AFTER THE BIDEN-PUTIN GENEVA SUMMIT:OF PRISONER’S DILEMMA AND CONFRONTATIONAL NOSTALGIA

By: Tomislav Jakić

Was the, with little expectations, but a lot of combinations and nervousness, awaited summit of the Presidents of America and Russia, a failure? It was not. And can it be described as a success, as a breakthrough from the winter of a renewed Cold War? Again – no! So what was this summit then, what – if anything – did the Geneva meeting bring?

It was an attempt that could not be written off as a complete failure, it was an indication that – as President Biden said – there is no alternative to face-to-face talks. And it was a hint of hope that the two great powers, one a superpower and the other much more than a regional power, as President Obama mockingly called it, might be able to set out to identify common interests and work together in those areas, as well as find ways and methods. to resolve what is in dispute in their relationship. Where we should not forget the saying  by Lev Tolstoj, quoted during his press conference by President Putin: “In life there is no hope, there is only a promise of hope.”

 And it is that promise of hope, what we can call the only tangible result of the summit which lasted about three and a half hours, instead of the announced five to six. Of course, this will fuel new speculations and different interpretations from those that Biden was tired and lost the concentration, to the one that the participants reached a deadlock but – not wanting to make things even worse, than they already are – simply stopped.

Of the concrete results, the world has learned only one, just one: two states are returning their ambassadors to their places: the Russian ambassador is returning to Washington, and the American to Moscow. Everything else remained in the domain of what Biden defined, correcting one journalist who aggressively asked him: “And how can you be confident, that . . .?”. He said, namely: “I did not say  I’m confident, but we ‘ll see.” And what we should see is the continuation of talks on the control and hopefully arms reduction (nuclear in the first place), the formation of a working group between the two countries that would deal with the cyber attacks, so-called hacking. Then (and again the announcement!) the possibility of talks on the exchange of arrested American citizens in Russia, ie Russians in America, as well as the approach to the problem in Ukraine based on the agreement from Minsk (confirmed by both presidents!). And what is particularly important: a joint effort to achieve strategic stability.

About this and only about this, not about the whole meeting, a joint statement by the two Presidents was published: “The extension of the New START agreement demonstrates our commitment to the control of nuclear weapons. Today, we reaffirm the principle that nuclear war cannot be won and that it must never be fought . “It may not seem like much, but it is. Today, it is!    

Both sides agreed, and the two presidents held separate press conferences, that the talks took place in a constructive atmosphere and that there were no threats from either side. Putin described Biden as a sensible and experienced politician, and Biden skillfully avoided journalistic insistence on how he explained to Putin why he called him a killer : “My explanation was good enough for him and that’s enough for me.” On the other hand, the pragmatic Putin indirectly referred to Biden’s statement, quoted so many times, that, looking Putin in the eye at a previous meeting, he concluded that he had no soul. “We do not have to look each other into eyes, searching for the soul, nor do we have to make eternal friendship”, said Putin.

A confirmation that it was a summit convened with no great expectations is the fact that neither Putin invited Biden to Moscow, nor was Putin invited by Biden to Washington. But, and again, even a little more than nothing, is much, especially when we take into account the circumstances in which the Geneva summit was held and all that happened in previous years.

Of course, the US side “recited” their compulsory program of complaints regarding Russia’s violations of human rights, including the statement that the deaths in jail of opposition leader Navalny would be “a disaster” for relations of the two countries. In doing so, Biden went a little too far, arguing that the struggle for human rights is something that is part of the American being, “it’s us,” consciously forgetting that the United States from their beginnings until the sixtieth of the last century denied basic human rights, initially even freedom, to all its colored citizens, that the first unit composed of colored Americans enlisted in the U.S. Army only in World War II (but separately from whites) , and that cases of racial discrimination even today happen practically on daily basis. Putin, as it could have been expected, used this at his press conference to counter every question related to the human rights in Russia (what was by CNN, not denying anything of what Putin said, proclaimed as a return to the methods of Soviet propaganda). Too bad no one remembered to ask what the consequences would be and for whom if Julian Assange would die in jail.

Almost “under the radar” passed a significant concession made by the United States, ie the deviation from their previous position. The intention (however, this is just the announcement) to form a working group of the two countries to deal with the cyber attacks means that in silence the accusations that such attacks were staged by Russia, the Russian secret services, and even Putin himself, were abandoned.

The atmosphere, not only the one in which the Geneva summit was held, but the one in the Western world, could be deduced the most from the behavior of journalists who were questioning the two presidents. It is neither uninteresting nor unimportant to mention that American journalists could have been present at Putin’s press conference, while Russian journalists were banned from Biden’s. press conference. But it was these American journalists who behaved at both press conferences like barking dogs (which is not to say anything bad about dogs). In their questions they insisted on confrontation, on the continuation of confrontation ( “Have you threatened to use military force ? “, was one of the questions to Biden). One of the most evident examples of pre-prepared questions, no matter what, and certainly regardless of the facts, was the one about Russians demanding that journalists of Radio Liberty (the Russian version of Radio Free Europe) register as “foreign agents “. Putin, namely, previously explained, and it is a matter of common knowledge to anyone who is familiar in the media scene, that it were the Americans who first demanded that Russian journalists in the United States register as foreign agents. Then, and only then did Russia introduce the same for the American journalists working there.

But obviously it is true that what one can do, another cannot do. Along with the sad statement that a large part of the journalists in the West, consciously or not, accepted to be turned into a propaganda weapon of the ruling.

So it is not at all impossible that Biden, although “secured” by the presence of his experts, from the Secretary of State to the Chief of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as well as with a separate press conference, will experience in America something similar , albeit in a milder form, to what befell Trump after his talks with Putin in Helsinki. Obviously, there are strong forces in the United States (which then influence the behavior in the first place of the Atlantic Pact, but then the European Union too), which are not interested in peace and understanding, which base its existence on confrontation, on the existence of enemies. Real, or imaginary – it doesn’t matter. And obviously there is a propaganda apparatus that serves them. They simply cannot like Biden’s statement that his agenda is not against Russia, but for American people.

But if that statement becomes what will make the summit memorable (in the city of peace, as the Swiss president said while welcoming Biden and Putin), then it is entirely justified to say that the meeting, which was by no means spectacular, which lasted shorter. than it was expected, which did not result in any key breakthroughs in any area, was not in vain. Because, if there is a President in the White House whose program is not to “work against Russia” and if Putin knows that now, then there is a chance that the world will move away from the edge of general chaos into which it is inevitably pushed by the worsening American-Russian relations. Then there is, as Tolstoy would say, a promise of hope.

Author is one of the most influential Yugoslav and Croatian journalists, who is covering the international relations for over 50 years and who served as Foreign policy Advisor to Croatian President Stjepan Mesic (2000. – 2010.).

The first superpowers summit that, Mr. Jakic personally covered was a Carter – Brezhnev meeting in Vienna 1979.

June 18, 2021June 18, 2021 by Igor Dirgantara Categories: WORLD 1 Comment

The EU trans-Atlantic relations and the global South

Isabella Maria Bello Arocha

The EU trans-Atlantic relations and the global South

On the historic date of March 08th – International Women’s Day, a large number of international affairs specialists gathered for the second consecutive summit in Vienna, Austria. This leg of the Vienna Process titled: “Europe – Future – Neighbourhood at 75: Disruptions Recalibration Continuity”. The conference, jointly organized by the Modern Diplomacy, IFIMES and their partners, with the support of the Diplomatic Academy of Vienna, was aimed at discussing the future of Europe and its neighbourhood in the wake of its old and new challenges.

Along with the two acting State Presidents, the event was endorsed by the keynote of the EU Commissioner for European Neighbourhood and Enlargement, Excellency Olivér Várhelyi. The third concluding , of the three-panel conference, was brilliantly conducted by Katrin Harvey of the Ban Ki-moon Centre for Global Citizens.

Among her speakers, the one to represent Latin American views in the panel titled: Brexit and Future of cross-Atlantic relations: Decoupling or Recalibration?, was Dr. Elizabeth Deheza, Head of the London-based Latin America Strategic Intelligence. Discussing western dimension of the European good neighborly relations and their possible future prospect, the following is a rough outline of her intervention:

Dr. Deheza began by affirming the comprehensive efforts of the European Union (EU) in building relations with Latin America, stating that these are strong and growing since the EU is the principal development partner all over the Latina America. But she also stated that there is still room for improvement as there is a disconnect between these efforts and the EU’s apparent political priorities, which she finds surprising given the many shared values between the regions and their people.

She remarked that although there have been multiple summits between these players, many Latin American countries have been left disappointed with the lack of tangible actions following these summits. Many claim repetitive declarations deprived of substance exhausting resources while not coupled with the new bold and embracing actions. This is surprising because before the Covid lockdowns and restrictions (C-19), there seemed to be no shortage of the EU financial support. There are still in place and active trade agreements of the EU with 27 of the total 33 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, not to mention the Mercosur deal.

The EU is also active through the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (CABEI), the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (UNECLAC) and the World Bank WB), amongst others. However, the C-19 has had dire effects on Latin America causing the region to seek more help and support than ever before from the EU in hopes to recover from this calamity.

Latin America suffered for a very long time due to political instability, violence, and corruption, and the pandemic crisis has worsened these issues even more, causing poverty and insecurity to increase as well as mass migration. Elizabeth Deheza described these to be among the reasons driving the population to seek change from wherever it may come, including populism, creating political uncertainty everywhere.

In her note, speaker, then, moved from the issues that the region is suffering from and stated the qualities of Latin Americans, including their determination, resilience, and hard-working nature. She described these to be the reasons why there have been such immense strides in areas that are of such relevance to the EU, including: digitalization, sustainable development, and green financing which have been taking the lead when compared to the rest of the world. Moreover, it was affirmed that these are the sectors in which the EU and the (post-Brexit) UK could assist the region even more than what they already do.

More specifically, Dr. Deheza believes that they could further support the region in its digital innovation as they have used this as a way for survival and increasing life quality. She stated that the EU and UK could help in all of these areas and “not just star-ups, but

also fintechs, e-commerce solutions, and venture backed businesses that are all in this process of transformation, as well as governments which are trying to undergo and adapt to the pandemic”. Furthermore, it was asserted that there is still a great need of aid in the sustainable development sector with regards to deforestation, pollution, waste management, and recycling since, although the great advancements that work in the Latin America reality, there are still many issues that the EU and UK could help with.

Lastly, Deheza stated that it is not enough for European banks to suspend financing oil & gas companies in the Amazon or European asset managers to hold their investments in Brazilian agrobusiness due to their government’s failure in the Amazon. She affirmed that political intervention by the EU and UK is also necessary to combat them. Moreover, speaker clarified that the UK relations with Latin America, although not much trade happens between them, is cordial and mutually beneficial. This is primarily because of the trade agreements signed with various countries and creative financing mechanisms put in place such as the “Government-2-Government” between Peru and the UK which spiked similar ones with other Latin American neighboring nations.

Finally, Elizabeth Deheza concluded her intervention at the conferecne by stating that the EU and UK could best strengthen their partnerships with Latin America by providing “political support, knowledge, and best-practices for tackling systematic challenges alongside an actionalable, relevant, and pragmatic transatlantic relationship with the EU and the UK, and there has never been a better time to do that than now”.

