January 2013
Vol 13, No.01
EGYPT: IKHWAN AT THE CROSSROADS By Chandra Muzaffar
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gyptian opposition parties and their supporters should accept the results of the 15 December Referendum on the new Egyptian Constitution. They have not been able to provide solid evidence of systemic cheating or massive manipulation of the referendum by the Mohamed Morsi government, as they had alleged earlier. Analysts, inside and outside Egypt, have made this observation. In fact, 64% of those who voted, endorsed the new Egyptian Constitution. True, only 32% of the registered voters exercised their right. But that in itself is not an argument against the validity of the poll. In some Western democracies, the voter turnout is lower and yet no one questions the outcome of their referenda or elections. Of course a lot of Egyptians are genuinely concerned about the character of the Constitution which they feel strengthens the position of AlAzhar jurists over the legislative
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process. What this means in reality is that the authority of scholars from Egypt’s premier Islamic institution would now span a wide spectrum of activities since Islam is after all a complete way of life. More specifically, critics of the Constitution are worried that the textual interpretation of these jurists could impact adversely upon women and non-Muslim minorities. It might lead to a form of conservatism that is inimical to the essence of Islam as understood and practised by a significant segment of Egyptian society for centuries. It is a fear that is not without basis given Al-Azhar’s orientation and the stances adopted by
elements in the leadership of the Ikhwan-ul-Muslimin (the Muslim Brotherhood) which has emerged as the most powerful current in Egyptian politics since the ouster of former President, Hosni Mubarak. Dr. Mohamad Morsi, from an Ikhwan background, who was elected President in June 2012 with only 51.7% of the votes cast, should address the fears and concerns of the opponents of the new Constitution with sincerity and honesty. He should not only dialogue with them but also incorporate some of the more credible personalities from non-Ihkwan backgrounds into the structures of governance. Adopting an inclusive approach and building a national consensus to tackle the monumental challenges facing the Egyptian nation should be Morsi’s principal aim. Of these challenges the most formidable are those related to the economy. According to some sources, Turn to next page
STATEMENT
CHEMICAL WEAPONS: FABRICATING AN EXCUSE FOR INVASION BY CHANDRA MUZAFFAR ...........................................................................................................................P 3 AND
ARTICLES .THE CLIMATE DEAL SHAM: ONLY SHARING CAN BREAK THE DEADLOCK BY ADAM PARSONS..............................................P 4
.THE MASSACRE
.SOUTH KOREA’S ELECTIONS: HARDLINE CONSERVATISM
.MUSLIM SOCIETIES, ISRAEL AND THE WEST (PART II)
WITH A LIBERAL SMILE BY NILE BOWIE....................................................P 7
CHILDREN BY CHANDRA MUZAFFAR....................................P 9 OF
INTERVIEW............................................................P 10
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continued from page 1 about 40 million Egyptians ¯ 51% of the total population ¯ live below the poverty line of 2 US dollars a day. Between 20% to 25% of the work force — mostly young people ¯ are unemployed. Inflation hovers around 11.7%. There is a huge national deficit. Foreign reserves are depleting rapidly. And the yawning gap between the rich and poor which has been a feature of Egyptian society for the last three decades has widened considerably in the last 10 years.
There is yet another dimension to the economy which makes the challenge even more complicated. The still powerful Egyptian military with its longstanding historical role owns or controls anything between 10% and 45% of the national economy. It has its finger in almost every slice of the economic pie. The vested interests linked to the military have undoubtedly distorted the economy.
How will Morsi, the Ikhwan and the party that it sponsors, the Freedom and Justice Party, correct these distortions and transform the economy? In its al-Nahda (renaissance) economic programme, the Ikhwan spells out its commitment to a free market; an industrial policy based upon export substitution; reducing public expenditure; controlling the budget deficit; increasing the minimum wage; introducing a progressive income tax structure; and raising the ceiling for tax exemptions. The economic programme also emphasises building new power plants,
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water treatment systems, roads and bridges. Apart from revenue obtained from the export of gas and petroleum and the tourism industry, the Ikhwan speaks vaguely about a better organised zakat system as an important source of income. A vigorous assault upon corruption and wastage, it reckons, will also strengthen the nation’s economic base. The Ikhwan hopes to gain control over the so-called slush funds of the deposed regime to finance development projects for the people. It is an open secret that the Ikhwan is, at the same time, negotiating a 4.8 billion US dollar loan from the IMF. There is, besides, great expectation of substantive aid from Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the European Union, and the United States. Many of the goals of the al-Nahda programme are laudable. Some of its specific objectives linked to wages and taxes are commendable. However, critics are sceptical about the ability of a programme which relies so heavily upon the private sector to overcome absolute poverty or to narrow the widening chasm between the rich and poor ¯ Egypt’s two most daunting economic challenges. Historically, in the Global South as in the Global North, it is institutions which are part of the public sector that have played a pivotal role in addressing challenges of this sort — challenges which are intimately connected with issues of social justice. It is also the State that will have to take the lead in limiting and eventually eliminating the military from the economy. Similarly, it is the State that will have to formulate an effective delivery system which would bring the benefits of development to the poorer strata of society. Private capital, domestic or foreign, and the institutions related to it, will not be able to perform these tasks. There is also a degree of
