Liberty and GUNS for All!

BY DANIEL FINDLAY

DIRECTOR OF DEVELOPMENT

Liberty and GUNS for All!

On April 12th, 2022 Governor Brian Kemp (Republican, Georgia) signed Senate Bill 319, which in short, removes the requirement of a carry permit for Georgia residents over 21 years of age.

Instead of filing for a gun license or conceal carry permit, “SB 319 makes sure that law abiding Georgians, including our daughters and your family too, can protect themselves without having permission from your state government. The Constitution of the United States gives us that right, not the government,” declared Governor Kemp.

The signing of SB 319 makes Georgia the 25th “Constitutional Carry” State.

The issue of constitutional carry is as old as, well,… the constitution!

Brief History Lesson:

Roll out the overhead projector and clear plastic transparency paper.

At America’s genesis, the founding fathers, wanted citizens to be able to defend their property against intruders, theft, and those “damned lobster backs”! Thus, the second amendment to the Bill of Rights was conceived. It states that no government entity will infringe upon the rights of any “well regulated militia or the rights of the people to keep and bare arms.”

While the right to carry a firearm in the name of self defense is widely accepted as requisite, there are many who oppose the notion.

A group of Georgia Democrats condemned the SB 319 legislation, arguing that it puts more lives in danger.

Consider this:

In the age of mass shootings, is it wise to legally arm more people without any stipulation?

Are police more likely to assume that every civilian they encounter is armed?

Will SB 319 add to the already rising crime rate in the state of GA?

Is there a correlation between the rise of violent crime and the increased number of constitutional carry states? (Four states have adopted constitutional carry laws this year (2022) alone!)

Those in favor of constitutional carry argue that law abiding citizens should have the right to protect themselves against criminals wielding firearms. However noble, it is a sentiment that has been under scrutiny for quite some time. The debate over stricter gun laws has been a political pendulum.

In 2013, President Obama unveiled an unprecedented proposal to increase gun-control. The former president introduced a plan that would address four major areas in a sweeping legislative effort:

• Law Enforcement

• Availability of dangerous firearms and ammunition

• School safety

• Mental Health

The proposal was ridiculed and seemingly led to naught. Gun violence was still high and mass shootings continued at horrifying rates.

The National Rifle Association, or NRA, released a statement refuting the validity of the President’s proposal, calling him an “elitist hypocrite” and stating that “the administration continues to push failed solutions to our nations most pressing problems.”

Regardless of your political affiliation one must acknowledge that it’s dangerous to give a non-governmental body based on an affinity the ability to deliberate on national matters.

Guns are big business in America, and any attempt to control a citizen’s ability to own and possess firearms has historically been met with hostility.

Amidst the rhetoric, here’s what we can surmise, states nationwide are becoming less stringent on gun ownership and possession.

A decision that will prove harmful to some, helpful to others, and cautious for all!

What's the Deal with Population Growth?

BY CARA-MARIE FINDLAY

PRINCIPAL

What’s the Deal with Population Growth?

This past February (2022) the United Nations published a 2021 study entitled “Global Population Growth and Sustainable Development.” 

The report explores

Some of the key takeaways, according to the official 2022 key messages document, include:

• Global population is expected to continue to grow rapidly over the next few decades.

• A decline in fertility can create a window of opportunity for accelerated economic growth. 

• And Higher incomes contribute more to environmental degradation than population growth. 

Interestingly enough, there are a few parallels with the 2021 U.N. study and a 1974 United States National Security Memorandum. 

The 1974 memorandum stated that higher rates of population growth:

All dimensions of development, as mentioned in the UN report’s summary. 

So What’s the Deal with Population Growth?

Why should we care?

Arguably the greatest takeaway from both both the introduction to the 2021 U.N. report and the 1974 memorandum is the fact we are living in a time of

“unprecedented [population] growth”

(U.N. Policy Brief Introduction Paragraph; Memorandum Highlights of Current Demographic Trends paragraph). 

And as both documents make clear, population growth directly affects other dimensions of life, to include: social and political order, economic development, and the environment.

Population Growth and Development

According to the 1974 memorandum, the relationship between Population growth and development could be summarized as the difference between “ensur[ing] survival for a larger population, rather than on improving living conditions for smaller total numbers.” (Section 11 bullet point 5). 

