Failed Architecture: Resisting Phnom Penh’s Beautification Plan (31 May 2018)

Among the poorest countries in the world, Cambodia is now experiencing its longest period of peace and development since it became a nation state. Yet the wounds of the 1975-79 genocide are still too fresh for the country to truly reckon with. As landmarks of past horrors still stand in the capital, they also remain in the living memory of a large section of the city’s current population. For many, including the current government, the only way to deal with this all too recent trauma is to look to the future, open up the country’s economy and modernise. In that spirit, Phnom Penh has become a city of cranes. But with many of the new buildings only affordable to a small elite, resistance to this top-down modernisation is growing. [...]

Even so, Phnom Penh remains an undeveloped city whose lively streets struggle to support all of its activity, from impromptu barbecues and roadside weddings to dusty construction work. Waste collection is sporadic, and fume-filled traffic jams are common. Increasing migration to the capital is putting growing pressure on the city’s already struggling infrastructure and pushing up land prices. With over 70% of people living on less than $3 a day, limited access to housing has resulted in growing slum communities. Despite the fact that Phnom Penh didn’t have traffic lights before 2000, Hun Sen’s new Cambodia is becoming increasingly dominated by luxury real estate within gated communities, and leisure centres equipped with shopping malls, casinos and nightclubs. [...]

The plan for the 100-hectare site at Diamond Island contains ‘cultural and tourism areas’: shopping malls, banquet halls, 5-star hotels, luxury real estate, and several schools. Ultimately, the aim is to create a city within a city; an exclusive, privately-owned and managed island. Several gated communities have already been realised, including the romantically-named La Seine, and Elite Town, which features streets named after prestigious American universities. The market for these luxury villas and condominiums essentially caters towards foreign buyers, with demand from the local elite limited by their small numbers. Indeed, while the official Cambodian minimum wage is just $170 per month, villas within these areas are valued between $600,000 and $1 million. [...]

Phnom Penh is a city of contradictions. On the one hand it appears to be burgeoning, repairing and modernizing; yet on the other, behind the facade of Beautification, there is an ongoing struggle on the part of the poor to claim their dues: recognition, resources and their right to the city. The force of the state is relentlessly felt, yet those fighting against it seem undeterred; they deeply value small and large victories, with the unwavering optimism of post Khmer Rouge Cambodia.

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UnHerd: What Brexiteers share with Russians

Where others concerned about the Union’s future have focused on the prospects for an independent Scotland or a united Ireland, however, Lidington turned to the English. “In England,” he told The Times, “I think that there is an indifference to the Union, a sense of taking for granted. It is something that is there as part of the landscape rather than something that you’ve really got to make a conscious effort to work to sustain.” [...]

There is another parallel with England, too. Despite the dominance of ‘their’ republic in the Soviet Union, Russians could legitimately claim to be under-represented and under-valued, echoing complaints made by the English in the UK. Of the 15 Soviet republics, the RSFSR was alone for much of the USSR’s existence in not having its own Communist Party organisation or any permanent assembly or executive to represent its interests. [...]

Far from feeling privileged, many Russians felt that the other – mostly poorer – republics were a drag on their own well-being and development. A Rand Corporation report of 1991, published before the Soviet collapse, identified “a strong movement for self-assertion among the Russian people” and saw some of the writing on the wall. [...]

The English voice in the Brexit process might have been muted, but very similar forces are in play: unrepresentative state structures, a lop-sided devolution and an aggrieved majority. Giving the Russian Republic real devolved power contributed directly to the Soviet collapse. But not doing so is unlikely to have saved the Union, because by then Russia was – to use David Lidington’s word – profoundly “indifferent”, if not actually hostile, to keeping the Union intact.

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UnHerd: How Italy’s populists keep power

Salvini’s recent policies against NGO rescue operations seem mild in comparison. But these aren’t especially deeply felt: they are tactics employed to muster support from the majority of voters whose interests, meanwhile, are being damaged by the League’s real priorities. Indeed, its rhetoric has changed in tune with the anxieties and opportunities of the period. [...]

Italy’s large public debt is itself a manifestation of that problem. Its roots lie in a politico-economic equilibrium that hinders innovation, competition and creative destruction, which are crucial drivers of productivity growth and prosperity. Low political accountability and a weak rule of law are the main traits; clientelism and illegality its clearest manifestations. Tax evasion is between two and three times higher than in France, Germany, or Spain, for example, and corruption is at levels typical of the Balkans. [...]

Its 1992 manifesto – mixing hostility to Rome and the South with threats of tax revolt and secession – was a direct response to the rising tax burden. It argued that the North should keep its own money, and found support among those regions’ professionals, self-employed workers, small entrepreneurs, and their employees. This became the League’s core electorate, and that manifesto barely changed until the 2010s. [...]

In office, however, the League pushed policies that went directly against their interests. It granted a special pension scheme to certain cohorts of workers; it obtained a tax cut for professionals and small entrepreneurs, and demands a yet more generous one; it won a tax-evasion amnesty, wants another one, and proposes to abolish all limits to the use of cash, which will further ease tax evasion; and it defended tooth and nail two junior ministers accused of corruption and embezzlement.

