I really wonder if our Egyptian friends have had a nice dream after Mr.Mubarak's speech in the small hours of Saturday, 29 January, Egyptian time, particularly after they have heard Mr.Obama's statement made shortly afterwards. It is apparent that Mr.Obama, though cautiously, supported Mr.Mubarak at least for the time being. After his predecessor's approach to Israel, the US has been supporting the undemocratic regime in Egypt. It has meant a lot for the whole Middle East since she is the largest Arab country. Now that they are not easily able to remove their ally in the absence of a viable alternative, the failure of the US Middle East policy, if not specifically Mr.Obama's, has become clear. After the police is discredited by their brutal behaviour, it seems it is the army that the US will heavily depend upon now. This writer is not sure if the Egyptian Army Chief of Staff who is said to be on his way back from the US has been visiting there for emergency consultation. But the army has been a major link between the two governments, and the US has been pouring $ 1.5 billion every year, mostly in the form of military aid. It was reported that the tear gas used by the police is labelled 'Made in USA'.
Mr.Mubarak referred to the 'dark forces' in his speech to justify himself as an authoritarian ruler as against radical Islamism. As we have seen in these columns many a government has tried to legitimize its strong hand in the name of anti-terrorism. Therefore it was impressive that a citizen has pointed to the demonstration and said 'The streets are secular', meaning that it is wrong to talk of the movement as if it is going to be snatched away by some extremists. It was equally impressive that the people in the streets are demanding basic human rights. These are universal values and not a matter of this or that specific culture.
Whether Mr.Mubarak will step down or not some time soon, the Egypt of tomorrow onwards will no longer be the same. But it is highly doubtful how he is at all able to deliver what he has failed to do in the past three decades. The people of Egypt have already shown him the door. He will be well-advised to follow the sign.
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Friday, January 28, 2011
A Well-Boring Physician in Afghanistan
When President Obama in his State of the Union Address on 25 January announced the withdrawal of the American forces from Afghanistan beginning in July, Dr.Nakamura Tetsu must have been among those who welcomed the news.
He was born in Japan in 1946, and was a practising physician. He started serving at a hospital in Peshawar, Pakistan, in 1984, as the doctor in charge of a leprosy ward. From 1991 he opened his practise in some of the doctor-less hilly villages in war-torn Afghanistan, which was later extended to some poor residential districts in Kabul itself.
His focus in more recent years was on the area west of Jalalabad. He and his group planted trees to harness the rapid stream originating from the melting snow in the mountains, built waterways, and succeeded in irrigating fourteen thousand hectares of farmland by 2008, providing constant supply of water to 200,000 people all the year round. When a famine struck the region, threatening to turn it into desert, around the turn of the century, they sank wells numbering 1,600, providing the villagers water first for drinking and then for irrigation. Dr.Nakamura says that as far as the water is available the villagers need not become refugees. He adds that the villagers have their own knowledge on the distribution of water.
Interestingly, during his childhood his cherished dream was to own a forest and live there with insects, as he said in a recently completed serialized interview in a newspaper, but right now his happiest moment is when he is moving a bulldozer in a river-bed.
What is his view of the ongoing struggle in Afghanistan? He thinks that things are being justified in the name of anti-terrorism. The unmanned bomber tends to attack wherever there is a gathering of people, a marriage ceremony, for example. There are more disparities in the bigger cities, with a handful of the rich and the freedom to starve for many. It is obvious to every one that the war has come up to a deadlock. He also says that once there was the news of the possible Japanese SDF(Self-Defense Forces) joining the war on the US side, people like him began to feel the threat to their lives.
He concluded a lecture by saying that what is important is not what to do, but what not to do, like not to kill or not to steal, which are universal values. It was a fully packed lecture at Tokyo in September 2009. I sensed that many people were eager to know the reality at first hand, and what is within their reach to do(or not to do!).
He was born in Japan in 1946, and was a practising physician. He started serving at a hospital in Peshawar, Pakistan, in 1984, as the doctor in charge of a leprosy ward. From 1991 he opened his practise in some of the doctor-less hilly villages in war-torn Afghanistan, which was later extended to some poor residential districts in Kabul itself.
