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LISTEN TO THE WHLW PODCAST
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After 400 years, we finally elected the first Black woman as governor of Bermuda
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A Black woman is leading Bermuda for the first time in the island's history. Her name is Rena Lalgie. Queen Elizabeth II said 'yessssss', too. This is how Lalgie signed, sealed and delivered it.
Why this matters: The first. Black. woman. after. 400. years.
Tell me more about Bermuda
It's a small island in the Atlantic Ocean. Politically, the island is British territory and 'belongs' to the United Kingdom but geographically, it is closer to the United States (colonialism feels so wrong, right?). About 3/5 of the people living here are considered Black or mixed. They speak English, sometimes Portuguese, too. Most people here are Christians. The island makes a lot of money with tourism and international finance. Read more about this island in the Britannica.
Wait, how did the British get there?
Well, in 1609, an English ship found it by chance and its 150 people decided to stay there. Nobody had been living there then. Not much long after, Native American, African and Caribbean people who had been enslaved by the English were brought to the island. Slavery was a thing up until 1834, but really until the 1960s.
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We finally removed Sudan off of the 'terrorist states' list after 27 years
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The United States finally removed Sudan from its list of "state sponsors of terrorism" after 27 years.
Why this matters: Sudan was/still is in a lot of financial trouble because of this list. Think 17 percent unemployment, not enough wheat and fuel, hyper-inflation and practically, nobody in the world wants to do business with you.
Why was Sudan on that list anyway?
The United States put Sudan on it in 1993 because it believed that the government of Omar al-Bashir (remember the dictator/guy that the Sudanese people kicked out of office last year and who is now on trial?) was supporting "terrorist" groups.
What does it mean when you're on that list?
Basically, you can't go get a loan from major international institutions – even if you really need it.
Why remove Sudan from this list now though?
Well, Sudan promised to become (diplomatic) friends with Israel and paid US$335 million to 224 U.S. American victims of an attack by armed groups on U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998.
What's next?
The United States has promised to give Sudan around US$1 billion. Also, now, foreign companies can do business in Sudan again. And the country has also applied for more money (another US$1 every year) at the International Development Association. In short: it's ready to make sh*t happen again.
- "We were suffering because we were closed off from the rest of the world. We need the outside world, we need foreign expertise, we need foreign currency."
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We sold lab-grown meat for the very first time in Singapore – and worldwide
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Last week, we sold the first-ever 'chicken product' that was made in a laboratory to a restaurant in Singapore. This is the first time humans ate lab-grown meat at a restaurant anywhere in the world.
Why it matters: Humans eat around 70 billion chickens, 1.5 billion pigs, 550 million sheep, 460 million goats and 300 million cattle every year. And this number is even growing. Don't get me started on the fishing industry (the sea is running out of fish sooner than you think if we eat at this speed). Also, us eating meat has by far the biggest impact on the planet and the climate per calorie than other food. This is why thinking about different ways to grow meat and fish from cells might be the smartest thing we could do. Or go vegan, of course.
Who grew the meat?
Eat Just, a startup in San Francisco, United States. They sold it to 1880, a restaurant in Singapore. But Eat Just is one of at least 60 startups that produces animal protein not by slaughtering animals or using plant-based ingredients that mimic the taste of meat, but by growing animal cells.
Is it more expensive than normal meat?
Yes. Waaaay more. US$400 to 2,000 for just one kilogram of lab-grown meat. Normal meat costs around US$4 per 450 grams (price in the United States).
What's next?
Vegetarians and vegans have entered the chat, 'y'all, it's easy. you can live without meat. seriously. hundreds of millions do it already.' Then, there are others who say, 'yeah, that's sweet but when people all over the world get higher and higher incomes (and that's the trend), they want to eat meat because they can now finally afford it.'
The bottom line: If you're looking to invest in sustainable technologies, consider doing some research on lab-grown meat.
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We decided to talk about the Netherlands' dark colonial past very publicly
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The Netherlands’ national art museum, the Rijksmuseum, will open a major exhibition that will – for the very first time – only talk about the many dark things that the country did back when it was a colonial superpower 250 years ago. This is something rare in the (national) art world.
When?
February 12 to May 30, 2021. Hopefully, by then, museums will open up again.
Why this matters: The Black Lives Matter movement is more than a black square on Instagram. Educating people about how their countries of birth made slavery happen is part of this movement. *looks angrily at Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte who earlier this year refused to apologize for the country's colonial past, saying it was 'too polarizing'*
Tell me more
The museum will tell the stories of ten enslaved people between the early 17th century and 1863. Plus, the exhibition will also talk a lot about the Dutch East India Company and the Dutch West India Company, too. Oh, and the Rijksmuseum will also help the government give back 100,000 pieces of stolen art to its former colonized countries such as Suriname or Indonesia.
Just last September, a couple of activists tried to 'steal back' a Congolese statue from the Afrika Museum in Berg en Dal, Netherlands. They even streamed it.
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This piece on the Netherlands was written by curator and cultural manager Elfi Carle.
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We can now say 'crimes against humanity' when we talk about the 'war on drugs' in the Philippines
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Last week, the International Criminal Court (ICC) said that the president of the Philippines Rodrigo Duterte and the country’s police committed “crimes against humanity” against its own people in the name of a so-called war on drugs.
