I can't decide if I like the shtick, but props for posting anything about Africa. The entire continent probably gets less mind share than Israel/Palestine.
Great article! Welcome to the club of people who have research interests in giant problems that no one cares about. Now I need to send Matt a pitch for my article on the growth of megacities in the global South and the failure of the big international donors to shift their priorities to urban health infrastructure.
Urban health infrastructure in megacities of the Global South seems like a natural fit for Matt. Some of his solution is surely going to involve allowing people to move to existing cities in high income areas rather than megacities that haven't built out their infrastructure yet. But an equitable future world will have megacities in all regions, and the problems of developing infrastructure for new ones are interestingly different from the problems of bringing people into existing infrastructure for old ones.
It's a really thorny set of problems, in part because you have to build the plane while flying plane, and you have to fly the plane while millions of people are somehow still embarking and maybe clinging onto the landing gear which...kind of breaks this metaphor, so I'm going to let it go. It dramatically illustrates the whole "are people infrastructure" debate of a month ago, because most of the world's megacities are very new, and they need social and political and health care infrastructure almost as badly as they need physical pipes and roads and electricity lines, which, to be clear, is "pretty f#$%ing badly."
Glad to see some reporting on foreign countries. Slow Boring is a great source of information on topics that aren’t headline news in the US, and foreign affairs in particular really needs more of that kind of coverage, I’m glad to see it here!
This could have left out the “I was previously a senior writer for John Oliver” bit and I would absolutely have still thought “this guy sounds like John Oliver”
Matt: give us a monthly Chad Takes guest column, so we too can be knowledgable about all things Chad
I’m a bit disappointed. I had an email from Matty titled “Challenge accepted, asshole” and I thought “finally! Matt has lost patience with someone to such an extent that he’s gonna go all Greenwald on their ass!” *Sigh*. No such luck.
This is my screwup; language from an old draft made it into the final. We're fixing it. It remains true that there are more people in Chad than Israel/Palestine. Sorry about that.
This is definitely proving the point about the value of a take on Chad. I wonder if there's been more on this in the Francophone press based on their historical relationship with France?
The only reason I know _anything_ about what's going on in the Sahel right now outside of Libya's breakdown is that Peter Zeihan talks about it a bit in Disunited Nations, which led me to Google a few things.
I feel like Mali had a fair amount of coverage, at least in the UK, during the 2012 insurgency - I have no idea why that ended up with (what seemed like) comparatively more attention though
Yes! I live in France and all of this was covered in the news this year. Idriss Déby’s sudden death (and on the very next day after he was declared winner of his reelection bid!!) was big news here.
The substance of this article was valuable. But the tone was awful. This is why I try to limit my intake of political news and information to print (including written internet) sources and stay away from TV. The insults. The profanity. The put-on snark. The aggression. For me, it ruins real discourse.
It was hilarious. Clearly many jokes are inserted and it's not like every snippet is meant to be taken seriously. I think that's the only reason I was able to finish the article given my relative lack of interest in Chad.
Why did it rub you so much the wrong way? Genuinely curious. Do you not enjoy John Oliver? Why? I'm not bothered by profanity and all the rest of it seems clearly all put on. I like the over the top nature.
I don’t enjoy John Oliver. He’s smart and raises interesting issues, and I almost always agree with his positions. But he supplies much more heat than light. And I don’t want that from my sources of news and commentary. I think it impedes my understanding. Presumably he’s got lots of viewers and they think otherwise.
I enjoyed this piece, but Matt, can you put 'GUEST POST' in the title of guest posts? I always read about a paragraph before realizing, and get very confused.
Maybe we leave this one to France? I mean, we aren't the only potential pro-stability and pro-Western political influencer on the world front. Why not take advantage of those Biden-repairing relationships with our allies and let them handle some of the load (which was kind of Trump's obsession anyway)? Especially because France seems to already be ahead of the curve on this one (due to their prior Colonial connections, etc), so rather than being the Drunk Uncle who steps in with a Grand Opinion about Hanging Chads back in 2000, we leave it to Macron and Company to do both the grandstanding and the backchanneling?
Certainly we aren't the only influencer. But why wouldn't we add whatever influence we do have on top of the French influence? If you have a real reason to think our attempts would be counterproductive, that's one thing, but the existence of other countries doesn't seem like a real reason to ignore something if we can help.
