We are walking through some of the stinkiest alleys in San Francisco, yet still tourists from all over the world come here to take pictures and admire the street art gallery surrounding them. Whether huge murals, stickers on the floor or graffiti: art is all around in this area of the city.

Our tour guide , who offers street art tours through the Mission District, has been walking through these alleys for 15 years, and still he discovers new pieces. “Once you train your eyes, it’s everywhere” is what he tells us as he points at a street light covered with almost torn off stickers and scribbled words, which would normally never catch someone’s eyes as art.

The Higher, the Better

Walking through Mission and Valencia Street we come across walls with both illegal and legal graffiti, stencils and other street art styles. Comics as well as posters and abstract pieces look down on us from the left as we try to read a graffiti on the right. Unlike in European metropolises, in San Francisco trains are no major hotspots for graffiti. The sprayers here prefer trucks instead and almost every truck we pass during the tour wears at least a small graffiti tag.

The trend to spray on trucks has become one way to earn respect amongst other graffiti artists, which is generally very important in the scene. The pieces of respected artists are much less likely to get vandalised or destroyed. This urge for respect has produced unusual and extraordinary works in spiralling heights or dangerous places and street artists compete in doing the craziest move to spread their name. Therefore, a picture of Ronald McDonald smiles at us from a wall 10 meters above the ground and we are all amazed and wonder how on earth the artist climbed up the roof. Other than painting pieces on roofs, ways to earn respect in the scene are also trespassing onto private propertyand – of course – exceptional quality.

Between Inordinateness and Respect

Although street art generally does not have any particular rules, there seems to be a code of honour. A certain hierarchy is respected, which means that throw-ups (basic two colour graffiti) can be painted over with a piece, except if the throw-up is from a famous artist. Also, Russell observes that schools, churches and Victorians are normally excluded from illegal graffiti and vandalism. Another accepted rule is that graffiti and street art are not supposed to last forever – which leads to ever-changing walls in the district. This rule seems to be changing with murals, which increasingly last for many years and have several curators to maintain them.

Needless to say, also vandalism exists in the district. The reasons for it may be obsession, search for fame, pure destruction or political. The generally left-minded artist community of the Mission District is quick when it comes to destroying racist pieces.

From Diego Rivera to Banksy

Internationally renowned artists have left their mark in the streets of San Francisco, amongst them Frida Kahlo’s husband Diego Rivera. His murals in the 1930’s inspired many artists in the street art boom in San Francisco and paved the way for a great mural tradition from the 60’s and 70’s onwards that was yet again greatly influenced by the Latin community in the city. Today still, there are murals painted in the Mexican tradition, a style that often picks up work-related and political topicsand is much more literal than other styles.

In the 80’s stencils became popular, with French street artist Blek Le Rat as a leading figure, who at the same time helped define street art. Nowadays, artists like the famous British Banksy and Scott Williams use the the Mission District as a platform for their creativity.

The district has had a magic attraction on artists ever since, meanwhile offering the highest concentration of public painting. Certainly, San Francisco’s revolutionary nature has contributed to the urge for cultural activism and social criticism which appears in many of the works. As the birthplace of the Hippie movement, San Francisco offers a very tolerant society, comparatively left-minded political tendencies and an exciting melting pot of Asians, Latin Americans, Africans, Whites and Native Americans, who all contribute to the incredible street art scene.

Several museums, art galleries and especially the non-profit organisation  provide help for young street artists and engage in finding legal walls to paint on. Also, they organise events regularly and offer mural tours through the district.

New Trends in a Dynamic Environment

San Francisco’s multiculturalism is mainly responsible for the diversity of its street art. Men and women of every generation and from different backgrounds find together in this district. “The picture people have in mind of a street artist is a black high-school gangster. This is a huge misconception” says Russell pointing to over 50-year-old Blek le Rat and female artist Amandalynn.

Besides diverse artists also a variety of techniques and street art styles are disposed: murals, graffiti, stencils and even “shoefiti”. This new trend consists of bundles of tagged shoes hanging on wires or from roofs. Plain shoes have an urban myth related to drug dealing and gang activities, which was the reason for the Spanish artist Ana Rivero Rossi to come up with a counter idea. Instead of shoes, she throws hearts in the air and waits for them to get stuck in the cables. “Aquí love” is what she calls the idea, and her hearts are meanwhile popping up all over the city.