His focus in more recent years was on the area west of Jalalabad. He and his group planted trees to harness the rapid stream originating from the melting snow in the mountains, built waterways, and succeeded in irrigating fourteen thousand hectares of farmland by 2008, providing constant supply of water to 200,000 people all the year round. When a famine struck the region, threatening to turn it into desert, around the turn of the century, they sank wells numbering 1,600, providing the villagers water first for drinking and then for irrigation. Dr.Nakamura says that as far as the water is available the villagers need not become refugees. He adds that the villagers have their own knowledge on the distribution of water.
Interestingly, during his childhood his cherished dream was to own a forest and live there with insects, as he said in a recently completed serialized interview in a newspaper, but right now his happiest moment is when he is moving a bulldozer in a river-bed.
What is his view of the ongoing struggle in Afghanistan? He thinks that things are being justified in the name of anti-terrorism. The unmanned bomber tends to attack wherever there is a gathering of people, a marriage ceremony, for example. There are more disparities in the bigger cities, with a handful of the rich and the freedom to starve for many. It is obvious to every one that the war has come up to a deadlock. He also says that once there was the news of the possible Japanese SDF(Self-Defense Forces) joining the war on the US side, people like him began to feel the threat to their lives.
He concluded a lecture by saying that what is important is not what to do, but what not to do, like not to kill or not to steal, which are universal values. It was a fully packed lecture at Tokyo in September 2009. I sensed that many people were eager to know the reality at first hand, and what is within their reach to do(or not to do!).
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Chairman Hu Jintao's US Visit
'We have an enormous stake in each other's success', Mr.Obama said at the joint press conference with Mr.Hu at the White House. Very befitting to the occasion, and to our time. But what sort of a success? Mr.Hu offers to buy $45 billion worth of American goods. It may be a small portion of the $252 billion deficit in the US's China trade in 2010, but it is a demand for creating employment up to 250,000 in the US. So far so good.
At the press conference Mr.Hu said in answer to a question, and he appeared to be reading a text, that a lot still needs to be done in China in the area of human rights. As we have written on The Nobel Peace Prize 2010, the human rights record in China leaves really a lot to be desired, and we do hope for the sake of the whole humanity that Mr.Hu's comment was not simply a diplomatic lip-service prepared beforehand. At the same time we would like to ask if the US's own record is perfectly clean, and was not such as to serve political expediency. A former President, for example, who is known for his interest in this area, was, during his Presidency, a guest of the then Shah of Iran, and made comments applauding the hated monarch saying that Iran was an island of stability in the Middle East. China also maintained a close relationship with the Shah. Indeed this writer was shocked, almost terrified, to hear the Chinese Ambassador stressing that each country be allowed to have its own concept of human rights. It was in Pakistan more than a decade ago. He was the only diplomat invited to a symposium, symbolizing the special relationship of the two countries still continuing.
What we fear most is that both countries are strengthening their military muscle. It tends to involve smaller or dependent countries, Japan included. Both, Permanent Members of the UN Security Council, have violated Article 2(4) of the UN Charter requesting the member nations to refrain 'from the use or threat of force'. Both are exporters of weapons. In the worst scenario the weapons have been supplied to dictatorial regimes where those weapons do kill. Fortunately a voice is increasingly heard in the US demanding a cut in the military expenditure. The US also have come to an agreement with Russia for a nuclear disarmament, if not a very satisfactory one. It is hoped that the US and China would come to an understanding for mutual military restraint, not for joint exercises. The best thing would be to hear no more of joint military exercises of any kind in the whole of Asia.
At the press conference Mr.Hu said in answer to a question, and he appeared to be reading a text, that a lot still needs to be done in China in the area of human rights. As we have written on The Nobel Peace Prize 2010, the human rights record in China leaves really a lot to be desired, and we do hope for the sake of the whole humanity that Mr.Hu's comment was not simply a diplomatic lip-service prepared beforehand. At the same time we would like to ask if the US's own record is perfectly clean, and was not such as to serve political expediency. A former President, for example, who is known for his interest in this area, was, during his Presidency, a guest of the then Shah of Iran, and made comments applauding the hated monarch saying that Iran was an island of stability in the Middle East. China also maintained a close relationship with the Shah. Indeed this writer was shocked, almost terrified, to hear the Chinese Ambassador stressing that each country be allowed to have its own concept of human rights. It was in Pakistan more than a decade ago. He was the only diplomat invited to a symposium, symbolizing the special relationship of the two countries still continuing.
