March 2004

LONDON – Europe doesn’t figure much in the Democratic primaries any more than it does in the White House. Perhaps it is understandable why France, Germany and Belgium, and to some extent, Britain, are pushing hard for Europe to have its own defense identity. NATO is too dominated by American decision making, so the argument runs, and Europe needs not only the freedom to deal with what it perceives as a crisis without having to win Washington’s support but if it is to be a mature political entity it needs its own military establishment and command and control. Only when it has its own significant military might will America treat Europe with the respect and attention it deserves. Besides without a sense of forward momentum in the European idea the U.S. will have increasing success in its apparent policy of divide and rule. But what exactly would Europe gain? And...

A multi-tier people’s programme commences the First Phase with ‘Enrolling 100,000 Families Pledged to Nonviolence on August 09, 2004 (Quit India Day)’ – an initiative of Indian Council of Gandhian Studies, New Delhi in association with institutions and organizations promoting peace. VIOLENCE-FREE SOCIETY NATIONAL CAMPAIGN Introduction: The manner in which violence is spreading in the emerging global context should cause concern in every peace-loving individual. While it would be naïve to believe that violence could be totally eliminated, it would be suicidal to accept it as a fact of life and not to respond with creative initiatives to contain this monster so that he will not be allowed to destroy all what humanity has achieved hither to. The emerging scenario is not conducive to nonviolence. Glorification of violence in media, particularly in television and films, is disturbing. The nexus between money and muscle power and the way women are depicted...

LONDON – The lure of membership of the European Union is working with Turkey, Romania, Croatia, Macedonia and even to a lesser extent with Serbia. All have upgraded their attitudes to justice and to minorities. When Europe walks softly with a big juicy carrot it seems to work far better than the old time policies of sanctions, reprobation and isolation. So why not with Israel? Europe could offer the Jews a security a fence never could. The security wall now being built to divide Israel from Palestine will end up enclosing the Palestinians inside an area that is 44% of the West Bank. This is a mere 9% of historic Palestine. No quasi independence for Gaza can compensate for this bald arithmetic. The Hamas line takes on a renewed resonance among an increasing number of Arabs: we have no choice, they say, but to drive the Israelis into the sea. There...

Reporting Kosovo – violence now proves the stories missed in 1999 were the most important March 22, 2004 The recurrent theme of The First Casualty, the classic account of war reporting through the ages, by Phillip Knightley, is the unforgiving verdict of history on the way conflicts are presented by journalists to their readers and audiences. It recounts a struggle between media and the military, from the earliest authentic frontline despatches, in the Crimea – which exposed a face of war the generals would rather have remained hidden – through World Wars I and II, Vietnam, the 1991 Gulf War and, in more recent editions, Kosovo, which Knightley sees as a ‘final victory’ for military propagandists over the cause of honest reporting. In all these cases, journalism, the first draft of history, had to be substantially redrafted as hindsight showed that important parts of the story – often the most...

By The recurrent theme of The First Casualty, the classic account of war reporting through the ages, by Phillip Knightley, is the unforgiving verdict of history on the way conflicts are presented by journalists to their readers and audiences. It recounts a struggle between media and the military, from the earliest authentic frontline despatches, in the Crimea – which exposed a face of war the generals would rather have remained hidden – through World Wars I and II, Vietnam, the 1991 Gulf War and, in more recent editions, Kosovo, which Knightley sees as a ‘final victory’ for military propagandists over the cause of honest reporting. In all these cases, journalism, the first draft of history, had to be substantially redrafted as hindsight showed that important parts of the story – often the most important – had been omitted at the time. This familiar pattern is now unfolding in Kosovo. Nato’s bombing...

LONDON – In the short eight years of full democracy in Taiwan Saturday’s election will be the third. In each election the candidate that Beijing did not like won office. This time Beijing has made it clear that it doesn’t want to see President Chen Shui-bian re-elected. By the workings of normal electoral arithmetic he shouldn’t be. In the last election he won on a minority vote because the opposition- the successor party to Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang- was divided. This time there is no division and until recently many assumed Chen would lose. But once again China has been waving its fist and the chances are that Chen has a good chance of gaining a second term. The more Taiwan becomes democratic, the more the older generation of Chinese die off (a good many of whom crossed the strait as part of the fleeing troops of the Kuomintang defeated by the...

War and Peace War Must be Made Illegal AS EARLY AS 1931 Gandhi articulated his view that change, to be beneficial, needed to be achieved by nonviolent struggle: “I would wait, if need be, for ages rather than seek the freedom of my country through bloody means.” Gandhi added some optimistic words, declaring, “I feel in the innermost recesses of my heart that the world is sick unto death of blood-spilling. The world is seeking a way out, and I flatter myself with the belief that perhaps it will be the privilege of the ancient land of India to show the way out to the hungering world.” Of course, from the perspective of 2004 this would seem to be a prime instance of false prophesy. Although Gandhi’s literal coordinates of time and place were mistaken, we may yet be approaching a Gandhian Moment where there occurs a worldwide revulsion against...

LONDON – The on going terrorist threat from the Basque separatist group, ETA, has become the trump card for the ruling Popular Party in Spain’s general election on Sunday. This goes to show that, while the Spanish think the Americans overdid it with their reaction to September 11th and 90% of them opposed Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar’s decision to align himself with Washington in the Iraq war, when terrorism knocks on their own door they jump to the right like everyone else. As with its counterpart, the Northern Ireland conflict, the continuation of Basque nationalist terrorism in Spain is too fueled by historical sentiment and myth on one side and by narrow minded authoritarianism on the other for easy settlement. Nevertheless, Northern Ireland has found a peace of sorts and the lion is lying down with the lamb, at least to the extent that the truce of 1998 is prevailing....

Brasil’s government headed by President Luiz Inacio “Lula” da Silva has proved to doubters in international finance its competence in managing the economy. This sprawling nation is self-sufficient in energy, plentiful agricultural land and natural resources, with vast untapped domestic markets. Its 180 million motivated citizens boast, by the new quality-of-life statistical measures (www.calvert-henderson.com) one of the highest per capita income and wealth in the world. Investors who distrusted President “Lula’s” economic team lost big. They watched Brasilian bonds and stocks rise over the past 15 months by over 150% and the equally stellar performance of Brasil’s exports. Now President Lula is braced to implement his promise to develop Brasil’s real economy, provide jobs to address official unemployment figures of 13% and match its export-led growth with similar growth of its vast untapped domestic markets. This will entail a bold change of emphasis – away from the now-discredited conventional formulas...

LONDON – The human rights theologians are going to have a stressful week or two trying to decide whether the U.S. and France moved against President Jean-Bertrand Aristide of Haiti because they defending human rights or undermining them. Perhaps it all depends on which end of the telescope you look through. Were they deposing a freely elected president and thus subverting the cause of democracy or were they attempting to end a state of affairs where an elected president had surrounded himself by street gangs, thugs and manifestly corrupt acolytes, and the rule of law on which all human rights depend had become a violence-provoking sham? There is an unthought out belief circulating in the human rights community that under the Bush administration the U.S. stance on human rights has sharply deteriorated. There is, needless to say, much evidence of this- the Guantanamo detentions of Al Qaeda suspects and rather well...