Yo, el Supremo!
My niece Nicole is in Paraguay at the moment. I'm not absolutely sure why. It's a Wilson High or some similar kind of thing. Tipped off by my other sister that there was a web site of sorts where her parents (My sister Ann and brother-in-law Al) could obtain sparse information and the occasional picture, I shook this site out of the internet: LearnServe.org --
Category Archive for 'Paraguay' | LearnServe International. They even have their own Flicker set
LearnServe Paraguay '09 Blog - a set on Flickr and apparently a Facebook presence as well. The point of this seems to be cultural and global engagement, beyond some material assistance. That and having fun. They are having fun. I don't think I've ever seen my niece look happier than she does in those pictures. Following this I did a little reading on the culture geography and history of Paraguay. About which I frankly knew nothing
CIA - The World Factbook -- Paraguay. From this brief reading it seemed that a "Paraguayan Example" could be spoken of. An example of a nation returning to democracy after years of authoritarian rule. For most of my life Paraguay was under the personal iron whim of General Alfredo Stroessner and the Colorado party
Alfredo Stroessner - Wikipedia. It was a nation exemplifying thin institutions and strong man rule. A nation existing in a permanent state of martial law. At one point to preclude demonstrations he shut down and partially razed one university. During these years the Catholic Church was one of the few institutions he dared not confront harshly. Paraguay had auspicious beginnings. Asuncion was the seat of Spanish governance for all southern South America initially. Though this provincial seat moved to Buenos Aires later on, Paraguay gained bloodless independence from Spain by simply following the decision of local leaders in Buenos Aires. A notable incident from early Paraguayan history is the central government's breaking up Jesuit administration of autonomous missions in southern Paraguy. They were too well-run, self-possessed and peaceful, and this bothered the central government. A strain of authoritarianism increased and found expression in the rule of megalomaniac isolationist Jose Gaspar Rodriguez de Francia. In a subsequent generation of dictators that of Carlos Lopez's son, Francisco Lopez, the disastrous war of the Triple Alliance was fought in the 1860s. I, the Supreme [WorldCat.org] Augusto Roa Bastos' 1974 novel on Rodríguez de Francia is one of Paraguay's most well known literary works, an examination of the despotic mind. A likely reference and marker to the Stroessner regime. The 20th century history of Paraguay was one of poverty and non development, coups and return to absolutism. Followed by decades of resistance and demonstration. 1989 brought an end to the Stroessner era and a slow twenty year return to democracy. A new constitution in 1992 was written by a special and freely elected constitutional assembly. By this document Paraguay is constituted as a representative and pluralist democracy with a separate bicameral legislature executive and judiciary. In December of last year I wrote a post here titled "PP !=Dd" It dealt with Thailand's dueling people power movements. Thaksin's populist Red-shirts, and the middle class and urban elite Yellow-shirts. Both rooted in existing national interests
BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | Thaksin demands fresh resistance. What I intended was that popular (populist) street demonstration do not alone indicate a fervor for universal democracy. Either big D or little d democracy. I see democracy, rule of the people, as existing in these two facets. Big D democracy I identify as the principle of democracy embedded in a societies formal institutions and processes. Little d democracy I see at heart as a simple thing . A principle of basic fairness rather than a complex and highly charged ideal. I see it; though, as the more fundamental concept. Where big D democracy crumbles with its institutions, and ossifies with their corruption. Little d democracy can't really be broken and always reasserts itself in human affairs. Democracy's aim is to organize the governance of a group in a manner that our comfort and discomfort as individuals - how comfort and discomfort is experienced - is effected as locally directly and equitably as possible. That the voice of each penetrates all decisions that affect each. When trying to weigh sympathy towards a protest movement or group I would look most closely at their commitment to little d precepts and non-violent character. Protests which have which have greater participation and voice as an object and a spontaneous character, rather than ones supporting existing vested interests ought to be viewed more favorably even when the latter appear mounted on the plinth of big D democratic institutions. There is a great tendency of states, political factions, to transition to authoritarianism using the power of offices freely won, then erecting barriers to further entry and controlling outcomes.
New modes of communication will enhance democracy some say. Techno-democracy, or perhaps Demo-technocity. But what technology gives, technology takes away. In the past few weeks I've heard much about what weblogs, Facebook, Twitter, and texting can do:
Does 'Tiananmen + Web = Tehran'? - washingtonpost.com. Do Internet communication technologies make a real difference? On balance I think yes, because they radically increase the multiplicity of pathways. The internet particularly lends itself to the power and immediacy of images. In Iran though it was characterized by an ad hoc and emergent nature that did not prove sustainable.
The struggle against authoritarianism and the paranoia of security states can be called Information Wars. It is about information and the control of it. And it is nominally true that information is empowering and democratizing. There is much speculation in the media about the degree the Internet facilitates the transmission of information, through and around gatekeepers. Though there is surprisingly little hard information. The BBC has a program, Digital Planet, that does look specifically at these issues. Here with an article on Web-logging in Vietnam, Cuba and China
BBC NEWS | Technology | Blogging all over the world. The efficiency and effectiveness of governments to clampdown on the ways and means of information seemed to surprise some as though it were unreasonable for a nation to be able to censor the whole world wide web
China, Cuba, Other Authoritarian Regimes Censor News From Iran - washingtonpost.com. The Iranian government's mastery over cell phone networks and texting, Nokia unapologetically sold them: BBC NEWS | Technology | Hi-tech helps Iranian monitoring. This is great re-assurance for such regimes. Even as the Washington Post picks up on the story that China is effectively disbarring its civil rights lawyers
Human Rights Lawyers 'Disbarred' by Paperwork - washingtonpost.com, there is news that they are secure enough to publicly charge and prepare lengthy incarceration for Liu Xiaobo principle author of the Charter '08 document
BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | China activist formally arrested.
Organizations like the Center for Democracy and Technology focus mostly on US laws and policy though they do have a side international focus
CDT | International and the Global Internet Policy initiative (GIPI) which seeks to generate and offer legal frameworks for telecommunications policy based on principles of a "decentralized, accessible, user-controlled, and market-driven Internet." The Personal Democracy Forum also takes as its mandate the effect of technology on political communication. Initially very US and web 2.O fashion forward campaigning centric, they are opening a European Forum this fall, and with favorable view there, beyond in the future. As a last thought; I do enjoy spectacle of watching republicans who piously championed the freedom demonstrations in Iran try to figure a stance on the coup by Honduran rightists and the military against the leftist and Hugo Chavez befriending, but legitimate leader of Honduras, President Zelaya. Who admittedly seemed on the verge of a de-legitimizing power grab himself.
Honduran Military Sends President Into Exile; Supportive Congress Names Successor. The pretzel logic of the supreme ones and those who wait by their stage doors with flowers.
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