Archive 1986 – 2017

Voltaire described Europe as “a kind of great republic, divided into several states, some monarchical, the others mixed but all corresponding with one another. They all have the same religious foundation, even if divided into several confessions. They all have the same principles of public law and politics unknown in other parts of the world.” Ten years ago, this January 1st,  in a way that Charlemagne, Voltaire, William Penn and Gladstone, the early advocates of European unity, could only dream, a united Europe became a reality. A single currency was the most dramatic of the steps taken towards what surely one day will be a single political entity.

The formal withdrawal of US troops from Iraq this month has led to a whole series of retrospectives on the invasion and the eight and a half years of occupation that followed as well as a host of unanswered questions, including – given the tens of thousands of Americans and others on the US government payroll, many of whom are armed, who are remaining in Iraq – just how total the withdrawal might actually be. In any case, of critical importance at this juncture is that we not allow the narratives on the war to understate its tragic consequences or those responsible for the war – both Republicans and Democrats -to escape their responsibility.

A pro-peace perspective since it is not enough to criticise the US, Israel, Iran or anybody else By Farhang Jahanpour The war of words between Iran and the West has reached dangerous proportions, and it may easily get out of hand. It is clear that the majority of people in the West and in Iran do not wish the hostilities to develop into an open conflict, but events – and rhetoric – have a life of their own and have a tendency of getting out of control and leading to unintended consequences that would harm both sides. So, instead of ratcheting up the rhetoric, it would be wiser and more productive to make some serious efforts for finding a solution to the crisis, rather than intensifying it.

By Jonathan PowerJanuary 7, 2012 Writing in 1751 Voltaire described Europe as “a kind of great republic, divided into several states, some monarchical, the others mixed but all corresponding with one another. They all have the same religious foundation, even if divided into several confessions. They all have the same principles of public law and politics unknown in other parts of the world.” Ten years ago, this January 1st, in a way that Charlemagne, Voltaire, William Penn and Gladstone, the early advocates of European unity, could only dream, a united Europe became a reality. A single currency was the most dramatic of the steps taken towards what surely one day will be a single political entity. War, time and time again, has interrupted the pursuit of that objective. Continued civil war across the continent, across the centuries, has pitted French against Germans, British against Italians, Czechs against Poles, Spaniards against...

NATO, Missile Defense and Russian Insecurity. And what if you look at it from their side now? By David Krieger and Steven Starr In the aftermath of the Cold War, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), has become increasingly powerful. It was created in 1949 as an alliance of Western military forces to protect against the perceived military threat posed by the Soviet Union and the Eastern bloc countries. With the breakup of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact, NATO has expanded by adding former Soviet bloc countries, moving to the borders of Russia. It has also engaged in military actions, notably in the former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Libya. For the past several years, the US and NATO have been pursuing the deployment of an integrated missile defense system in Western, Eastern and Southeastern Europe, as well as in surrounding waters. The Russians have protested vigorously that the planned...

By Biljana Vankovska There is something very bizarre and alike in the selection of the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize winners and the Time’s person of the year. Coincidence (or rather not), the three Nobel laureates (two of them from Liberia and one from Yemen) and the Protester are all female and pictured as “ordinary” activists, i.e. actresses in the developments that marked 2011.

By Biljana Vankovska In the eve of the holiday season last year I had decided to devote my column to a nonconventional theme. Instead of a usual text for this time of a year I wrote about happiness, the one that is not a gift of/by the state/politics but the one that is achieved in spite of it. My readers graded it quite poorly. Aware that the same may happen again I have decided to dedicate this last column in 2011 to a similar issue. This time it is a short and unexpected tractate in defence of love.

Deputy Chief of the People’s Liberation Army Ma Xiaotian’s visit to New Delhi for Sino-Indian defence dialogues today is an affirmation that neither country will allow periodic irritants to derail bilateral talks. Ma’s visit shows a resolve on the part of the two countries to ensure that differences do not become an obstacle to keep up communication by sticking to scheduled exchanges. There is a realization in both capitals that any rift between the two neighbors would be exploited by powerful forces which are unhappy with the growing cooperation and trade links between the Asian giants.

By Jonathan Power The pundits and diplomats are right: transition after the death of Kim Jong-il in North Korea could well produce an unstable and frightening situation. Kim Jong-un, the son of the dear leader, is too young to dominate the military and chief advisors as his father and grandfather did. There will be power struggles. Anything can happen depending on who gets the upper hand. This nuclear weapon-armed power is worrying to behold. But on everything else the comments of outsiders have been way off the mark. Do they forget so easily America’s stance in the long negotiations with the North- negotiations that began during the presidency of Bill Clinton, arguably his one foreign policy near success?

By Jonathan PowerDecember 27, 2011 The pundits and diplomats are right: transition after the death of Kim Jong-il in North Korea could well produce an unstable and frightening situation. Kim Jong-un, the son of the dear leader, is too young to dominate the military and chief advisors as his father and grandfather did. There will be power struggles. Anything can happen depending on who gets the upper hand. This nuclear weapon-armed power is worrying to behold. But on everything else the comments of outsiders have been way off the mark. Do they forget so easily America’s stance in the long negotiations with the North- negotiations that began during the presidency of Bill Clinton, arguably his one foreign policy near success? After seven years of erratic US policies under President George W. Bush – met by equally erratic and bellicose North Korean ones – the Bush Administration’s negotiations ended up achieving...

Alfàs del Pi, Spain The church was not as overfilled as it used to be for midnight mass on Christmas eve.  But the ritual unfolded as it has done for centuries, around John 3:16 “little bible”, “For God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son so that anyone who believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life”.  And the priest spoke about two parallel Christmases, one spiritual, of the bible, and one material with gifts, food, and licores. Could there also be two parallel Jesuses, one the Christ, and the other a revolutionary, fighting the Roman Empire and its client elite in the province conquered in 63bC?  Matthias Schulz (Der Spiegel 17 2011) has theologians and historians elaborate that thesis, leaning toward the revolutionary Jesus, disturbingly similar to his look-alike and act-alike Che Guevara two millennia later, also fighting an empire, also killed by...

‘Shame’ is a disturbing, much admired, Steve McQueen film that has been misleadingly reviewed, but deserves our serious attention. Let me put my reasoning in provocative language: ‘Shame’ depicts with chilling realism the degeneracy of high-end capitalist life style in the urban landscape of Sodom on the Hudson, otherwise known as ‘The Big Apple,’ that is, New York City. This sterile glitter of clubs and bars, loveless sexuality, acute alienation, and shady business operations is a city within the city that somehow co-exists with the world’s most innovative, abundant, and world class cultural life that continues to contain in its midst many enclaves of normalcy, humanism, and personal fulfillment. There is a central confusion in the film, perhaps deliberate: the city is portrayed as if it can be reduced to this skyscraper reality of nefarious business ventures and the flashy life it offers its operatives.