Why this matters: Around 106 million people live in the Philippines. This is affecting a lot of people.
Tell me more
Human rights groups say up to 27,000 people (most of them poor, women and children, too) have died in the president’s ‘war on drugs’ since 2016 – either by the country’s police (that’s the case most of the time) or by masked men and women who (probably) work for them.
- #RememberKian, the 17-year-old kid that was mistaken for a drug dealer and killed in an alley by his house?
The government says, ‘Nope, we only had to kill around 6,000 bad people.’ Last week, the ICC went a bit further and said, ‘not only did you kill many, many more, but you kidnapped, tortured and raped them and their families, too.
Why the war on drugs though?
President Duterte has been obsessed with hunting down people who use or sell drugs for many, many years. It’s what helped him get elected. Duterte says the millions of people who use meth (people in the Philippines call it shabu) are ‘dangerous’ and a threat to society.
What can the ICC do about it?
Not much, really. But it is still a big deal. You see, the ICC does have some power—for example, it can call ‘crimes against humanity’ for what it is and help countries who cannot handle big, serious crimes such as genocide or war crimes on their own to prosecute the people responsible. But the ICC doesn’t have its own police force to arrest people found guilty. Its 123 member countries do though. This is why president Rodrigo Duterte pulled out of the ICC in 2018. So, the ICC changed their relationship status to ‘It’s complicated.’
- Did you know that the United States, China, and Russia are not part of the ICC? And that there are warlords wanted by the ICC that are at home right now watching Season 4 of The Crown, acting like nothing happened?
What’s next?
The ICC hasn’t started officially working this case yet. They say ‘we’ll decide next year if we’re going to charge President Duterte for this.’ For now, it’s ‘to be continued...’
Want to know more?
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This piece on the Philippines was written by journalist Simi Bassi. Got any feedback? Write her at simi@whathappenedlastweek.com. Btw, she loved, loved, loved your movie soundtrack recommendations last week.
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We (probably) will allow sick people to choose to die in Spain and Chile
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Spain and Chile have been thinking out loud about making it OK for patients who are very, very sick to choose between 'euthanasia' (when you allow a health care professional to 'kill' you) and 'assisted suicide (when you take prescribed medication yourself at home).
How likely is it that they actually do it?
In Spain, very likely (link is in Spanish). If yes, Spain would become the fourth and largest country in the European Union to have said 'yes' to make euthanasia legally OK. In Chile, things are also looking similar (link is also in Spanish; strangely English-language mainstream media hasn't picked up on this yet).
Why this matters: In both countries, the right to die on your own terms if you are sick (beyond return) has been illegal so far. To quote Pablo Aguayo Westwood, 'the really important thing is not to live, but to live well.' (link will take you to an academic philosophy paper about what it means to die on your own terms)
Is this legal anywhere in the world?
Yes and no. Some countries allow 'euthanasia', others only 'assisted dying'. Belgium, Canada, Colombia, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Switzerland, some states in the United States and Western Australia (a state in Australia).
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We are living in very, very influential times – and 2020 wasn't special
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Having written about what happened last week for the past six years, I've ironically become someone who thinks about the far future a lot. And today, I wanted us both to leave 2020 with the reminder that 2020 wasn't special and that we need to think further ahead.
Please explain.
Philosophers for the past few decades have asked time and time again, 'is this the most important century in human history?'. It makes sense to think 'yes, omg, it is.' For example, we have created threats that our ancestors never had to face, such as nuclear war or engineered killer pathogens. We also have the power to decide just how intelligent AI needs to be.
Well, is it the most important century or nah?
Maybe, maybe not. The thing is: We created these new problems but we are doing so little to create solutions for them, too. We do so little right now to be really prepared for any of those threats. In the words of Oxford philosopher Toby Ord, 'our destructive powers are outstripping our wisdom.'
For example?
Well, the United Nations Biological Weapons Convention—a global ban on developing bio-weapons like a super-coronavirus—has a smaller budget than an average McDonald’s restaurant. We also, not all that long ago, in 1945, developed the ability to destroy ourselves (we even used nuclear weapons during a war). Since then, we’ve only gotten better at it. There are now tens of thousands of nuclear weapons. Let's not forget climate change, engineered pandemics to artificial intelligence to other, even more speculative future technologies.
Why this matters
What we decide to do today will have an impact on the unborn 6.75 trillion people in the next 50,000 years. (I told you, I like thinking about the far future.) That's 62 times the number of humans that have ever lived.
So, while we do not know if our time will be the most influential or not, we can say that we have a lot of—and if not more and more—power to shape the lives and well-being of billions of people living tomorrow – for better and for worse. It will be for future historians to judge how wisely we used that influence.
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Last week, the city of Paris, France was fined for putting too many women in charge of city hall, meaning it put too few men in top jobs. The statistics? In 2018, 11 women and five men were in management positions in city hall, meaning that 69 percent of the people running city hall in Paris were not men. *cries sad and happy tears in irony*
Mayor Anne Hidalgo now has to pay a €90,000 (US$110,000) fine, to which she said:
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Hope y’all get a break until we meet again.
Do nothing for as long as possible.
You deserve it.
Sham.
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