Bogota, Columbia: Transportation Climate Change.

 

The purpose of this blog is to discuss the actions of Bogota, Colombia to fight climate change and how transportation climate change affects Colombia nationwide. In Bogota, the main problem causing climate change is transportation pollution which accounts for about half of the pollution in the city.  The city’s environment secretary Carolina Uruttuia states that “ Fossil fuel powered cars, buses, and cargo trucks - some belching black clouds of smoke - emit a big share of 14,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide entering Bogota’s environment daily “ (Moloney). 

In response, there have been a number of actions to combat transportation based in Colombia’s Capital. Notably, the city government has committed to expanding bike lanes, walking paths, electric bus use, and adding more electric cable cars all across the city. Many of these actions are designed to help the city's poorer residents along with members of Afro-Colombian and Indigenous communities. The city has a number of goals in order to combat climate change for the long term, stating the aim to cut “greenhouse gas emissions by at least 15% by 2024, and by half by 2030, with the aim of being carbon neutral by 2050” (Moloney). This is an lofty goal, though with COVID travel restrictions in place Bogota will likely reach their 2024 goal. Bogota also pledged along with 100 other cities to combat climate change in an agreement called the C40 Cities network (Moloney). 

Bogota’s use of electric buses is already producing positive results for the city. There are about 350 electric buses that are used by about 180,000 people a day. The city’s  plan is to introduce 1,485 electric buses in Bogota by next year. The efforts have been described as taking 42,000 cars off the street a year and if the numbers are met Bogota will have the largest fleet of electric cars of any city outside of China. The use of bicycles has also been encouraged, especially with younger generations of Columbians across all racial and socioeconomic backgrounds. 

This becomes a much larger problem when you look at Colombia nationwide. Transportation in Colombia is a major issue as the country has no national train system and virtually all goods and foods have to be delivered by trucks. The nation’s three largest cities Bogota, Medellin and Cali are all completely landlocked, with over 13 million people living in these three cities alone, the problem shows little signs of being solved. There have been numerous attempts to get trucking companies and busing companies to engage in more environmentally friendly practices but these attempts have met little success and resulted in strikes and street protests. In the past the city government of Bogota has backed down, though now the city has been taking measures such as buying the polluting buses directly from the companies. Hopefully the positive steps taken by Bogota can spread nationwide. 

Work Cited: 

Moloney, Anastasia. “Bogota Crowdsources a Green Transport Future to Cut Emissions.” Reuters, Thomson Reuters, 26 May 2021, www.reuters.com/article/us-colombia-climate-change-transportatio/bogota-crowdsources-a-green-transport-future-to-cut-emissions-idUSKCN2D7203.  

Tunisia & France Election Comparison.

 In this blog I am going to be comparing and contrasting the 2019 presidential election in Tunisia with the 2017 presidential election in France. Tunisia is the periphery country and also the country that I am focusing on in my research paper. France, the former colonizer of Tunisia, is the core nation that I am going to be talking about. Both Tunisia and France are liberal democrat states, the text states that the characteristics for liberal democracies are “ First, pluralistic elections, in which there is competition between two or more parties to form the government, are held regularly. Second, all adult citizens are entitled to vote in these elections. Third, there are political freedoms that allow all citizens to associate freely and express their political opinions” (Flint). Both nations are democracies, though Tunisia is a relatively new one, becoming a democracy after the Jasmine Revolution during the 2011 Arab Spring. This makes this comparison not a typical comparison between core and periphery nations because Tunisian is so far a functioning democracy, which was proved with the 2019 election.  

In September 2019, Tunisia had its second election in the history of its young democracy. The elections were supposed to be held in November, but in July 2019 the first democratically elected president Beji Caid Essebsi died and the election had to be pushed up. There were nine candidates who ran for the election, the two most successful candidates were Kais Saied, the winner of the election, and Nabil Karroui of the Heart of Tunisia party (Yerkes). Saied is a former college professor and populist conservative candidate, who didn’t run a campaign and is not affiliated with any major political party. Saied was especially popular with young people and won the election in a landslide, capturing 72% of the vote. He was especially popular in urban areas;these population centers aided his victories. In regards to foreign policy, Saied is notably anti-Israel.  Second place went to Nabil Karroui, the owner of a popular television station. Karoui was arrested on charges of money laundering shortly after announcing his candidacy, despite this he still won 27% of the vote. Karoui states that he thinks that there was foul play in the election; he was released only 4 days before the final voting (BBC News). Other notable candidates include Youseff Chahed of the Tahya Tounes party, and Abdelfattah Mourou of the Ennahda party (Yerkes).