1) With a hollowed out State Department, maybe we don't have the experts who really know what's going on and how to respond. So we bumble in and step on France's toes while they attempt to craft a more nuanced approach. If France can do this on their own, why not let them?
2) With our credibility in the rest of the world diminished, maybe we shut the fuck up on things we aren't truly expert on and haven't cultivated influence in? As Matt points out in his other piece today, "activism" by itself can be counter-productive, and the last thing we need is a bunch of lazy hashgtaggers stirring up U.S. college protests on the latest Issue De Jure with Instagram headlines that obscure rather than enlighten. (See how much that's helping with the Israeli-Palestine conflict...)
3) Though the Trump adminstration's ham-handedness ruined everything, the (formerly) conservative premise that America has to be the world cop on everything is still rightly questioned. Especially since World War II, we have helped build up pro-democracy, pro-stability alliances where countries like France, Germany and Britain can actually carry some of that load. Why not enjoy the fruits of those labors in a constructive way? Why do we always have to be In Charge?
I didn't say we have to be in charge, nor do I think the article or anybody else here did. It seems France has appropriately taken a lead. There is a great deal of space between "in charge" and "do nothing" and I think it's appropriate for State to evaluate whether they can make a marginally positive impact. I see your other points, although I think they assume without evidence we have zero expertise on the subject. If we really don't think we can have any positive impact, fine. But that's a very different thought than your original comment.
I hear you on that great deal of space. I imagine State is doing that evaluation and letting them do it without the pressure of needing to be appearing to do something may be the sweet spot. If they decide France can handle it, then maybe France can handle it.
Yeah. That sounds about right to me. Of course it goes without saying that Chad itself will be the real determinant. Certainly I hope they can find a good result, and I hope they get whatever help is available whether French, American or otherwise. I'll be paying more than the zero attention I was before Matt's earlier post and this one.
Biden is repairing relationships with whom? Asking for a lot of angry EU citizens living in the US. The EU is still under a travel ban that doesn't allow parents/friends to come see us here AND demands us to somehow convince our employers to let us work from Mexico for two weeks before re-entering if we want to go back to see our parents/friends.
Re: brainstorming for the Chad Tourism Board--the Lonely Planet's slogan for Chad isn't *quite* “A Crossroads For Some Of The World’s Deadliest Conflicts," but its old introduction to the country was not too far off:
"Wave goodbye to your comfort zone and say hello to Chad. Put simply, Chad is a place and
an experience that you’ll never forget! If Ghana and Gambia are Africa for beginners, Chad
is Africa for the hardcore.
To say that travel here can be tough is a major understatement. In much of the country
the roads are utterly diabolical, the tourist infrastructure somewhere below zero, the paperwork overwhelming, the corruption wallet draining, the summer heat mind melting, the
costs astronomical and the security situation highly unstable. . . ."
(http://media.lonelyplanet.com/shop/pdfs/africa-12-chad-preview.pdf). It appears they've softened their copy a bit in the most recent versions, though, but not by much ("Chad has always been some place where travellers wave goodbye to their comfort zone and say hello to adventure. . . . [C]ome to a place that promises experiences, good and bad, that happen nowhere else.")
Lonely Planet isn't any country's tourism board; their mission is to inform tourists, not convince them to go to each and every place. While I'm no Lady Gaga of Chad, it certainly sounds like an objectively poor choice of tourist destination. I don't see any particular reason Lonely Planet shouldn't be direct about that.
I can't decide if I like the shtick, but props for posting anything about Africa. The entire continent probably gets less mind share than Israel/Palestine.
It's beautiful shtick
Foreign policy is a perfect Slow Boring topic. Let’s have more overseas takes that are non-ripped from today’s American headlines
Somebody call in Josh Keating. https://slate.com/tag/if-it-happened-there
Great article! Welcome to the club of people who have research interests in giant problems that no one cares about. Now I need to send Matt a pitch for my article on the growth of megacities in the global South and the failure of the big international donors to shift their priorities to urban health infrastructure.