L E A D A R T I C L E uncertainty about some of the anticipated sources of revenue that will power growth and development. The structure of the Egyptian economy and the direction it will take under the Ikhwan are matters which are being closely watched by the US elite and other Western elites. For them, Egypt should continue to liberalise its financial sector, deregulate its economy and privatise its public assets. Financial capital in particular should be welcomed with open arms. The US wants the Ikhwan based government to be under the tutelage of the IMF. In a nutshell, the Ikhwan should maintain, if not reinforce, Egypt’s subservient position within the US-led global capitalist system. How the Morsi led government relates to the global capitalist system will be one of the three things that the US and its allies will take into consideration in their evaluation of the Ikhwan. They will also assess the Ikhwan’s attitude towards the US military presence and power in West Asia and North Africa (WANA). The US has important military bases in a number of countries in the region, including Iraq, Kuwait and Oman. Bahrain is the home of the US’s Fifth Fleet. The US expects the Egyptian government to accept unquestioningly US’s military hegemony over WANA. Morsi has acquiesced so far. The third, and perhaps the US’s most critical, criterion in judging the Ikhwan in power is how it conducts its relationship to Israel. It goes without saying that both the US and Israel and their European allies expect the Ikhwan government to preserve and protect the 1979 Egypt –Israel Peace Treaty. It is not just a question of maintaining diplomatic ties. Israel and its friends will not agree to any attempt to re-visit any aspect of the Treaty, a Treaty continued next page
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which is extremely unpopular with the Egyptian people. As important as the Treaty to Israel, the US and Europe, is Egypt’s relations with some of its neighbours who are perceived as mortal threats to Israel’s very existence. How will Morsi and the Ikhwan relate to Iran, to the Bashar alAssad government in Damascus, to the Hezbollah in Lebanon? If Egypt forges close ties with any of them, it is very likely that it will evoke the wrath of Tel Aviv and Washington. Morsi has chosen not to antagonise Israel and the West. Indeed, in the on-going bloody conflict in Syria, he is clearly on the side of the US and its other Western and WANA allies. The three criteria that the US and its allies are employing in assessing the Ikhwan — fidelity to US-led global
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capitalism; acquiescence with US military hegemony; and subservience to Israeli interests ¯ are also the yardsticks they are using in evaluating other Ikhwan affiliated Islamic movements that have come to power in the wake of the Arab Uprising in countries such as Tunisia. What this means for the Ikhwan-ul-Muslimin in Egypt is that if it continues to seek the endorsement of the US and its allies there is the danger that its support among its own people will erode over time, especially if as a result of its adherence to US-led capitalism, it fails to deliver justice to the poor and marginalised. On the other hand, if the Ikhwan accords priority to its own people and others like the Palestinians, over US interests, it will certainly lose US patronage but will gain the affection of the masses. Admittedly, in reality it may not be
S T A T E M E N T a stark ‘either or’ choice. The Ikhwan leadership will have to balance competing interests at different points in time. What is important is it should demonstrate that it has the integrity and the courage to move in the direction of enhancing Egypt’s independence and sovereignty even if it encounters several ‘ups’ and ‘downs’ in the process. If the Ikhwan moves in such a direction, it would have ensured justice and dignity for its people. And indeed, since Egypt is the fulcrum of the Arab world, justice and dignity for Egyptians will have a huge impact upon the entire region. 1 January, 2013 Dr. Chandra Muzaffar is the President of International Movement for a Just World (JUST), Malaysia.
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CHEMICAL WEAPONS: FABRICATING
In the last two days the media in every nook and cranny of the planet has been abuzz with “news” about the Syrian military loading “precursor chemicals for the deadly sarin nerve gas into aerial bombs” and “awaiting final orders from President Bashar al-Assad” before using these “chemical weapons.” NBC and CNN in the US, among thousands of media channels all over the world, have been spreading this “information” attributed mainly to US officials. Neither US officials nor the media has offered an iota of evidence to support their reckless allegations. Are there eye-witness accounts of the Syrian military making these preparations? Is there documentary proof? Has any military analyst of repute from even those countries allied to the US come out in the open to
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endorse these baseless statements? How can we believe outrageous claims of this sort when we know for a fact that the US elite has on a number of occasions in the past concocted stories about “evil measures” adopted by its adversary which have turned out to be monstrous lies? Have we forgotten what happened in the runup to the Iraq War in 2003 when the mainstream media — the same media that is busy with Syria’s sarin gas today— was repeating ad nauseam
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bogus tales of Saddam Hussein’s Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)? How many of us still remember that diabolical deceit about babies being pulled out of incubators and thrown onto the floor of a Kuwaiti hospital by Iraqi soldiers in the wake of Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in August 1990? How about the other incident of a high US official showing the late King Fahd of Saudi Arabia fictitious satellite pictures of Iraqi troops amassed at the Saudi border in order to convince him to allow the US to establish an air-base on Saudi soil? And what about the wholesale fabrication of a so-called Viet Cong attack upon US aircraft over the Gulf of Tonkin in 1964 which was used as the justification for the carpetbombing of Vietnam that led eventually to the annihilation of 3 million people? continued next page
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There is every reason to believe that the US and its allies are once again creating a scenario that will serve as the rationale for yet another military intervention in West Asia. Simply put, they are manufacturing an excuse for
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the invasion of Syria in order to oust the Bashar government and replace it with a pliant regime that will serve the interests of the US, Britain, France, Israel, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey.
A R T I C L E S in us as human beings and as citizens of the world we should not allow ourselves to be duped by yet another nefarious lie. Chandra Muzaffar, 7 December, 2012.
