Violencia (Continuación)

Efforts by local activists and programs funded by the United States have made Rivera Hernández safer for children, and have decreased northern migration.

MundoAmérica,  

Three years ago, Honduras had the highest homicide rate in the world. The city of San Pedro Sula had the highest homicide rate in the country. And the Rivera Hernández neighborhood, where 194 people were killed or hacked to death in 2013, had the highest homicide rate in the city. Tens of thousands of young Hondurans traveled to the United States to plead for asylum from the drug gangs’ violence.

This summer I returned to Rivera Hernández to find a remarkable reduction in violence, much of it thanks to programs funded by the United States that have helped community leaders tackle crime.…  Seguir leyendo »

La violencia de nuestro tiempo

InternacionalOrden Mundial

En su último libro, La guerra del mundo, el británico Niall Ferguson adopta como tema 'la pregunta más interesante que cualquier historiador podría hacer sobre este pasado siglo: ¿cómo pudo una época que se caracterizó por tanto progreso económico y científico ser tan asombrosamente sedienta de sangre?'. Como es de imaginar, la explicación de Ferguson para este fenómeno es compleja y de gran alcance. Mi preocupación está más bien relacionada con una pregunta que muy pocas veces se presenta en nuestra prensa: '¿quién es el responsable de esas muertes, ellos (es decir, el llamado enemigo) o nosotros?'.

En vista de los acontecimientos de los últimos meses y años, muchos no dudarían en echar la culpa al auge del yihadismo.…  Seguir leyendo »

Derecho a tener miedo

ReflexionesPensamiento, Cultura y Ciencia

¿Existe una patología especial que haga reconocibles a los monstruos, a los asesinos? En su obra mundialmente célebre Si esto es un hombre, Primo Levi, sobreviviente de Auschwitz, advirtió: «Los monstruos existen, pero son demasiado pocos para ser verdaderamente peligrosos: los que son más peligrosos son los hombres corrientes». El miedo nunca ha dejado de ser desprestigiado, sobre todo desde las filas del extremismo político, de los que se quieren revolucionarios. Los ministros del Interior serían calificados, invariablemente y con desprecio, así como las fuerzas de seguridad, de «duros». En cada país, se les recuerda con frases llenas de conmiseración o desprecio diciendo: «Ya se sabe, fue ministro del Interior», como quien tuviera un pasado turbio de maltratador o de vecino conflictivo, aficionado a crear artificialmente problemas.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesSocial,

The latest victim is a French priest, murdered in his church by killers shouting “Allahu akbar! ”Following such attacks, Muslim leaders assure us that, as Tariq Ramadan said after the Paris massacre, the murders are “a pure betrayal of our religion.” After the shootings in Brussels, the leading Sunni university, Al-Azhar, issued a statement saying:

"These heinous crimes violate the tolerant teachings of Islam.” Similar responses followed recent attacks in Orlando and Nice. We are told that the fanatical fringe groups who do these terrible things are at odds with the essential Muslim commitment to peace and love. I understand the reasons for such responses, but they oversimplify the relation of religion to intolerance and the violence it can lead to."…  Seguir leyendo »

Images showing the dying moments of Philando Castile, a black man shot by the police in Minnesota during a traffic stop. Mr. Castile’s girlfriend broadcast the scene on her Facebook page. Credit Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

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We all can see the same videos. But you insist that the camera doesn’t tell the whole story. Of course you’re right, but you don’t really want to see or hear that story.

At birth, you are given a pair of binoculars that see black life from a distance, never with the texture of intimacy. Those binoculars are privilege; they are status, regardless of your class. In fact the greatest privilege that exists is for white folk to get stopped by a cop and not end up dead when the encounter is over.

Those binoculars are also stories, bad stories, biased stories, harmful stories, about how black people are lazy, or dumb, or slick, or immoral, people who can’t be helped by the best schools or even God himself.…  Seguir leyendo »

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On Friday, the city of Dallas was in mourning, and so was I.

We lost five police officers. They were gunned down at a peaceful protest on Thursday night that took place just a few blocks from where I live. I was at that protest too.

So was my friend Angela. She stayed longer than I did, leaving right before the shots rang out. “Peaceful crowd. Sprits lifted and prepped for action. Sad to see it turn out like this,” she later wrote on Facebook.

Everyone is sad to see it turn out like this. The city planned a prayer vigil for noon on Friday and I decided to go and maybe to stay until the end this time.…  Seguir leyendo »

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Thursday night in Dallas, a calm and peaceful protest was shattered by a brutal precision attack against officers at the scene. Just moments before, some of those same officers had been amiably chatting with young families and others in the diverse group of demonstrators.

