Such bureaucratic language does little to explain the human dimension of these crises, and Ogata’s book is bloody but rather...
The former United Nations high commissioner for refugees looks back on a decade’s work.
From 1990 to 2000, Ogata served as “the first woman, the first Japanese, and the first academic” to head the politically sensitive UNHCR, landing the job just at a time when the Cold War was giving way to more open borders for good and increasing ethnic nationalism for ill. The commission was charged with two big tasks: “one to protect refugees in the midst of internal wars and communal conflicts and the other to carry out the large-scale repatriation of refugees to still-insecure and unstable home countries.” UNHCR was severely tested early on when, following defeat in the Gulf War, Saddam Hussein turned against the Kurds and forced a major refugee crisis, compounded both by the unwillingness of neighboring Turkey to provide assistance and by UN sanctions against Iraq, which made it difficult for food, fuel, and other necessities to be brought overland to Kurdish-controlled areas. Within a single week, Ogata writes, 1.75 million Kurds fled from northern Iraq; when the crisis abated, “the pace of return was equally rapid, requiring emergency rehabilitation.” Refugee crises of similar proportions soon emerged in the Balkans, then Rwanda, then the Balkans again, with UNHCR involved in relief efforts that often included military partnerships, a consequence of the evolving use of militaries as peacekeeping forces. Ogata acknowledges that the commission often faced shortages of money, staff, and other essentials; but, unlike former UN field commander Roméo Dallaire, who charges in Shake Hands with the Devil (Jan. 2005) that the UN response in Rwanda was thoroughly insufficient, Ogata maintains that the commission did what it could with what it had and was especially successful in establishing “partnerships with a wide range of actors to meet the critical lifesaving challenges of conflicts and violence.”
Such bureaucratic language does little to explain the human dimension of these crises, and Ogata’s book is bloody but rather bloodless. Still, it makes a useful insider account of the complex politics of humanitarian enterprise.Pub Date: March 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-393-05773-9
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2005
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.
“Quality of life means more than just consumption”: Two MIT economists urge that a smarter, more politically aware economics be brought to bear on social issues.
It’s no secret, write Banerjee and Duflo (co-authors: Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way To Fight Global Poverty, 2011), that “we seem to have fallen on hard times.” Immigration, trade, inequality, and taxation problems present themselves daily, and they seem to be intractable. Economics can be put to use in figuring out these big-issue questions. Data can be adduced, for example, to answer the question of whether immigration tends to suppress wages. The answer: “There is no evidence low-skilled migration to rich countries drives wage and employment down for the natives.” In fact, it opens up opportunities for those natives by freeing them to look for better work. The problem becomes thornier when it comes to the matter of free trade; as the authors observe, “left-behind people live in left-behind places,” which explains why regional poverty descended on Appalachia when so many manufacturing jobs left for China in the age of globalism, leaving behind not just left-behind people but also people ripe for exploitation by nationalist politicians. The authors add, interestingly, that the same thing occurred in parts of Germany, Spain, and Norway that fell victim to the “China shock.” In what they call a “slightly technical aside,” they build a case for addressing trade issues not with trade wars but with consumption taxes: “It makes no sense to ask agricultural workers to lose their jobs just so steelworkers can keep theirs, which is what tariffs accomplish.” Policymakers might want to consider such counsel, especially when it is coupled with the observation that free trade benefits workers in poor countries but punishes workers in rich ones.
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-61039-950-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
A forceful, necessarily provocative call to action for the preservation and protection of American Jewish freedom.
Known for her often contentious perspectives, New York Times opinion writer Weiss battles societal Jewish intolerance through lucid prose and a linear playbook of remedies.
While she was vividly aware of anti-Semitism throughout her life, the reality of the problem hit home when an active shooter stormed a Pittsburgh synagogue where her family regularly met for morning services and where she became a bat mitzvah years earlier. The massacre that ensued there further spurred her outrage and passionate activism. She writes that European Jews face a three-pronged threat in contemporary society, where physical, moral, and political fears of mounting violence are putting their general safety in jeopardy. She believes that Americans live in an era when “the lunatic fringe has gone mainstream” and Jews have been forced to become “a people apart.” With palpable frustration, she adroitly assesses the origins of anti-Semitism and how its prevalence is increasing through more discreet portals such as internet self-radicalization. Furthermore, the erosion of civility and tolerance and the demonization of minorities continue via the “casual racism” of political figures like Donald Trump. Following densely political discourses on Zionism and radical Islam, the author offers a list of bullet-point solutions focused on using behavioral and personal action items—individual accountability, active involvement, building community, loving neighbors, etc.—to help stem the tide of anti-Semitism. Weiss sounds a clarion call to Jewish readers who share her growing angst as well as non-Jewish Americans who wish to arm themselves with the knowledge and intellectual tools to combat marginalization and defuse and disavow trends of dehumanizing behavior. “Call it out,” she writes. “Especially when it’s hard.” At the core of the text is the author’s concern for the health and safety of American citizens, and she encourages anyone “who loves freedom and seeks to protect it” to join with her in vigorous activism.
A forceful, necessarily provocative call to action for the preservation and protection of American Jewish freedom.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-593-13605-8
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 22, 2019
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