What we fear most is that both countries are strengthening their military muscle. It tends to involve smaller or dependent countries, Japan included. Both, Permanent Members of the UN Security Council, have violated Article 2(4) of the UN Charter requesting the member nations to refrain 'from the use or threat of force'. Both are exporters of weapons. In the worst scenario the weapons have been supplied to dictatorial regimes where those weapons do kill. Fortunately a voice is increasingly heard in the US demanding a cut in the military expenditure. The US also have come to an agreement with Russia for a nuclear disarmament, if not a very satisfactory one. It is hoped that the US and China would come to an understanding for mutual military restraint, not for joint exercises. The best thing would be to hear no more of joint military exercises of any kind in the whole of Asia.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
A Step Forward, From Cancun to Durban
The COP 16 was recently held at Cancun, Mexico, to cope with the coming termination of the Kyoto Protocol(KP) at the end of 2012. The KP was signed at the COP 3 in 1997and took effect in 2005. Under the KP, Japan, for example, has to reduce her emission of global warming gas by 6% compared to 1990, the standard year, by 2012. It was the first international statutory agreement concerning a crucial aspect of sustainable development. Its major flaw is, with the withdrawal of the US and the rapid increase in the emission by countries like China, the total emission of the countries covered is only 27% of the global total. China is the top emitter, having overtaken the US in 2007, and is followed by the US, Russia and India, and Japan. They are all major coal consumers. The increase in total emission in the world in 2010 was estimated to be 3%, but the ratio for China was 8%, and that for India was 6.2%. Both of them are demanding that the emission be calculated on the per capita basis.
At Cancun Japan insisted that KP should be replaced by a new agreement in which all those countries would be partners. Easier said than done. Has she worked hard to persuade them to do so? Unfortunately she could not present any compromise alternative to prevent the conference from coming to nothing. But others were keener, and in the end the COP 16 concluded that the industrial countries should curtail their emission by 25-40% against the standard year by 2020, the developing countries would start limiting their emission then, and the details would be worked out at COP 17 at Durban, South Africa, to be held in November to December 2011.
Japan pledged, in a Prime Minister's UN speech, to cut 25% by 2020, but it was conditional on others' participation. A business association has recently proposed a 15% cut on a voluntary basis.
If you look at what sectors are the major emitters in Japan, you will find that, of the 20 leading emitting enterprises, 11 are power plants and 9 are steel plants, heavily dependent on imported coal as there was a hike in oil prices. Japan is the largest coal importer in the world, with more than half of the coal coming from Australia, and the amount of import is increasing. There is room for restricting the use of coal, and enhancing the use of renewable energy. And this writer is sure that most of our people would gladly put up with less heating in winter, less cooling in summer, and all that sort of inconveniences.
At Cancun Japan insisted that KP should be replaced by a new agreement in which all those countries would be partners. Easier said than done. Has she worked hard to persuade them to do so? Unfortunately she could not present any compromise alternative to prevent the conference from coming to nothing. But others were keener, and in the end the COP 16 concluded that the industrial countries should curtail their emission by 25-40% against the standard year by 2020, the developing countries would start limiting their emission then, and the details would be worked out at COP 17 at Durban, South Africa, to be held in November to December 2011.
Japan pledged, in a Prime Minister's UN speech, to cut 25% by 2020, but it was conditional on others' participation. A business association has recently proposed a 15% cut on a voluntary basis.
If you look at what sectors are the major emitters in Japan, you will find that, of the 20 leading emitting enterprises, 11 are power plants and 9 are steel plants, heavily dependent on imported coal as there was a hike in oil prices. Japan is the largest coal importer in the world, with more than half of the coal coming from Australia, and the amount of import is increasing. There is room for restricting the use of coal, and enhancing the use of renewable energy. And this writer is sure that most of our people would gladly put up with less heating in winter, less cooling in summer, and all that sort of inconveniences.
Sunday, January 16, 2011
The Role of the New Economic Minister of Japan
When the LDP(Liberal Democratic Party)'s rule which seemed a permanent feature of Japanese politics was toppled and the Democratic Government came into being in September 2009, one of the pledges they made was not to increase the present 5% consumption tax for their term. However, their Prime Minister, already the second one, is openly talking of the tax rise, and it is assumed that the new Economic Minister, appointed on 14 January, will be the man to be in charge. This alone would show that the distance between the two major parties has come to nothing as the Minister in question was long known as an LDP brains trust for economic affairs. He is for a hike in the rate by 5%. A business association, in its New Year message, has proposed a hike to 10% first, and then to 17%.