Clearly, the trans-Atlantic cooperation of Europe should not be exhausted with the north American continent only but should energetically include and involve the Caribbean and South America, too. Hence, the triangular symmetries would be viable and sustainable model for the future conduct.

About the author:

Isabella Maria Bello ArochaMadrid-based junior researcher specialized in law and international relations. Covers International Institute IFIMES before the UNWTO and other Iberia-based international organizations.

Madrid-based junior researcher specialized in law and international relations. Covers International Institute IFIMES before the UNWTO and other Iberia-based international organizations.

 

 

May 31, 2021May 31, 2021 by Igor Dirgantara Categories: WORLD Leave a comment

Menuju 2024

March 14, 2021 by Igor Dirgantara Categories: SOUTHEAST ASIA Leave a comment

OF MULTILATERALISM AND FUTURE TO EUROPE Recalibration

This panel in addressing the future of Europe is invited to answer this question:

“Is there any alternative to universal and pan-European multilateralism? For the purpose of my remarks I am interpreting “ universal and pan – European multilateralism’ as moving forward with achieving more EU integration supported by institutions appropriate to a kind of federal structure in line with the thinking of the Spinelli Group. But it also raises the question of global free trade which I promoted as Secretary General of the OECD and continue to believe must be the word’s future in addressing poverty and opportunity, especially for the worlds developing countries. But it has to be managed in a way sensitive to the challenges of both.

In these brief comments I intend to offer my view on the answer to this fundamental question about the future of Europe.

To begin, I would amend the question by adding the word “good” before “alternative”.

There certainly are alternatives some of which could set Europe on a path back to a collection of independent sovereign states and undo the remarkable progress in building a secure European Union in the post WWII period.

Many years ago when looking at the extraordinary work and vision of statesmen like Jean Monet trying to build a lasting and prosperous European Union, I came across a comment of British Historian H.A.L. Fisher in the preface to his 1936 book, A History of Europe. In part it read as follows:

“[No] question [would be] more pertinent to the future welfare of the world than how the nations of Europe … may best be combined into some stable organization for the pursuit of their common interests and the avoidance of strife. “

Although we appreciate the Marshall Plan’s amazing contribution to the Europe of today, it contributed more to restoring Europe physically while providing humanitarian assistance. Of course, the OEEC which evolved into the OECD in 1961 did provide an important framework and mechanism for economic and social development which continues to this day.

Fisher’s vision of a strong, unified Europe remains very much work in progress and that work really began with Jean Monnet’s initiative to create the European Coal and Steel Commission. I will comment on that in a moment But I remain convinced that Fisher was right, and the great rebuilding of Europe and the EU after the Second World War must and will endure notwithstanding the barrage of criticisms from euroskeptics, now emboldened by the United Kingdom’s Brexit vote of June 2016. Admittedly my conviction is based on the EU having strong, visionary leadership, which has not yet fully materialized.

Think of this. Although Greece represents less than 3 per cent of the Euro zone economy, euroskeptics used its financial crisis as ammunition to predict its withdrawal from the eurozone and the possible unravelling of the entire EU. The Greeks rejected that option: there was no Grexit. Austrians also rejected right-wing populist nationalism in the 2016 Presidential election of Van der Bellen, a strong supporter of the EU.

The support for Brexit in the UK referendum was an unexpected shock for some, but it pleased others who wish to see the EU unravel and claim that the UK attitude reflects views held in other major European countries. I keep hearing and reading that the United Kingdom has rejected the EU, as if it were an overwhelming victory. Bolstered by misrepresentations and downright lies it was a very slim referendum victory but Brexiters will argue that it was validated by Boris Johnson’s subsequent margin of electoral vic

There are also others, especially President Trump who appear to be hostile to the emerging global role that the European Union is likely to play as it completes its evolution to a unified international force. This has become even more important as the United States under Trump becomes increasingly isolationist and opposed to international multilateralism constructed by visionaries over the past 75 years.

In a stunning commentary in Foreign Affairs (summer 2016), Professor Jakub Grygiel of the Catholic University of America, implies that the upside to the EU crisis will be a return to independent sovereign nation-states across Europe. Indeed, that would be an upside for American isolationists. It would remove from US competition the largest unified single market in history and reinstate the possibility of future wars on the continent that this great European experiment was designed to prevent – as it has.

Some of Grygiel’s comments appear designed to create a false impression of the views of Europeans. Here is a cheerful observation to support his thesis: “a Europe of newly assertive nation-states would be preferable to the disjointed, ineffectual, and unpopular EU of today. There’s good reason to believe that European countries would do a better job of checking Russia, managing the migrant crisis, and combating terrorism on their own than they have done under the auspices of the EU.”

Really? What is that “good reason” that escaped the attention of the statesmen and nation builders like Jean Monnet in post-war Europe? Grygiel also says that the EU is ineffectual, which is true in some cases, as it is with many, if not most supranational bodies, including much of the United Nations (UN) activities. And what of the United States itself?

Sadly the world is watching that formerly great republic floundering in the face of numerous serious challenges both social, economic, even racial, not even capable of effectively addressing the Covid-19 crisis through what is becoming a dysfunctional government under a Commander in Chief who proudly presents himself as a narcissistic ignorant bully.

And non Europeans, especially Americans, systematically ignore the EU’s successes. One good example being the collective research of 28 networked European countries that produce one-third of the world research’s output – 34 per cent more than the United States and more than China. This was documented at the time of the Brexit debate in New Scientist. (June 2016). These are the kind of synergies that could be sacrificed should the EU dissolve, and it may already be compromised by the withdrawal of the UK which has much world first class research.

Hopefully the; United Kingdom will stay united and prosper in the post Brexit period. However, there is good reason for concern as the Financial Times Martin Wolfe wrote at the time (June 24,2016). He said:

“David Cameron took a huge gamble and lost. The fear mongering and outright lies of Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, Nigel Farage, The Sun and the Daily Mail have won. The UK, Europe, the West and the world are damaged. The UK is diminished and seems likely soon to be divided. Europe has lost its second-biggest and most outward-looking power. The hinge between the EU and the English-speaking powers has been snapped. This is probably the most disastrous single event in British history since the Second World War.

Yet the UK might not be the last country to suffer such an earthquake. Similar movements of the enraged exist elsewhere – most notably in the US and France. Britain has led the way over the cliff. Others might follow.”

Will others follow the United Kingdom over the cliff? Alina Polyakova and Neil Fligstein, writing in the International New York Times at the time of the Brexit vote ( July 2016), relied on polls that suggest that will not happen. They say, “Britain is not, and never has been, a typical member of the European Union, and in no country but Britain do populists and other euroskeptic forces have the 51 percent of votes needed to pull their countries from the union.”

Obviously, those in the UK who wanted Brexit must have believed it is good for them and presumably for the United Kingdom, even if it means losing Scotland and perhaps Northern Ireland. The City of London will also suffer, but no one can estimate what the damage will be until all the terms of exiting are known.

Jacques Delors, who has dedicated much of his life to the European dream both in public office and after retirement through his Paris-based foundation, made the following observation in an inter- view in 2012 with the Handelsblatt newspaper: “If the British cannot support the trend towards more integration in Europe, we can nevertheless remain friends, but on a different basis. I could imagine a form such as a European economic area or a free-trade agreement.”

That might be the happiest outcome in the wake of Brexit. The real beneficiaries of Brexit are the remaining EU members inspired by people of the experience and quality of Jacques Delors and members of the Spinelli Group. The latter founded in 2010 as a network of thousands of politicians, individuals, writers, and think tanks looking to revive the momentum toward a federalist structure for the EU.”

In fact, the Brexit vote and Johnson’s arrival as Prime Minister may have strengthened the resolve of many EU countries and prominent Europeans to accelerate the integration process in line with federalist thinking.

Obviously those having the foresight to realize the importance of greater integration and an emerging federalist model, such as the Spinelli Group, would be blocked by a United Kingdom, were it a member, to have reforms move in the opposite direction, consistent with Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s famous Bruges speech in 1988 where she said,

“We have not successfully rolled back the frontiers of the state in Britain, only to see them re-imposed at a European level with a European super-state exercising a new dominance from Brussels. Certainly, we want to see Europe more united and with a greater sense of common purpose. But it must be in a way which preserves the different traditions, parliamentary powers and sense of national pride in one’s own country; for these have been the source of Europe’s vitality through the centuries.”

This could hardly be seen as an endorsement of a federalist system of any kind, because decentralization, especially with the preservation of parliamentary powers, meaning full sovereignty, is incompatible with federalism. She could have added that the elements she wished to see preserved have also been the source of bloody European conflicts throughout the last millennium, including three wars between France and Germany in the 70 years between 1870 and 1939!

Consideration should be given to some steps that must be taken to realize the collective potential of the EU as a major global player, which it could never be if its members revert to sovereign nation- state status. Indeed, as other major countries grow in economic clout, it has been pointed out that not even Germany would be in a new G8. Only a united EU could have influence on the global stage.

Skeptics like Professor Grygiel, many of them American, seem blinded by the headlines and glare of current events, failing to place them in a broader historical context. Reviewing the remarkable evolution of Europe since the Second World War, I hope that the long-term success of Europe is inevitable. But as the great American judge Oliver Wendell Holmes once noted, “the mode by which the inevitable comes to pass is effort.” European leadership must now make that effort. It is critical not only for Europe, but for the world today.

A strong, unified Europe is also important for the emergence of global multilateralism and the further evolution of globalization. Since the end of the Cold War we have been living in a world dominated by just one superpower: the United States. Fortunately, that superpower has been a very open market and largely, but not entirely, militarily non-aggressive. Sometimes referred to as the “importer of last resort,” it continued to run current account deficits opposite many trading partners, especially China.

The American economy had enough strength and resilience to emerge slowly but with growing confidence from the global financial crisis of 2007–08. To become a companion economic locomotive, Europe must continue to open its markets, eliminate distorting trade subsidies, and undergo substantial structural reforms in labour, services, and manufacturing markets to stimulate European economic growth. I hope that the results of the Europe 2020 exercise and its follow up will help in that regard.

If that does not happen, the United States might use its economic muscle to focus increasingly on bilateral agreements that are becoming a serious impediment to global free trade.

If Europe had successfully moved to a more centralized and coherent federal model of government it could have reached the objectives adopted by the EU in 2000 (often referred to as the Lisbon Agenda), which was stated in the Lisbon Declaration (24 March 2000) as follows: “The Union has today set itself a new strategic goal for the next decade: to become the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world, capable of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion.”

Well, that failed. A review of progress chaired by the former Dutch Prime Minister Wim Kok reported in 2004 that the strategy had fallen well short of its objectives. The diagnosis of the problems of broad structural reform was good, but implementation of reforms was seriously lacking. Kok’s review carried much credibility as he had overseen the continuation and completion of the major Dutch structural reforms originally introduced by his more conservative predecessor, Ruud Lubbers. Kok was also a regular participant in many international conferences, and during our discussions it was apparent to me that he was a talented consensus builder.

There is much to be said for such consensus builders, who enable intellectual and political opponents to better understand competing views. Strengthening such relations between European political leaders will be important in bringing cohesion and stronger integration to the EU in line with the objectives of the Spinelli Group.

The Lisbon Declaration, now replaced by the Europe 2020 strategy, has five ambitious objectives related to employment, innovation, education, social inclusion, and climate/energy. The world would benefit greatly from Europe attaining those objectives.

Today only the EU and Japan might to come close to matching the United States in per capita GDP in the coming years.