If we have any integrity or dignity
ARTICLES THE CLIMATE DEAL SHAM: ONLY SHARING CAN BREAK
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By Adam Parsons
The latest round of climate negotiations in Doha once again demonstrated the sheer lack of cooperation, goodwill and willingness - or ability - of the world’s governments to share responsibility for tackling climate change. Since the epochal failure to reach a global deal at Copenhagen in 2009, less and less attention is paid by the media and the general public to these byzantine and shadowy UN climate talks. After three years of further wrangling by governments with little to show, it required serious scrutiny from ordinary citizens to determine what was actually being agreed upon at COP18. Was it merely an agreement to make an agreement in 2015? An agreement based on emissions cuts and pledges for funding that will remain inadequate and far too late to deal with the climate chaos that is already upon us? And one that won’t come into effect, in any case, until 2020? As usual there was no shortage of analysis pointing out the growing gap between evidence of global warming and action to tackle its causes and consequences. Dozens more reports were published that highlighted the
dangers of sustained inaction, not least UNEP’s Emissions Gap report that argued it will be impossible to cap global warming at 2 degrees Celsius if present trends continue - thus making it unfeasible to wait until 2020 to begin stringent emissions reductions. There was were even dire predictions about future climate breakdown from within the corridors of power, not least from the International Energy Agency, the CIA, a multinational business consultancy (PwC), and - with the worst prognostications of all - the World Bank. These alarm bells from the establishment were accompanied by first-hand evidence of an already climate damaged planet, with 2012 marked by extreme weather events and climatic disasters across large parts of the world. This included the flash melting of Greenland’s surface ice; historic droughts in Russia, Australia and the US; dramatic flooding in the Philippines, Bangladesh, Thailand and China; and of course the recent devastation caused by Hurricane Sandy, as well as Typhoon Bopha that fatefully struck the Philippines as COP18 delegates were in midnegotiation. Just as the climate talks got underway, the Global Climate Risk Index revealed that many of the worst natural disasters of last year were also the most severe ever experienced by those countries affected. Less developed countries remain generally more affected than industrialised nations, the Index reported, while the overwhelming majority of disasterrelated deaths are in the developing world.
No deal to save our planet Yet the climate talks were held as if in an alternative reality to these distressing developments across the world. Poor countries may well have won historic recognition for the losses and damage they face from climate change, but the US made sure that there would be no rights to compensation and no legal liability involved, and there is no agreement on where the money will come from or how it will be dispersed. Promises on finance to help developing countries adapt to and mitigate climate change have already been broken, despite the pledge for $30bn by 2012 being a paltry sum compared to urgent needs in the world’s poorest regions. No concrete sums of money were promised for 2013-20, no commitments were made to boost the Green Climate Fund, and nothing at all was pledged from rich countries in terms of technology transfer. On emissions cuts, civil society leaders widely decried a weakened deal that will do nothing to stop global carbon emissions from continuing to rise indefinitely. The Kyoto Protocol has been extended until 2020, but now only includes the EU and a handful of other industrialised nations that together represent just 15% of world greenhouse gas emissions. The US never ratified Kyoto; several countries including Canada and Japan have reneged on their obligations under the treaty and shamelessly pulled out; and major developing country polluters like China and India remain excluded from the agreement. And of course the new carbon-cutting targets in the second continued next page
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commitment period of the Protocol are nowhere near what the science is calling for. The EU’s pledge of reducing emissions by 20% compared to 1990 levels, for example, will in reality be only 12% owing to their 8% emissions reduction during the first Kyoto Protocol period.
In sum, current commitments and ‘voluntary’ pledges remain at least 40% short of what the planet needs to avoid 4 degrees or more of warming (compared to pre-industrial temperatures); there is no sound basis for an “ambitious” and “equitable” global climate deal to be agreed by 2015, as promised by governments at Durban last year; and humanity remains on course for a ‘4°C warmer world’ of catastrophic climate change and environmental breakdown - as vividly pictured for everyone in the 84-page report courtesy of the World Bank. Battling the ‘dirty fuel’ lobby The only winners from the latest round of climate talks are the fossil fuel companies and business interests that are given a green light to continue profiting from the climate crisis. There are billions of dollars to be made by investing in carbon trading schemes and other market-based innovations that campaigners call ‘false solutions’, which includes carbon offsets and biodiversity offsets, payments for environmental services, and various financial mechanisms proposed to reduce deforestation and degradation in developing countries (all schemes that were introduced as part of the Kyoto Protocol negotiations). Meanwhile, as the Arctic sea ice drops to its lowest level ever recorded, companies are rushing to exploit new oil and gas reserves with the full
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backing of governments. Rather than heed the IEA’s trenchant warning that two-thirds of the world’s proven fossil fuel reserves cannot be used without risking dangerous climate change and should be left in the ground, governments and international agencies continue to subsidise ‘dirty fuels’ at record-breaking levels and prolong the shift to renewable alternatives. The US in particular is busy celebrating its new status as the imminent world leader in fossil-fuel output, thanks to its massive exploitation of highly polluting energy resources like shale gas and Canadian tar sands. Outside the bubble of UN climate negotiations, there is no indication that the world’s most powerful nations are heeding the IEA’s prediction that their continued increases in fossil fuel consumption will result in a long-term average global temperature increase of 3.6 degrees Celsius. (Again, cue the dystopia envisioned by the World Bank’s ‘4°C warmer world’ report). These were the clear economic interests behind the brinkmanship and deadlock during the Doha climate negotiations, which many observers pointed out were akin to the world trade talks made famous by the same city - and now entering their 20th year of stalemate and failure. It was also widely pointed out how inappropriate it was to choose the immensely oilrich Gulf emirate of Doha as a host country for talks on halting global pollution, not least considering it is the largest per capita emitter of greenhouse gases in the world. Indeed, the president of the UN summit was no less than Abdullah bin Hamad alAttiyah, the Qatari deputy prime minister and former president of Opec, who was spotted shortly before the summit at the ‘Oil & Money 2012’ conference in London where he extolled the virtues of hydrofracking and other new fossil fuel extraction technologies. Alden Meyer of the Union of Concerned Scientists said that the resulting two-week summit was more like a trade fair than a science-driven or environmental discussion, in which “you saw on display the power of these industries and their short term profit motivation to dominate the
