"Writing to reach you"

(Written for The New Times)

My recent article on the iphone got me thinking more about the things technology had changed. I am still pretty young- I was a mere toddler when the cold war ended- but I do remember a time before the internet when things were a lot different. I am thinking here specifically of the art of letter writing.
‘Art’ may be a strong way of putting it of course. As anyone who has ever written a disjointed love letter in high school can attest, writing a letter was not always a glamorous thing-sometimes it was merely an act of desperation. However it seems unbelievable that writing letters already seems as ancient as witch trials and the bubonic plague.
These days if you want to tell someone something you could send a text message or write to them on facebook or even send them an email. We are pretty much covered as far as communication goes- a veritable pixel nirvana. You could fire off a message in dozens of mediums and get it to the recipients in mere seconds. All you need is a decent internet connection or credit in your phone and you are good to go. It is almost frighteningly simple even for those of the older generation who are somewhat technologically challenged.
But it seems to me that with the largely positive effects brought to us by communication technology, some simple pleasures have been lost. One of them is writing letters. There was a charm and authenticity to writing letters that simply cannot be replicated in other media. For starters there was the sheer graft of it- writing a letter took time and effort, there were no two ways about it. As such, it was a more sincere and accurate depiction of your desire to communicate with someone else. Granted it was slow, inconvenient and not exactly efficient but that was just part of the experience. And unlike digital communication today, you had to engage your brain first before you expressed yourself which I think improved your eloquence on the page. The delete button is our friend today, but back then unless you wanted to keep tearing up paper and starting again, you certainly wanted to get it right first time.
And it was certainly fun- I have a lot of fond memories of writing letters to my friends while growing up. There were certain features of this that are cringe-inducing when one looks back (dedicating songs at the end of each letter) but overall it was a worthwhile activity. It was a product of your sweat and toil and an expression of a more innocent age. It was not just the writing that was exciting- receiving a letter was an equally joyous event.
But now-aside from official correspondence- we don’t write letters anymore and it seems to me that a lot has been lost. Nostalgia is not always an accurate barometer of necessity, but I miss the joy of having to express myself on paper with ink-stained hands as solid and an aching wrist as solid proof of your toil. We don’t even know what people’s handwriting looks like now unless it’s the scrawl of your doctor. Someone’s handwriting was always an interesting insight into their personality or at the very least, something that set them apart. Today it is pixels that represent us. Don’t get me wrong- I love this digital age we are in and I am grateful to be in a position to enjoy it. Still every now and then I cant help but reflect on some of the things we lost.

Dancing with the traffic police is no way to go through life, son.

A few days ago as I watched traffic policemen pull over a bemused driver near the Sopetrad petrol station, I found myself mulling on the complex dance between law enforcement and law evasion.
Rwanda’s traffic policemen are a regular feature on our roads, day and night. They tend to be relatively friendly and fair, and their refusal to accept bribes is legendary. However there is always plenty of going beneath the surface. The traffic policeman’s job is to ensure that our roads don’t descend into mad max- style carnage. In this context, their primary purpose is obvious- to catch drivers violating traffic regulations.
But the traffic cops’ role extends beyond merely nabbing offenders on the road. Their very presence is presumably intended to act as deterrence to drivers who might be tempted to break the rules. Its’ one of the cardinal aims of any kind of enforcement mechanism- to act as a highly visible deterrent to others. And by stopping cars in what appears to be a random manner, they reason that the deterrence is magnified in the eyes of the public. If a driver is overspeeding or driving recklessly then randomness doesn’t come into the picture, but if often does if a driver does not have a license or is intoxicated.
But the interplay between deterrence and randomness is an interesting one. If traffic policemen stopped drivers on a completely random basis, the rate at which they catch offenders would probably plunge. They need to look for clues in either the drivers’ face, or the state of his car or dozens of other things they could look out for to increase their chances. Of course by the time it hits around 10pm in the evening, pulling over drivers becomes a lot less random, especially on the weekends.
But ultimately pulling drivers over is a largely random affair. How does that change the behavior of would-be offenders? If you are driving without a license, then the seemingly random nature of being pulled over might not offer sufficient deterrence to keep you off the road. The driver would figure that he can take his chances since his odds of being pulled over are equivalent to those who have the proper documentation (although of course the sanctions would apply disproportionately to that driver). The driver can even improve his odds because traffic policemen tend to be in roughly the same places on most days. Once their behavior becomes predictable in this way, the offending drivers can ‘beat the system.’
And what of the interplay between traffic policemen and those who drink and drive? The traffic cops would assume that if they regularly pull over cars late at night-mainly on weekends- and either fine or imprison drunk drivers, then the rational response from most drivers would be to either cut down on their drinking or create an alternate arrangement of transport to get them back home after a night on the town. However the desire to have a good night out despite the risks can often override the deterrence provided by traffic policemen. In this case, drivers will then rely on the fact that-as mentioned in the previous paragraph- the policemen tend to be situated in the same places most of the time and they will then find alternate routes. Should this prove ineffective, then people will simply get drunk much earlier than they normally would, and try to get home earlier. There will still be drunk-driving, but at much earlier hours than the police would normally anticipate.
Its interesting to ponder this dance between drivers and the police and the way deterrence and enforcement meet incentives and the realities of day-to-day living. It is a cat and mouse game with no real winners. Strategy is king.