As the news spread that five officers had been slain and seven others, along with two civilians, wounded, my colleagues in departments around Dallas responded as if family members had been shot.

“My neighbor asked me, ‘Why are you crying? You said you didn’t know any of those guys,’” one friend who recently retired said to me.…  Seguir leyendo »

Una Copa escrupulosa con la ley

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La polémica sobre las esteladas tiene muchos perfiles. Conviene por ello deslindar el plano de la realidad social y política de las cuestiones jurídicas. La diferencia esencial es que estas últimas se deben ajustar a la ley y no verse contaminadas por la situación política o por la coyuntura, por más que ésta no nos guste y por más que reconozcamos que el problema de fondo es esa tentación recurrente de convertir  acontecimientos deportivos en el campo de batalla de cuestiones que tienen una naturaleza diferente y que no se corresponden con la esencia del deporte.

También hay que asumir que aplicar ese deslinde de planos no tiene morbo social, porque los argumentos técnicos son, sin duda, mucho más aburridos y complejos que los apasionantes debates de la vida política.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesPensamiento, Cultura y Ciencia

Afirma San Agustín que el homicidio puede darse sin pecado, como en el caso de los soldados (Del libre albedrío, I, 4, 9). Queda abierto el problema de las condiciones y límites que debe respetar quien da órdenes al soldado. Los que en la historia han tenido un poder absoluto, desde Calígula a Stalin, Pinochet o Kim Jong-un, no han admitido más límites que sus deseos, sus intereses y sus caprichos. Pero la civilización consiste en precisar y respetar esos límites.

El problema se complica por el abismo que suele separar lo que piensan, lo que dicen y lo que hacen los poderosos.…  Seguir leyendo »

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América Latina y el Caribe presentan actualmente las tasas de homicidio más altas del mundo, tanto en relación a su población como en números absolutos. En algunos países, las tasas de violencia armada superan aquellas de países en guerra. Las armas de fuego juegan un papel preponderante en esta problemática. En la región, su letalidad y la proporción de homicidios ejecutados con ellas superan ampliamente el promedio mundial. Los costes humanos, sociales y económicos de la violencia armada son incalculables y afectan negativamente a países y sociedades durante décadas, deteniendo e incluso revirtiendo procesos de desarrollo. Este documento de trabajo analiza el vínculo identificable entre la posesión civil de armas de fuego y los índices de violencia en América Latina y el Caribe.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo,

If you think 2016 is going to be a better year for Israel and the Palestinians, I'd advise lying down and waiting until the feeling passes.

Two days before Christmas, an Israeli Jew was fatally stabbed and another injured and later accidentally killed by security forces in an attack by Palestinian youths. The incident was the latest of the some 120 attacks and attempted assaults that, since October, had left 19 Israelis dead -- and several times that number of Palestinians. And now, on the first day of the new year, two people were killed and at least seven hurt in a shooting at a pub in Tel Aviv.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesPensamiento, Cultura y Ciencia,

Belles âmes laïques, pieux « a-théologiens », vous pouvez toujours ­rêver. Ce n’est pas demain que l’on expurgera la Bible ni qu’on la mettra au ­pilon. Il va falloir faire avec elle et avec ceux qui croient que Dieu y parle. Or la ­Bible, oui, est le grand livre des massacres. La ­Bible est violente. Ni plus ni moins que la vie. Bien sûr, décrire la violence est une chose. La prescrire et l’exalter en est une autre. C’est précisément là que le bât blesse. Le Dieu de la Bible est une brute. Il aime le sang des batailles. Il aime le sang des sacrifices  : celui des animaux, celui d’Isaac aussi (épargné quand même in ­extremis).…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesPensamiento, Cultura y Ciencia,

« Génie du paganisme » : j’avais, jadis, utilisé cette expression pour esquisser un projet inverse de celui de Chateaubriand, auteur du Génie du christianisme, en 1802. Il entendait montrer que le christianisme, dont la vérité lui paraissait hors de doute, avait de grandes beautés ; en face des œuvres de l’Antiquité païenne, il entreprenait de magnifier celles du christianisme. Mon projet, toutes proportions gardées, était de souligner les aspects de connaissance inclus dans les logiques païennes, au lieu de leurs seules dimensions artistiques (musique, danse…), et de montrer qu’il était possible de subsumer leur diversité sous un concept unique de « paganisme ».…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesPensamiento, Cultura y Ciencia,

Les religions monothéistes ont plutôt mauvaise presse. On leur reproche d’engendrer l’intolérance, la violence et les fanatismes. L’actualité semble confirmer une telle appréciation. De nombreux conflits du monde actuel et les attentats terroristes à Paris et ailleurs ont des composantes idéologiques. Au nom du Dieu unique, on tue, on exclut, on prêche la haine et l’intolérance.

