Saturday, February 19, 2011

Bahrain Erupts

It was at Manama on the night of 16-17 February. People were unarmed. They were unprovoking. Suddenly there was an assault upon them. My first surprise was how well the repressive apparatus of the state was prepared. There was the riot police, so it seemed, who had no hesitation to use tear gas, rubber bullets and live munitions without warning. Even the rubber bullets do kill. The army was also deployed with a number of tanks. Such a massive machinery for a population of one million speaks for itself(the military expenditure was 3.6% of the GDP in this oil-rich country in 2005). This is not a democratic country.
My second surprise was that, in a society where the position of the people had been determined by the particular sects they belonged to, the demonstration was not organized along the sectarian lines. One of their demands was certainly the equal rights of people from different sects, but that also was expressed in universal democratic terms, and as such was secular.
And thirdly, there was the non-violent character of the demonstration. Even after the forcible, brutal eviction on that night, when people came to the funeral on 18 February of those killed, they were, as far as I could see, completely unarmed. This was not because they had no weapons or they were prohibited to carry them. This was apparently because they knew, instinctively, that the use of weapons on their part would destroy the cause itself. For this Egypt showed the way. Egypt, or more accurately the common Egyptians, deserves the credit. Bahrain is not the only country that owes to Egypt in this way.
The question is if the army who are mostly foreign mercenaries unlike in Egypt can be restrained in their dealing with the people. This may be called the peculiar disparity between the State and the Society in Bahrain. But behind this is the presence of the US 5th Fleet at Bahrain, of the US Central Command at Qatar next door, and also the British military involvement. The US and the dictatorial regimes have needed each other. This is a legacy of the Cold War days which is being sought to be maintained in the name of anti-terrorism.
It is noteworthy that, right on the day the people of Bahrain were attending the funeral at Manama, the US vetoed the draft resolution in the Security Council on restraining the Israeli settlement in the occupied territories. It would certainly show how they are learning from the recent eruption in the Middle East and North Africa.

Friday, February 18, 2011

The Idea of India Indicts The Indian State-Ramachandra Guha

India's Weekly Outlook Magazine in its 31 January issue published Historian Ramachandra Guha's 12-page article "The Enemies of the Idea of India". According to the author, the idea of India, which is 'plural, inclusive', and is based on dialogue, compromise, reciprocity and accommodation, has got three enemies since the time of independence in 1947. The first is Hundutva, the extreme Hindu ideology, which was most intense from 1998, when they were returned to power in New Delhi and conducted nuclear tests, to 2004 when they were defeated by the Congress and its allies. The second is the armed Maoist uprising in central India. It is based upon the 'dispossession of the tribals' in India. The tribals have no viable representatives, but, Guha says, the Maoists are not really defending their interests as they are not a democratic force and their violence is targeted not only against the state violence but at the same time is 'highly focused' against the local leaders who would be very much in need for building a new social order. 'In the medium and long term, they provide no real solution'. Thirdly there is separatism still to be seen in three states of India. Guha says 'the Government of India must do far more to reach out to the people of Kashmir, Nagaland and Manipur'. On the most important of them, Kashmir, he adds that 'an independent Kashmir will most likely become a receptacle for Al Qaeda'. He does not say anything on the possibility of dividing Kashmir. There was a time when some of the well informed Indians would have agreed to the idea, in spite of the Lok Sabha resolution concerning the whole of Kashmir. But after so much has happened in and around Pakistan, particularly after 9/11, it would be difficult for many to buy it now. But then what would be the alternative?
In the second half of the article, Guha discusses the three more recent challenges to the idea of India. They are all closely related. First, 'there are gross and apparently growing inequalities of income, wealth, consumption, property, access to quality education and health care, and avenues for dignified employment' along caste, religion, ethnicity, region, rural versus urban and gender. Second, there is the worsening situation concerning corruption after Lal Bahadur Shastri's Prime Ministership in the mid-1960s, particularly 'over the past three decades'. Third, environmental degradation, especially as the result of mining, and this is the worst in states like Karnataka, Orissa, Goa and Maharashtra. The 'fetish' of 9% annual growth is a dangerous inducement behind the process.
So 'perhaps the most powerful enemy of the idea of India now is the Indian State'. Guha follows up this statement, the only part in the article in italic' by a brief critical comment on major Congress leaders like Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi, and refers to some other parties. He believes, however, that in India today the civil society is performing very well with its 'hundreds of hard-working and selfless social activists'. His 'one final vignette' was what he saw on 'One Independence Day'. He met three young boys who had apparently played the role of B.R.Ambedkar, the leader of the former untouchables, M.Visvesvaraya, the Premier of the former Mysore Princely State in the British time and an industrialist, and Mahatma Gandhi, respectively, in a function. According to Guha, the boys 'knew and revered' all these three, they knew that 'our country today needs all three', and that was 'a spontaneous, magnificent illustration of the idea of India'.
This writer also knows and revers all those three, but is not sure if he should respect them to the same extent. He once spoke on 'Gandhi offers 50% of the solution to today's problems'(Prabhat-Khabar, Ranchi, 16 December 2007). Was he wrong?

