Links - 23rd November 2018 (1)

Zahid says other races prejudiced against Malays, will not open up Umno - "Zahid pointed out, however, this did not mean that Umno was "racist, biased, prejudice," nor a threat to other races. "Malays do not oppress or sideline other races, nor do we forcibly take the rights of other races. "Instead, we have proven that we act on 'Malay wisdom' and base our moral compass on fairness and goodwill," he said. However, Zahid said it was other ethnic groups that were biased and prejudiced towards Malays. "Malays are accused of being stupid, supposedly lazy and being too reliant on subsidy and government aid. "More saddening is when our race is described as a beggar race, and those who are in the government today are willing to see their own race being insulted," he said. The Umno president added that as a result of this prejudice, Malays find it hard to find work in private companies owned by non-Malays. "Malays still fail to control the economy due to discrimination""
Given that even Malay companies prefer Chinese workers...
Perhaps 'discrimination' exists for reasons beyond mere prejudice

Woman who does not understand rape blasted on Imgur - "'I've had consensual sex & regretted it later. I thought I wanted to do it. Made a mistake. Wasn't rape at all,' the woman named Leann tweeted in 2015. However, a woman known as Jesse boldly disagreed with her, responding: 'No, if you regret it then you did not fully 100 per cent consent and that is rape.' She continued: 'You may not want to admit you were raped because it's very traumatic but you were raped.' Unsurprisingly, the woman's skewed logic received plenty of backlash, especially when Leann made it clear that her experience with sexual regret was not rape... 'As a woman who was legitimately raped, I hope that woman is banished to the darkest, cruelest depths of hell,' CrazyMrowLady wrote"

Why the UK has such cheap food - "in relative terms, the British grocery shop remains one of the cheapest in the world. Britons spend an average of 8% of their total household expenditure on food to eat at home. This is less than any other country apart from the US and Singapore, according to data from market research firm Euromonitor... The proportion of household income spent on food has more than halved over the past 60 years, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), while spending on housing costs and leisure activities has doubled"

Who are the children hoping to earn £24 an hour?
Bangladeshi 25 year old men with degrees earn more than white ones. Black African and Indian 25 year old women earn more than white ones

What British people think about Brexit now - "Before last year's general election, polls that asked people how they would vote if the referendum question was asked again often found a small majority in favour of Leave. But since then, nearly every poll has found a small majority saying that they would vote Remain. However, there is no consistent evidence suggesting that support for Remain has subsequently increased further"

Erdogan's Turkey - "The polarisation deepened as Erdogan was shaken by leaks of phone conversations later in 2013 that appeared to implicate him and his inner circle in corruption allegations, which he fiercely denied. He stoked the old Ottoman-era mentality of a Turkey under siege from its enemies, illustrated by the old adage “the only friend of a Turk is a Turk”. There was a new conspiracy theory every week as the prime minister increasingly turned to arch-loyalists, while expelling or sidelining members of his own party who dared to dissent. Freedom of expression was heavily squeezed. The progress of Erdogan's early years receded, as critical journalists, writers or artists were tarnished as “traitors”. Turkey regained its record as the world's leading jailer of journalists... journalists have been variously charged with “terrorism propaganda” or “insulting the president”... After the coup of 1971, she was forced to flee the country with her husband, facing imprisonment and possible torture for being leftists. “That time was still better than now,” she says, “because there was a judiciary you could trust and civil courts you could rely on. Now they are all under pressure and there's no separation of powers as there should be in a democracy. I really fear for the future of my country.”... In the last week of the campaign, the governors of Istanbul and Ankara banned two large “no” rallies, claiming they couldn’t guarantee security. “Yes” rallies, however, went ahead – and free buses were provided to transport those who wanted to come... In some places “no” campaigners have been attacked and some people have been sacked for publicising their opposition... “Democracy is like a train, Erdogan once famously said. “You get off once you have reached your destination.”"

How Recep Tayyip Erdogan Made Turkey Authoritarian Again - "Erdogan’s widening purge and crackdown are just the logical conclusion of a story that has been unfolding for the better part of a decade. Turkey’s democracy has not been lost—there was no democracy for it to lose."