Demographic projections show Japan’s population in serious decline, but an expanded EU which should evolve with Turkey as a major player, would have a much greater population and a much larger market than the United States.

The objectives listed above can only be realized when the peoples of Europe achieve a consensus on what kind of legal community they truly wish to be, and so far, progress to that end has been in fits and starts. The failure of the Lisbon Agenda, the rejection of the proposed constitution in both French and Dutch referenda, and now the exit of the United Kingdom underscore the difficulty of moving toward a flexible federal structure.

The use of the word federal seems to be an anathema for many Europeans. It is worth remembering that with the creation of the European Coal and Steel Community inspired by Jean Monnet in 1951, the French government declared that it would “provide for the setting up of common foundations for economic development as a first step in the Federation of Europe.”

Today there does not appear to be any coordinated and broad- based visionary leadership like that of Jean Monnet that led Europe out of the destruction and chaos of the Second World War.

Perhaps the Greek crisis, the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the EU, and continuing economic performance under potential will awaken Europeans to the need for a truly federal-type European Union, with strong central government institutions where appropriate, accompanied by the protection of individual nations’ precious linguistic and cultural identities. The genius of federalism is that it can accommodate great diversity in many areas.

What is the way forward? Where is the higher vision to achieve what is imaginable but not yet within reach? I suggest that the answer is to reconcile the various goals of Europeans, what I call the three Ms: minimizing frictions, maximizing synergies, and maintaining sovereignty.

Some believe they can achieve the first two without a dilution of sovereignty. That is not possible. From my Canadian experience with Quebec, however, I know that it is possible to minimize frictions and maximize synergies while maintaining cultures and national identities. In the case of Quebec, the French language, civil law, religion, and culture have been protected since the Quebec Act of 1774, which is one reason why separatist movements have never succeeded.

I see this kind of flexible federal structure, with necessary variations, in Europe’s future. Loss of Europe’s various languages and cultures would alter the character of the continent, moving it in the direction of the United States. The historical evolution and the nature of the “self-willed” peoples of Europe, as Fisher described them, make that path neither feasible nor desirable.

I finish these comments with a quote from a recent letter distributed by Thierry de Montbrial, the founder and head of the prestigious French public policy think tank IFRI.

“But it stands to reason that we in Europe in particular should capitalise on building the Union in order to prove the viability of a third way between the United States, that great democracy which still claims to be a liberal one, and the People’s Republic of China, which still claims to be communist. Most of us want to remain close to American democracy, but we refuse to become its vassals, notably as part of an Atlantic Alliance retrofitted to that end. There is an urgent need to clarify NATO’s truly shared objectives. As for the European Union, despite all the whining in recent weeks, it continues to sail ahead in stormy seas, as it always has…..

If there is one part of the world where multilateralism is making headway despite countless hurdles, it is the European Union. There is still a very long way to go in Europe and, even more so, on a planetary scale. But history is moving in that direction, for the alternative is collective suicide. There is no doubt that global warming, pandemics and more or less intense wars are foreseeable in the world’s near-term future. At least we can hope to limit the damage, which, after all, was the case during the Cold War. Let us be convinced of the European Union’s responsibility in that regard.”

I agree…who cannot?

Honourable Donald J. Johnston PC OC QC

Senior Minister in the Canadian Government:

President of the Treasury Board; Minister of State for Science and Technology; (under PM P. Trudeau) Minister of State for Economic and Regional Development (cabinet of PM J. Turner).

Secretary General of the OECD Paris (1996 – 2006),

nomination of Canadian PM Jean Chrétien. The first non-European to occupy this prestigious position, Johnston was elected to a second term in 2001.

July 17, 2020 by Igor Dirgantara Categories: SOUTHEAST ASIA Leave a comment

Diplomatic Academy Vienna – Marking the 75th anniversary (01 July 2020)

On the 01 July 2020, the Modern Diplomacy, International Institute IFIMES along with the world’s eldest diplomatic school (that of the Diplomatic Academy Wien) and two other partners (Culture for Peace and Academic Journal European Perspectives) organised a conference with over 20 speakers from all around the globe. The event under the name FROM VICTORY DAY TO CORONA DISARRAY: 75 YEARS OF EUROPE’S COLLECTIVE SECURITY AND HUMAN RIGHTS SYSTEM, highly anticipated and successful gathering, was probably one of the very few real events in Europe, past the lockdown.

Among 20-some speakers were: Austrian President (a.D) and current co-chair of the Ban Ki-moon center, Dr. Heinz Fischer; the European Commission Vice-President, Margaritis Schinas; former Secretary-General of the OECD and Canadian Economy minister (under PM Trudeau), Donald J. Johnston; former EU Commissioner and Alpbach Forum President, Dr. Franz Fischler; former OSCE Secretary General and current OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorites, Lamberto Zannier; Austria’s most know Human Rights expert, prof. Manfred Nowak; Editor-at-Large of the Washington-based the Hill, Steve Clemons; Secretary General of the Union for the Mediterranean, Nasser Kamel; Dean of the International Anti-corruption Academy Amb. Thomas Stelzer; the longest serving Defence Minister of Austria and current Presidetn of the AIES Institute, Dr. Werner Fasslabend; founder and CEO of the largest university sports platform in Europe, Lawrence Gimeno; Urban futurist, Ian Banerjee; Director of the WIIW Economic Institute, Dr. Mario Holzner, and many more thinkers and practitioners from the UK, Germany, Italy and Australia as well as the leading international organisations from Vienna and beyond.

Media partners were diplomatic magazines of several countries, and the academic partners included over 25 universities from all 5 continents, numerous institutes and 2 international organisations. A day-long event was also Live-streamed, that enabled (digital) audiences from Chile to Far East and from Canada to Australia to be engaged with panellists and attendees in the plenary and via zoom.

The Conference was arranged with the culinary journey through dishes and drinks of central Europe and closed with the mini concert by the world’s best hurdy-gurdy performer, Matthias Loibner and accompanying vocalist, professor of the Music University Vienna, Natasa Mirkovic.

* * * *

Wishing to make the gathering more meaningful, the four implementing partners along with many participants have decided to turn this event into a lasting process. It is tentatively named – Vienna Process: Common Future – One Europe. This initiative was largely welcomed as the right foundational step towards a longer-term projection that seeks to establish a permanent forum of periodic gatherings as a space for reflection on the common future by guarding the fundamentals of our European past.

As stated in the closing statement: “past the Brexit the EU Europe becomes smaller and more fragile, while the non-EU Europe grows more detached and disenfranchised”. A clear intent of the organisers and participants is to reverse that trend.

To this end, the partners have already announced the follow up conference in Geneva for early October, to honour the 75^th anniversary of the San Francisco Summit. Similar call for a conference comes from Barcelona, Spain which was a birthplace of the EU’s Barcelona Process on the strategic Euro-MED dialogue.

July 17, 2020 by Igor Dirgantara Categories: SOUTHEAST ASIA Leave a comment

Origins of Future discussed – Vienna Process launched

The first July day of 2020 in Vienna sow marking the anniversary of Nuremberg Trials with the conference “From the Victory Day to Corona Disarray: 75 years of Europe’s Collective Security and Human Rights System – Legacy of Antifascism for the Common Pan-European Future”. This was probably the first conference in Europe of large magnitude after the lockdown. It gathered numerous speakers and audience physically in the venue while many others attended online.

The conference was organised by four partners; the International Institute for Middle East and Balkan Studies (IFIMES), Modern Diplomacy, European Perspectives, and Culture for Peace, with the support of the Diplomatic Academy of Vienna that hosted the event in a prestigious historical setting.

The day was filled by three panels focusing on the legacy of WWII, Nuremberg Trials, the European Human Rights Charter and their relevance in the 21^st century; on the importance of culture for peace and culture of peace – culture, science, arts, sports – as a way to reinforce a collective identity in Europe; on the importance of accelerating on universalism and pan-European Multilateralism while integrating further the Euro-MED within Europe, or as the Prodi EU Commissioned coined it back in 2000s – “from Morocco to Russia – everything but the institutions”. The event was sealed with traditional central European music and famous Viennese delicatessens.

Among 20-some speakers were: Austrian President (a.D) and current co-chair of the Ban Ki-moon center; the European Commission Vice-President; former Secretary-General of the OECD and Canadian Economy minister (under PM Trudeau); former EU Commissioner and Alpbach Forum President; former OSCE Secretary General and current OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorites; Austria’s most know Human Rights expert; Editor-at-Large of the Washington-based the Hill; Secretary General of the Union for the Mediterranean; Honourable Justice Constitutional Court President, and many more thinkers and practitioners from the UK, Germany, Italy and Australia as well as the leading international organisations from Vienna and beyond.

Media partners were diplomatic magazines of several countries, and the academic partners included over 25 universities from all 5 continents, numerous institutes and 2 international organisations. A day-long event was also Live-streamed, that enabled audiences from Chile to Far East and from Canada to Australia to be engaged with panellists in the plenary and via zoom. (the entire conference proceedings are available: https://www.facebook.com/DiplomaticAcademyVienna )

The event sought to leverage on the anniversary of Nuremberg to highlight that the future of Europe lies in its pan-continental union based on shared values but adapted to the context of 21^st century. Indeed, if Nuremberg and the early Union were a moment to reaffirm political and human rights after the carnage of WWII, the disarray caused by C-19 is a wake-up call for a new EU to become more aware of and effective on the crisis of socio-economic rights and its closest southern and eastern neighbourhood.

From a political viewpoint, while the diversity of speakers and panels led to a multifaceted picture, panellists agreed on the need for more EU integration, a better balance between state and markets that could put the state again in charge of socio-economic affairs in order to compensate market failures; greater involvement of the Union for the Mediterranean in the implementation of EU policies, and the overcoming of Washington Consensus, among other things.

From a strategic perspective, two important points emerged. On the one hand, the EU in order to develop a more productive foreign policy agenda needs to resolve tensions that still create mistrust between the West and Russia, with particular attention to frozen conflicts. On the other hand, it is essential that European countries go back to a more long-term, forward-thinking policy agenda that can prepare its members for the strategic challenges of the future.

Above all, at the moment the EU lacks the necessary leadership that dragged it outside of WWII almost eighty years ago and that nowadays needs to overcome the differences that prevent the continent to achieve a fully integrated, comprehensive socio-economic agenda.

In order to make the gathering more meaningful, the four implementing partners along with many participants have decided to turn this event into a lasting process. It is tentatively named – Vienna Process: Common Future – One Europe. This initiative was largely welcomed as the right foundational step towards a longer-term projection that seeks to establish a permanent forum of periodic gatherings as a space for reflection on the common future by guarding the fundamentals of our European past.

As stated in the closing statement: “past the Brexit the EU Europe becomes smaller and more fragile, while the non-EU Europe grows more detached and disenfranchised”. The prone wish of the organisers and participants is to reverse that trend.

To this end, the partners have already announced the follow up event in Geneva for early October to honour the 75^th anniversary of the San Francisco Conference. Similar call for a conference comes from Barcelona, Spain which was a birth place of the EU’s Barcelona Process on the strategic Euro-MED dialogue.