As added context, the 2021 U.N. report starts by examining population growth since the 1950. However, the 1974 memorandum, starts even earlier giving a brief overview of population growth since the 1800s:

• “At the rate of growth estimated for the first 18 centuries A.D., it required more than 1,000 years for world population to double in size. With the beginnings of the industrial revolution and of modern medicine and sanitation over two hundred years ago, population growth rates began to accelerate. At the current growth rate (1.9 percent) world population will double in 37 years.

  • By about 1830, world population reached 1 billion. The second billion was added in about 100 years by 1930. The third billion in 30 years by 1960. The fourth will be reached in 1975.”

UN Projection of Population Growth by the year 2100

Source Figure 1

According to the 2021 Report, although the pace has slowed considerably since 1970 (about the time of the 1974 U.S. National Security Memorandum) current projections “suggest  that the size of the global population could grow to almost 11 billion [people] by around 2100.” 

A UN projection was also mentioned in the 1974 memorandum. It was listed as the “U.N. ‘Medium Variant’:  If present birth rates in the developing countries, averaging about 38/1000 were further reduced to 29/1000 by 2000, the world's population in 2000 would be 6.4 billion, with over 100 million being added each year. At the time stability (non-growth) is reached in about 2100, world population would exceed 12.0 billion.”

With 47 years between the two documents, it is remarkable that the UN projection only changed by 1 billion from 12 billion in 1974 to 11 billion in 2021 by the year 2100.

Causes and Correlations

The 1974 memorandum credited population growth to the industrial revolution and of modern medicine and sanitation; the U.N. report made a similar note -

Source Figure 3

“Rapid population growth is a result of one of the greatest successes of social and economic development: the substantial lengthening of the average human lifespan due to improvements in public health, nutrition, personal hygiene and medicine” (U.N. pg. 29 and Key Messages) 

Both reports also assumed that high birth rates were primarily the result of “inadequate information about and availability of means of fertility control” (Executive Summary point 14)  or as the U.N. report puts it “a failure to ensure all people, everywhere, have the knowledge, ability and means to determine whether and when to have children.” 

Both reports assume that lower fertility rates contribute to faster economic growth (correlation), though the U.N. stops short of detailing any specific solutions to increased family planning and lowering the fertility rate. 

The 1974 memorandum, on the other hand, goes further in articulating possible solutions—

• birth control:

  • “Actual family size in many societies is higher than desired family size owing to ignorance of acceptable birth control methods or unavailability of birth control devices and services.”  [Page ]

• family planning:

  • “​​US agencies stress the importance of education of the next generation of parents, starting in elementary schools, toward a two-child family ideal. That AID stimulate specific efforts to develop means of educating children of elementary school age to the ideal of the two-child family” [Page ]

•  and even abortion:

  • “No country has reduced its population growth without resorting to abortion". [Page 182]

  • " -- Indeed, abortion, legal and illegal, now has become the most widespread fertility control method in use in the world today." [Page 183]

Another Perspective

To conclude that lower fertility rates is better for economic development is a very *Eurocentric* perspective, (*the belief that Europe [that is the West or the Global North] is the principal subject of world history) and does not take into account any other possibilities.

Admittedly, the 1974 report is rooted in a Eurocentric philosophy of modernity* (*the belief that societies will develop as they adopt more modern practices, and that “modern” societies are wealthier, freer, and enjoy a higher standard of living) saying:

“Certain aspects of economic development and modernization appear to be more directly related to lower birth rates than others.” 

But this dismisses alternative values and philosophies.

Afro-Caribbean philosopher, Walter Rodney, commenting on how the European Slave Trade decimated the population on the continent of Africa said this:

“So long as the population density was low, then human beings viewed as units of labor were far more important than other factors of production such as land. From one end of the continent to the other, it is easy to find examples showing that African people were conscious that population was in their circumstances the most important factor of production. Among the Bemba, for instance, numbers of subjects were held to be more important than land. Among the Shambala of Tanzania, the same feeling was expressed in the saying “A king is people.” Among the Balanta of Guinea-Bissau, the family’s strength is represented by the number of hands there are to cultivate the land.”

- Walter Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, p. 98

Chart from the Walter Rodney book How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (p. 97)

In previous centuries, other continents began to experience population growth while “The huge African continent has [had] an abnormal record of stagnation…and there is no causative factor other than the trade in slaves…” (Rodney, p. 97)

Source Figure 2.1

Thus, high fertility rates, especially on the continent of Africa should not be seen as a failure of Development. Rather it could just be an indication that African populations have chosen to embrace more traditional outlooks on population growth and building national strength, an outlook that predates the transatlantic slave trade. 