Nowadays it is common in a serious debate on Asian economy to bypass Japan, paying more attention to the 'Rising China' or 'Emerging India', or to ASEAN. It need not be so, as Japan is still capable of higher growth, and that not simply in macro-economic terms but with a human face. But why has Japan sunk so much?
It is mainly due to the continued downward trend in wages. It is not a natural phenomenon, or to be attributed to external factors. The drop in wages was recorded since the mid-90s, when the business associations put pressure on the then LDP government to deregulate the statutory conditions of employing the workforce. As the result there was a sharp increase in the ratio of the irregular workers, with unstable status and lower income, in the workforce. Now it is over one third of the total, and their existence naturally has adversely affected the status, working hours, and pay of the regular employees as well. The average wage has been reduced by a little over Yen half a million, roughly one eighth, from 1999 to 2009. During the same period, the number of those with more than Yen 20 million, or up to Yen 3 million of annual income, has increased, and the number with income in between, more than 3 and up to 20 million, the solid core of the workforce of the country, has been shrinking. It is difficult for a man to live a decent life on Yen 3 million, let alone a family, and this will explain the decreasing marriage ratio among the young, and many things more. Before 2006 poverty as such was hardly an issue, but it has become common since then to talk of not just disparities but poverty, particularly the 'working poor', meaning no matter how hard and long a man may work he will remain poor. Many of those who are poor are no longer working as it has become so difficult to find work these days. Governments come and go, but there has been little attempt to stem the tide. The present PM has said in his important speech that the policy emphasis was employment first, employment second, and employment third, but little evidence is there to show that it has been pursued with any sincerity, diligence and far-sightedness.
Several factors have worsened the situation. The income tax has become increasingly retrogressive, from the maximum 70% in 1986 to the present 40%. The consumption tax was introduced in 1989 at 3%, but was raised to 5% in 1997. Moreover, it was combined with cuts in corporation tax, and the total amount collected up to March 2010 roughly equalled the accumulated cuts in the latter, benefitting only the rich. The banks now take the deposit, even the fixed deposit, at almost zero interest, thus pocketing huge amount the accumulated figure of which would equal half of Japan's annual GDP. All these have consistently curtailed the disposable income of the great mass of the people. As the result, the automobile industry, for example, are producing as many vehicles abroad as in the country and at the same time exporting half of the domestically produced ones, being unable to sell. If all those people-unfriendly measures could be reversed, putting the greatest priority on stable employment and decent wages, thus expanding the home market, Japan's economy will come out of the two decade-long deep tunnel, still without a light ahead, and register even a double-digit growth with all its effects in the country and outside. It would increase natural inflow of income tax as well, offsetting the need for a consumption tax hike and, ultimately, the tax itself!
Saturday, January 15, 2011
A Form of Contemporary Gandhiism
The December 2010 issue of the Ekta Parishad Newsletter has arrived(by email). Ekta Parishad means a council for unity. According to its website, 'Ekta Parishad is the only non-violent social movement in India working on land and forest rights at a national level'. http://www.ektaparishad.com/ By trying to be 'non-violent' it shows itself to be Gandhian. But the stress on 'land and forest rights' shows that it is going beyond Gandhi. True, Gandhi himself was not indifferent to these problems. But he was far too busy to pay enough attention to them, and, more importantly, he tended to restrain the demands of the people for these rights lest such a movement should get violent. The land problem thus remained unsolved before independence, and has remained so even afterwards in India.
There is another reason why this writer wants to call it beyond Gandhi, and it is the participation of a large number of tribals or Adivasis. This was an area where we may hardly able to trace the shadow of Gandhi, except through some of his distinguished lieutenants like Thakkar Bapa. Since independence there has been deterioration in the position of these groups of people, and perhaps more so with the outset of rapid economic growth, as, for example, large mining companies are having an eye on their resource-rich homelands. By the way Gandhi tried to deny the substance of a separate group of 'untouchables'. He might also have denied the substance of separate 'tribals'. In this sense it is noteworthy that some anthropologists have pointed out that 'At no stage, however, did we have a set of clear indicators of tribal-ness' (S.C.Dube, "Introduction", in Dube, ed.,Tribal Heritage of India, vol.1, 1977).