Zeno Leoni
Teaching Fellow in ‘Challenges to the International Order’
Defence Studies Department
King’s College London

July 17, 2020 by Igor Dirgantara Categories: SOUTHEAST ASIA Leave a comment

Enlarge views – Europe is en/large enough

By Audrey Beaulieu

The first July day of 2020 in Vienna sow marking the anniversary of Nuremberg Trials with the conference “From the Victory Day to Corona Disarray: 75 years of Europe’s Collective Security and Human Rights System – Legacy of Antifascism for the Common Pan-European Future”. Organised by the International Institute for Middle East and Balkan Studies (IFIMES), Modern Diplomacy Media Platform, European Perspectives Scientific Journal, and Culture for Peace Action Platform, with the support of the Diplomatic Academy of Vienna that hosted the event in its prestigious historical premises, the highly anticipated and successful gathering, was probably one of the very few real events in Europe, past the lockdown.

The conference gathered over twenty high ranking speakers and audience physically in the venue while many others attended online. The day was filled by three panels focusing on the legacy of WWII, Nuremberg Trials, the European Human Rights Charter and their relevance in the 21^st century; on the importance of culture for peace and culture of peace – culture, science, arts, sports – as a way to reinforce a collective identity in Europe; on the importance of accelerating on universalism and pan-European Multilateralism while integrating further the Euro-MED within Europe, or as the Romano Prodi EU Commission coined it back in 2000s – “from Morocco to Russia – everything but the institutions”.

(For the full account of speakers and side events, see: https://moderndiplomacy.eu/2020/07/05/diplomatic-academy-vienna-marking-the-75th-anniversary/ and the full conference video is available: https://www.facebook.com/DiplomaticAcademyVienna)

The event sought to leverage on the anniversary of Nuremberg to highlight that the future of Europe lies in its pan-continental union based on shared values but adapted to the context of 21^st century. Indeed, if Nuremberg and the early Union were a moment to reaffirm political and human rights after the carnage of WWII, the disarray caused by C-19 is a wake-up call for a new EU to become more aware of and effective on the crisis of socio-economic rights and its closest southern and eastern neighbourhood.

At the moment the EU lacks the necessary leadership that dragged it outside of WWII almost eighty years ago and that nowadays needs to overcome the differences that prevent the continent to achieve a fully integrated, comprehensive socio-economic agenda.

On that matter, Lamberto Zannier, OSCE High Commissioner for National Minorities and, the previous OSCE Secretary-General (2011-2017), delivered highly anticipated address.

In his highly absorbing speech, the well-known European diplomat highlighted the milestones in the history of the European continent’s security system in recent decades and told how, in his opinion, the European Union, its partners and neighbours could overcome confrontation and other negative moments that have become obvious in recent years.

“In the 1980s, the NATO and the Warsaw Pact held negotiations that were considered a good form of dialog between the two enemies. But in the years that followed we have not really moved an inch. We were talking, but we were not communicating… In late 1980s, in the CSCE there was a new starting point, the Charter of Paris for a New Europe, a new vision of a new Europe for stability.

The key point in this debate is how will NATO relate to Russia in the future. In the first half of the 1990s, there were those who were thinking that we need to build a new relationship with Russia as a first step and then we can really develop relations on the basis of that. But, of course, the agendas did not really match. On the NATO side, the Americans were repositioning themselves on their global agenda as the only remaining superpower projecting stability through the promotion of democratic institutions. And they promoted a rather conservative view of what NATO should be.

On the Russian side, there was a big internal debate. Russians still saw NATO as the former enemy, and so they were saying that there was no need for NATO today. But others, especially the leadership, were willing to open a discussion, but the discussion about the future of NATO itself. They were basically saying that they would consider joining NATO, but then NATO would have to change.

It would have to turn into a collective security instrument, into something similar to what the OSCE is today. This failed because there was no way to reconcile the two sides. This failure which led to NATOs progressive expansion was seen by Russia as aggressive, as a development that was a threat to Russia. In response, Russia started to establish its own area of influence.

[…] From the late 1990s, the division between Europe and the Russian community has been expanding. The UN Security Council was divided on the Kosovo issue. We managed to pass a decision, but that took quite an effort. Then we had crisis in and around Ukraine and the Crimea. Every step seemed to increase the distance between the sides and to bring more geopolitics on the table.

[…] Today we face the situation where we have a lot of potential instability and we lost the tools that would allow us to address these problems.

By early of 2000s we started facing global challenges which kept unfolding last 20 years (terrorism, transnational organized crime, climate change, migration crisis, demographic crisis): countries react on them by closing up. We have seen on the migration crisis, EU entered the crisis itself, lack of common policy, lack of solidarity. The pandemic has also led to the real renationalization, closure of boarders, everybody is looking for itself. It’s fully understandable, but global problems need global solutions. It’s very difficult to work on global strategies and sustainable development we very need today, geopolitical divisions make it impossible. The renationalization of the policy leads to progressive disinvestment of countries on multilateral framework. In OSCE for instance we have a shrinking budget all the time, we need to cut back all the time as a result mainly of the lack of interest of countries to invest in the frameworks like this. We need to stick together, to address challenges that affect us all… “

Closing his note, High Commissioner invited all to think, reconsider and recalibrate: “What can we do? Creating coalitions, involving youth because they great interest to make things work, we must involve young people in everything we do. Secondly, we must start talking about the need to invest in the effective multilateralism.”

While the diversity of speakers and panels led to a multifaceted picture, panellists agreed, from a political viewpoint, on the need for more EU integration but also pan-European cooperation, a better balance between state and markets that could put the state again in charge of socio-economic affairs in order to compensate market failures; greater involvement of the Union for the Mediterranean in the implementation of EU policies, and the overcoming of Washington Consensus, among other things.

From a strategic perspective, two important points emerged: Firstly, a more viable EU Foreign Policy needs to resolve tensions that still create mistrust between the West and Russia, with a particular attention to frozen conflicts. Secondly, it is essential that European states reaffirm a long-term, forward-thinking policy agenda that can prepare them for future strategic challenges.

Having all that in mind, the four implementing partners along with many participants have decided to turn this event into a lasting process, tentatively named – Vienna Process: Common Future – One Europe. This initiative was largely welcomed as the right foundational step towards a longer-term projection that seeks to establish a permanent forum of periodic gatherings as a space for reflection on the common future by guarding the fundamentals of our European past and common future.

As the closing statement notes: “past the Brexit the EU Europe becomes smaller and more fragile, while the non-EU Europe grows more detached and disenfran-chised”. A clear intent of the organisers and participants is to reverse that trend.

To this end, the partners have already announced the follow up event in Geneva for early October to honour the 75^th anniversary of the San Francisco Conference. Similar call for a conference comes from Barcelona, Spain which was a birth place of the EU’s Barcelona Process on the strategic Euro-MED dialogue.

Audrey Beaulieu of the University of Ottawa (Globalization and International Development Department), specialised in public and private International law, international development and global politics.

July 17, 2020 by Igor Dirgantara Categories: SOUTHEAST ASIA Leave a comment

Brazil does not give up Culture and Creativity, Solidarity and Lives

By Ms. dos Santos

Paraphrasing Jorge Amado, a famous Brazilian literary writer of the twentieth century, in his popular novel ‘The country of carnival’:

“… Sometimes we understand that something is missing in our lives. What is missing? We don’t know.”

Today, what we do know is that the C-19 event has destabilized the world in a multi-dimensional way. Everything is upside-down. In every corner, we have experienced a shift in human behaviour and daily attitudes.
Suddenly, the world has moved from globalization to isolation. From hugs and kisses to social distancing. From physical touch to virtual chats. From high-consumerism towards a world with a greater environmental conscience. From egocentrism towards a human-centred approach. Against this controversial background – culture, creativity and connectivity have become the backbone of society – keeping people who are physically apart, tied together.

One example of the importance of culture to Brazilian identity is Carnival, which creates not just joy but revenue, tourism and jobs. Carnival 2020 was held in February, just before the start of the pandemic, which hit Brazil in mid-March. During Carnival, the country explodes with creativity and dancing for three consecutive days. This year it injected R$8 billion into the national economy and offered 25 thousand temporary jobs. This income has helped to partially mitigate the cumulative losses so far estimated to be R$62 billion resulting from COVID-19 crisis, which is deeply affecting culture and the creative industries, destroying over a million jobs in these sectors. In contrast to the celebrations just a few months ago, tourism, culture and the creative economy, now integrated into the same Ministry, are having to join forces to overcome the current difficulties, trying to preserve jobs and anxiously preparing for post-crisis.
The economic, social and cultural consequences of this pandemic are far-reaching. The COVID-19 crisis has not only robbed us of over half million lives around the world but it is exacerbating inequality, knocking-down the global economy, re-shaping global governance and free trade, destroying national health systems and urban life and aggravating social instability. Nevertheless, probably the most profound positive legacy of this chaotic situation is the growing sense of solidarity and citizenship that is encouraging people to do better, to engage and to act.

In Brazil, the pandemic has made inequality more visible. Creative and digital industries, in particular the audiovisual sector, social media, online news and press and communications services, have been powerful in showing the cruel reality of poverty at the current time. For the most vulnerable, social isolation is considered a luxury. It is difficult to be at home to avoid contagion when there is no money to be able to afford to eat. It is difficult to be confined in social isolation when a big family lives in a small room in a shanty town. It is difficult to wash your hands several times a day and have hygienic practices when there is no water and proper sanitary conditions at home. Under these circumstances, the Brazilian government has allocated 4.6 per cent of national public budget to implement the COVID-19 emergency package that also includes fiscal and monetary measures to assist small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), micro businesses and the self-employed. The COVID-19 voucher scheme has wide coverage; 65 million beneficiaries have followed instructions for digital eligibility and are receiving financial assistance for three months as compensation for their revenue losses. At the end of June, the government decided to extend the emergency salary for two additional months until August 2020, bringing total governmental expenditures to mitigate the continuous spread of the pandemic during the first semester to nearly R$1 trillion.
It is noteworthy that digitalization and creative services (in the form of an official mobile app) have made it possible for the government of a continental-sized country to put in place in a relatively short time a massive outreach programme. It not only captures nearly 13 million unemployed people, plus 3.7 million informal workers, but also the self-employed who are left with no income and those who were previously completely invisible (even from the family poverty reduction scheme which covers 15 million families). Hopefully, in the future this big data will be used to design appropriate public policies and more effective educational, training and cultural programmes to address the lack of economic and social inclusion. In this context, creative activities, especially those associated with arts and cultural festivities, are conducive to the inclusion of usually excluded minorities and marginalized youth.

Solidarity and citizenship

In parallel to digital innovation, a feeling of solidarity has emerged and civil society has been mobilized. Citizens have started to act in a collective manner in response to the needs of vulnerable communities. Private sector companies of all sizes have become more engaged with social responsibility. Enterprises are more committed not only to meet customers’ demand but also to be more sensitive to the socio-economic impact of their activities locally. Aid packages including basic food baskets, hygiene products and masks are being widely distributed by firms, non-profit organisations and individuals.

On a daily basis, the TV news presents a list of projects, campaigns and new creative initiatives to assist those who need them. An example is the Table Brazil SESC-RJ project (SESC) which is engaged in fighting hunger and reducing food waste. The project collects food donations for the poorest while educating them on how to prepare healthier food. There is also a link here between these efforts and cultural institutions, public audiences for theatrical performances and shows presented in SESC’s theatres (before and after social isolation) can get cheaper ticket prices if they bring food for donation. This project, which already existed, was expanded on during the COVID-19 period. Another SESC project is #MesaSemFome through which well-known personalities donate their time, knowledge and experience to support solidarity in many different ways; by calling elderly people for story-telling and shopping for them, by giving musical instrument lessons, and by improving bakery skills. Every week many activities are offered through Instagram’s Lives Solidarias.

