Letters | On American politics, African trade, companies, migrants, glyphosate, Malaysia, the semicolon

Letters to the editor

The party’s over

Your assessment of the fractious condition of America’s political parties concluded that “it is impossible to imagine a big democracy staying healthy without them” (“The party declines”, March 5th). But the current state of many large democracies suggests exactly the contrary. The polarisation of politics in America; the entrenchment of party whips in Britain; complete dysfunction in Italy; and institutionalised corruption and class prejudice in India: all of these result from the misplaced importance accorded to political parties.

America’s Founding Fathers focused on representation, not parties. This year’s presidential race shows how the parties have become so out-of-step with that ideal. The parties now represent the various interest groups they have cobbled together to justify their existence and have become part of the “establishment”, whose raison d’être is self-preservation. It is little wonder that voters are swayed more by the superficial emotional appeal of simple anti-establishment rhetoric than by serious consideration of the issues facing the country.

Where, for example, is the debate on the role of education when it come to competing with the surging skills of India and China? Where is the serious analysis of how best to return the economy to surplus and manage the crushing burden of national debt on generations to come?

Ultimately voters get the representatives they vote for. Sadly, too few give too little thought to this crucial right and duty.

MIKE RAVEN
Buffalo, New York

Trade in Africa

* Your article “Tear down these walls” (February 27th) covered a range of factors that impeded intra-African trade, such as tariffs and non-tariff barriers and overlapping memberships of African countries in regional trade bloc. The factors you listed relate mostly to trade in goods. Increasingly, African countries not only trade in goods but also in services.

UNCTAD advises African countries to sharpen their competitiveness not only by revising national policy and regulatory regimes but also by fostering intra-African trade in services through regulatory co-ordination and co-operation in critical areas of infrastructure and finance. Ongoing negotiations toward both the Tripartite Free Trade Area and the African Union’s Continental Free Trade Area must include services in trade. Downplaying the importance of services in such negotiations will be a critical mistake that African countries need to avoid.

The services sector is the oil that greases the wheels of trade: the complementarities between efficient services provision and competitive supplies of goods on regional and world markets must not be overlooked. Indeed, intra-African trade will be among urgent matters discussed by African and other states at a global ministerial conference to be held in Nairobi this July.

JOAKIM REITER
Deputy secretary-general
United Nations Conference on Trade and Development
Geneva

Stay out of the limelight

Projecting statesmanship may be necessary for some business leaders (Schumpeter, February 27th), but not if there is something rotten in the overall state of the company. We have found that, during the economic slump of 2007-10, those chief executives who were the media face of their company while simultaneously being connected with other issues of public interest, fared worst as business leaders. The market capitalisation of their companies shrank the most.

Companies where market capitalisation contracted the least had CEOs who, relative to their peers, played the smallest role in the media coverage of their business, and were also hardly linked to any other public issue.

GREGOR HALFF
Professor of corporate communication practice
Singapore Management University

Migrants in Germany

It is absurd to claim that in Germany “suddenly foreigners are in schools, swimming pools and hospitals” (Charlemagne, March 5th). In 2014, before the million refugees arrived, more than 20% of the German population had a foreign background. We have lived together for a long time in the real world, not in some 1950s fairy tale.

In this refugee crisis a large number of Germans (and foreigners) have displayed a can-do attitude that is the opposite of what you describe as people withdrawing to private life. That said, it is right that the influx has polarised society and that political debate is becoming more aggressive.

MICHAEL MEYER-RESENDE
Executive director
Democracy Reporting International
Berlin

Regulating glyphosate

You stated that regulators in Europe “are arguing over the safety of glyphosate, the world’s top weedkiller” (“Fog of uncertainty”, March 5th). Although some politicians might be arguing about glyphosate, no pesticide regulator in the world considers it to be a carcinogen. In November 2015, the European Food Safety Authority concluded that “Glyphosate is unlikely to pose a carcinogenic hazard to humans.” And in April 2015, the Canadian regulator found that “the overall weight of evidence indicates that glyphosate is unlikely to pose a human cancer risk.” Also last year, America’s Environmental Protection Agency reaffirmed that glyphosate is not an endocrine disrupter.

Glyphosate’s renewal is up for a vote by the European Commission, and it is no surprise that this process has sparked political debate. Much of the debate centres on a classification by a working group of the International Agency for Research on Cancer, even though it is not a regulatory authority.

Regulators depend on science and an informed public to make the best decisions for all of us.

PHILIP MILLER
Vice-president, global regulatory and governmental affairs
Monsanto
St Louis, Missouri

The state of Malaysia

Many Malaysians barely recognise the country that you described in “The Najib effect” (March 5th). Contrary to your assertion that the economy is in trouble, growth last year beat expectations at a very healthy 5%, which the OECD predicts we will be able to maintain over the next five years. Since Najib Razak, the prime minister, launched Malaysia’s Economic Transformation Programme in 2010, 1.8m jobs have been created, and private investment has more than tripled. The truth is that our economy “continues to perform well”, to quote the IMF’s most recent report on our country.

In addition, far from regressing, Malaysia has undergone a political-reform programme unmatched in recent history. Since assuming office, the prime minister has repealed the Internal Security Act; eliminated the bans on opposition party newspapers and removed the annual renewal requirement for printing licences; lifted the ban on student participation in politics; repealed the Banishment Act and the Restricted Residences Act, as well as emergency proclamations; passed the Peaceful Assembly Act, enshrining the right to protest into law for the first time; and set up a bipartisan panel on electoral reform.

Moreover, the prime minister regularly attends the festivals of non-Muslims, going to churches and temples to share the celebrations of fellow Malaysians, and is acknowledged as a leader in the fight against terrorism and extremism, both nationally and internationally.

This is the true picture of Malaysia today.

DATO’ AHMAD RASIDI HAZIZI
High commissioner of Malaysia
London

The semicolon; and its faults

One bit of punctuation that should follow the diastole, the trigon, the interpunct and the diple onto the scrap heap of history is the semicolon (Johnson, March 12th). Very few people know how to use semicolons correctly and The Economist’s constant overuse contradicts its advice—contained in its very own style guide—not to overdo them.

Kurt Vonnegut said it best: “Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you’ve been to college.”

JOHN O’CALLAGHAN
Singapore

This article appeared in the Letters section of the print edition under the headline "Letters to the editor"

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