Deep Currents

China’s stock market is going through a massive run-up, to the point that the goverment and many others are worried about a bubble. As is the case with any concern about things going wrong in China, the spectre of widespread anger with the Party looms over the horizon.

The Economist assures us that there’s still much progress to celebrate in Africa in spite of Nigeria’s farce of an election:

In politics, the once-predominant belief in a one-party system has faded, if not fizzled completely. Remember, it was only in 1991 that, for the first time since independence, the leader of any African country (not counting the Indian Ocean state of Mauritius) was peacefully voted out of office—in Benin, as it happens. Since then, many African countries have followed suit. Multi-party elections, though often very messy, have become far commoner.

That’s all well and good. But progress towards participatory governance relies on a country’s faith that the project can succeed. I’m no expert on Nigerian history, so I don’t know what the political attitudes are like on the ground. But generally speaking, if I grew up in a country ruled by autocrats, I’d want proof that turning power over to the people was a good idea before I’d fight to install the system in my country. Seeing democracy functioning in the West is a good start, but I wouldn’t necessarily believe that it would work in my country. It takes a leap of faith, and I wonder: having just gone through a test of their faith, how many Nigerians–and Africans–still believe?

Everyone knows AIDS came from some damned African hunter going after monkeys in the bush. The CDC now has an early warning system for tracking signs of diseases as they arrive, but there’s very little known about how disease migrates from animals to humans. Now one scientist is delving into the question, and what he’s found is that there is a constant exchange to the point that 1% of the population in equatorial Africa is walking around carrying an animal virus. The reason we don’t see more diseases like HIV is that it’s quite tough for a virus to make the jump, remain infectious and yet constrain its tendency to kill its carrier. Armed with this knowledge, he’s setting up a kind of pandemic radar to track the viruses as they evolve towards that lethal combination.

The arrest of 172 Islamic militants accused of plotting to attack oil installations in Saudi Arabia aggravated fears that resilient terrorist and insurgent groups increasingly view energy facilities as high-impact targets… “The targeting of oil facilities is a legitimate means of economic jihad,” Mr. Anzi wrote. Oil pipelines and refineries were recommended as good easy targets along with killing executives and workers of Western oil companies. The best reason of all for attacking oil facilities “is the damage to America’s economic reputation…[that] happens when her interests in oil producing countries are threatened.”

This quote is taken from an article in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, which appropriately made the top of their “what’s news” column. It reflect a trend that John Robb has been tracking: the increasing recognition within al Qaeda that oil infrastructure is a systemic weak point–a systempunkt, to use his term. This is a distinct brand of terrorism from what is popularly feared, in that the goal is less intimidation of a populace than harm to their economic interests. Attacking pipelines and refineries may temporarily disrupt supply and cost oil companies a lot of money for repairs and security, but the only pain it will inflict on the American populace will be five-dollar-a-gallon gas and a general discomfort at knowing that their source of fuel is under siege. That means that there’s far less fear for politicians to leverage. It’s much easier to respond to a pipeline attack by calling on the country to switch to alternative energy than to tell them we need more money for the Long War.

I’ve been listening to a song called “I Shall Be Free” on the Amplivate EP that Kid Beyond released last year. Call me a softie, but I think the lyrics do a nice job setting the tone for starting any conversation about world affairs:

One day I went walkin’ down a lonesome road
And I came upon a stranger is some funky clothes
He said he was a soldier
I said, where’s your gun
He said, I don’t got no weapon and I don’t need one
I don’t need no weapon cause I don’t fight no war.
I said, well than, mister soldier, what you fighting for
Well he didn’t say nothin’
He just smiled at me
And then I heard him whisper
You shall be free.

Now I ain’t afraid of living
And I ain’t scared to die
Cause I feel this vibration that I can’t deny
I can feel it singing through me
Like a symphony
And it tastes so sweet like destiny
It’s in everything I touch
Everything I see
It’s in every single fiber in my body
Every star
Every creature
Every leaf on every tree
Is a lesson and a blessing and we shall be free
I shall
I shall be free