Artificial intelligence and robotics are also playing a role in fighting the pandemic. With a population of 217 million people, Brazil does not have an adequate number of COVID-19 medical tests for all of its inhabitants. In order to cope with this deficit situation, the Health Ministry is using robots to call elderly people with high risk of contagion for a brief diagnosis by phone. The TeleSUS platform started in early April monitoring the flux of contagion with the aim to reach millions of people through an active search by phone and consultations by tele-medicine. Though this initiative has not been sufficient, it has been positive for enhancing a feeling of citizenship.
Cultural policy responses

In terms of culture, all cultural spaces such as cinemas, theatres and museums have been closed and events including artistic shows, festivals and exhibitions were suspended in mid-March 2020, to comply with social distance measurese. Art and culture brings about R$170 billion annually to the Brazilian economy providing jobs to five million people accounting for nearly six per cent of the national workforce. Artists, cultural producers, technicians and creative professionals were the first to stop their activities as a consequence of the pandemic and will probably be the last to restart, making them one of the most affected categories. Thus, a Law for Cultural Emergency (Lei Aldir Blanc) was finally approved by Congress allowing the use of resources from the Federal Cultural Fund (R$3 billion) to provide emergency aid for three months to help compensate for the loss of revenue and to provide tax exemption for up to six months for the cultural industry and creative businesses.

Guidelines for implementation of cultural projects during the COVID-19 pandemic have now been revisited. Projects should be well documented and producers should provide evidence for every action taken, in particular for projects financed by the Law for Stimulating Culture (Lei Roanet). Three measures were designed to alleviate the pandemic’s impact and guide the execution of projects:
1. Projects will be allowed to use up to 20 per cent of the estimated capital
2. The project can now be modified at any time (previously, there was a limit)
3. Project evaluation will be more flexible in the form and use of resources.

Furthermore, special measures were adopted related to the cancellation of services and events in the areas of tourism and culture during the pandemic. The measures cover cinemas, theatres, digital platforms, artists and all professionals contracted to work in cultural events and shows. Those affected by the lock-down who were unable to perform, will have up to one year to provide the services already contracted.
For the State of São Paulo, cultural and creative industries account for 4 per cent of GDP. This year, the loss in the state caused by COVID-19 is estimated at R$34.5 billion and over 650 thousand people have been left with no revenue. A credit line of R$500 million for SMEs and R$150 million for microcredit was offered with special conditions for micro, small and medium business in the cultural and creative sectors. In addition, Festival #CulturaemCasa is a platform launched by the Secretary of Culture and Creative Economy of São Paulo to stimulate social distancing while improving the access to virtual cultural contents from public cultural institutions. Through the platform the public can visit shows, concerts, museums, talks, conferences, read books, see films, watch theatre and plays. There are many different options for a range of ages and interests, and content is freely available and updated daily. This streaming platform was successful in reaching 850 thousand views in two months from 107 countries. All cultural content will remain available for the extent of the COVID-19 lock-down.

The Secretary for Culture and Creative Economy of Brasilia formalized a financing scheme of R$750,000 to assist local artists and cultural creative professionals affected by the cancellation of festivals and cultural shows. The scheme provides three differentiated credit lines for micro business, self-employed artists, as well as loans and investments to support cultural and creative SMEs. The Secretary of Culture and Creative Economy in the State of Rio de Janeiro launched an official bid for online cultural production projects. #culturapresente will receive R$3.7 million from the State Fund for Culture. It will cover music, literature, visual arts, audiovisual, dance, theatre, circus, fashion, museums, typical cultural food and new cultural popular expressions. Another project “Story-telling by phone” called volunteers to contact elderly and people who live alone to tell stories, as a way to minimize the feeling of solitude. This allows poets, musicians and story-tellers to be engaged by offering hope and solidarity to lonely people.

Cultural experiences in the digital age

Creative initiatives by artists and institutions have also emerged, and some are likely to remain post COVID-19. Two strong trends from these initiatives have been solidarity and live streaming media. These two trends may end up dominating culture in the “new normal” – the combination of live streaming and solidarity has already resulted in the “Lives Solidarias”. In Brazil, more than 120 shows online raised R$17.6 million in donations to fight COVID-19 in poor communities. The mobilization of artists brought about innovation and is a way to engage celebrities and individuals in social causes.
Livestreaming concerts like #tamojunto became the Saturday night fever during the pandemic. Top Brazilian singers (particularly country music singers), are performing at home, attracting a huge virtual audience and millions of ‘likes’ on YouTube and Instagram. Among the top 10 most attended live concerts worldwide, seven are from Brazilian artists. Marilia Mendonça, who received 3,31 million ‘likes’, was ranked number one globally, followed by Jorge & Mateus with 3,24 million. This is partially explained by the fact that 70 per cent of the music consumed in Brazil is locally produced. Moreover, the country ranks thrid among the major producers of creative digital content and as consumers of digital services.

During confinement, online festivals like Festival EuFicoEmCasa are bringing entertainment to people through social networks. As shows and concerts have been cancelled, musicians and visual artists are working virtually to provide entertainment and expand their audience and network via Instagram and YouTube. The first festival gathered 78 artists, providing over 40 hours of music during the first weekend at home. Thanks to its success, the same format is being used for festivals which now take place every weekend.
In summary, after more than 100 days of social distancing, the cultural sector and creative industries without day-to-day activity are re-inventing themselves in their struggle for survival. Paradoxically, online cultural consumption and creative production are escalating. Music is leading innovative models with live concerts but theatre companies are also producing plays for web performances with no public audience. Drive-in cinemas are back. Virtual short-film festivals are attracting newcomers. E-books and a new generation of smart video games are in high demand. Auctions of visual and street art are attracting culture lovers, and TV audiences have increased with re-runs of older broadcasts and small format productions.
Web channels, podcasts, live streaming, film series, conscious donations, hybrid collaborative creative productions, crowd funding and virtual public are emerging alternatives. Certainly, there are more questions than answers. As live streamers are using social platforms that were designed to be ephemera, will live cultural experiences survive? How do we ensure that online cultural productions will resist the continuous search for novelty? If a social platform closes, will its whole cultural content disappear? Famous artists are finding big sponsors but a great majority of artists are offering their services for free or small fees. How do we ensure that artists and cultural institutions will be able to survive in the long-run?
More than ever, creativity is needed to optimize digitalization and find feasible monetization and sustainable solutions. The present circumstances are a challenge and the future is uncertain but art and culture will always find its way in contemporary society.

About the author:

Edna dos Santos-Duisenberg, economist well-known for her pioneering work in shaping the policy and research agenda about the creative economy and its development dimension. At present, she is associated expert for the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR). She is also vice-president of the International Federation on Internet and Multimedia (FIAM). She collaborates with universities in Europe, Asia, in the United States and Brazil.

Ms. dos Santos had an international career of nearly 30 years at the UN in Geneva. She founded and became chief of the Creative Economy Programme at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD); directed and is the chief author of numerous UN Creative Economy Reports (2008 and 2010), and set-up the UNCTAD’s Global Database on Creative Economy providing world trade statistics for creative products. Ms. dos Santos graduated in economics and business from the University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and from the Sorbonne University in Paris.

July 17, 2020 by Igor Dirgantara Categories: SOUTHEAST ASIA Leave a comment

ASEAN, C-19 and the Vietnam’s Chairmanship

By Bich T Tran

COVID-19 (C-19) event is posing serious challenges for the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) in 2020. But Vietnam, as current ASEAN chair, is trying to make the best of the situation and demonstrate leadership. As 2020 marks a mid-term review of the implementation of the ASEAN Community Building Blueprints 2015–25, Vietnam chose ‘Cohesive and Responsive ASEAN’ as the theme for its chairmanship.
The theme is supported by five priorities identified by Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc in his keynote speech on 6 January. The priorities include contributing to regional peace, security and stability by strengthening ASEAN’s solidarity and unity; intensifying regional connectivity through the use of digital and novel technologies; promoting ASEAN identities and shared values; strengthening global partnerships for peace and sustainable development; and improving ASEAN’s responsiveness and operational effectiveness.
Despite the goal of intensifying regional connectivity, the C-19 event is disturbing global and regional supply chains. Vietnam had planned to organize more than 300 different conferences and activities during its term to celebrate the 25th anniversary of its ASEAN membership and to promote regional interactions. But the pandemic is causing numerous events to be postponed or even cancelled.
Many countries are in total or partial lockdown to flatten the transmission curve. Still, social distancing is increasing the use of telecommunication technologies used for teleworking and online teaching and learning. This trend, in line with the priority of promoting digital technologies, is enabling Vietnam to carry out its chair responsibilities by holding virtual meetings with ASEAN members and external partners.
Although division among ASEAN on how to respond to China in the South China Sea has undermined unity in recent years, Vietnam as chair of ASEAN is unifying member states in the fight against C-19. Since the beginning of the outbreak, Vietnam has worked closely with ASEAN members to help cope with the complex developments of the disease. On 14 February, Vietnam issued the Chairman’s Statement on ASEAN Collective Response to the Outbreak of C-19, which stressed the importance of ASEAN solidarity and promoted cooperation on multiple levels.
On 31 March, Hanoi held the ASEAN Coordinating Council Working Group on Public Health Emergencies teleconference for member states to share information about their situations and the implementation of control measures.
At the ministerial level, Vietnam chaired two sessions of the ASEAN Coordinating Council on 20 March and 9 April, comprised of ASEAN foreign ministers, to discuss ways to strengthen collaboration between the group and its partners.
In the spirit of a ‘Cohesive and Responsive ASEAN’, Vietnam organized the Special ASEAN Summit on Coronavirus Disease 2019 on 14 April to urge member states to remain united and to act decisively in response to the pandemic. The leaders agreed to create a C-19 ASEAN Response Fund and regional reserves of medical supplies.