Monday, February 14, 2011

Virtual Water from Australia

A four-day talk on trade liberalization between Japan and Australia has come to nothing. Is it a blessing, or otherwise? One major subject of the talk was the Australian demand that Japan should abolish customs on wheat, sugar, beef and milk products. Japan refused.
Australia has recently been troubled by heat, flood and cyclone. We express our sympathies. We are most surprised by the flood, as Australia is not usually associated with water resources. We will look at the matter from the angle of water.
A small note has been prepared by three Japanese scientists on virtual water trade of Japan(in Japanese). It concludes that, from 1996 to 98, Japan imported virtual water of 48.6 billion cubic meters in the form of agricultural products(rice, wheat, maize and soya beans),and another 53.9 billion in the form of meat(beef, pork and chicken) annually. We will ignore a much smaller quantity of virtual water in the form of industrial products. So we import virtual water of 102.5 billion cubic meters every year. This far exceeds the 59 billion of water used for agricultural purposes domestically, which means that this is really a huge amount of water.
Where is this virtual water coming from, and in what form? The US tops the list, accounting for 59.6 billion, followed by Australia's 25.6. Canada's 5.4 is the distant third. 45.3% of the total is in the form of beef, as it is a commodity which consumes enormous amount of water per unit. The next is wheat which is 18.6%.
What do these figures tell us? Suppose Australia is normally a water-deficit country, as the recent forest fires caused by heat would show. Would she be wise to move toward more export of the agricultural and animal products, especially beef? The same question may also be asked about the US. She is exporting virtual water to Japan more than twice as much as Down Under, and is known for increasing deficit of water. Sustainability does not simply refer to the reduction of the warming gas.
The US is inducing Japan to join the TPP which is based on the principle of the abolition of customs. Australia is already a part of it, together with New Zealand. What about Japan? She is only 40% self-supporting in agricultural products, and it is estimated to dive sharply to mere 13% if customs are taken away. Agreeing to the Australian demands would be an important step in this direction. In no other industrial country the ratio is as low as this. In no other industrial country the overall customs on agricultural products is as low as 12% as it is now.
Do we have to go back on globalization? To a certain extent, yes. We will not be able to play any constructive role if the world food supply can not support the growing population. We will be a liability then, a problem rather than a solution. Moreover, Japan's well-developed irrigated rice cultivation will come into disuse. The process has already started. It may result in the desertification of a large tract of land. Every rice field is a small dam. Thus the import of more virtual water will cause more draining away of real water!

Saturday, February 12, 2011

Down of Mubarak, and Israel

'So many Egyptians say this country is born tonight', a correspondent reported from among a huge crowd in Cairo shortly after midnight local time. 'Thank you, Facebook, thank you, Tunisia', someone in the crowd was heard to say. This is, at least up till now, a bloodless, satyagraha-type revolution. It is remarkable that, whether the people changed the heart of their possible opponent by their sacrifice and love, as Gandhi used to say, the armed forces did not resort to violence. Both sides remained non-violent.
The only country that is silent is Israel. They are not joying in what the Egyptians are joying in. Since Sadat's approach to Israel, she has been able to count on Egypt to the South, the most populous and militarily the strongest Arab nation, not to turn hostile, and Mubarak has been the pillar of this sense of security. In view of the corrupt, undemocratic and stagnant Egyptian regime that has continued under Mubarak, however, it is now clear that Israel has chosen a wrong partner. This is the time Israel had better reorient its policy and take the hand the Egyptians may not be so hesitant to extend newly.
Of course there will be cry of Iran, Hammas, and Muslim Brotherhood. I would submit that Israel as well as Western governments should have recognized some of them as the legitimate representatives of the people when duly elected, instead of bluntly denying their claim. As for the 'Islamists' it has been a political and ideological weapon for the dictatorial regimes to corner the people into a hopeless choice between dictatorship and Islamist, a fist with which to hammer any move toward democratization. That was exactly what Mubarak represented. Such dictatorship would be congenial to the growth of political Islamism. We may recall that under the Shah of Iran, after the arrest of Mussaddiq, people gradually came to find that the only way to express themselves was by way of the Ayatollahs. Democratization is by far the better method to fight it.
A lot of noise on the surface notwithstanding, this has been an orderly movement. It has shown and strengthened the unity of the Arab world. Together with the abolition of apartheid nearly twenty years ago, it will make another example of peaceful revolution in the African Continent. The Arabs are rewriting there history. There is certainly a constructive role for Israel to play. She does not have to recall only the days of Intifada.

