The Global Peace Index

Vision of Humanity has produced this year's global peace rankings. Not sure how this functions as a 2011 index when we're not even half-way through the year and things could look so different by October in places like Tunisia and Egypt (elections) and Southern Sudan could officially be a new country...or not. Depending on what happens in Abyei. From what I can see there seems to be no information on a number of small countries: Lesotho, Lichtenstein, Monaco, Benin, the Seychelles, Reunion Island, Cape Verde, Suriname, Djibouti, Mauritius and Western Sahara. Interesting to note how much the protests in the Arab World have influenced unrest elsewhere, but its still an unfolding story and so I'm not sure how far that can be used as a reliable measure for 2011.  Also, countries like Cote d'Ivoire and Nigeria, in different transition stages from violence to stability so they too could look very different in another six months. I doubt whether Spain's protests were included here. Israel won't be too pleased to be 145 - eighth place from last, neither will America be happy at number 82 - below China at 80.  Zimbabwe's 140 - no big surprises there. I think we're now used to being ranked near the worst or not ranked at all in these things. 

But still this is a very, very useful resource, especially when looking at the economic and political factors (like press freedom, GDP, gender equality, internal and external conflict etc). These are used to indicate peace levels and these are also some of the motivating factors for the popular unrest seen in places like Burkina Faso, Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen etc. (As we all know) For these people-led movements it's not only about toppling an oppressive regime, but people also want to build better, more peaceful and more equitable societies.

There's more information on the site,but here's the summary of findings from Vision of Humanity:

• The world is less peaceful for the third straight year
• Due to an increased threat of terrorist attacks in 29 nations
• A greater likelihood of violent demonstrations in 33 countries
• Arab Spring unrest heralds biggest ever change in rankings, Libya tumbles 83 spots
• Iceland bounces back from economic woes to top ranking
• Somalia displaces Iraq as world’s least peaceful nation
• Violence cost the global economy more than $8.12 trillion in 2010
• US peacefulness shows minimal change

Blog Break

My offline life demands my undivided attention right now so I have to take a break and won't be blogging till the 1st of April. If you think my thoughts on protests, politics, music and kultcha are  in need of a serious challenge or you co-sign and wanna interact with me, catch me on twitter: @konwomyn. Those that  can't express themselves in 140 characters, email me.

Everyone else, feel free to drop comments on the blog on anything that interests you.

Remember: Anonymi please identify thyself, No Spam & No Trolls.

Most High Bless

...one

P.S My blog stats show that quite a few people come across my blog in search of: 'Black Al Jazeera Anchor'. Her name is Folly Bah Thibault. Facebook page: Here.