 Another interesting development in this election is the candidacy of Mounir Baatour, who was the first ever openly gay presidential canidate for a Muslim country. Unfortunately, his candidacy was not recognized and was forced to flee to France as a political refugee in 2020. This remains the major black mark on Tunisia’s democracy. Tunisia is a parliamentary democracy with religious freedom and women's rights, though LGBTQ rights are dismal in Tunisia. LGBTQ people are heavily persecuted in the country, and there's something very un-democratic about not allowing a man to run for office due to his sexual orientation. I believe this shows some growing pains in Tunisian’s new democracy and sets them apart from older democracies such as France, where these types of issues haven’t happened in years. 

The next election that I am going to be focusing on is the French presidential election of 2017. The two main candidates in the election were Emmanuel Macron, a centrist and Marine Le Pen, a far right politician. Emmanuel Macron won the election with a Pro-European Union policy, many people saw him as being a better option of the two candidates, he didn’t have widespread popularity in the country but despite this won 66.1 percent of the vote (Aisch). His centrist political beliefs helped him to win the votes of people who were not sure on who to vote for.  His opponent Marine Le Pen is anti-immigration, anti-Muslim, anti-EU, and especially popular in areas with high unemployment (specifically the Northeast and the Southeast). Despite her loss, Her gaining of 33.9% of the vote in the election shows the rise and popularity of the far right in France (Aisch). 

Overall, the elections of both nations were democrat in nature, though the popularity of the winner in the election is quite different. In the Tunisian election, the populist candidate Kais Saied was especially popular with young people and he won a landslide victory over his opponents. He also did very little campaigning which is quite rare in core countries where candidates often campaign heavily. On the other hand, Macron does not enjoy large levels of popularity. Macron was seen as the best of two options for most voters, who were either too far to the left, or not far enough to the right to vote for Le Pen. Macron is also a centrist who leans to the left, while Saied is a far conservative more like Le Pen. Also the accusations made by Nabil Kouri in the Tunisian election and the anti-LGBTQ action of banning Baatour show the growing pains of democracy in Tunisia. 

Map 1: Tunisia 2019 Election: (Red is Karoui, Green is Saied). 

Map 2: France 2017: (Blue is Macron, Yellow is Le Pen). 

Work Cited: 

Yerkes, Sarah. “Tunisia's Elections, Explained: The World's Youngest Democracy Votes.” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, carnegieendowment.org/publications/interactive/tunisian-elections-2019#.  

“Tunisia Election: Kais Saied to Become President.” BBC News, BBC, 14 Oct. 2019, www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-50032460.   

Flint, Colin, and Peter James Taylor. Political Geography: World-Economy, Nation-State, and Locality. Routledge, 2018   

Aisch, Gregor, et al. “How France Voted.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 7 May 2017, www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/05/07/world/europe/france-election-results-maps.html. 

US vs. EU: Migration & Immigration Compare and Contrast.

 The purpose of this blog is to compare the migration patterns (both domestic and internationally) and the immigration issues between the United States and the European Union. I will be focusing on both domestic migration in the EU and the United States and also immigration from abroad in the respective areas. Lastly, I will be focusing on the immigration issues of the EU and the United States and how they differ because of their historical experiences. This will be discussed further in the blog but it is my personal belief that immigration is a part of American culture and not a part of European culture and that this greatly affects attitudes towards immigrants. 

In regards to domestic migration, Americans are tending to leave the East Coast and California and instead are moving to the South and other Western states. The main reasons for people leaving these areas are high taxes, high cost of living, crime, and job opportunities. The pandemic is also accelerating this migration because now people can work from home. There is little point in someone paying a lot of money for homes in California and New York when they could live cheaper in other states. The state with the most people moving in is Florida with a lot of this migration coming from Northeastern states such as New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts. Another state receiving a lot of migration from these areas as well as the Midwest is the state of Texas. Another domestic migration pattern in the United States is people are leaving California. Californians are leaving the state to move to states such as Texas, Oregon, and Nevada (Kerns).  

In Europe, domestic inter-EU migration tends to manifest itself with people from Eastern and Central Europe migrating to more economically prosperous Western and Southern Europe. For example, large numbers of Polish people migrated to the UK, while lots of Romanians migrated to Italy. These people are migrating from poorer parts of the EU to richer parts of the EU for job opportunities and a higher standard of living (Migration Data Europe). 