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SciShow Psych: The Stroop Task: The Psych Test You Cannot Beat

The task sounds like it should be pretty easy, but the Stroop task is a fantastic, and very well studied, example of how your brain’s automatic processing can trip you up!

euronews: Government restrictions on religion rising in Europe — Pew Research Centre study

It highlighted that although religious restrictions remain higher in the Middle East-North Africa region, the biggest increases over the last decade have been in Europe and in sub-Saharan Africa.

It flagged, for instance, the growing number of European governments placing limits on Muslim women's dress. In 2007, there were five countries reported to have such restrictions in Europe, by 2017, that number had quadrupled to 20. [...]

Pew also flagged Spain as having experienced the largest increases in its score for government limits on religious activity. Catalonia introduced bans on the burqa and niqab, while religious groups such as Latter-day Saints and Jehovah's Witnesses have faced restrictions on public preaching and proselytising.

Social hostilities related to religious norms also rose dramatically in Europe. Four countries in 2007 reported having individuals or groups who used violence or the threat of violence to try and force others to accept their own religious practices and beliefs.

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Axios: Trump's new impeachment problem

Why it matters: This has the potential to fundamentally change the conversation around impeachment, which has so far mostly focused on possible instances of obstruction of justice as laid out by Robert Mueller's findings. [...]

Our thought bubble: Does racism fit the definition of high crimes? Congress gets to define the term. And if past is prologue, one of Andrew Johnson's articles of impeachment was a non-criminal high misdemeanor of speaking ill of Congress. [...]

What to watch: It's too early to tell whether other members of the Democratic caucus, including Green's colleagues in the Congressional Black Caucus, will take up impeachment with him now that he's renewing bigotry as the reason.

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Politico: How feminist is von der Leyen?

As minister for family affairs, von der Leyen managed to push through what many others didn't even dare talk about in Germany: laws that made clear that raising a child is as much a father's job as it is a mother's. She successfully rebranded "maternity leave" as "parental leave" — no mean feat in a country where for a long time having a family meant the fathers go to work and women do the care-taking. [...]

She also fought for better day care for children, so women wouldn't have to decide between a career and a family. And she insisted gender balance in child raising is not just a women's issue: “Men want to be accepted as active fathers.” She started to talk about measures that would include men in “care work” and help women better reintegrate into the workforce. [...]

Von der Leyen was strong enough politically to weather the storm, partly because she always had Merkel's support. Germany's first female chancellor never wanted to be called a feminist, and so left feminism to von der Leyen, who used the spotlight to put forward the controversial concept of the "conservative feminist." The emancipation of women, she claimed, had to become a conservative project if the party wanted to stay in touch with the pace of social change and with its voters. [...]

But there's no denying that it was von der Leyen — whatever her personal privileges — who delivered breakthrough changes for average middle-class women in Germany. She was also ahead of her time in highlighting that poverty poses a huge problem particularly for women in Germany.

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The Guardian: Croatian police use violence to push back migrants, says president

In an interview with Swiss television, Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović appeared to admit the pushbacks were taking place. She denied they were illegal and also admitted that police used force when doing so.

“I have spoken with the interior minister, the chief of police, and officers on the ground and they assured me they have not been using excessive force,” said Grabar-Kitarović, according to reports of the interview. “Of course, a little bit of force is needed when doing pushbacks.” [...]

Last year in the Bosnian border towns of Velika Kladuša and Bihać the Guardian spoke to dozens of men who said they had been subjected to violence at the hands of Croatian police. Often they were apprehended deep inside Croatian territory and driven back to the border. Women and children generally said they had not been physically assaulted, though there were some exceptions. Many said police had destroyed their telephones and stoleb money before driving them back to the Bosnia-Croatia border and dumping them on the other side. [...]

In a statement last year, the Croatian interior ministry accused the migrants of carrying weapons and inflicting injuries on themselves. The ministry said the Croatian police force always respected the “fundamental rights and dignity of migrants”. Human Rights Watch said that in a meeting in May with the interior ministry, the secretary of state said migrants had fabricated claims of violence and suggested activists were impersonating Croatian police officers.

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The Guardian: ‘I want my country’s image to be good’: has Romania’s ruling party moved on?

In less than 48 hours in May, Romania’s ruling party was given a triple dose of reality when it was badly beaten in European parliamentary elections, rebuked in a referendum on its attempt to reverse tough anti-corruption laws and had its powerful party leader, Liviu Dragnea, jailed for three-and-a-half years for abuse of office. [...]

More than 80% backed a ban on the government having powers to change judicial legislation by emergency decree and the use of pardons in corruption-related cases, as the PSD’s vote share simultaneously more than halved from the 45% it won in the 2016 general election. [...]

In the aftermath of the May votes, Dăncilă vowed to abandon the controversial judicial proposals, a pledge she reiterated this week. “We have understood the message from 26 May. We have not spoken about the justice system, we have not let anybody get involved on that topic … I would like to go back to the agenda that is focused on the citizen, less on the justice system,” she said. [...]

Dăncilă would not be drawn on whether her government would continue to oppose Kövesi’s appointment, but said that she personally believed Kövesi must “solve her issues with the justice system” before taking this kind of role. “What do we do if those accusations are real? I don’t know if they are real or not, it’s a hypothesis, but I believe that the Romanian image will be affected and I want my country’s image to be very good,” she added.

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