This example shows how responsive and dynamic street art is. Artists take over topics they encountered in other murals, tags or parts of paintings and create their own new piece, which makes street art a huge conversation between artists. Sometimes this happens due to respect, other times to ridicule something or someone. Also, some artists continue pieces of other artists or work together on one.

Although the government still sees illegal graffiti as a problem, San Francisco has managed to keep up its vibrant art scene and meanwhile, Balmy and Clarion Alley have become one of the major tourist attractions in the city and will continue to do so thanks to the great support from organisations and museums.

Graffiti has always been a way for people to leave their marks behind and Russell is convinced that even though of course it is not the main driver for public art “wherever there’s alcohol, there’s gonna be graffiti”.

View the photo feature on San Francisco’s street art .

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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While reports on drug trafficking from Latin America to North America are common, the increasingly important routes to Europe are seldom mentioned in the media. In reality, Europe has become the world’s second largest market for cocaine, valued at $36 billion and only $4 billion smaller than the US market.

In Peru and Bolivia, chewing coca leaves is a daily occurrence. For the people in the Andean region, chewing the leaves is the European cultural equivalent of smoking cigarettes. Additionally, coca leaves are said to help alleviate “Soroche” or altitude sickness, a power causing many to declare the plant God-given.

The humility of the coca leaf makes it hard to believe that they form the base of a drug capable of destabilizing several countries and endangering the bodies and minds of millions of consumers.

New Routes, New Markets

Just over one decade ago, the vast majority of cocaine was shipped exclusively to the US. But, as the US market for cocaine continues to shrink and enforcement efforts intensify in Mexico and Central America, European maritime routes have become a profitable alternative to the once exclusively areal passage to Europe. In 1982, 10.5 million US citizens consumed cocaine.  Today, the number has been cut in half, with 5.3 million reported in 2008. In Europe, on the other hand, cocaine usage doubled from 2 million in 1998, to 4.1 million users by 2008.  Countries such as the UK and Spain now show higher annual prevalence than the US.

The exclusive cultivation of the coca bush in Colombia, Peru and Bolivia, means that drug traffickers have to take a long journey across the Atlantic Ocean to reach European markets, where the drug enjoys great popularity amongst night owls from Moscow to Madrid.

Besides the more direct areal route, two maritime routes serve as the primary trafficking corridors.  One route stops in the Caribbean islands and along the coast of Venezuela – a country gripped by a surge in criminal violence. The continuing discord between President Hugo Chavez and the US government prevents trans-governmental cooperation efforts to crackdown on the route. By contrast, over the last decade, Colombia, Peru, Central America, and Mexico, have received tens of billions of dollars in US counter-narcotics assistance.  

Departing from Venezuela and the Caribbean – especially the European territories of Martinique and the Dutch Antilles – small jets, speedboats and fishing vessels carry the product to European cities.  Direct flights and reduced import barriers facilitate the shipment of cocaine in these island nations belonging to France and Netherlands respectively. Their territorial status gives them greater access to the European financial system, making them good centres to hold and launder money from illicit transactions. 

The presence of traffickers in these small island nations has caused crime to soar and has undermined political integrity. A whopping 75% of all crime in the Dutch Antilles is drug-related. The situation appears reminiscent of the rising tide of trafficking throughout once peaceful Central American countries.

Stop-Over: West Africa

Many of the direct maritime routes from South America to Europe have been uncovered by law enforcement, causing traffickers to seek routes through West Africa, as a stop-over to the final destination in Europe.

The journey from Colombia to West Africa is a minor obstacle compared to the direct transit into Europe. Colombian drug cartels buy old planes and depart from Venezuela to West Africa. According to the UN, at least 50 tons of South American cocaine arrive along the West African coast every year. 

Drugs are then shipped across the Sahara to the Northern tip of Morocco, from where they traverse the straits of Gibraltar into Spain. The West African route is particularly profitable for Colombian drug cartels, since the small countries along the West African coast are vulnerable to corruption and existing law enforcement is weak. Just as the small countries of Central America have become a haven for Mexican drug traffickers, West African nations have fallen into the hands of Colombian cartels.

While heightened security has made it difficult for Latin American drug traffickers to transport narcotics into the US, drug interdiction efforts across the Atlantic Ocean are comparatively weak.  Moreover, political instability and limited government resources in West Africa help facilitate drug trafficking. Additionally, the profitability of the trade entices the services of local West African smugglers. 