This writer was fortunate that when he visited the Gandhi Bhavan at Bhopal, the capital of Madhya Pradesh in central India, during his research on contemporary Gandhiism, he found Ekta Parishad office attached to the main building, just walked into it without knowing what it was, and was warmly welcomed. It was in October 2008. He is reading the monthly newsletter since then. The December issue reports that on 10 December, the International Human Rights Day, the Parishad organized mass action for land rights in 69 Districts in the country.
Jai Jagat, Victory to the World, is the slogan of the Parishad, and there is a song by that title. It says in part, 'Let Land Belong to All, Even as the Sky Belongs to All'. Jai Jagat!
There is another reason why this writer wants to call it beyond Gandhi, and it is the participation of a large number of tribals or Adivasis. This was an area where we may hardly able to trace the shadow of Gandhi, except through some of his distinguished lieutenants like Thakkar Bapa. Since independence there has been deterioration in the position of these groups of people, and perhaps more so with the outset of rapid economic growth, as, for example, large mining companies are having an eye on their resource-rich homelands. By the way Gandhi tried to deny the substance of a separate group of 'untouchables'. He might also have denied the substance of separate 'tribals'. In this sense it is noteworthy that some anthropologists have pointed out that 'At no stage, however, did we have a set of clear indicators of tribal-ness' (S.C.Dube, "Introduction", in Dube, ed.,Tribal Heritage of India, vol.1, 1977).
This writer was fortunate that when he visited the Gandhi Bhavan at Bhopal, the capital of Madhya Pradesh in central India, during his research on contemporary Gandhiism, he found Ekta Parishad office attached to the main building, just walked into it without knowing what it was, and was warmly welcomed. It was in October 2008. He is reading the monthly newsletter since then. The December issue reports that on 10 December, the International Human Rights Day, the Parishad organized mass action for land rights in 69 Districts in the country.
Jai Jagat, Victory to the World, is the slogan of the Parishad, and there is a song by that title. It says in part, 'Let Land Belong to All, Even as the Sky Belongs to All'. Jai Jagat!
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Hokusai's Tiger and Dragon
Katsushika Hokusai(1760-1849)was one of the best known Ukiyoe artists. Readers are now seeing his Tiger on the left, and the Dragon on the right, hanging side by side. This was at an exhibition at the Ota Memorial Museum of Art, Tokyo, early in 2007. The tiger and the dragon are symbols of two equally strong powers, and as such have been painted by quite a few famous artists. But in Hokusai's case there were additional factors which made the exhibition exciting. These two were long separated, and it was only a few years earlier that the Dragon was discovered by the National Giumet Museum of Eastern Art in Paris. The crucial point in identifying the Dragon as Hokusai's was that, whereas hitherto it was not clear what the Tiger was roaring at, it was now established that the two were exactly looking at each other. Another thing was that it was also made clear that Hokusai drew these two pieces almost at the same time, at the age of 90-part of the signature on both reads 'by a 90-year old man'-and died soon afterwards. Although the dragon is imaginary, and the tiger was never found in Japan, both are well-known and popular here. One folk tale goes that when an old couple got a cat and decided to keep her, they wondered how to name her. "A tiger is a very strong animal, so let's call her tiger". "But when we talk of the tiger and the dragon, we put dragon first. It should be dragon." "The dragon is blown off by a wind." "The wind is withstood by a wall." "A mouse makes a hole in the wall." "And the cat catches a mouse." So the old couple named their cat a cat.
There are some who maintain on the basis of the place of Hokusai's signature that the two should be hung the other way round, meaning that the signatures are normally put on the outside of the pair of works but in the above pair they are on the inside. In that case the two animals would be looking quite different ways. There is no way to ascertain what Hokusai intended, but according to the Ota Museum there are some other examples in which Hokusai signed like this. The Dragon has gone back to Guimet now. The Tiger is at Ota, and is on exhibit from time to time.
The new year 2011 is a year neither of a tiger or a dragon but of a rabbit for us. We are not able to leap, let alone leap in the dark, but we can at least listen. Anyway a very Happy New Year !
(Hokusai's works from internet)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)