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January 21, 2005

Green States vs. Purple States

Have I gone colorblind? No, I'm just looking at a map colored in a nontraditional sense...

It's a pretty hefty PDF, so I'll describe it if you don't want to download it. This is a map of the world, published by Freedom House, who is (according to their website)

...a non-profit, nonpartisan organization, a clear voice for democracy and freedom around the world. Through a vast array of international programs and publications, Freedom House is working to advance the remarkable worldwide expansion of political and economic freedom.

The map, ostensibly, shows the distribution of Freedom around the world. Not surprisingly, North America (hey, even Mexico!) and Western Europe are colored green - the color of freedom, apparently. Non-free countries, like Haiti, Iraq (heh) and China are colored purple. They graciously allowed a yellow Partly Free category, whose esteemed members include Russia, Morocco and Jordan.

To be honest, the conclusions summarized on this map, for the most part, should not be a surprise. For example, it does not surprise me that Haiti earned the Not Free category while the Dominican Republic was Free. Neither does it surprise me terribly that they classified Jordan as a Partly Free country; while Jordan is generally considered a safe haven for Westerners in the Middle East and the rule of law generally applies, there are certain cases where political rights or civil liberties are restricted.

I'm not going to spend too much more time yammering about my conclusions from this map; I'll let you think about it. But the questions I find important when thinking about this are:
- How West- or US-centric is this evaluation?
- Would it be good for every country in the world to share our version of Freedom? Or are culture and politics so inextricably intertwined that we could not see Freedom spread throughout the globe without a wholesale homogenization of culture?

Posted by kgutwin at January 21, 2005 07:11 PM

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