Non-Aligned Movement for the betterment of Multilateralism

Vietnam is also using the ASEAN chair to advance the organization’s cooperation with countries around the world. It was primarily within the universal organization of the United Nations (OUN).
As ambassador Hasmi Agam and prof. Anis H. Bajrektarevic recently noted in their policy paper on the UN: “…what presents itself as an imperative is universal participation through intergovernmental mechanisms. That very approach has been clearly demonstrated by UN member states, as shown by the active roles played by Indonesia (in the SC, along with another ASEAN and NAM member, VietNam; and on behalf of the general membership of the UN General Assembly), Azerbaijan (on behalf of NAM) and France (on behalf of the P5 and the EU) reaching out to Tunisia – a member of the Arab League (LAS), AU, OIC and NAM. Same line has been also endorsed by the UN Members States on 18 May 2020 in relation to the independent inquiry request over the WHO conduct. … this is well recognised by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres himself, who recently stated that “With two thirds of UN Member States, the Non-Aligned Movement has a critical role to play in forging global solidarity”. (https://www.ifimes.org/en/9819)
But the list of Vietnam’s regional and bilateral activities is extensive too: At the ASEAN–China Foreign Ministers’ Meeting on cooperation in responding to C-19 in Laos on 20 February, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi informed ASEAN of the situation in Wuhan and other parts of China. The bloc confirmed its support for China in combating the disease.
On 20 March, Vietnam chaired the ASEAN–EU ministerial teleconference on cooperation in fighting the pandemic. The two sides agreed to heighten information sharing, experience exchange, and policy consultation in diagnosis, treatment and vaccine production.
As chair of ASEAN, Vietnam was invited to the G-20 emergency online summit on C-19 on 26 March. Besides sharing Vietnam’s C-19 control experience, Prime Minster Phuc stressed the importance of solidarity, cooperation and collaboration at global and regional levels. He added that fighting the pandemic should accompany facilitating trade and investment cooperation.
Vietnam also chaired the Special ASEAN+3 Summit on C-19 on 14 April. ASEAN members and their dialogue partners China, Japan and South Korea acknowledged the significance of ASEAN+3 cooperation and its existing mechanisms in addressing public health challenges.
Although the US–ASEAN Summit — initially scheduled for mid-March — was postponed, Vietnam held the ASEAN–United States High-Level Interagency Video Conference on Cooperation to Counter C-19, a senior officials-level meeting, on 1 April. The two sides reiterated the value of the ASEAN–US Strategic Partnership in facing the unprecedented challenges of the pandemic.
The success of this meeting led to the Special ASEAN–US Ministerial Videoconference on C-19 on 23 April with the participation of US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Pham Binh Minh thanked the United States for its US$19 million for financial support to regional countries in combating the disease. Foreign Minister Pham also proposed further ASEAN–US public health cooperation by sharing information, experience and best practices.
Despite a rough start, Vietnam is demonstrating its leadership through quick responses and proactiveness in coordinating member states and external partners. Still, the accusations between the United States and China over the disease’s origin and their handling of the pandemic are putting Southeast Asia in complicated situation. As both powers are important partners of ASEAN, growing strategic competition between the two will again put ASEAN unity to the test in the post-C-19 era.

About author:
Bich T Tran is a PhD candidate at the University of Antwerp and a Researcher at the Global Affairs Research Center,

June 25, 2020 by Igor Dirgantara Categories: SOUTHEAST ASIA Leave a comment

A Future filled with empty Choices Or Tomorrow (n)ever AI-ies

Throughout most of human evolution both progress and its horizontal transmission was an extremely slow, occasional and tedious process. Well into the classic period of Alexander the Macedonian and his glorious Library of Alexandria, the speed of our knowledge transfers – however moderate, analogue and conservative – still always outpaced our snail-like cycles of our developmental breakthroughs.

When our sporadic breakthroughs finally became faster than their infrequent transmissions, that marked a point of our departure. Simply put, our civilizations started to significantly differentiate from each other in their respective techno-agrarian, politico-military, ethno-religious or ideological, and economic setups. Soon, after, the Grand Discoveries (Europe’s shift to west) were the event transforming wars and famine from the low-impact and local one, into the bigger and cross-continental.

Faster cycles of technological breakthroughs, patents and discoveries rather than their own transfers, occurred primarily within the Old continent. That occurrence, with all its reorganizational effects, radically reconfigured societies. It ultimately marked a birth of several mighty European empires, their (liberal) schools (and consequent imperial weaponization of knowledge) – hence an overall, lasting triumph of Western civilization.

Act

For the past few centuries, we’ve lived fear but dreamt hope – all for the sake of modern times. From WWI to www. Is this modernity of internet age, with all the suddenly reviled breakthroughs and their instant transmission, now harboring us in a bay of fairness, harmony and overall reconciliation? Was and will our history ever be on holiday? Thus, has our world ever been more than an idea? Shall we stop short at the Kantian word – a moral definition of imagined future, or continue to the Hobbesian realities and look up for an objective, geopolitical definition of our common tomorrow?

The Agrarian age inevitably brought up the question of economic redistribution. Industrial age culminated on the question of political participation. Today, AI (Quantum physics, Nanorobotics and Bioinformatics) brings a new, yet underreported challenge: Human (physical and mental) powers might – far and wide, and rather soon – become obsolete. If or when so, the question of human irrelevance is next to be asked.

Why is AI like no technology ever before? Why re-visiting and re-thing spirituality matters …

If one believes that the above is yet another philosophical melodrama, an anemically played alarmism, mind this:

Mankind will soon have to redefine what it considers to be life itself.

Less than a month ago (January 2020), the successful trials have been completed. The border between organic and inorganic, intrinsic and artificial is downed forever. AI has it now all-in: quantum physics (along with quantum computing), nanotechnology, bioinformatics, and organic tissue tailoring. Synthesis of all that is usually referred to as xenobots (sorts of living robots) – biodegradable symbiotic nanorobots that exclusively rely on evolutionary (self-navigable) algorithms. The essential building element to biotronics is hence here, among us.

React

Although life remains to be lived forward (with no backward looking), human retrospection is the biggest reservoir of insights. Of what makes us human.

Thus, what does the history of technology in relation to human development tell us so far?

Elaborating on a well-known argument of ‘defensive modernization’ of Fukuyama, it is evident that throughout the entire human history a technological drive was aimed to satisfy the security and control objective. It was rarely (if at all) driven by a desire to gain knowledge outside of convention, in order to ease human existence, and to bolster human emancipation and liberation of societies at large. Therefore, unless operationalized by the system, both the intellectualism (human autonomy, mastery and purpose), and technological breakthroughs were traditionally felt and perceived as a threat. As a problem, not a solution.

Ok. But what has brought us (under) AI today?

It was our acceptance. Of course, manufactured.

All cyber-social networks and related search engines are far away from what they are portrayed to be: a decentralized but unified intelligence, attracted by gravity of quality rather than navigated by force of a specific locality. (These networks were not introduced to promote and emancipate other cultures and other narratives but to maintain and further strengthen supremacy of the dominant one.)

In no way do they correspond with a neuroplasticity of physics of our consciousness. They only offer temporary relaxation to our anxieties – in which the fear from free time is the largest. It is so, since a true free time coupled with silence is our gate to creativity and self-reflection. In fact, the cyber-tools of these data-sponges primarily serve the predictability, efficiency, calculability and control purpose, and only then they serve everything else – as to be e.g. user-friendly and en mass service attractive.

To observe the new corrosive dynamics of social phenomenology between manipulative fetishization (probability) and self-trivialization (possibility), the cyber-social platforms – these dustbins of human empathy in the muddy suburbs of consciousness – are particularly interesting.

This is how the human presence-eliminating technologies have been introduced to and accepted by us.

Packed

How did we reflect – in our past – on any new social dynamics created by the deployment of new technologies?

Aegean theater of Ancient Greece was a place of astonishing revelations and intellectual excellence – a remarkable density and proximity, not surpassed up to our age. All we know about science, philosophy, sports, arts, culture and entertainment, stars and earth has been postulated, explored and examined then and there. Simply, it was a time and place of triumph of human consciousness, pure reasoning and sparkling thought. However, neither Euclid, Anaximander, Heraclites, Hippocrates (both of Chios, and of Cos), Socrates, Archimedes, Ptolemy, Democritus, Plato, Pythagoras, Diogenes, Aristotle, Empedocles, Conon, Eratosthenes nor any of dozens of other brilliant ancient Greek minds did ever refer by a word, by a single sentence to something which was their everyday life, something they saw literally on every corner along their entire lives. It was an immoral, unjust, notoriously brutal and oppressive slavery system that powered the Antique state. (Slaves have not been even attributed as humans, but rather as the ‘phonic tools/tools able to speak’.) This myopia, this absence of critical reference on the obvious and omnipresent is a historic message – highly disturbing, self-telling and quite a warning for the present day.

So, finally,

Why is AI like no technology ever before?

Ask Google! I am busy messaging right now …

Prof. Anis H. Bajrektarevic,

Author of 6 books on geopolitics, energy and technology

March 24, 2020 by Igor Dirgantara Categories: SOUTHEAST ASIA Leave a comment

A Future filled with empty Choices Or Tomorrow (n)ever AI-ies

Prof. Anis H. Bajrektarevic

Throughout most of human evolution both progress and its horizontal transmission was an extremely slow, occasional and tedious process. Well into the classic period of Alexander the Macedonian and his glorious Library of Alexandria, the speed of our knowledge transfers – however moderate, analogue and conservative – still always outpaced our snail-like cycles of our developmental breakthroughs.

When our sporadic breakthroughs finally became faster than their infrequent transmissions, that marked a point of our departure. Simply put, our civilizations started to significantly differentiate from each other in their respective techno-agrarian, politico-military, ethno-religious or ideological, and economic setups. Soon, after, the Grand Discoveries (Europe’s shift to west) were the event transforming wars and famine from the low-impact and local one, into the bigger and cross-continental.

Faster cycles of technological breakthroughs, patents and discoveries rather than their own transfers, occurred primarily within the Old continent. That occurrence, with all its reorganizational effects, radically reconfigured societies. It ultimately marked a birth of several mighty European empires, their (liberal) schools (and consequent imperial weaponization of knowledge) – hence an overall, lasting triumph of Western civilization.

Act

For the past few centuries, we’ve lived fear but dreamt hope – all for the sake of modern times. From WWI to www. Is this modernity of internet age, with all the suddenly reviled breakthroughs and their instant transmission, now harboring us in a bay of fairness, harmony and overall reconciliation? Was and will our history ever be on holiday? Thus, has our world ever been more than an idea? Shall we stop short at the Kantian word – a moral definition of imagined future, or continue to the Hobbesian realities and look up for an objective, geopolitical definition of our common tomorrow?

The Agrarian age inevitably brought up the question of economic redistribution. Industrial age culminated on the question of political participation. Today, AI (Quantum physics, Nanorobotics and Bioinformatics) brings a new, yet underreported challenge: Human (physical and mental) powers might – far and wide, and rather soon – become obsolete. If or when so, the question of human irrelevance is next to be asked.

Why is AI like no technology ever before? Why re-visiting and re-thing spirituality matters …

If one believes that the above is yet another philosophical melodrama, an anemically played alarmism, mind this:

Mankind will soon have to redefine what it considers to be life itself.

Less than a month ago (January 2020), the successful trials have been completed. The border between organic and inorganic, intrinsic and artificial is downed forever. AI has it now all-in: quantum physics (along with quantum computing), nanotechnology, bioinformatics, and organic tissue tailoring. Synthesis of all that is usually referred to as xenobots (sorts of living robots) – biodegradable symbiotic nanorobots that exclusively rely on evolutionary (self-navigable) algorithms. The essential building element to biotronics is hence here, among us.

React

Although life remains to be lived forward (with no backward looking), human retrospection is the biggest reservoir of insights. Of what makes us human.

Thus, what does the history of technology in relation to human development tell us so far?

Elaborating on a well-known argument of ‘defensive modernization’ of Fukuyama, it is evident that throughout the entire human history a technological drive was aimed to satisfy the security and control objective. It was rarely (if at all) driven by a desire to gain knowledge outside of convention, in order to ease human existence, and to bolster human emancipation and liberation of societies at large. Therefore, unless operationalized by the system, both the intellectualism (human autonomy, mastery and purpose), and technological breakthroughs were traditionally felt and perceived as a threat. As a problem, not a solution.

Ok. But what has brought us (under) AI today?

It was our acceptance. Of course, manufactured.

All cyber-social networks and related search engines are far away from what they are portrayed to be: a decentralized but unified intelligence, attracted by gravity of quality rather than navigated by force of a specific locality. (These networks were not introduced to promote and emancipate other cultures and other narratives but to maintain and further strengthen supremacy of the dominant one.)