A R T I C L E S governments of the world”. The climate talks stalemate How then is it possible to reach a multilateral agreement on limits to carbon emissions when fossil fuel corporations are already preparing to burn more fossil fuels than the planet can absorb without becoming unliveable? When the political leadership worldwide is addicted to fossil fuels and works on behalf of short-term business interests? When policymakers are committed only to increasing economic growth through everexpanding global trade, and are not even interested in the wholesale reorganisation of the world economy that is needed to curb excessive consumption, transition to a low-carbon development trajectory, and ensure that all countries can live sustainably within ecological limits? The only common sense that is heard during the endless discussions on a post-Kyoto treaty comes from the beleaguered delegates of the world’s poorest nations - those worst affected by and least to blame for climate change - or else from among the voices of civil society activists who are carefully monitored on the side-lines by state police. It is not in the main conference hall that the root of the climate talks stalemate is rationally discussed, but in the side events and civil society forums that receive scant media attention during the negotiations. Here, global cooperation and shared sacrifice is understood as impossible to achieve so long as governments prize, above all things, international competitiveness and trade liberalisation - regardless of the cavalier waste of resources and pillaging of the Earth that is necessary to achieve an ever higher percentage of economic growth. Ever since the first Kyoto Protocol discussions began over 15 years ago, the same underlying conflict of interest has been reframed in any number of articles and reports: do we continue to prioritise the unrestrained extraction, transportation and consumption of the continued next page
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Earth’s finite resources, or do we cooperatively manage the global economy to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions and leave the planet intact for our children? The worsening state of the environment, extreme weather events and the consensus from scientists on increasing global warming underlines how both approaches are incompatible. Governments of both the North and South may wish otherwise as they continue to compete and haggle over how much of the Earth’s ecological space they can occupy and exploit, but in the not-too-distant future there can be no negotiation with Mother Nature on her limits of endurance. There still remains great hope amid all the naysaying, however, because there is no possibility of preventing runaway climate change without the implementation of global sharing and justice. To understand this bold statement in simple terms just requires an appreciation of how the principle of sharing is fundamental to the negotiations for a real and binding climate agreement. The enduring tension at the heart of climate talks is centred on how the ecological space of the world is shared between nations, with the US and other Northern countries not wanting to give up their unfair share of the world’s atmospheric space and resources, while the emerging capitalist economies of the South claim their equal right to exploit the Earth’s atmosphere and resources as they develop. Hence there is a considerable focus on equity in climate negotiations, which is a principle that is officially recognised in the UN Climate Convention. Sharing the world’s atmosphere As Martin Khor of the South Centre has explained in several papers, the only way to fix a global emissions reduction goal is by having a framework for the equitable sharing of both the ‘atmospheric space’ and the ‘development space’. In practical terms this requires an effective sharing of resources and responsibilities on an international basis, such as the sharing of mitigation efforts (with rich
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countries taking the lead owing to their historical debt of carbon emissions), the support that must accompany this sharing (climate finance and technology transfer), and the shared vision that is necessary for nations to agree upon a fair allocation of the remaining carbon space in the world (according to rights and responsibilities). Equity is “the gateway to environmental ambition”, Khor reasons, and the sharing of climate change mitigation efforts is “a critical piece of the puzzle”.
But an effective sharing of the world’s atmospheric space could also have dramatic implications for the distribution of world resources. This is clear when we consider that climate change is an economic as much as an environmental issue, because emissions of carbon dioxide are obviously linked to economic growth. If the world’s nations are to truly agree upon a fair sharing of the world’s atmospheric space, it would ultimately mean that governments have to accept limits on their economic space or, in effect, on how much of the world’s resources their nation consumes. And as we know, there are currently massive differences in the consumption patterns and carbon emissions of people living in rich and poor countries. A small proportion of the world’s population around 20% - currently consumes and wastes the vast majority of global resources. At the same time, the poorest 20% of the world’s population still lacks the basic resources they need to survive. Hence the challenge of tackling climate change is intertwined with the other great challenge of the 21st century: to end poverty and achieve
A R T I C L E S more equilibrium in global consumption levels. How else can the world agree upon everyone’s equal share to the atmosphere, unless we also agree upon everyone’s right to a fair share of the world’s resources? It’s in this respect that global warming has the potential to become a ‘great equaliser’, because the only way to find a solution to our environmental problems is through fundamentally rethinking the management of an economic system built upon endless consumption and competition over scarce resources. Or to put it another way, we cannot tackle climate change without simplifying our demands on the planet and learning how to share the produce of the earth more fairly. This may be a simple framing of a highly complex issue, but it means there can be no real progress on agreeing a global climate deal until equity and justice is placed at the heart of negotiations, no matter how much developed nations and vested interests seek to undermine or ignore these basic principles. It is therefore essential that millions more people of goodwill around the world grasp the basic message of ‘climate justice’ campaigners: that the struggle for human rights and the struggle to avert catastrophic climate change are two sides of the same coin. Because of course the real hope for change lies not in the corridors of power, but in the mass engagement of ordinary citizens around the twin crises of inequality and climate change. And as the charade of climate negotiations is making increasingly clear, the only way of addressing both of these crises is through sharing.
