The humble mobile phone is driving a new revolution which some experts hope could bring fairer elections and democracy to some African states. Many African countries have struggled against rigged elections and authoritarian rule since gaining independence last century.
However, African observers say the growth of simple communication technologies like cell phones are assisting many states to progress towards open and fair elections in increasingly democratic systems. Senegal is one of a number of African countries to hold successful elections by keeping voting and counting in check through independent communication.
Former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said many African nations now had a “very open society” and the increasing success of elections owed a lot to the existence of mobile phones. “With communication and cell phones, this is where it is difficult to cheat in elections now. You are announced at the district level and cell phones go wild so by the time you go to the capital, if you have changed the figures, they will know and you will be caught out.”
I had a great conversation a few days ago with Bethany Hoang of International Justice Mission, the human rights organization I describe in chapter 11 of Culture Making. Bethany is the director of the IJM Institute, an outstanding source of information and resources for church leaders seeking justice for the oppressed.
Here is an excerpt from our conversation, available in two parts: 5 Minutes with Andy Crouch (part 1) (part 2).
Bethany: If we can’t “change the world” . . . then when someone sincerely expresses “I want to see slavery end in my lifetime,” what guidance would you give?
Andy: It’s tricky. I don’t want to discourage that, but I would say a couple things. First, it is absolutely right to pray to the Lord of history that slavery be ended, because that is God’s will. We should be praying for Him to work in such a way that slavery is ended and all injustice is ended. That being said, I really think the most effective thing to do is probably not going to be a global abolition campaign. And here’s why: The causes and channels and conduits of what we label slavery are so different in different cultures that is very difficult to address that problem on that global level. And, not only are the causes of slavery diverse in different areas, also the remedies will also look different.
It’s a little too easy or it’s just misleading to say let’s end it in “the world,” because we’re really going to have to think about, “What does slavery look like in India?” And maybe when we look in South India it’ll be different from North India. And then its going to look really different again in Sudan, and that’s going to look very different from slavery that’s happening in Atlanta, and in New Jersey. So we’re going to have to pick a specific place in which to become culturally fluent, to try to understand the causes of injustice and what creative intervention might lead to change. That’s why IJM’s model is so good: it involves mobilizing people who are culturally adept, in the different countries where [IJM] works, because the legal systems are so different.
Humankind, which discovers its capacity to transform and in a certain sense create the world through its own work, forgets that this is always based on God’s prior and original gift of things that are. People think that they can make arbitrary use of the earth, subjecting it without restraint to their wills, as though the earth did not have its own requisites and a prior God-given purpose, which human beings can indeed develop but must not betray.
—John Paul II, Centesimus Annus, quoted in John Stackhouse, Making the Best of It
They are called Mashghal in Arabic which literally means a working place, from the Arabic noun shoogal (work in general). This term was coined to refer to little shops where a group of usually Pakistani tailors make women dresses. About 30 years ago readymade women clothes were mostly unavailable to the general public and women drew designs on paper and took then to these tailor shops with fabric bought by the meter from areas similar to outdoor malls. For measurement, they would give the tailor a previously made dress that fits and he would use it as a measurement model. And that’s to avoid any physical contact between the tailor and the customer. I know now you’re wondering where did women get there first well measured dress and I too wonder.
These little tailor shops started to evolve into closed women shops where the tailors are women from the Philippines. The shops became bigger and the décor slightly better. However these women only shops are pricier, so the male version stuck around. The women mashghal started to quickly expand into the beauty salon business. So a women could go get her hair done and have a dress made at the same time. But when Al Eissaee, a big name in the fabric import business, started to also bring in quality readymade clothes, he started a huge trend that snowballed into our current mega malls. This in turn affected the tailor business for both the male and female shops. The male mostly went out of business except for a lucky few and the female shops concentrated more on the beauty salon side of the business, so much so that some even closed the dress making side. But for some unexplainable reason they are still called a mashghal even on official ministry of commerce licensing papers.
The incomparable Anthony Lane
The morning of Friday, August 15th, was one of unaccustomed freshness in Beijing, and it brought forth two objects, both wreathed in legend but hitherto hard to spot. The first was a boiling ball of gases some ninety-three million miles away, known as the sun. . . .
I spoke with . . . Jay Lyon, of Canada, after he had held his nerve and taken two matches, one on the heels of the other, on the Archery Field. His first victim had been Xue Hai Feng, of China, who was ranked No. 18 at the games, twenty-nine places above Lyon, so it was quite a scalp, and he had then seen off Brady Ellison, of the United States. What was boosting him that day? “Sweet little e-mail from my mom. She said, no matter what, the sun’s still going to come up tomorrow.” Mrs. Lyon was clearly not in Beijing, where the chances of that were around fifty-fifty. “And, if I don’t do well, she’s going to kick my ass,” he added, lovingly. The other mystery weapon in Lyon’s quiver was Phil Towle, a performance coach back in the States, whose online messages had been an inspiration. “He’s also been a psychologist for Metallica,” Ryan said, as if to justify the gentleman. I had to steady myself against a passing volunteer. Metallica has a psychologist? What, exactly, is it repressing in its sylvan melodies?