Pendant plusieurs siècles, l’avènement du monothéisme a pourtant été considéré comme un progrès intellectuel et philosophique dans l’histoire de l’humanité. Grâce au monothéisme mosaïque, à l’origine du judaïsme et sans lequel ni le christianisme ni l’islam n’auraient vu le jour, l’humanité aurait abandonné la divinisation de la nature et se serait libérée d’une soumission superstitieuse aux éléments cosmiques.…  Seguir leyendo »

US Special Forces in Khost, Afghanistan; photograph published in The New York Times on August 30, 2002, and included in David Shields’s War is Beautiful, 2015

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A handsome book just arrived on my desk. War Is Beautiful the title declares. Surely not! Then I see the subtitle: “The New York Times Pictorial Guide to the Glamour of Armed Conflict.” Ah, irony. An asterisk takes me to some tiny print at the bottom left of the cover: “(in which the author explains why he no longer reads The New York Times).” And who is the author? David Shields, the man who gave us Reality Hunger and many other thoughtful provocations. In fact, I now recall that a couple of years ago Shields, with whom I occasionally exchange an email opinion or two, and who was then on the lookout for a publisher, ran this project past me and although at the time I saw neither the book’s title or its actual photographic contents, I endorsed his introductory essay with the quote: “Absolutely right, to the point and guaranteed to stir things up.”…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAméricaReflexionesIslam y Mundo Árabe,

A 12-year-old girl is beaten at school in New York, is called “ISIS” and nearly has her hijab torn off by her classmates. A 16-year-old Somali American dies in a fall from a six-story building in Seattle that his family and the Muslim community in the city suspect was the result of foul play. Rocks are thrown through the windows of a Muslim family’s home in Plano, Tex. A shop owner in Queens, N.Y., is attacked at his business by a man shouting, “I’ll kill Muslims.” This is only a small sampling of the recent violence and hate crimes against Muslims, which have reached record highs.…  Seguir leyendo »

The Words That Killed Medieval Jews

ReflexionesSocial

Do harsh words lead to violent acts? At a moment when hate speech seems to be proliferating, it’s a question worth asking.

Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch recently expressed worry that heated anti-Muslim political rhetoric would spark an increase in attacks against Muslims. Some claim that last month’s mass shooting in Colorado Springs was provoked by Carly Fiorina’s assertion that Planned Parenthood was “harvesting baby parts”; Mrs. Fiorina countered that language could not be held responsible for the deeds of a “deranged” man. Similar debates have been occasioned by the beating of a homeless Hispanic man in Boston, allegedly inspired by Donald J.…  Seguir leyendo »

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On cache la mort. La société française tend de plus en plus à dissimuler, sinon à minorer, les expressions de la mort au cœur de la société et ce, comme si elle n’existait pas. Le sentiment est alors presque enfantin : en ne la regardant pas en face, peut-être que la chose disparaîtra. Il y a près d’un an, nous incitions les citoyens à oser regarder la Mort (et le phénomène funéraire) «en face».

Depuis plusieurs années, on enjolive par des soins de thanatopraxie des corps-morts que l’on ne souhaite plus affronter tels quels et qui apparaîtraient presque comme des vivants.…  Seguir leyendo »

The Facebook Intifada

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Three weeks ago, my father was riding on a public bus in Jerusalem’s Armon Hanatziv neighborhood when terrorists from East Jerusalem shot him in the head and stabbed him multiple times. Afterward, as he lay unconscious in the intensive care unit of Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem, fighting for his life, one question was on my mind: What inspired the two young Palestinian men to savagely attack my father and a busload of passengers?

My father, Richard Lakin, dedicated his life to the cause of Israeli-Arab reconciliation. Ever since moving to Israel from Connecticut in the 1980s, he spent his career teaching English to Israeli and Arab children.…  Seguir leyendo »

A city employee removes wooden crosses that were placed in a plaza by organizations protesting against the government inaction over the alarming murder rate in San Salvador, El Salvador, on Sept. 1. (Salvador Melendez / Associated Press)

ReflexionesPensamiento, Cultura y Ciencia,

Whenever tragedy strikes in America, some conservative politician or pundit will inevitably blame it on secularism. In the aftermath of the shooting at Umpqua Community College, for example, Fox host Bill O'Reilly cited weakening religion as the culprit. "As the world becomes more secular," he declared, "civilized restraints to bad behavior drop." Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee offered similar sentiments after the 2012 school shooting in Newtown, Conn., blaming such wanton violence on the fact that "we have systematically removed God from our schools."

The theory is simple: If people become less religious, then society will decay. Crime will skyrocket, violence will rise, and once-civilized life will degenerate into immorality and depravity.…  Seguir leyendo »