21 Decenber, 2012 Adam Parsons is the editor at Share The World’s Resources. He can be contacted at adam@stwr.org Source: www.stwr.org
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SOUTH KOREA’S ELECTION: HARDLINE CONSERVATISM
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By Nile Bowie
The ever-changing political landscapes of the Korean Peninsula never fail to offer stark contrasts. To the north, a somber December is spent mourning the forefathers of the communist dynasty under the helm of a boy-king and his advisers. To the south, voters have elected the nation’s first female president, the daughter of South Korea’s iconic former leader, Park Chung-hee. While their circumstances and rise to power cannot be more dissimilar, both Kim Jong-un and Park Geun-hye derive some degree of public support through channeling the nostalgia of their parent’s legacies. In South Korea, one of the world’s most rapidly ageing societies, Park relied heavily on the elderly for her support base, who associate her with the economic prosperity brought in under her father’s rule, in much the same way as northerners regard the times of Kim il-Sung. As the new president prepares to take office in February 2013, many among South Korea’s left leaning youth see Park Geun-hye as an enabler of status quo conservatism veiled behind a thin liberal facade. Park is widely credited with resuscitating legitimacy back into the ruling Saenuri party, which has garnered record-setting disapproval ratings under incumbent President Lee Myung-bak. Money laundering scandals, tax evasion, and accusations of embezzlement have followed the
outgoing President Lee, who has come down hard on dissenters by jailing activists and artists who have criticized his rule. Lee is most responsible for dismantling Seoul’s liberal approach to North Korea as seen through the “Sunshine Policy” of previous administrations, at the cost of nearly reigniting the Korean war after a series of provocative live fire exchanges in disputed territorial waters in 2010 that saw the North shell the South’s Yeonpyeong island, and the sinking of a South Korean naval vessel. Despite running on the conservative ticket, Park has steered clear of openly advocating Lee’s hardline policies toward Pyongyang in her campaign rhetoric. Although an unpredictable North Korea looms just 70km from Seoul, domestic economic issues are the most immediate focus of the South Korean voter. Leading a “Chaebol Republic” An odious brand of cronycorporatism has prevailed in the South Korean economy, spearheaded by the chaebol, large-scale conglomerates like Hyundai, LG, and Samsung. While these recognizable brands have indeed brought much wealth and opportunity to the southern half of the peninsula, Koreans on the lower end of the economic food chain feel neglected by the nation’s mega-corporations and the wealthy political elite behind these companies. Prior to taking office, President Lee ran the Hyundai Engineering and Construction conglomerate, and has pardoned the chairs of Samsung and Hyundai Motors from jail time over convictions of fraud. Park’s opponent, the liberal Moon Jae-in of the Democratic United Party, has accused the country’s conglomerate-dominated economic model of being the main contributing factor to economic inequality, in
addition to crediting Park’s father with developing the corporatist economic model still prevalent today. The defeated Moon Jae-in spoke of increasing taxation on the wealthy and providing small businesses with economic protection from the chaebol. President Lee’s passing of a free-trade agreement with the United States enraged many working class people and farmers who fear the flooding of Korean markets with cheap foreign agricultural products. Moon publicly voiced his disapproval of the trade regime and vowed to re-negotiate it; this position resonated well with young leftists, but popular disdain for establishment parties like Moon’s Democratic United Party proved to be a major obstacle for the left. Park, on the other hand, has toed the party line of President Lee by championing economic and diplomatic ties with Washington, while resisting calls for taxing the chaebol for fear of hampering their growth. Park has played more of a centrist role than one would expect from a conservative ticket by advocating college tuition cuts, maternity assistance, free school lunches, and other social welfare programs, but has come under fire for being unable to answer basic questions about minimum wage figures during a debate, prompting tough statements from the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions: “It is terribly discouraging when a person who wants to become president does not even know the country’s minimum wage, which is a minimal right for survival and the first step toward a welfare state.” Park’s “Trustpolitik” & InterKorean relations The failures of Lee Myung-bak’s loathed tenure are none more apparent than in the field of inter-Korean relations. As Kim Jong-un consolidates power in Pyongyang and toys with introducing seedlings of economic reform, it is high time for a change in continued next page
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frequency from the Blue House in Seoul toward more amenable relations between the two Koreas. Although Park has publically stood clear of Lee’s tough stance, a closer look at her foreign policy signifies more acquiesce than divergence from the status quo. In a 2011 article published by Park in the Council on Foreign Relation’s Foreign Affairs website titled, “A New Kind of Korea,” the incoming president talks of adopting a policy of “trustpolitik,” aimed at developing a minimum level of trust between the two Koreas. Just as it exists under the current leadership of President Lee, the cornerstone of Park’s policy revolves around Pyongyang abandoning its nuclear program and de-weaponizing, or suffering the consequences. Park is setting herself up to fail, and having herself visited Pyongyang to negotiate with Kim Jong il, one would assume she would be less naïve on the issue of Pyongyang’s nuclear program and the importance it holds to North Koreans. After the death of Kim il-Sung in 1994, his son oversaw general economic mismanagement and a series of natural disasters that led to widespread starvation. To legitimize his tenure, Kim Jong-il introduced Songun politics, a military-first policy aimed at appeasing the military and building up national defenses. The attainment of a “nuclear deterrent” has been trumpeted as a major accomplishment in domestic North Korean propaganda, despite very little concrete evidence known about these weapons, their capability, or the status of Pyongyang’s nuclear program. It is unrealistic to expect Pyongyang to give up its nuclear program, primarily because achieving the status of a nuclear state (despite whether or not they actually have achieved that status) is Kim Jong-il’s main “accomplishment.” The upper echelons of leadership in the Korean Workers Party surely hold dear the lessons of Gaddafi after dismantling Libya’s nuclear program. Pyongyang continues to pursue provocative missile tests and belligerent rhetoric because they view this as a means of ensuring