The encyclopedia of life
Far from being an ancient myth with no contemporary relevance, the story of Adam’s task has inspired and shaped human endeavor throughout the centuries. Modern science got its start in the golden age of exploration, when collectors began cataloging exotic plants and animals in the hope of restoring Adam’s complete knowledge of the world. Some sixteenth-century scholars, like Benito Montano (1527–1598), gave Hebrew names to the places Columbus discovered, because they assumed that the Bible must contain all the words we need to understand the New World. Others realized that there were more things to know and to be named than they ever imagined. Francis Bacon exhorted gentlemen of means to build gardens “with rooms to stable in all rare beasts and to cage in all rare birds . . . so you may have in small compass a model of the universal nature made private.” Adam’s sin, Christians believed, not only expelled the first couple from the Garden. Plants and animals too had been dispersed, but now scholars could imagine a return to paradise by achieving universal knowledge.
If God were to bring all the animals before man today, the line would be too long. This scene could only take place on the computer, which is exactly what the new Encyclopedia of Life proposes. This remarkable project aims to gather descriptions of every species known to science on a single website. Harvard biologist Edward O. Wilson has been the driving force behind the Encyclopedia, and his enthusiasm for it is unbounded. “It’s going to have everything known on it,” he said, “and everything new is going to be added as we go along.” Nearly two million species are known, but scientists estimate that ten times that many are yet to be discovered. Most of these unknown species are bacteria, fungi, and insects. We can name them because we know, or want to know, everything about them.
Keep noticing!
Soltzberg: So given that there are all these patterns and themes around us, yet being adept at noticing requires practice, how can people sharpen their noticing “chops?”
Portigal: I’ve assigned students to routinely maintain a noticing log, either a blog (words with pictures) or a Flickr account (pictures with words). The exercise helps sharpen noticing skills by giving people permission to simply observe and document. There’s never any requirement to suggest a fix; indeed what they observe may not be broken in any way. It just has to arouse their interest, and in documenting it make the details of that interest explicit. Establishing some discipline for this behavior can be very helpful.
Soltzberg: Sometimes I do an exercise with workshop groups, which works in a similar way. Everyone takes a turn describing something they saw or experienced between the time they got up and the present moment; something that they haven’t talked about with anyone that day. It could be something unusual or something really mundane—just a quick description with maybe one or two details. People are always surprised when they realize how many things they are actually experiencing but not really noticing. It’s such a simple activity, but people have told me later on that they felt much more awake after doing it.
Portigal: That’s a good place to be solving problems from. Well, let’s get out there and keep noticing.
L’oeuf à soixante-cinq degrés
“Cooking eggs is really a question of temperature, not time,” says This. To make the point, he switches on a small oven, sets the thermostat at 65°C, or 149°F, takes four eggs straight from the box, and unceremoniously places them inside. “I use an oven in the lab; it’s easier. But if the oven in your kitchen is not accurate, cook eggs in plenty of water, using a good thermometer.” About an hour later—timing isn’t critical, and the eggs can stay in the oven for hours or even overnight—he retrieves the first egg and carefully shells it. “The 65-degree egg!” he announces. The egg is unlike any I’ve eaten. The white is as delicately set and smooth as custard, and the yolk is still orange and soft. It’s not hard to see why l’oeuf à soixante-cinq degrés is becoming the rage with chefs in France.
In praise of street food
Wherever you go in the world, the food of the street represents the identity of the people. Clues to culture, race, and religion can be found in the local cuisine.
That quote kicks off the Penang-focused show of an Al Jazeera series on street food around the world (heads up courtesy of noodlepie). And I couldn’t have said it better myself.
Simply put, you haven’t experienced Penang, not the real Penang, until you’ve eaten on its streets. And the same, I would argue, could be said for any other place in the world that street food still exists.
Street food naysayers miss the point. When it comes to eating on the street it’s not only about the food. (And it’s not about proving your traveling cohones either.) Be open to the whole experience, and a street food meal will give as much insight into a place and a culture as any guidebook intro. Plus, you get to fill your belly at the same time.
God’s intervention in human culture will be unmistakably marked by grace—it will not be the inevitable working out of the world’s way of cultural change, the logical unfolding of preexisting power and privilege. Wherever God steps into human history, the mountains will be leveled and the valleys will be raised up. “Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed” (Isa. 40:5)—the glory of a God who confounds even his own people’s expectations of how culture changes.
—Culture Making, p.130
The DiaperVest
Pixar’s creative community
What’s equally tough, of course, is getting talented people to work effectively with one another. That takes trust and respect, which we as managers can’t mandate; they must be earned over time. What we can do is construct an environment that nurtures trusting and respectful relationships and unleashes everyone’s creativity. If we get that right, the result is a vibrant community where talented people are loyal to one another and their collective work, everyone feels that they are part of something extraordinary, and their passion and accomplishments make the community a magnet for talented people coming out of schools or working at other places. I know what I’m describing is the antithesis of the free-agency practices that prevail in the movie industry, but that’s the point: I believe that community matters. . . .
After Toy Story 2 we changed the mission of our development department. Instead of coming up with new ideas for movies (its role at most studios), the department’s job is to assemble small incubation teams to help directors refine their own ideas to a point where they can convince John and our other senior filmmakers that those ideas have the potential to be great films. Each team typically consists of a director, a writer, some artists, and some storyboard people. The development department’s goal is to find individuals who will work effectively together. During this incubation stage, you can’t judge teams by the material they’re producing because it’s so rough—there are many problems and open questions. But you can assess whether the teams’ social dynamics are healthy and whether the teams are solving problems and making progress. Both the senior management and the development department are responsible for seeing to it that the teams function well.