The Hypocrisy of Bhutan and their Gross National Happiness

Bhutan is a small landlocked country in the Himalayas stuck between India and China. On 18th of July 2008 the goal according to the constitution of Bhutan was to increase Gross National Happiness (GNH). GNH is a measure of the people's happiness within Bhutan, this is a measure of individual well-fare used in the stead of GDP and other economic measures. According to a first hand account the questions every citizen receives are very subjective. Though the government collects these answers they don't present an immediate solution.

Though this system has some potential as a measure of an individual's wellbeing instead of using more traditional economic measurements. The hypocrisy of Bhutan using this method is all too prevalent when you consider they forcibly removed Nepalese residents living in Bhutan in the 1990s. This established Bhutan as the largest creator of refugees per capita. Bhutan expelled the Lhotshampa, an ethnic group with its origins in Nepal which made up one-sixth of Bhutan’s population. This was justified as preserving the unique Bhutanese culture and language. Many of the members of the Lhotshampa were Bhutanese citizens and forced out by the military and forced to sign papers saying it was voluntary. It has been more than 20 years since the explosion of these individuals, the Bhutanese government has admitted no wrongdoing or provided them with any means of survival. Many refugees have sought refuge in Europe and North America never able to return home.

Bhutan wishes to be an example of a government that puts its peoples wellbeing above all else, to the Bhutanese government the “people” they care about are only those who are born, speak, and follow Bhutanese culture. Bhutan has become an example of how to create a humanitarian crisis not an example of how to increase the peoples happiness. 

A Lhotshampa refugee presets a Bhutanese passport.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lotshampa_refugees_in_Beldangi_Camp.jpg

https://thediplomat.com/2016/09/bhutans-dark-secret-the-lhotshampa-expulsion/

http://bhutaneserefugees.com/

The US Withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement

    President Donald Trump told the American people in June of 2017 that he intended on pulling out of the Paris Climate Agreement. This is obviously not an immediate decision and would take a year to officially withdrawal from such an agreement. The official withdrawal documents were sent in on November 4, 2019 and it will take a year for the actual withdrawal to happen, marking November 4, 2020 as the official date the US will pull out of the Paris Climate agreement (Woodward, 2019). 

    The Paris Climate Agreement was created to try and tackle the idea of climate change and to bring all of the Nations in the world together to work towards this common goal. To be more specific, the aim of the agreement is to try to keep the global temperature to 2 degrees Celsius below what the temperatures were before industrial times (United Nations 2015). The total number of nations that have ratified the Agreement as of today can be found through this link:

 https://unfccc.int/process/the-paris-agreement/status-of-ratification

    The picture below outlines a few goals for the criteria that the World Resources Institute outlined that if achieved will help turn the world in the right direction and work towards meeting the ideas of the Paris Agreement.

https://www.wri.org/resources/data-visualizations/tracking-progress-2020-climate-turning-point

    Trump's reasoning for leaving the Paris Agreement is that it puts too much of an economic burden on the American people. He also stated that greenhouse gas emissions had dropped up to 13% between the years 2005 and 2017 which further backed his argument (Woodward, 2019). The US received a lot of criticism for this decision and the CEO of the World Resources Institute made a public statement saying that Trump's decision was "driven by outdated views from from the last century that held that climate action was costly and hurt jobs."

    There are a few possible repercussions that could result because of the withdrawal from the Paris Agreement. The US is the second highest country in the world for greenhouse gas emissions and by the US withdrawing, the Agreement has lost a huge chunk of control over the worlds emissions. Now that one of the worlds largest emitters no longer is under the control of the Agreement, the other top countries have to be convinced to pick up the slack and work even harder (Johnson, 2019). This will be even more difficult to convince other countries and is a problem that will need to be addressed. Another problem that may arise is tariffs and/or taxes on goods and services coming from a country outside of the Paris Agreement. France even came out and publicly said that they will be against any trade negotiations from countries that are not a member of the Paris Agreement which could have an even harsher impact on the US economy (France Opposes EU Trade Agreement with the US, 2019). 