The pirate's gospel

(Written for The New Times May 2010)

Somali pirates have been in the news for quite a long time now, coming and going like a bad rash. Commentators have attacked the problem from many angles- the failed state angle, international criminal law, the future of international shipping- but the social angle appears to have been largely neglected. That’s why I was somewhat delighted-and intrigued- to come across an article discussing the impact of piracy on the ‘marriage market’. The article was largely anecdotal, but it did confirm some of my suspicions about the surprising impact that glamorized criminal activity can have on society under certain conditions.
Despite being a somewhat localized activity, piracy is obviously going to have a big impact on its Country of origin. Some are pretty obvious- the money flowing in has seen prices shoot up, pricing many things out of the reach of many people and causing inflation and increasing income inequality. Some are a bit less foreseeable- for example, the fact that pirates have been setting up rudimentary stock exchanges to deal with the excess money. However the social impact is so widespread that new angles to this situation are emerging. One which I feel has not been given enough attention is its’ effects on marriage dynamics- the adjusted expectations of both prospective brides and grooms.
So here in a nutshell is what happens: a group of young and able-bodied men set sail with guns and repeatedly hijack foreign ships, extracting large ransoms to free the captured hostages. So far so familiar. (And just to be clear- incase my summary comes across as a bit too flippant- I disapprove of piracy) The pirates then return to land and find themselves treated as rock stars, rich men who are now suddenly very eligible bachelors and swashbuckling ones at that. What this does is transform the general conception of what an ideal husband should be and creates a stampede for the nouveau riche in question. But because there is obviously a small number of pirates and a suddenly large number of prospective brides, the market becomes distorted. For one, the ‘price’ signaling a desirable husband shoots up dramatically. In a poor Country, wealth is a much stronger indication of a desirable husband than it would be in a more developed or egalitarian society. But when that society has an influx of suddenly very wealthy men, you can see how the dynamics can become changed.
Of course it is not just the pirate money that changes things - merely being a pirate brings with it an image and ideal that makes the pirate a lot more attractive as a prospective husband. The moral ins and outs of that idea-and what social conditions create it- are beyond the scope of this article, but there seems to be little doubt that piracy has changed the marriage dynamics in Somalia. In addition, what it probably does is then drive piracy expeditions even more as men increasingly struggle to reach the new ‘marriage baseline.’
Furthermore, it is likely that men who were previously marriage material but who haven’t dabbled in piracy suddenly find that their prospects on ‘the market’ have become bleak. Quite how widespread this effect is-or indeed how long it will last- is unclear. But it is interesting to consider that while the media chatter is concentrated on about the bigger, global implications of piracy, there is a social struggle involving marriage going on beneath the surface.