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their security, the fact that the Pyongyang power-dynasty has moved into a third generation is proof enough that this policy has worked for them. Park has spoke of taking a middle-ofthe-road approach, and buttressed an inter-Korean dialogue with Kim Jongun. These are goals that represent a more practical shift, but if Park’s policy rests solely on being open to Pyongyang only if they disarm, the incoming administration will find itself mired in President Lee’s legacy of tension. In line with the militarism of her conservative party, Park has spoken of plans to create an East Asian military alliance and appears willing to continue the hardline against Pyongyang: “Asian states must slow down their accelerating arms buildup, reduce military tensions, and establish a cooperative security regime that would complement existing bilateral agreements and help resolve persistent tensions in the region.” “South Korea must first demonstrate, through a robust and credible deterrent posture, that it will no longer tolerate North Korea’s increasingly violent provocations. It must show Pyongyang that the North will pay a heavy price for its military and nuclear threats. This approach is not new, but in order to change the current situation, it must be enforced more vigorously than in the past.” In contrast to Park, Moon Jae-in’s Democratic United Party has touted a return to the “Sunshine Policy,” and has advocated restarting unconditional aid to Pyongyang. The conservative political elite in Seoul fails to realize that relations with North Korea can be cooled more effectively not by pursuing hardline policies and provocative military drills, but by bolstering interKorean economic ties, tourism, and exchange. Kim Jong-un can only begin to dismantle the military-first policy by offering some alternative whereby he maintains his legitimacy – that could potentially be by increasing economic opportunity, raising standards of living, and developing North Korea’s economy. Seoul would be in a much better position to negotiate if they had a hand
A R T I C L E S in mutually beneficial economic development with the North. Park’s ambitions of creating a “cooperative security regime” with Asian states (presuming North Korea is excluded) will certainly not help convince Pyongyang to disarm. An “Asian NATO” is counterproductive and would only make Pyongyang more unpredictable – as long as Seoul’s ballistic missiles are capable of hitting any part of North Korea, expecting Pyongyang to commit political suicide by disarming is simply not realistic. Conclusions The incoming South Korean administration has lots of problems on its hands; managing an ageing population with some of the world’s lowest birth rates, tackling increasing prostitution rates, high suicide rates and other social ills, and coping with an economic slowdown in China, the nation’s biggest export market. South Korea’s economic development has lifted millions out of poverty and into the economic space of high-income earners in the span of a few decades. It would be foolish for Park to pursue the foreign policy of her predecessor and risk bringing about a reignited Korean war and all that would come with it; enormous civilian casualty rates, an unprecedented refugee crisis, and a major handicap on the South Korean economy. All signs point to Park Geun-hye continuing along the same economic trajectory as the incumbent President Lee, perhaps with a greater emphasis on social welfare programs. The next five years will be critical for inter-Korean relations. In attempting to emerge from her father’s shadow, one would hope that Park could address the faults in the economic system her father helped create by reducing the income disparity, and also learn from his mistakes by allowing free and open political dissent and freedom of expression.
21 December, 2012 Nile Bowie is an independent political commentator and photographer based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
9 I N T E R N AT I O N A L
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By Chandra Muzaffar
The whole world condoles with the families of the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary massacre in Newtown, Connecticut. It is a terrible tragedy: 27 people dead, 20 of them six and seven year-old kids. It is the worst school massacre in the history of the United States.
children killed in the 2006 Israeli assault on Lebanon? Or, the large number of children wiped out by the right-wing Christian Phalangists in Sabra and Shatila in Lebanon in 1982 who were working hand- in-glove with elements in the Israeli political and military leadership?
Senseless, mindless killings of this sort have been happening at regular intervals in the US. They have become more frequent in the course of the last couple of years.
We ask, who weeps for all these children killed over decades in different parts of the world by the might of power? Who mourns for these innocent lives? Who sheds tears for these buds of beauty crushed to death under the heels of the rulers of the world? Has the mainstream Western media ¯ CNN or BBC; the New York Times or the London Times — ever highlighted the massacre of these little ones? Do politicians across the globe trip over one another to offer sympathies to the families of the children killed?
