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We hear of deprived areas of big and small cites in the United States of America and in Europe, where gang violence, crime and killing has become common.  But, in Brazil, deprivation, violence and crime seemed to have taken on new dimensions, with both having become deeply rooted with there apparently being little chance of or determination to attempt to turn the situation around. To reduce the distinction between 'them and us.'  Whereas in the USA and Europe, the authorities have made the management of their prisons a 'legitimate and effective business enterprise', in Brazil some prisons have become more crime infested and murderous than probably the worst of the Favelas.  It is as if the Brazilian state has given up on its poor and deprived people. Which is a terribly myopic and dangerous policy, since, at some point, the poor, who outnumber the ruling classes, could lose their fear of the military and indulge in organised wide-scale uprising.  A retur

Economic poverty is a major breeding ground for religious extremism. This is not a new doctrine; if people cannot make a decent living in this world, the zealots telling them they can achieve 'dignity and other rewards in a nebulous paradise, can have its own attraction. And so the stage is set for the French elections, with the effects or some of the effects of French foreign policy in her former colonies in Africa and the Middle East, 'coming home to roost', as it were. The adverse effects have been felt largely by the people of the former colonies, and, to a lesser extent, by the French people, whose sense of outrage has been satiated by murderous terrorist attacks in France.  Although France has not had to pay the same price in blood and deaths which those on whom her foreign policy has impacted, has had to pay. Of course, there are other costs which has to be paid.  These include the nation's feeling of being safe, of being secured from dange

Poor Britain, poor France, poor Germany, for oftentimes being blamed for creating the conditions which has given rise to so much conflict, some of them still ongoing, in their former colonial empires in Africa, Asia and the Middle East.  Of course, we can surmise that there were, in these regions of the world, as there was amongst the warring tribes of Europe, many devastating conflicts occurring before the European colonialists branched out to the 'new worlds.' In their search for new sources of wealth and glory.  However, we know more about what had gone on since the 15th century, so, it is understandable that countries such as Britain, Spain, Portugal, France, Belgium, Italy and Germany should still be attracting opprobrium, even if that is as far as their detractors are able to take it. In the case of Britain, one still problematic example of how poorly she had dissolved her former colonial territories, is the example of  the partition of India, in 1947. Whe

Parliamentary constituencies and electoral colleges should not be formulated in such a way that they are able to give rise to a substantial or significant imbalance between how they individually impact on the outcome of elections.  Proportional representation is, without a doubt, the fairest way of enabling a fair balance between the number of votes a given party gets, and the number of elected representatives it has in the relevant organs of government. The fact that PR can result in 'messy' and 'inefficient' governments, with coalitions having to be formed, should not be used as a necessary and sufficient reason for not having it. It clearly is one of the most 'democratic' form of electoral systems; more so than the highly questionable FPTP system.  It is not good enough to have to reduced 'democracy' simply because it can prove to be messy, though more representative of of the different views of the electorate.  Either liberal societ

  Whether it is being ruled by the military juntas serving the political right or by the more recent, but now former leftist governments of the Dilma Rousseff or Lula da Silva, of the Worker's Party, Brazil still seems to be in reverse gear. Is the tragedy of Brazil the fact that it is a country still very much living a contemporary form of the colonial society built by the invading Europeans, and sustained by the enslavement of the region's native people and imported Africans?  Is country still no more than a massively  and badly run slave estate, which is being operated primarily for the well-being of her rich colonial-minded and racist ruling classes?  With the masses being simply used and discarded when they are perceived as being of no further value to the ruling classes, who most probably still see themselves as Europeans living in a foreign land? But one they would be loathed to give up, because of the privileged lifestyle it is proving them with? Is Brazi

Yes, Francois Hollande has been leading an administration which followed and remained true to the path which his predecessor had set. He moved to the right of the political spectrum. He set his face against the Syrian government and joined the Nato fight to undermine it.  Thereby giving momentum to a fatal policy which has given rise to the massive immigration and migration movement which has added to France's and Europe's woes. The West's invasion of Libya and the destruction of that country's government and infra-structure had already set in motion the conditions for the movement of desperate people.  Hollande's continuation of his predecessor's  allegiance to the West's attempt to re-establish the 'new old world order', had the effect of realising an 'economic scorched earth' strategy in the Maghreb and beyond.  So, it probably was not surprising that there should have been this massive movement of desperate people from t

So, why is Brazil, a vast country, in terms of its land mass, its resources and its over 210 million people, in the desperate plight it is in today, and has been for decades?  Despite its demographical wealth of people of different backgrounds and its vast resources, Brazil is in a downward spiral. Just over 500 years after the Portuguese, Pedro Alvares Cabral, landed at the Bahian shores of Brazil, this vast country is simply not living up to its potential. Worst still, all the evidence seems to suggest that it never will be able to do so. Brazil is a country and a nation which is grossly scarred by self-neglect, as if it is a body which is feeding on itself, instead of feeding itself.  Probably like so many other post-slaveocratic societies, which owe much of their wealth to the exploitation of native peoples and imported and enslaved Africans, Brazil has steadfastly refused to promote a culture of openness and honesty about its now perceived as shameful and cruel past.