Falling Out of Love with Tweeting Politicos

iLove twitter. iReally Do. it's been a great way for me to connect with people from all over the planet and access the news before it makes the papers or have the news-stories and opinion delivered to you in 140 characters or less. but lately it's beginning to feel like one big orgy fest or en masse ego tripping in real time. for some well known people (and i use the term well known quite loosely here to mean anyone with over 1000 non-spambot followers and has appeared in the media counts as well known, in their respective circles), it's a rat race: some are on a mission to get the highest number of followers, while others are consistently tweeting about the highest number of retweets because they've dropped the most profound bit of knowledge of the moment. once is fine, but twice, thrice, boasting much? ...otoh, lesser known mortals tweet to trending topics to have their voice heard and up their followers. i do this too and it's fun when there's a programme everyone's watching on tv or a game is trending like #politicalfilms or #celebperfumes. i'm not sure if everyone reads the links i post or pays attention to what i say, but i'm thankful to those that do and those that engage me in conversation. for those that don't see my tweet, 10 minutes or 10 hours later someone else will post the same link and perhaps express a similar observation. so that's not so bad. depending on who you follow, there's a constant flow of information and/or opinion, empty feel-good & 'i just fed my cat' tweets, notwithstanding. however, as i use twitter more frequently, having grown tired of mark zuckerberg's orwellian tracking of one's every move on facebook, i've come to realise there is also a bad side to twitter. it's very cliquey. most people i follow are journalists, bloggers, activists, writers or politically informed people, others are friends, some celebrities, and some witty people and spoofs who are just the funniest! you'd think it would be the celebs that bug me, but it's the established politicos who have this 'i tweet you, you tweet me', among themselves. some of them are nice and respond to you, some even follow back, but there are those who don't often respond to anyone outside their circle. ironically these people tout themselves as lefties, neutrals, radicals, revolutionaries or progressives, but they maintain their exclusivity. it might be none of my business who people choose and choose not to follow, but when the ratio of followers: followed is disproportionate i.e 10 000 followers, 100 following - such glaring contradictions should be criticised. as if that wasn't enough some even make the public appeal for more followers (e.g. i have 5600 followers i need 400 more, help me twitter) WTF??? do these people ever stop to check who follows them, do they know what their followers have to say, do they even care? i'm friggin tired of some of these self-confessed lefties, radicals and progressives:
1. begging for followers. 
2. hosting in-crowd convos among themselves. as valid as their insights maybe in these back n forths, it's the ignoring of other people that irks me - ask, how i know? the new version of twitter shows who's responded on a particular tweet and how the conversation plays out. 
3. recommending each other as is the tradition of #followfriday. that's normally the biggest orgy fest of the week unless something big has happened then they'll endlessly tweet amongst themselves. 
if these people are progressives and radicals, genuinely trying to dissolve power hierarchies then surely they know that dissolution of power begins with conversation and engagement with everyone at every level. if the same names keep being hashed up in retweets or recommended follows then that sustains hierarchy rather than dismantling it. in this way twitter becomes a simultaneously segregated and joined up space of digital interaction. i may know what politico X is thinking but politico X does not necessarily know my thoughts, but we are featured together in the same hashtags and trendlists. so that's the dilemma how do people become more interactive so tweeting isn't just a futile exercise of typing letters into the ether? answer: #followback. i know of at least three well-known politically minded people who explicitly state that they operate on the principle of engaging everyone and they do it. why don't others? what's the point of having followers if you don't talk to them and you continue to regurgitate the same opinions but with new hashtags and links? funny thing is some of the celebs i follow do more talking to their followers than these progressives n radicals. the good celebs (like @noelclarke & @questlove, @lupefiasco even hosts a mini bookclub!) and even spoofs (like @katieweasel) try to have some daily discussion with their followers and although i don't often participate, it's nice to see the interaction going on. 90% of the time these people are not promoting their stuff but do it just to talk to people, so why don't others do it? even the dalai lama follows no one but he tweets about the essence of dialogue. 
on 26 december @dalailama tweeted: 'in order to create a happy century, a peaceful century we must promote the concept of dialogue.'
yea, His Holiness's great dialogue skills amount to 1 192 144 followers: following 0. numerically he's on par with @kanyewest and @chipmunk who follow no one, but the big difference is they actually TALK to people!
...if i've been sounding like some bitter, unrequited lover, i accept that might be 100% true BUT that doesn't change my point that there is presently something wrong with the concept of twitter as a forum for open, multiple conversations when only selected names continue to dominate timelines because certain people only want to talk amongst themselves and retweet each other. granted, people don't necessarily realise that this is what ends up happening and perhaps if they did, things would change. imo, it'd be nice if twitter's #followfriday was actually #followbackfriday and some of these people followed back and recommended different followers who have something interesting to say rather than just keeping it in the family. maybe an #openthreadfriday could be a possibility. #openthreadfriday would allow for anyone to tweet in the timelines of people they follow although i'm not sure how this would work for those with over 5 000 followers, it might be chaotic, but i'm sure a technological remedy out there. something has to be done for twitter or tweeters to develop a more interactive system than the one currently in place - less local orgy fest, more open conversation. #2011rules.


*i used political categorisations to encompass the different groups of people on my feed. analysing people's behaviour  by global location wouldn't really work as these people share more or less the same views and behave in similar ways.

Twitter Be Like African Drums

Big Think Video

....Margaret Atwood says:

 ...People used to perform their lives this way to themselves in their diaries, and also through letters to other people.So for me, anything that happens in social media is an extension of stuff we were already doing in some other way. 

So, it’s all human communication. 

And the form that most closely resembles the “tweet” is the telegram of old, which also was limited because you paid by the letter. And so short communications very rapidly sent. So all of these things, the postal service, et cetera, they’re all improvements, if you like, or modernizations of things that already existed earlier in some other form. 

Even African tribal drums, for instance, could send very complex messages over great distances. They were very rapid, they were very well-worked out and communications could just go like wildfire using that medium of communications. So all of this stuff is what we do now, but it’s not different in nature from what we have always done, which is communicate with one another, send messages to one another, and perform our lives. 

We’ve been doing that for a long time.

Atwood fotocred - J.Allen

more from Atwood: 1. http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2010/mar/29/atwood-in-the-twittersphere/

2. http://bigthink.com/ideas/24253

fisttap bombastic element