Lax gun control laws that vary from state to state are seen as one of the causes. The ruling elite should have the courage to introduce tough gun control laws at state and federal level. These should pave the way for the eventual prohibition of private gun ownership. But over and beyond the question of gun control, US society as a whole will have to deal with its deeply entrenched culture of violence. Its emergence as a state was characterised by unspeakable violence against the indigenous people of the land. The African slave population was also a victim of cruel violence perpetrated by slave owners and the ruling elite. Violence has continued to be perpetuated in politics and social life through the ages. One of the main reasons why violence figures so prominently in US society is because its global power has been built around the institutions and instruments of violence. The US is the world’s biggest military spender. In 2012, its military expenditure was 711 billion, more than 40% of total global military expenditure. Its 800 odd military bases gird the globe. It has the most devastating arsenal of weapons in the possession of any nation or empire in the history of the human race. This huge killing machine has gone into action on a number of occasions in the last six decades in pursuit of its agenda of control and dominance. And
among its millions of victims have been thousands and thousands of children. US clandestine wars in El Salvador, Nicaragua and Guatemala, among other Latin American countries, from the fifties to the eighties, testify to this fact. Who has kept a count of the children killed by US bombs in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos in the sixties and early seventies? Have we forgotten the 650,000 children who died as a result of the severe Anglo-American engineered sanctions against Iraq from 1991 to 2003 ¯ sanctions which in reality served as a weapon of war? After the US led invasion and occupation of Iraq in March 2003, thousands of children continued to die in the unending sectarian conflicts unleashed by the war. The US-NATO occupation of Afghanistan has had a similar effect upon children. Many children have also been killed in the unmanned US drone attacks along the Afghan-Pakistan border. The US had participated actively in the NATO bombing of Libya in 2011 in which scores of children perished. Today, the US, in collusion with some of its allies including Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, is providing material and military support to rebels and foreign mercenaries in Syria who have deliberately¯ and brutally¯ massacred children in various parts of the conflict ridden country. In this regard, there’s also the violence against children committed by the US’s special ally, Israel. Weren’t a disproportionately high number of Palestinian children killed in Operation Pillar of Defence in 2012 and Operation Cast Lead in 2008-9? What about the
But let us be clear about this: it is not just the US and its allies who have killed children. During its occupation of Afghanistan, the demised Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was also guilty of killing children. The Iraq of Saddam Hussein tortured and killed children of dissidents. So did the Syria of Hafiz Assad. In confronting the militants in his country, his son, Bashar al-Assad, has also killed children. The Taliban, in and out of power, have not spared children either in their military operations. Some Palestinian freedom fighters have, without batting an eyelid, blown up Israeli children in a school bus or in a school cafe. This utter lack of humanity has manifested itself in countless other situations involving children. In Sudan, in Somalia, in Kenya, in Rwanda, in the Congo and in Mali, children, trapped in violent conflicts, have, in the past as in the present, paid the ultimate price. Violent conflicts, whether internal or external, in any part of the world ¯ in Indonesia or Thailand; in India or Sri Lanka; in Ireland or Serbia — invariably take a continued next page
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huge toll on the lives of our little ones. This is why we must do all we can to minimise violent conflicts. We must address the underlying causes of these conflicts which are often related to political power, economic resources or
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religious/cultural sentiments. Sometimes violence at the individual level may have a psychological root. There may be elements in our primary socialisation that may explain our tendency to resort to acts of violence. An attempt must be made to rectify them.
MUSLIM SOCIETIES, ISRAEL
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A R T I C L E S It is only if we are prepared to overcome the underlying causes of violence that we would be able to eliminate one of the most horrific crimes against humanity — the massacre of children. 17 December, 2012
WEST (PART II)
We publish below an email interview which the well known Iranian journalist Kourosh Ziabari conducted with Dr. Chandra Muzaffar. The first part of this interview appeared in the December 2012 issue of the JUST Commentary. The third part will appear in February. –editor spiritual truth. The male and female as Western civilisation that threaten a pair is integral to the affirmation of Islamic norms, there is a need for that truth which in turn is a testament sophistication. While we do not want to the creative power of God. The to embrace in a blind fashion every family which is a product of that freshly minted idea or practice from relationship between the pair is also the West, we should not adhere ipso facto more than a biological entity. unthinkingly to our own tradition Its integrity is rooted in its moral and because it has been sanctioned by some spiritual foundation. This is why Islam religious elites of antiquity. The bigoted rejects same sex marriage and condemnation of homosexuals and homosexuality within some Islamic homosexual relations. circles which repudiate the 4- The Muslims have always had a distinctive and unique identity If Muslims want to preserve the fundamental humanity of the which is based on their values, their family as presently constituted as the homosexual as a person is beliefs and their sanctities. But they basic unit of society, it should pay close unacceptable. usually fear that the Western attention to those circumstances in the culture and civilization may affect socialisation of a person that may 5- Islam is the fastest growing their youths and wipe out their conduce towards homosexual religion in the world, and The Pew traditional personality traits in a behaviour. There is also a biological Forum on Religion and Public Life process of Westernization. What’s dimension to homosexuality, aspects of has predicted that by 2030, the your take on that? How can the which can be rectified through medical Muslims will be making up some Muslim families preserve their intervention. What is important is to 26.4% of the world’s population. traditional values and resist adopt a rational, scientific approach Are the Western states, especially Westernization? within the framework of Quranic those in which the Zionist lobby is influential, afraid of the growth of values and principles. Muslims and their population? Can Answer: One of the greatest threats to the Muslim family in the This also means that it is wrong to we say they