Urban health infrastructure in megacities of the Global South seems like a natural fit for Matt. Some of his solution is surely going to involve allowing people to move to existing cities in high income areas rather than megacities that haven't built out their infrastructure yet. But an equitable future world will have megacities in all regions, and the problems of developing infrastructure for new ones are interestingly different from the problems of bringing people into existing infrastructure for old ones.
It's a really thorny set of problems, in part because you have to build the plane while flying plane, and you have to fly the plane while millions of people are somehow still embarking and maybe clinging onto the landing gear which...kind of breaks this metaphor, so I'm going to let it go. It dramatically illustrates the whole "are people infrastructure" debate of a month ago, because most of the world's megacities are very new, and they need social and political and health care infrastructure almost as badly as they need physical pipes and roads and electricity lines, which, to be clear, is "pretty f#$%ing badly."
I've heard murmurs of building height restrictions in India, but I don't actually know anything about the topic. It'd be interesting for sure.
I'd also be interested in learning more about urban planning in China and housing prices there.
Glad to see some reporting on foreign countries. Slow Boring is a great source of information on topics that aren’t headline news in the US, and foreign affairs in particular really needs more of that kind of coverage, I’m glad to see it here!
Also this was a fun read, well done.
This could have left out the “I was previously a senior writer for John Oliver” bit and I would absolutely have still thought “this guy sounds like John Oliver”
Matt: give us a monthly Chad Takes guest column, so we too can be knowledgable about all things Chad
All of this yes
I was expecting an article about arrogant jocks who try to steal your girlfriend.
It's about time we hear from Chad himself.
Honestly, same.
Oh, come on.
Rank ignorance by the MATTS YGLESIAS of the world.
For Pete’s sake.
Matt Yglesia? Yglesii?
Excellent point. Where were you on this one, Grammarly?!?!
The most important things I've learned from feedback to this article are:
1) The proper plural of Matt Yglesias is Matts Yglesii;
2) Young Mao Zedong looked a lot like Christopher Walken: https://twitter.com/pumkinbaer/status/1415681426356203526/photo/1
Would those be Petes Buttigieg?
I’m a bit disappointed. I had an email from Matty titled “Challenge accepted, asshole” and I thought “finally! Matt has lost patience with someone to such an extent that he’s gonna go all Greenwald on their ass!” *Sigh*. No such luck.
But great piece.
Israel/Palestine population is around 14 million (9.4 m Israel, 2.5 m west bank, 2 m Gaza)
This is my screwup; language from an old draft made it into the final. We're fixing it. It remains true that there are more people in Chad than Israel/Palestine. Sorry about that.
This is definitely proving the point about the value of a take on Chad. I wonder if there's been more on this in the Francophone press based on their historical relationship with France?
There is definitely more coverage of Francophone Africa in France than there is in the United States, but that's judging against a very low baseline.
The only reason I know _anything_ about what's going on in the Sahel right now outside of Libya's breakdown is that Peter Zeihan talks about it a bit in Disunited Nations, which led me to Google a few things.
I feel like Mali had a fair amount of coverage, at least in the UK, during the 2012 insurgency - I have no idea why that ended up with (what seemed like) comparatively more attention though
Yes! I live in France and all of this was covered in the news this year. Idriss Déby’s sudden death (and on the very next day after he was declared winner of his reelection bid!!) was big news here.
The substance of this article was valuable. But the tone was awful. This is why I try to limit my intake of political news and information to print (including written internet) sources and stay away from TV. The insults. The profanity. The put-on snark. The aggression. For me, it ruins real discourse.
It was hilarious. Clearly many jokes are inserted and it's not like every snippet is meant to be taken seriously. I think that's the only reason I was able to finish the article given my relative lack of interest in Chad.
Why did it rub you so much the wrong way? Genuinely curious. Do you not enjoy John Oliver? Why? I'm not bothered by profanity and all the rest of it seems clearly all put on. I like the over the top nature.
I don’t enjoy John Oliver. He’s smart and raises interesting issues, and I almost always agree with his positions. But he supplies much more heat than light. And I don’t want that from my sources of news and commentary. I think it impedes my understanding. Presumably he’s got lots of viewers and they think otherwise.
I enjoyed this piece, but Matt, can you put 'GUEST POST' in the title of guest posts? I always read about a paragraph before realizing, and get very confused.