The UN did rightly note that higher incomes contribute more to environmental degradation than population growth.

The philosophy of modernity which is built on capitalism and a consumption mentality has often ignored the cost to the environment in lieu of making as much money as possible as quickly as possible.

Conversely, traditional and indigenous knowledges often place premium value on actively preserving nature and conscious stewarding of natural resources. 

Questions we should be asking…

• Why do “Global” reports continue to be steeped in eurocentrism? 

• What is the connection between global population growth and U.S. National Security? 

• Why is suggesting abortion as a viable solution for lowering the fertility rate problematic? 

• What can we learn about preventing or remedying climate change from traditional/indigenous societies that we may have ignored because they were not “modern”?

These reports are published and public for all to read. But without knowing when or where or why to look for them, the average person may not seek them out on their own. We also know that these reports are often filled with loaded language that may need to be unpacked. 

Part of our work at FHG is making the world of “development” accessible for everyday people, especially those people who are underrepresented, so that they can become better informed in order to participate and lead the development conversations and processes taking place at all levels—local, national, regional, and global. 

Local Community Media and New Media Technologies

BY ZIPPORAH ORBISI, CAPM

QUALITY ENGINEER AND CONSULTANT

Local Community Media and New Media Technologies

Since the turn of the millennium, technology has steadily been ushering in a new world order. One where distance is of no consequence and seconds are being commodified as soon as we wake up.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has found its way into our everyday lives, shaping our perspectives  through monitoring what we view, look up, and read online.  It creeps into our homes disguised as a form of mass media that feels very personal and even community-spirited. 

The world wide web articles and information shaping our lives through AI could be written and informed by people thousands of miles away, with no real connection to the media being portrayed, or its effects on your household. And sometimes the human connection is several times removed, because it is AI data mining software created by people that is actually feeding data to another other AI software that is doing the writing on a particular subject that comes to the top of your social media feed or search results.  

Although the effects of this mass media are physically harmless, its long-term effects could prove quite crippling. (Here’s one example). When a person is being fed an angle of  “knowledge” without having all the information or being given all sides of the arguments or truths, it can sway, lead, and separate the masses. The power of such media in the hands (or in the case of AI, algorithms) of distant and often faceless hosts is quite a scary reality.

Conversely, community media—media that is owned and controlled by the community in response to local needs (Langlois & Dubois, 2005, p.7)—helps to create true awareness, togetherness, and communal citizenship on a micro level. 

When you listen to your local radio, the voices that call out your 5 o’clock rush hour traffic information feel like those of your distant family. There is a certain level of  comfort and trust that comes from the voices of the newscasters that you hear on a daily basis, or the authors that you read daily in your local Sentinel. 

Community media is a platform that comes with a responsibility to families, local businesses, and friends. Many of our community media hosts can even be seen  in-person weekly visiting the local Farmers Market or shopping for home supplies at a neighborhood home improvement store, without your local paparazzi (which in today's world, even a 10-year-old with a smartphone qualifies as). 

Nostalgically speaking, I remember my daily excitement to see chief meteorologist Tom Terry come on and forecast my week with a smile. 

Those days have gone for many children due to new media technologies. We have AI home assistants to tell us the weather before we are even fully out of bed now, and phones that usher our way through traffic. 

The convenience of new media technologies pulls at the heartstrings and wallets of humanity.  What we once thought of as distant, futuristic AI technologies is today actually deeply ingrained  into the lives of people living in the Global North, all using the tactic of convenience. 

This tactic is giving way to the new world of mass media, one that doesn't even rely on 24-hour coverage from cable media giants like BBC, CNN, or MSNBC. 

Community media is suffering at the hands of this new technology, and becoming a dying fashion of sorts. 

Although community-based media pales in comparison to new media technologies in terms of reach, because community media  caters to a smaller audience, the platform that it offers  many marginalized and developing communities has a major impact. Community-based media gives way to grassroots start-ups, shines a light on local social and political heroes, and helps to facilitate youth empowerment and education for sustainable growth.

In the field of Development sustainability is key. We cannot truly progress if the goals are not able to be met and amplified by the community itself. Particularly in marginalized and underserved communities, the use of community-based media is a crucial way to advocate for change and engage those who are affected the most.