don’t have an contemporary world emanating from ostracise and marginalise homosexuals inclination for the rise of religious the West is of course the idea of same- in the private or public spheres. Outside diversity and multiculturalism in sex marriage and the legitimisation of their sexual role, they should be treated their countries? homosexual behaviour. There is no as human beings with dignity and need to emphasise that the Quranic compassion. Their right to education, Answer: There is no doubt at all that position on homosexuality is crystal to work, and to perform public roles some right-wing groups in Europe and clear. It is regarded as morally should be respected. It is significant North America are fearful of what they reprehensible. that Islamic jurisprudence recognises see as the Islamic “demographic” that homosexuals have the same threat. True, the Muslim population in Muslim intellectuals should explain obligations as others to pray, to pay Europe and North America is why this is so. It is not simply because the wealth tax (zakat), to fast and to increasing steadily but it is wrong to argue — as some of the right-wing the male-female relationship is perform the hajj. fear-mongers do — that Muslims will fundamental to procreation and I have elaborated on the question take over the West in no time. If one therefore the continuation of human life. Human life in Islam as in all of homosexuality and its challenge to studies the present demographic trend, religions is more than a mere biological the family to show that in confronting for many, many decades to come, fact. It is an affirmation of a profound those aspects of contemporary Muslims will still be a minority in both continued next page
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continued from page 10 Europe and North America. Fear mongering among right-wing groups is motivated to a large extent by their antipathy towards religious and cultural diversity. It is part of a negative attitude towards ‘the other’. It stems from an irrational desire to preserve the purity of Western Christianity and Western culture — whatever that means. For the Right, especially in Europe, Muslims are a problem because they insist on maintaining certain practices which do not jibe with what the Right sees as the European way of life. Many Muslims in Europe observe the 5 times a day prayer requirement; they fast in the month of Ramadan; a number of Muslim women use the hijab ( the headscarf) to express their fidelity to modesty; some Muslim men refuse to consume alcohol at office parties. There is no reason why Muslims should forsake any of the forms and practices which they feel is central to their identity. These practices do not impinge upon the rights of the others. What Muslims should do is to explain in depth the rationale behind important Islamic practices to their non-Muslim fellow citizens. This is the sort of dialogue that they should initiate. In fact, their dialogue should go beyond explaining Islamic religious requirements and practices. There are vital principles and values in the Quran which should be brought to the attention of the West at this juncture in history. Based upon Quranic principles, Islamic jurisprudence discourages debt transaction — which was one of the underlying causes of the sub-prime financial crisis in the US in 2008. The Quran is critical of living beyond one’s means which explains to some extent the sovereign debt crisis in parts of Europe. Like Judaism and Christianity, Islam rejects the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few and the growing gap between the have-a-lot and the have-a-little in society, which has become a feature of a number of countries in the West and the East. If Quranic values and principles
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which in any case are universal and inclusive are put across to non-Muslim majorities in Europe and North America, it is quite possible that over time some of them will become more open and accommodative towards the Muslim minorities in their midst.
6- What’s your viewpoint regarding the rise of Islamophobia in the West, as manifested in movies such as “Fitna” or “Innocence of Muslims” or the publication of sacrilegious materials in Danish and French newspapers which insulted Prophet Muhammad and other sanctities of the Muslims? What are the possible root causes of such attacks being unleashed on the Muslims? Answer: Islamophobia is not a new phenomenon. It is more than a thousand two hundred years old. When Muslim civilisation first rose as a power from the eight century onwards with huge numbers of people embracing the faith around the Mediterranean, in North Africa and in the Iberian Peninsula — which were all largely Christian— the Church reacted by publishing a distorted translation of the Quran in Latin. The denigration of Islam and the vilification of the Prophet Muhammad continued through the centuries. The Crusades launched by European Rulers and blessed by the Church from the end of the eleventh century were not only directed at the conquest of Jerusalem but were also aimed at curbing Islamic power. Islamophobia, the fear of Islam, in the past, it is apparent, was related to power. Is Islamic power the root cause of Islamophobia today? Islamophobia today appears to be an attempt to create fear and uneasiness about a religion and a civilisation, segments of which
A R T I C L E S are determined to resist the West’s, specifically, the US’s hegemonic power. Contemporary Islamophobia in that sense is also linked to power. Today, cartoons are drawn, books are written, and films are produced to demean and defile the Prophet in particular, knowing full well that a segment of the Muslim Ummah (community) is bound to be provoked to burn flags, ransack embassies, and even kill themselves and others. Each time such a provocation occurs, the reaction is predictable. It serves to reinforce the stereotype image of Muslims as violence prone, terror inclined people. This image in turn helps the hegemon and its minions in their mission of discrediting legitimate resistance movements — be they Palestinian or Lebanese or Iraqi or Somali —— that resort to violence in order to liberate their land from hegemony. This is why Muslims should not fall into the trap laid by Danish cartoons or US films. By all means condemn these provocations in a peaceful manner. But do not resort to any form of violence. Protest through other means. It would be so much better if we seized the moment to do a film or write a book or pamphlet that conveys the truth about the Prophet’s life. For instance, we could have turned around the recent provocation in the film Innocence of Muslims by emphasising that the Prophet had remained monogamous right till the death of his first wife, Khatijah, and his subsequent marriages were all contracted to strengthen inter-tribal solidarity or forge inter-faith ties. Besides, we must keep in mind that when the Prophet himself was abused and even physically attacked during his Meccan years, he displayed tremendous restraint and did not retaliate with violence. It is his example that we should emulate. 18 November, 2012 End of Part II Kourosh Ziabari is an award-winning Iranian journalist. In 2010, he received the national medal of Superior Iranian Youth from President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
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