost their lives in, the struggle to promote and protect human rights for all. 3) Recognize, in particular, the important work and values of Monsignor Romero. The right to know the truth is linked to governments' duty and obligation to protect and guarantee human rights, to conduct effective investigaitons and to guarantee effective remedy and reparations. 

60th Anniversary of the European Union

             One week ago, more precisely on Saturday 25th of March the European Union celebrated its 60th anniversary, so this post is a tribute to this wonderful idea of integration and inclusion, peace and harmony, shared values and common ideals. I hope this idea can spread for all the world and one day we can celebrate the creation of a World Union, but like the European Union putting democracy and human rights at the top of its policy.  This post is a summary of four articles. The first was published at https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/03/25/happy-60th-anniversary-to-the-european-union-okay-maybe-not-so-happy/?utm_term=.e642095d77ae. The second was published at https://europa.eu/european-union/eu60_en. The third was published at https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/mar/23/eu-60-generation-europe-berlin-barcelona  The fourth was published at http://johnmccormick.eu/2013/09/ten-reasons-why-the-european-union-is-a-good-idea/

             The treaty of Rome, which founded the European Union was signed 60 years ago. However, the E.U. is in a state of crisis and show just how difficult it is to secure legitimacy for international institutions. During the run-up to the U.K. referendum on Brexit, the call to "take back control" resonated more with British voters than other political arguments. These views are popular in other countries too. According to Eurobarometer polling data, 45% of citizens are not satisfied with the way democracy works in the E.U.  A majority is dissatisfied in 7 out of the 28 E.U. member states. Is the public right to hold these views? Some research suggest that the E.U. has given too much power to supranational institutions, international bodies that operate independently of national governments. However, it is misleading to claim that the E.U. is a runaway supranational institution. We argue in a recent book that the E.U. is better understood as a collection of institutions, between governments, above governments and beyond governments, that battle it out over E.U. policies. Through its case law, the E.U. Court of Justice established that European law is superior to national law and helped build the world's largest single market. The European Central Bank manages the euro, a global currency used by nearly 400 million E.U. citizens in 19 countries. E.U. institutions that operate above the states are powerful, but those that represent national government interests are even more so. The European Council is the real locus of authority. These summits began as "fireside chats" in 1974 but in recent years have become the E.U.'s last resort for dealing with its all-too- frequent problems. The European Council has been condemned for riding roughshod over Greek democracy, failing to forge a collective solution to the migration crisis and not making the U.K. a better offer to stay in the E.U. And yet, by the standards of global governance, the European Council embodies intergovernmental cooperation at its most consequential. The G7 and G20 meetings bring heads of state together for little more than an annual photo opportunity. The European Council meets up to 11 times per year to make substantive policy decisions across a host of policy areas. From the decision to add former Warsaw Pact 10 states to its membership in the 2000s to the 2016 Turkey refugee deal, the European Council shapes politics in ways that the executive bodies of other international organizations do not. The E.U. is also the most ambitious attempt to establish international institutions that derive authority from sources other than governments. In 1979, the European Parliament became the world's first, and to date only, directly elected transnational legislature. Large numbers of E.U. citizens may be dissatisfied with democracy in the E.U. However, survey shows that the same citizens have been as unhappy or unhappier with the state of democracy in their own country. Historian Mark Mazower has argued that, "Europe has rarely just been about Europe." The E.U. has been a prototype for international cooperation, and it remains the most ambitious attempt to legitimize governance beyond the nation-state.

                  Sixty years ago in Rome, the foundations were laid for the Europe that we know today, ushering in the longest period of peace in written history in Europe. The Treaties of Rome established a common market where people, goods, services and capital can move freely and created the conditions for prosperity and stability for European citizens. On this anniversary, Europe looks back with pride and looks forward with hope. For 60 years we have built a Union that promotes peaceful cooperation, respect of human dignity, democracy and solidarity among European nations and peoples. Now, Europe's shared and better future is ours to design.

                There is a good reason that lots of people in my generation think the E.U. is all right. Our upbringing was tinged with an opening up to all things European. Not just Abba and Jeux Sans frontières. But exchange programmes and pen pals, InterRail and espadrilles, pizza and Chianti. Europeans, it turned out, were normal, cool, interesting and interested. this was a huge comfort to those of us who paid attention in history. The first things children of the 1970s and 80s learned about Europe was how beastly everyone had been to each other over the past 1,000 years. Waterloo, Travalgar, the Somme and Agincourt. Crécy and D-day. War without end, and how all those little nations were forged by obsessed emperors and tsars and kings and despots who slaughtered anyone and everyone who did not think like them. If the 80s marked the real beginning of British vacationing in Europe, the 90s was the decade that we moved there in masses. We explored the continent in ways that our parents never could. If you felt it and could afford it, you could just jump on a train and go live in Berlin, or Bordeaux or Barcelona. Eurostar, budget flight and cheap car rental. No visas, no hassle. Pick up a job on a building site, in a bank, in a bar. Oh the irony: to us Europe meant an absence of petty rules and regulations, not an accretion of them. We got to know Spanish and Dutch, Finns and Italians. The telling thing was we had so much more in common with these foreigners than with many of our compatriots. It really felt like nationality did not matter, it was just a lousy trick of the past, an instrument for bad rulers to deflect criticism and give people something to cheer, however empty. And while Britons relished Europe, Britain itself became more European: Culturally, we remained pretty Anglo-Saxon (notwithstanding the music of Kraftwerk, the novel of Houellebecq and the films of Kieslowski and Almodóvar). But socially we were  more European. Where did it all go wrong? Looking back, it is clear that this Europeanisation was perhaps only relevant to an outwardly focused, to people interested in a world beyond the end of their street. The tide turned in the 2000s, though it is still hard to pinpoint precisely why. Or perhaps simply that those who talked down the E.U. were just better at doing so than those who talked it up. 

                 We have heard a lot of late about the problems of the E.U. so much so that the supportive voice are being drowned out in a cacophony of negativism. The E.U. is imperfect, to be sure, but so is every large institution or network of institutions. The achievements of the E.U. need closer study and greater promotion. European integration has worked and made life better for Europeans and non-Europeans, but here is a brief top ten list of why we can like the E.U:  1) Helping bring a lasting peace to Europe.  2) Promoting prosperity, innovation, opportunity and choice.  3) Raising standards and expectations.  4) Helping Europeans understand their shared values.  5)  Reducing regulations and red tape.  6)  Replacing self-interest with shared interests, and exclusion with inclusion.  7) Promoting democracy and free markets at home and abroad.  8) Allowing Europe to speak with louder voice.  9) Offering a benchmark model of civilian power.  10)  Encouraging a rules-based approach to international affairs.