Domestic migration in the EU is similar to the U.S. because people are moving for job opportunities and improving their living conditions. A major difference between migration in these areas is migration in the EU is technically going to a whole new country. Even though the EU has free movement to other EU states, migrants are still moving to countries with a different language and culture from theirs. This is a fact that could lead to more xenophobia than inter-American migration, where all domestic migrants are Americans. Another major difference is that many Americans are moving because the states they live in are too expensive, this differs from the EU where migration tends to be to more expensive metropolitan cities such as Paris or Rome. 

In the United States, immigration from abroad is mostly coming from Mexico, El Salvador, the Philippines, China, and India. All of this being said, about 50% of immigrants to the United States come from Mexico, Central America, and South America (Budiman). In the first generation, these immigrants are often working jobs in the service industry, construction, and living amongst an established community here in the United States. Immigrants from these countries often travel via roads to get to this country, this makes it a cheaper but a far more dangerous option for immigration. A lot of immigrants from Mexico and Central America are fleeing violence and economic instability.  Immigration from China and India is also very common but immigrants from these areas tend to have more white collar jobs such as IT and Finance upon immigrating to the United States. This is because they have to fly to this country to get here so it is more common that people who have more money are able to immigrate to this country. All of this being said these are generalizations that have exceptions from both sides. It would be an untrue and offensive generalization to say all Indian & Chinese migrants are well off and all Migrants from Latin America aren’t. This is not at all what I mean and am just trying to capture general trends, which is kind of hard to do. 

Immigration into the European Union manifests itself quite differently, immigrants to the EU are often fleeing wars, political unrest and extreme poverty in the Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa. This journey often involves migrants taking dangerous journeys across the Mediteranean in order to reach Southern European nations such as Spain, Greece, and Italy (USA for UNHCR). These journeys are made out of desperation and often fraught with danger for the migrants. The goal of these migrants is often not to stay in Southern Europe but to move to Northern and Western European nations such as Germany (Migration Data Portal). 

In both the United States and the EU, anti-immigrant sentiment is a major concern. In the European Union, Far Right politicians such as Italy’s Matteo Salvini and France’s Marine Le Pen spew anti-immigrant messages and hatred. Their concerns stem from a perceived possibility of a loss of cultural identity and the view that their economies are not able to handle the influx of migrants. They also view the migrants culture and Islam as being incompatible with the culture of their nations (World Politics Review). It is my belief that this stems from the fact that Europe is not a place that is used to immigration. Historically speaking, Europe is a place where people immigrate from, not people immigrate too. Europe has never had immigration on this massive scale and this leads to these xenephobic attitudes and the idea that they could somehow lose their culture. All of this being said, I am not a European, though I can see how these xenephobic attitudes can arise in a continent where immigration isn’t a part of their culture. 

 In the United States, we are a nation of immigrants, that is pretty much the entire point of the country. That’s why despite anti-immigration beliefs on the Far Right, we are able to be more accepting of immigrants that come to this country. All of this being said, we still see a major anti-immigration movement that was led by Donald Trump. I believe because of our history as a nation of immigrants, the xenophobia in America is even more shameful. In this country, we have the infrastructure and the need for immigrants but still anti-immigration movements arise. We are a nation of immigrants and immigration is a part of our culture, that’s what makes xenophobia even more shameful. 

Maps: 

Map 1: European Migration Map: 

Map 2: American Immigration Map: 

Map 3: American Domestic Migration Map 

Work Cited: 

Kerns, Kristen. “Moves to and From the South and West Dominate Recent Migration Flows.” The United States Census Bureau, 23 May 2019, www.census.gov/library/stories/2019/04/moves-from-south-west-dominate-recent-migration-flows.html. 

“Refugee Crisis in Europe: Aid, Statistics and News: USA for UNHCR.” Refugee Crisis in Europe: Aid, Statistics and News | USA for UNHCR, www.unrefugees.org/emergencies/refugee-crisis-in-europe/. 

“Migration Data in Europe.” Migration Data Portal, migrationdataportal.org/regional-data-overview/europe. 

Budiman, Abby. “Key Findings about U.S. Immigrants.” Pew Research Center, Pew Research Center, 22 Sept. 2020, www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/08/20/key-findings-about-u-s-immigrants/.  