Maybe we leave this one to France? I mean, we aren't the only potential pro-stability and pro-Western political influencer on the world front. Why not take advantage of those Biden-repairing relationships with our allies and let them handle some of the load (which was kind of Trump's obsession anyway)? Especially because France seems to already be ahead of the curve on this one (due to their prior Colonial connections, etc), so rather than being the Drunk Uncle who steps in with a Grand Opinion about Hanging Chads back in 2000, we leave it to Macron and Company to do both the grandstanding and the backchanneling?
Certainly we aren't the only influencer. But why wouldn't we add whatever influence we do have on top of the French influence? If you have a real reason to think our attempts would be counterproductive, that's one thing, but the existence of other countries doesn't seem like a real reason to ignore something if we can help.
Here are my concerns:
1) With a hollowed out State Department, maybe we don't have the experts who really know what's going on and how to respond. So we bumble in and step on France's toes while they attempt to craft a more nuanced approach. If France can do this on their own, why not let them?
2) With our credibility in the rest of the world diminished, maybe we shut the fuck up on things we aren't truly expert on and haven't cultivated influence in? As Matt points out in his other piece today, "activism" by itself can be counter-productive, and the last thing we need is a bunch of lazy hashgtaggers stirring up U.S. college protests on the latest Issue De Jure with Instagram headlines that obscure rather than enlighten. (See how much that's helping with the Israeli-Palestine conflict...)
3) Though the Trump adminstration's ham-handedness ruined everything, the (formerly) conservative premise that America has to be the world cop on everything is still rightly questioned. Especially since World War II, we have helped build up pro-democracy, pro-stability alliances where countries like France, Germany and Britain can actually carry some of that load. Why not enjoy the fruits of those labors in a constructive way? Why do we always have to be In Charge?
I didn't say we have to be in charge, nor do I think the article or anybody else here did. It seems France has appropriately taken a lead. There is a great deal of space between "in charge" and "do nothing" and I think it's appropriate for State to evaluate whether they can make a marginally positive impact. I see your other points, although I think they assume without evidence we have zero expertise on the subject. If we really don't think we can have any positive impact, fine. But that's a very different thought than your original comment.
I hear you on that great deal of space. I imagine State is doing that evaluation and letting them do it without the pressure of needing to be appearing to do something may be the sweet spot. If they decide France can handle it, then maybe France can handle it.
Yeah. That sounds about right to me. Of course it goes without saying that Chad itself will be the real determinant. Certainly I hope they can find a good result, and I hope they get whatever help is available whether French, American or otherwise. I'll be paying more than the zero attention I was before Matt's earlier post and this one.
Biden is repairing relationships with whom? Asking for a lot of angry EU citizens living in the US. The EU is still under a travel ban that doesn't allow parents/friends to come see us here AND demands us to somehow convince our employers to let us work from Mexico for two weeks before re-entering if we want to go back to see our parents/friends.
Re: brainstorming for the Chad Tourism Board--the Lonely Planet's slogan for Chad isn't *quite* “A Crossroads For Some Of The World’s Deadliest Conflicts," but its old introduction to the country was not too far off:
"Wave goodbye to your comfort zone and say hello to Chad. Put simply, Chad is a place and
an experience that you’ll never forget! If Ghana and Gambia are Africa for beginners, Chad
is Africa for the hardcore.
To say that travel here can be tough is a major understatement. In much of the country
the roads are utterly diabolical, the tourist infrastructure somewhere below zero, the paperwork overwhelming, the corruption wallet draining, the summer heat mind melting, the
costs astronomical and the security situation highly unstable. . . ."
(http://media.lonelyplanet.com/shop/pdfs/africa-12-chad-preview.pdf). It appears they've softened their copy a bit in the most recent versions, though, but not by much ("Chad has always been some place where travellers wave goodbye to their comfort zone and say hello to adventure. . . . [C]ome to a place that promises experiences, good and bad, that happen nowhere else.")
Lonely Planet isn't any country's tourism board; their mission is to inform tourists, not convince them to go to each and every place. While I'm no Lady Gaga of Chad, it certainly sounds like an objectively poor choice of tourist destination. I don't see any particular reason Lonely Planet shouldn't be direct about that.
Laughter and learning something new to start my day: kudos.
I appreciated learning many new things from this post. But I am totally awed by the Shari Lewis reference.