My experience of intimate partner violence, trapped in Turkey | Lacy MacAuley - "I am a radical activist based in Washington DC. I fell in love with an energetic, charismatic activist... I decided to return to Turkey with the promise of love driving me forward. I couldn’t have known things would turn sour. I thought that even if this were not going to develop into a deeper relationship, it would be an opportunity to learn more about this Muslim country during an interesting political moment, and I could do some work around refugees... Then came our first fight. I had wanted to interview a local woman for an article on Syrian refugees. He did not approve. He knew the woman and did not like her, so he strictly forbade me from speaking with her. After I questioned his rationale, he yelled and stormed out of the room to go smoke a cigarette. I just stood in the middle of the room not knowing what to do. Of course, as a Western woman, no one had ever forbidden me from speaking with anyone else... Unwanted sex? Rape? All the time. He did not stop to determine whether I consented to sex. Several times, he turned off my wifi and lied about it, a modern-day form of gaslighting. He verbally criticized me for using social media, my main link to the rest of my life back in the US, and tried to discourage me from using it. He forced me to unfriend one Turkish man on Facebook, and wanted me to unfriend many more... He would look at my social media profiles and rebuke me for my commentary. At first, I genuinely questioned my perspective, and wondered if I should take his words into account. After all, he is Turkish and I am not. But I soon realized that I did not share his opinions on Turkey’s domestic or foreign policy. I stood my ground on my right to free speech... I couldn’t have guessed that this man, who said he cared about women’s rights, who spoke of how many activist friends that he had, who had participated in many protests in the past, would turn on me, and that he would become so angry and irrational. One-third of men surveyed in Turkey in 2013 stated that it is “occasionally necessary” to commit acts of violence against women, and 28 percent stated that violence could be used to “discipline women.”... I honestly think that one of the reasons that I have been silent about this for two months has been that I did not want to feed into the narrative of Muslim men being aggressive. I didn’t want to fuel hatred or racism. But silence breeds complicity, and am now telling this story in order to heal... How can a radical activist and a feminist find herself in a relationship like this?... about 42 percent of women in Turkey report intimate partner violence... I tried to post this article on a blog for Personal Domestic Violence Stories, but the story was not accepted, perhaps because of political content"
Intersectionality?

Effective vs. Pathological Altruism - "Certain kinds of aid to poor countries can have tangible benefits in the short run, but long run costs, such as an expanding population in poor countries that is more likely to suffer the ravages of famine, pestilence, and war. Unless we take a sufficiently long-run view of the effects of alternative institutions, altruism can become pathological."

Foreign Aid, Fertility and Population Growth:Evidence from Africa - "This article investigates the relationship between foreign aid and population growth in sub-Saharan Africa. The work considers population growth rate and a directly related to fertility demographic indicator – total fertility rate. Using a panel of 43 African countries over the last four decades of the 20th century, it demonstrates the positive association between foreign aid and population growth and suggests that foreign aid affects population growth primarily through its effect on fertility. These findings suggest that the appreciation of the demographic effect of foreign aid can have important implications for the design of policies regarding to foreign aid for presently developing countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa."
Foreign aid creates the need for more foreign aid

US Food Aid and Civil Conflict - "We study the effect of U.S. food aid on conflict in recipient countries. Our analysis exploits time variation in food aid shipments due to changes in U.S. wheat production and cross-sectional variation in a country's tendency to receive any U.S. food aid. According to our estimates, an increase in U.S. food aid increases the incidence and duration of civil conflicts, but has no robust effect on inter-state conflicts or the onset of civil conflicts. We also provide suggestive evidence that the effects are most pronounced in countries with a recent history of civil conflict."
If food aid increases civil conflicts, is the right thing to do not to give it?

The Science Is In: Greater Equality Makes Societies Healthier and Richer - "there is a very strong tendency for ill health and social problems to occur less frequently in the more equal countries... To emphasize that the prevalence of poor health and social problems in rich countries really is related to inequality rather than to average living standards, we show in Figure 2 the same Index of Health and Social Problems, but this time in relation to average incomes (national income per person). It shows that there is no clear trend toward better outcomes in richer countries. The evidence from the United States confirms the international picture. Across states, health and social problems are related to income inequality, but not to average income levels... Across whole populations, rates of mental illness are three times as high in the most unequal societies compared with the least unequal societies. Similarly, in more unequal societies, people are almost ten times as likely to be imprisoned and two or three times as likely to be clinically obese, and murder rates may be many times higher. The reason why these differences are so big is, quite simply, because the effects of inequality are not confined just to the least well-off: instead, they affect the vast majority of the population... in the data there is also a clear warning for those who want low public expenditure and taxation: if you fail to avoid high inequality, you will need more prisons and more police. You will have to deal with higher rates of mental illness, drug abuse, and every other kind of problem. If keeping taxes and benefits down leads to wider income differences, the ensuing social ills may force you to raise public expenditure to cope."