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

The New Prime Minister Sworn in at Kathmandu

It's a matter of congratulations that finally a new Prime Minister was sworn in after 7 months of political deadlock in Nepal. Mr.J.N.Khanal is the Chairman of the CPN-UML, the third party in the Parliament, and is supported by the Maoists, the largest party, headed by Mr.Prachanda. The new cabinet, on the verge of being formed now, will be a coalition of these two leftist parties. Their names themselves suggest a complicated political situation. But there is no reason to believe that they are not going to see eye to eye. The new PM says that 'the new government will have a mission to accomplish the tasks of peace and constitution'. The peace means the integration of the ex-Maoist combatants, and the constitution means finishing the writing of the new constitution. Nepal is under the Interim Constitution now.
Back in November 2006, this writer was attending a symposium in India. Among those present was a couple of political scientists from Nepal, who were more or less involved in the political negotiations going on in their country at that time. They were anxious to know what was taking place, and hurried back home before the symposium was over. On 31 December, there came an email message from one of them, which said 'an Interim Constitution has been agreed by Seven Party Alliance and the CPN Maoist. We are waiting for its promulgation...The UN team has arrived and is about to start the monitoring. Things are slow but on track. Hope that New Year will mark peace and democratic progress in Nepal'.
Actually the Interim Constitution was signed on 16 December, and was promulgated on 15 January 2007. It makes no mention of the monarchy, and Nepal is a Federal Republic. But the formalities of constitution making are not yet over although the Parliament was duly elected. The new PM is the third under the interim arrangement. There will have been 4 years or so of delay in the constitution-making. But now things seem to be 'on track'.

Monday, February 7, 2011

The Hero was a Korean Japanese

The Asian Cup Soccer 2011 at Doha, Qatar, has ended in Japan's victory on 29 January. Altogether 16 national teams have participated. Eight have gone into the tournament which is the second stage. There Japan has beaten Qatar, then South Korea in the semi-final, and Australia in the final by 1-0. All three were won in a pitched battle. It was Lee Tadanari, 25 years old, who decided the fate of the team with his powerful volley into the Australian goal.
Lee was not a part of the game from the start. He was put into it by Coach Zaccheroni 9 minutes after the game went into extension. Alberto Zaccheroni comes from Italy. He was appointed after the World Cup 2010 and has not been long with the team. But he is already transforming it by being attentive to each and every player, and his preference for offensive tactics. Half of Japan's victory is Zaccheroni's.
But let us look at the hero more closely. He is a 4th-generation Korean. His father belonging to the third-generation is a Korean by nationality also. During the 35 years of the Japanese rule over Korea, many Koreans came over to Japan, a large number of them against their will. In 1910 when the annexation was made there were only 790 Koreans in Japan, 600 of whom were students. It increased afterwards, and sharply so during the war years until there were about two million at the end of the war in 1945. Many thousand of them were victimized by the atomic bombs. After the war many went back to the now divided Korea, many others became Japanese citizens, but many are remaining in Japan as either South or North Koreans.
Lee himself was a South Korean like his father under the name Lee(pronounced ee in Korean) Chung-Sung. He is a member of a Japanese professional soccer team based at Hiroshima. He was going to play in the Beijing Olympics as well as the Asian Cup as a part of the South Korean team, but because of the language barrier decided to abandon the South Korean citizenship and became a Japanese 4 years ago. His name became Lee(pronounced ri) Tadanari, although if written in Chinese characters it is the same. The difference is that in both Koreas they do not usually use Chinese characters.
Lee has reportedly said that both Japan and South Korea are his mother countries. Let us be sure that the presence of Lee and 300,000 to 400,000 zainichi(Japan-residing) Koreans will enrich the Japanese culture. In the meantime, Kamsa Hamnida(Thank you) to our hero.