In no way do they correspond with a neuroplasticity of physics of our consciousness. They only offer temporary relaxation to our anxieties – in which the fear from free time is the largest. It is so, since a true free time coupled with silence is our gate to creativity and self-reflection. In fact, the cyber-tools of these data-sponges primarily serve the predictability, efficiency, calculability and control purpose, and only then they serve everything else – as to be e.g. user-friendly and en mass service attractive.

To observe the new corrosive dynamics of social phenomenology between manipulative fetishization (probability) and self-trivialization (possibility), the cyber-social platforms – these dustbins of human empathy in the muddy suburbs of consciousness – are particularly interesting.

This is how the human presence-eliminating technologies have been introduced to and accepted by us.

Packed

How did we reflect – in our past – on any new social dynamics created by the deployment of new technologies?

Aegean theater of Ancient Greece was a place of astonishing revelations and intellectual excellence – a remarkable density and proximity, not surpassed up to our age. All we know about science, philosophy, sports, arts, culture and entertainment, stars and earth has been postulated, explored and examined then and there. Simply, it was a time and place of triumph of human consciousness, pure reasoning and sparkling thought. However, neither Euclid, Anaximander, Heraclites, Hippocrates (both of Chios, and of Cos), Socrates, Archimedes, Ptolemy, Democritus, Plato, Pythagoras, Diogenes, Aristotle, Empedocles, Conon, Eratosthenes nor any of dozens of other brilliant ancient Greek minds did ever refer by a word, by a single sentence to something which was their everyday life, something they saw literally on every corner along their entire lives. It was an immoral, unjust, notoriously brutal and oppressive slavery system that powered the Antique state. (Slaves have not been even attributed as humans, but rather as the ‘phonic tools/tools able to speak’.) This myopia, this absence of critical reference on the obvious and omnipresent is a historic message – highly disturbing, self-telling and quite a warning for the present day.

So, finally,

Why is AI like no technology ever before?

Ask Google! I am busy messaging right now …

March 6, 2020 by Igor Dirgantara Categories: SOUTHEAST ASIA Leave a comment

ALL THOSE CROATIAN PRESIDENTS

By: Tomislav Jakić

Since those days when it emerged from the ruins of the Yugoslav federation as an independent state, Republic of Croatia had 4 Presidents – 4 men and a Lady President. The first one whom only death, in the opinion of many, saved from the International Hague Tribunal, but who is still (or because of that?) called by his admirers “Father of the Nation” was a self-proclaimed “Messiah”, who although “only” a President acted as master and commander. One of his closest collaborators remembers how Franjo Tudjman asked him once: “To whom should I leave Croatia?” For a monarch without heirs from the 19^th cebtury a quite appropriate question. But, for the President of a modern state that found its way to the international scene at the very end of the 20^th century – unthinkable!

On the wave of the desire for changes, which grew more and more as dark sides of the war for independence and of the privatization and transition started (but only started) to emerge, Tudjman was after his death succeeded by a former highly positioned politician of his Party who broke all ties both with Tudjman as well as with the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), because he could not and would not support their policy towards Bosnia and Herzegovina. Before doing that he, alas, following the official HDZ policy, gave a couple ill-made statements which he found himself in a position of explaining even after years. However, Stjepan Mesić displayed enough honesty and political courage to admit these statements and escapades and to apologize for them, saying they were wrong and out of place. He won the presidential elections twice and although he is by his enemies from the right still branded both as a clown and as a traitor, he initialized key processes aimed at putting Croatia on the world scene again, after it was, at the end of Tudjman’s rule, practically put into international isolation because of his policy towards minorities, especially the Serb one, and to human rights in general.

Mesić opened the way for returning antifascism (although already put into Constitution) to the place it deserves in the Croatian society; without any reservations he labeled fascism and its Croatian version (Ustasha) as evil and as a crime; he opposed the historical revisionism that was present from the very beginnings of the Croatian state; ha changed the attitude towards minorities, in the first place, the Serb minority and he favoured the return to Croatia of those Croatian citizen of Serb origin who fled the country during the war; he laid foundations for an everyday normalization of the relations in the region; he opened Croatia to the world, presenting it as a partner willing to cooperate on the terms of full equality with everybody. Despite diminished powers, because Croatia switched after Tudjman’s death from semi-Presidential to parliamentary system, he knew how to resolutely say “no”, when Croatia’s interests were at stake (for example resisting the pressure to make Croatia part of the so called Coalition of willing put together by the US for the purpose of invading Iraq). And he never ceased repeating that he is a citizen-President whose job is not to rule, but to serve.

After his 10 years in office a new tenant came into the Office of the President – university professor and composer, candidate of the left, Ivo Josipovic. There can be no doubt that he too wanted to be a “real President”, that he even had some ideas how to do this (let us forget his statement that he intends to compose an opera, while being President), the fact remains that he – objectively – managed to halt or to freeze many of the positive processes started by his predecessor; though at the same time some of them he simply copied, repeating for example in the Israeli parliament the excuse, on behalf of the Croatian state, for the crimes committed by the Ustasha against Jews. If he is going to be remembered for anything, it will be for being a weak President, who – by not being able to define himself and by not understanding what politics is all about, practically put in the position of the President Kolinda Grabar Kitarovic. Because, apart from the HDZ voting machinery, people did not vote for her, wanting just her as the new President, but because they were, to put it mildly – fed up by Ivo Josipovic. He did not know how to make real contact with citizens (contrary to Mesic, who was a virtuoso in doing this) and the citizens did not understand him – for example when he announced that he will run for the second term with he concept of a new Constitution.

The first woman-President in the short history of Croatia, presented a respectable C/V (minister for European Integration, Foreign minister, ambassador to the US, assistant to the Secretary General of NATO). But, very soon it became apparent and it remained apparent through her 5 years in office that she came totally unprepared and unfit for the position. She was intoxicated by the ceremonial accompanying the position of the President, she was literally in love with the military component of the function (although the President is the Supreme commander only in times of war), she loved uniforms and weapons and, above all – she was obsessed – by moving her Office from one town to the other (together with a ceremonial military unit that was present during the playing of the national anthem and raising the flag upon her arrival; in normal circumstances it is just the President visiting this or that town, or region of Croatia, which was – but without the pomp upon which she so insisted – done by Mesic, by Josipovic, even by Tudjman.

She will be remembered by stubbornly repeating some notorious lies (such as that Croatia/Yugoslavia was behind the Iron Curtain, or that Croats were not allowed in times of Yugoslavia to call themselves as Croats, or that the Ustasha salute (For homeland – ready) was an ancient Croatian salute (here she eventually admitted, most probably under pressure from outside, that she was wrong, blaming one of her advisers for this!). She will not be remembered for her policy, even not for the “3 seas concept” she so loved to speak about, although it is not her concept at all. But she will be remembered as an enthusiastic cheer leader during the World soccer championship, as somebody who embraced sweaty soccer players in their wardrobes and – as her term in office started to come close and closer to its end – as somebody who liked to sing in public (even “discussing” this with some media, objecting that they reported she does not know how to sing, although – she said – “I sing well”). Finally she will be remembered by a series of public appearances which made many people to raise their eyebrows and then to start laughing at her (“My friend, the American general”, or “they say it’s not possible, but I tell you it is possible; I have already arrangements with certain foreign countries that Croats will go there for schooling, return after that to Croatia and work on-line from their homes for 8.000 Euro monthly”, ending with “I will stay in Croatia, although I have offers from all around the world”. She loved to sing a song whose text portrays part of Bosnia and Herzegovina as Croatia, she boasted that the pop-singer, icon of the political right whose most popular song begins with the Ustasha salute “For homeland – ready!” is her favourite singer, and let us stop here, although there would be much more. She missed no opportunity to equates antifascism (calling it communism) with fascism and she loved to remember how both of her grandparents were partisans, but turned into anti-communists right after the victory in 1945. About her being sent to school in the US she said that her father sent her there and not Tito (“forgetting” that Tito was at that time several years dead already).

She made peace with the HDZ prime minister, because she needed her party’s support in the election campaign. All the HDZ politicians started to repeat, as parrots; “She will win!”. She lost. If she manages to get into history, than history will remember her as somebody who transformed the role of the President into a stage act and managed, instead of policy that should be waged at the top of the state, to present a rather bad “patriotic” reality show.

It is high time for “realpolitik” to replace this reality show. Yes, we might expect some surprises from the President-elect too, some of them might not please those who voted for him. But, one thing is sure; because of Zoran Milanović nobody who really cares for Croatia and for Croatia’s reputation in the world, will not blush, or feel ashamed (which was not the case in previous 5 years). Milanović in not an “unknown”, both in Croatia and in the world, neither as a person, nor as a politician (chairman of the Social-democratic party, Prime minister). It is a known fact that he too, sometimes, speaks and even acts faster that he thinks, putting himself in the position to explain afterwards what he really wanted to say or demonstrate (the most benign example is his jumping from a APC and falling to the ground before TV cameras, and saying laconically only: “I wanted to boast”.

In retrospect: the first “messianic” President saw himself as the owner of the country and behaved accordingly. The second, and history will one day admit this, was a President, as Presidents should be. The third did not know how to be the President and the fourth, the Lady President, understood and performed her duty as a cheap reality show. One should hope, the time is ripe for a “realpolitiker”, someone who is fully aware of the fact that he is the President of a small country, but at the same time aware of its (meaning his) responsibility for the state of democracy in Croatia, for the situation in the region and for Croatia’s place in the world. Voters do remember Milanovic from previous times. So it is no surprise that on internet one can read such a commentary: “Good luck, don’t slip, because we will not forgive.”

(The author is a long time journalist, TV and press, nowadays contributing columnist to the Independent Serbian Weekly “Novosti” (Croatia) and to portals novosti.com and tacno.net (Bosnia and Herzegovina). Between 2001. and 2010. he was Foreign Policy Adviser to President Stjepan Mesic).

March 6, 2020 by Igor Dirgantara Categories: SOUTHEAST ASIA Leave a comment

Towards the Bolder Presence of OIC on global Arena

By prof. Emmy Latifah and Sara Al-Dhahr

For over half a century, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) serves as a focal point for its member states (MS) and as a clearing house between its members and the rest of the world. The Organisation does that by providing a standing forum and diplomatic tools to solve disputes, and to address challenges in accordance with its charter.

Being the second-largest intergovernmental multilateral system after the United Nations (UN), whose members largely occupy the most fascinating part of the globe (that of its geographic and spiritual centre as well as the rich energy deposits), gives to the Organisation a special exposure and hence a distinctive role.

The OIC Charter clearly states that it is important to safeguard and protect the common interests and support the legitimate causes of the Member States, to coordinate and unify the efforts of its MS in view of the challenges faced by the Muslim world in particular and the international community in general. For that reason, the Organisation may consider expanding its activities further. One of the most effective way to do so, is by setting yet another permanent presence in Europe. This time it would be by opening its office in Vienna Austria, which should be coupled with a request for an observer status with a Vienna-based Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) – as prof. Anis H. Bajrektarevic tirelessly advocates in his statements.

The OSCE itself is an indispensable security mechanism (globally the second largest after the UN) whose instruments and methodology would be twinned or copied for the OIC. Besides, numerous members of the OSCE are members of the OIC at the same time. Finally, through its Mediterranean partnership dimension, this is a rare international body that has (some) Arab states and Israel around the same table.