The most important ‘transit countries’ in West Africa are Nigeria, Ghana and Guinea-Bissau. Nigeria and Ghana serve as hubs for money laundering, while Guinea-Bissau, handles shipments from South America. Corrupt government officials help regulate the passage of narcotics through the country. The arrival of the drug trade has further exacerbated the existing problems of widespread corruption, which causes further neglect for crime and a lack of proficient security.

According to a UN report, Guinea-Bissau’s economy for illicit drug smuggling dwarfs the country’s GDP of $900mn. Drug smuggling employs a significant portion of the workforce and poor enforcement largely reduces the risk of involvement.

Drug Trade in Europe

Drugs arrive in Europe in trucks, planes, fishing boats, speedboats or via drug mules. The majority enters Europe along the Spanish coast: Europe’s gateway for illicit nacrotics.   Other points of entry (POEs) in Europe include the Netherlands, the UK and the Mediterranean coasts of Italy and Southern France.

Once the drugs reach Europe, smugglers operate without much difficulty, since border controls are sparse within Western Europe. With the expectation of the UK and Ireland, the Schengen agreement has eliminated border checks and allows EU citizens to move freely within the European Union. The lack of regulation facilitates the transportation of drugs from the Spain via couriers to other consumer countries throughout the EU.

The UK is the largest consumer of cocaine in Europe, followed by Spain, Denmark and Italy. In the UK, 6.2% of young adults between 15 and 34 years have consumed the drug at least once. Spain ranks shortly behind with 5.5%.

Unlike in Latin America, European traffickers do not operate aggressively.  Drug mafias act cautiously and stay hidden. The ‘Ndrangheta, a powerful Italian criminal organization located along the peninsula adjacent Sicily, has become deeply involved the in drug business with Latin American cartels. In the 1990s, a price drop in the heroin market caused the group to shift their operations towards the rising cocaine trade. The organization is supported by many Italian emigrants based in South America, also works closely with Nigerian drug traders, revealing the deep interconnections that exist among drug trafficking organizations worldwide.

Winner Takes All

European drug users pay between $80 and $150 for one gram of the drug and total revenue from the trade reaches $36bn annually.  However, Coca farmers receive only about 1.5% of cocaine’s street value and many cultivators remain in abject poverty.  The majority of profits accrue among cartels and smaller crime syndicates responsible for the retail of cocaine in developed countries.  Additionally, the FARC and other Colombian insurgents, take in around $300mn each year through coordinating the transfer of coca leaves to cartels, which process the plant into cocaine.  The continued existence of these violent political and criminal organizations is directly tied to the prolonged consumption and profitability cocaine throughout the world.

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Background

The US will soon elect yet again the mightiest man in the world. On November 6, 2012 voters decide whether Barack Obama stays in office or Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts Governor and Bain Capital executive, moves into the White House.

As usual, the economy is a decisive element in the election and the two candidates advance rather distinct views on how to better the situation. While Obama plans to repeal tax cuts for households earning more than $250,000, which was introduced by the Bush administration, Romney wants to keep them going. Obama’s long term aim is to reduce spending costs and to raise taxes for wealthy households, and at the same time continue to invest in education and research to aid the economy heal itself. Romney, on the other hand, plans to encourage business by immediately cutting taxes and regulations and thereby freeing the private sector.

Why is the Economic Situation Relevant for the US Elections?

The economic situation will have a great impact on the outcome of the elections, since 2012 is the third year in a row of disappointingly slow economic growth, which shows that the 2008 financial crisis and subsequent recession had a worse long term effect than expected. In fact, the US finds itself in the slowest growing three-years-span outside of a recession or depression since 1930.

Also, the US economy is affected by the troubled euro zone, which could yet worsen, leading business owners to be cautious about making investments. Rising concerns about tax increases and spending cuts towards the end of the year add to the assumption that economic growth rates will stay low in 2012 and perhaps also in 2013. The fact that the US is highly indebted, faces comparatively high unemployment rates and that the gap between the rich and poor continues to grow adds to a feeling of discontent and signs of social unrest amongst Americans. One has to look no further than the Tea Party Movement or Occupy Wall Street for evidence. The voters’ discontent with Obama’s presidency became apparent in 2010’s Midterm elections and the Republicans hope to build on this success.

Although surveys suggest that Obama is currently in the lead in public opinion, he will have to explain the disappointing economic situation during his presidency and find a way to convince Americans that the last years were the beginning of a gradual economic stabilization in order to win the election. Like James Carville, the Bill Clinton strategist, used to say, “It’s the economy, stupid!”

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