“Global Migration Is Not Abating. Neither Is the Backlash Against It.” World Politics Review, www.worldpoliticsreview.com/insights/28008/to-ease-the-migration-crisis-europe-and-the-world-must-address-root-causes#:~:text=The%20 European%20 Migrant%20Crisis%20of,immigrants%20to%20fuel%20their%20rise. 

Week 4 Blog: Tunisia's Changing Boundaries.

 The purpose of my blog today will be to show how Tunisia’s borders have changed throughout history. To understand Tunisia’s changing boundaries, Tunisia’s history and the fact that the land has been part of numerous empire’s is crucial. 

The history of Tunisia really begins in 1100 BC with the powerful city state of Carthage. The state of Carthage was located just a few miles from the modern capital of Tunis and originally corresponds roughly to the modern borders of Tunisia. The Carthaginian Empire borders expanded, conquering much of Western Sicily, Sardinia and Southern Spain. By 146 BC, the Carthaginians were conquered by the Romans and the land became part of the vast Roman Empire. The Romans established the Province of Africa which roughly corresponds to Modern Tunisia (Map 1). These Ancient Empires were crucial in manufacturing a separate identity and culture for the country of Tunisia. Even though Tunisia was part of much larger empires with vast borders, the importance and separation of the Province of Africa and Carthage’s predominance in the Carthaginian Empire helped to develop a separate identity (Map 2). 

After 439 AD, the Roman Empire fell and the area was taken over by a Germanic group called the Vandals. The borders of the Vandal Kingdom actually roughly corresponded to the Carthaginian Empire with the exception of Southern Spain (Map 3). The Vandal Kingdom was short-lived and the Byzantine Empire (Eastern Roman Empire) took back the area. The Byzantine boundaries were much diminished from the days of the Roman Empire but still included much of the old Roman Empire, especially the Balkans, the Middle East, and Southern Italy. Both the Vandals and the Byzantines heavily taxed and in the case of the Vandals religiously oppressed the locals and this made them deeply unpopular which helped to strengthen a local identity and solidarity against the occupiers. 

By the year 698 AD, Tunisia was conquered by the Umayyad Caliphate and the majority of the inhabitants were converted to Islam. The borders of the Umayyad Caliphate stretched from modern Spain to Iran and was one of the largest empires ever in history (Map 4). The next few hundred years mostly involved modern Tunisia being in the same caliphate as many other places in North Africa. For example, from 1160 to 1229, Tunisia was part of the Almohad Caliphate (based in Morocco) which also included Southern Spain, Morocco and Algeria. Starting in 1229, independence was proclaimed from the Almohads and the Hafsid Dynasty ruled modern Tunisia and Libya for over 300 years (Map 5). This period is significant because it shows when Islam became the major religion of Tunisia and the fluditiy of borders between Tunisia and the neighboring Muslim powers. This period in the region shows North Africa coming into its own and being shaped into an Islamic society. 

From 1554 to 1881, Tunisia was ruled by the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman Empire, despite its large size controlling much of the Middle East, North Africa, and the Balkans, gave the Tunisians a large amount of self rule (Map 6). From 1881 to 1956, Tunisia was part of the French Colonial Empire, like Ottoman Rule, the Tunisians were allowed a great deal of autonomy. During these two periods, Tunisia was ruled by semi-independent rulers called Beys (Map 7). In 1956, Tunisia proclaimed independence from France and it’s modern boundaries have not changed since then.

Overall, despite the fact that Tunisia’s boundaries have changed through history, much of the time the country was a part of major empires that gave them a great deal of autonomy. Even when Tunisia was a part of more repressive empires such as the Byzantines and the Vandals, the Tunisians hated them and that helped bring citizens closer together. The nation’s boundaries have changed frequently throughout history but through relative autonomy during times of empire, and the fact that it was the occasional seat of political power (Carthigianans & Hafsids) all contributed to the creation of a separate Tunisian identity. 

Maps: 

Map 1: Carthaginian Empire

Map 2: The Roman Empire 

Map 3: Vandal Kingdom 

Map 4: Umayyad Caliphate 

Map 5: Hafsid Kingdom

Map 6: 

Map 7: The French Colonial Empire. 

Work Cited: 

World Trade Press. "Tunisia: Historical Timeline." AtoZ World Culture, 27 June 2021, https://www-atozworldculture-com.eznvcc.vccs.edu/tunisia/historical-timeline.html.