    All in all, the United State's decision to back out of the Paris Climate Agreement for economic reasons may cause many more economic problems for the US. With powerful countries already coming out and publicly stating that they will be against trade negotiations with non-members it is a bad sign for what is to come. The US can rejoin the Agreement at any time, however, while remaining not a member the US could face economic hardships because of their decision to withdrawal.

Sources:

https://unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/the-paris-agreement/what-is-the-paris-agreement

https://www.wri.org/resources/data-visualizations/tracking-progress-2020-climate-turning-point

https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/11/05/paris-climate-agreement-united-states-withdraw/

https://www.gouvernement.fr/en/france-opposes-eu-trade-agreement-with-the-us

https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-pulling-us-out-paris-climate-agreement-2019-10

Why is the Rise in Right-wing Extremism Being Ignored?

 Recently, a 12 page report outlining terror threats in Europe was drafted by the EU Presidency under Croatia and it highlighted both “foreign terrorist fighters and right-wing terrorists” as the highest threats to security while attacks from left wing forces were considered much less of a threat. However, these risks are being largely ignored and when they are considered, the argument that both sides are at equal fault is used to dismiss any impactful steps to curb the spike in right-wing attacks and violence from the alt-right. EU leaders have been accused of being complacent and "failing to act" in efforts regarding the fight against structural and institutional racism. These failures are not exclusive to Europe, however, the United States has the same problems; the ignorance and justification of racism.

Just two nights in the first "Presidential" debate, President Trump not only refused to condemn white supremacy multiple times but when pressed on the issue he shifted focus to "antifa and the left". The President was given a perfect opportunity to send a message that right-wing violence and white supremacist groups, like the proud boys, were unacceptable and their actions deplorable but instead deflected and came off as if he truly did not want these groups to stand down. The Anti Defamation League kept a record of violent political extremism in the United States from 2009-2018 and found 298 instances of right-wing white supremacist or right-wing anti-government attacks and only 26 instances of left wing violence.

This graphic shows how left-wing, ethnonationalist, and religious attacks are all decreasing percentage wise while right-wing extremism is increasing.

The ADL also reports that there were 42 extremist-related murders in 2019 with all but 8 of them by white supremacists which shows how flawed and dangerous this false equivalence between violence on both sides really is. The average American isn't a political scientist, they don't do their own critical research, which is fine, instead we rely on politicians and leaders to be honest with us about the threats to our country. But it comes to a certain point where these leaders, both foreign and domestic, would rather sweep problems under the rug and act like they don't exist to save face than to identify these problems and work to fix them. So when these people in power are purposefully perverting data to fit their agenda, this must be addressed. They would rather run from a hard truth than face it because it doesn't benefit them politically when people's lives are at put on the line everyday we stay silent and ignorant.

It's not just these attacks that are on the rise, hate groups, militias, and white supremacist organizations are as well as show by this graphic. These groups have been on the rise since 2008 yet nothing has been done.

Leaders have let these groups and attacks go unaccounted for too long and now with demonstrations all across the country and all across the world, the consequences of their actions are manifesting themselves in the fight against racism. However, both the left and the right wing seem fail to make this cause and effect connection and condemn the violence of these demonstrations but still remain silent on issues of white supremacy. I wonder why Joe Biden and Donald Trump wouldn't want to see revolutionary change 

and the protection and empowerment of African-Americans?

Sources:

https://www.csis.org/analysis/escalating-terrorism-problem-united-states

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/06/right-wing-extremism-explainer-charleston-mass-shooting-terrorism/

https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2020/07/21/right-wing-terrorism-warning-signs

https://www.adl.org/education/resources/reports/dark-constant-rage-25-years-of-right-wing-terrorism-in-united-states

https://www.adl.org/murder-and-extremism-2019