Presence means influence

Why does the OIC need permanent presence in Vienna? The answer is within the OIC charter; to ensure active participation of the Member States in the global political, and socio-economic decision-making processes to secure their common interests.

Why Vienna in particular, when the OIC has an office in Brussels (Belgium) and Geneva (Switzerland)?

When it comes to this city, we can list the fundamental importance of Vienna in Europe and the EU, and globally is because it homes one of the three principal seats of the OUN (besides Geneva and New York).
Moreover, a number of important Agencies are headquartered in Vienna (such as the Atomic Energy Agency, UN Industrial Development Organisation, Nuclear Test Ban Treaty organisation, etc.) as well as to segments of the UN Secretariat (such as Outer Space, Trade Law, the ODC office related to the issues of Drugs-Crimes-Terrorism, etc.).

Surely, there are many important capitals around our global village, but after New York, Geneva and Brussels, Vienna has probably the highest representation of foreign diplomats. Many states have even three ambassadors accredited in Vienna (bilateral, for the UN and for the OSCE.)

The OIC has nine member states who are the OPEC members as well. Four of those are the Founding Members of the OPEC. Vienna hosts OPEC as well as its developmental branch, the OPEC Fund for Development (OFID).

Some of the OIC MS have lasting security vulnerabilities, a fact that hampers their even development and prosperity. The OIC places these considerations into its core activities through co-operation in combating terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, organised crime, illicit drugs trafficking, corruption, money laundering and human trafficking. Both the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UN ODC) and the OSCE have many complementarities in their mandates and instruments in this respect.

As an Islamic organization, that works to protect and defend the true image of Islam, to combat defamation of Islam and encourage dialogue among civilisations and religions, the tool for that is again Austria as it is the first European Christian country to recognise Islam as one of its state religions – due to its mandate over (predominately Muslim) Bosnia, 100 years ago.

Back to its roots

The Organization was formed by a decision of the Historical Summit in Rabat, the Kingdom of Morocco on 25 September 1969 after the criminal arson of Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied Jerusalem.

Today, after fifty years of this vicious incident, the OIC has as one of the main cases to support the struggle of the Palestinian people, who are presently under foreign occupation, and to empower them to attain their inalienable rights, including the right to self-determination, and to establish their sovereign state with Al-Quds Al-Sharif as its capital while safeguarding its historic and Islamic character, and the holy places therein.

When we look back to Austria, it was Chancellor Bruno Kreisky (himself Jewish) who was the very first western leader to receive that-time contemporary Yasser Arafat, as a Head of State, and to repeatedly condemn many of the Israeli methods and behaviours. As prof. Anis H. Bajrektarevic wonderfully reminded us during his recent lecture with Amb. Goutali of the OIC and Excellency Elwaer of the IsDB President’s Office; ‘Past the Oil embargo, when the OPEC – in an unprecedented diplomatic move – was suspended of its host agreement in Switzerland, and reuqested to leave, it was that same Chancellor, Kreisky who generously invited the OPEC to find Austria as its new home.’

The OIC is also heavily involved in environmental issues, such as water implementation. According to the Stockholm International Water Institute, around two-thirds of the world’s transboundary rivers do not have a cooperative management framework. The OIC Science-Technology-Innovation (STI) Agenda 2026 has also called on the MS to first define water resource quality and demand by planning national water budgets at the ‘ local ‘ level where appropriate. In this regard, certain MS lack the ability to conduct a thorough exercise. An organized and focused action plan to adopt the OIC Water Vision is introduced to help Member States address water-related issues.

As for the implementation plan for OIC Water Vision, Vienna is a principal seat of the Danube river organisation – which is important for the Muslim world as an effectively water-managing mechanism and instrumentation to learn from and to do twinning.

So far, the OIC covers Vienna (but only its UN segment) non-residentially, from Geneva – respective officers are residentially accredited to the UNoG. A permanent presence, even a small one and co-shared with the Developmental arm of the OIC – that of the IsDB, would be a huge asset for the Organization. That would enable both the OIC and the Bank to regularly participate in the formal and informal multilateral formats, happening daily in Vienna.

Absence is the most expensive

International security is a constant global challenge that is addressed the best way through the collective participation in multilateral settings. It is simply the most effective, cheapest, fastest – therefore the most promising strategy to sustainability and stability of humankind.

According to the Global Peace Index (2019 figures), the economic impact of violence on the global economy in 2018 was $14.1 trillion. This figure is equivalent to 11.2% of the world’s GDP, or $1,853 for every person. The economic impact of violence progressed for 3.3% only during 2018. Large sways of it were attributed to the Muslim Middle East.

The OIC fundamental purpose is to contribute to the maintenance of international peace and security, as embedded in its and the UN Charter and other acts of the international (human rights and humanitarian) law.

In this light, requesting the Observer status with the largest Security mechanism on the planet, that of the OSCE, which has rather specific mandates; well-elaborated politico-military, early prevention and confidence building mechanisms; net of legally binding instruments, extensive field presence (incl. several OIC member states), and a from Vancouver-to-Vladivostok outreach is simply the most natural thing to do. This would be very beneficial to the OIC Member States, as well as one of possible ways to improve its own instruments.

Among its 57 members, 21 of them are listed within a top 50 countries in the Global Terrorism Index for 2019. (With a ranking of 9.6 points, Afghanistan is infamously nr. 1 on the global terror index making it the nation most affected by terrorism on Earth. The OIC member state – Afghanistan, scored the most terror attacks in 2018 – 1,294; and the most terror-related deaths in 2018, with 9,961 casualties.)

The OIC Charter (article 28, Chapter XV) clearly states that the Organisation may cooperate with other international and regional organisations with the objective of preserving international peace and security and settling disputes through peaceful means.

As said, Vienna is a principal seat of the second largest security multilateral mechanism on earth, OSCE. This is a three- dimensional organisation with its well elaborated and functioning: politico-military, economy-environment; and the human dimension – that is extensively developed both institutionally and by its instruments.
No doubt, the OIC successfully contributes to international peace and security, by boosting understanding and dialogue among civilizations, cultures and religions, and by promoting and encouraging friendly relations and good neighbourliness, mutual respect and cooperation. But for this, it needs more forums to voice its positions and interests. Many of the OSCE Member states have even three different ambassadors and three separate missions in Vienna. Presence of the relevant international organisations follows about the same pattern.

The strategic importance of the MENA (Middle East- North Africa) lies on its diverse resources, such as energy, trade routes, demography, geography, faith and culture. The OSCE has a Mediterranean partnership outreach, meaning some of the LAS and OIC members states are already participants, where Central Asian states, Caucasus as well as Turkey, Albania and Bosnia are fully-fledged member states of the OSCE.

Taking all above into account, the OIC should not miss an opportunity to open another powerful channel of its presence and influence on the challenging and brewing international scene. It would be a permanent office to cover all diplomatic activities and within it – the observer status before the OSCE. This would be to the mutual benefit of all; Europe and the Muslim world, international peace and prosperity, rapprochement and understanding, present generations and our common futures.

Jakarta/Jeddah, 22 JAN 2020

About the authors:

Emmy Latifah is a professor of international law and is an international relations coordinator of the UNS University of Indonesia.

Sara Al-Dhahri is an International Relations scholar of the Jeddah-based Dar Al-Hekma University and the Project Coordinator for Sawt Al-Hikma (Voice of Wisdom) Centre of the OIC.

March 6, 2020 by Igor Dirgantara Categories: SOUTHEAST ASIA Leave a comment

Give me religion that does not polarise society!

Julia Suryakusuma

A few years ago in Aceh, a poster was put up by the Islamic Sharia Department in Banda Aceh of the communications and information agency office, stating:
“A woman whose strand of hair is seen deliberately by a man who is not her husband will be punished by 70,000 years in hell. One day in the afterlife is equivalent to 1,000 years in this world. A woman who enters hell will draw in with her two of her menfolk: her father, her brothers, her husband or her son. This is how terrible the punishment is!”
I received a photo of the poster through one of my WhatsApp groups and shared it with friends. One of them, Harry (not his real name), hilariously pointed out the absurdity of it all.
“What? Do radicals see women’s hair as pubic hair, and are hijab underpants for women’s heads?” he asked incredulously, referring to the headcover worn by Muslim women in Indonesia.
Harry added, to his knowledge, there is nothing in the Quran about women’s hair. “What’s written on the poster is a 1,000 percent deviant!” he exclaimed.
It’s also a mind-crushingly asinine, idiotic and imbecilic fantasy based on nothing but an overly fertile, sick and twisted imagination!
Lucky for him, Sinta Nuriyah, the widow of Abdurrahman “Gus Dur” Wahid, Indonesia’s fourth president (1999-2001), known for his liberal and often eccentric views, corroborated Harry’s view. Like many respected ulema before her, she stated recently that it was not obligatory for Muslim women to wear hijab. The statement of Bu Sinta, 71, a well-respected figure in the prodemocracy movement, went viral.
Bu Sinta pointed out that she always tries to interpret Quranic verses contextually, not textually. She conceded that many Muslims misinterpret the Quran because it has gone through many interpretations, including by those who have their own personal agenda.
It’s also a matter of deliberate distortion, which has reached alarmingly ridiculous proportions. The poster in Aceh is just one example; there are many others, for example, related to circumcision for girls, child marriage, polygamy, mut’ah (temporary marriage, in fact, thinly veiled prostitution), marital rape, violence against women, notions of halal and haram, prohibition to wish Christians a merry Christmas, the trigger-happy way some Muslims accuse others of being kafir (infidels), teaching kids intolerance, and even the abuse of Islam to protect corruption and to scam people by using (or misusing) the sharia label.
It’s part of what I see as being a three-pronged phenomenon across the nation: one, creeping radicalization and intolerance; two, public duping by distorting Quran verses or just making things up that have no basis at all in sharia, Islamic fiqh (jurisprudence) or hadits (the Prophet’s sayings); and three, a kind of moral panic meant to distract from the real issues people face that obviously differ from region to region.
Remember the Chernobyl nuclear and radiation disaster in 1986 in what was then the Ukraine Soviet Socialist Republic?
The ongoing deliberate distortion and manipulation of Islam by a bunch of ignoramus radicals could be said to be Indonesia’s Chernobyl. In fact it’s worse, because it’s not an accident but deliberately engineered — not just by radicals but also by mainstream politicians taking advantage of it to support their political agenda. Notions of sharia and halal are also being commercialized, where even fridges can be labeled halal.
The “system” — if you can call it that — is rotten to the core. It’s a deliberate fabrication of toxic and evil lies intended to control the minds of many young Indonesian Muslims and turn them into mindless zombie robots that eschew any form of logic or true knowledge of Islam and Islamic history.
Radicals ultimately want Indonesia to become a caliphate. On YouTube, an “influencer” known as Ustad Haikal Hassan, explains that the caliphate system is an ideal political system that we should aim for. Unfortunately, he says that the caliphate concept is not used by Muslims but by Europeans and it is now the basis for the European Union. What?? Talk about being utterly clueless about what both the EU and a caliphate are!
Since the beginning of the Reform Era in 1998, Indonesian Muslims have become more and more conservative, abiding by (mis)interpretations of text rather than going by the spirit of Islam that embodies peace, mutual respect and love.
But now, over 20 years into the Reform Era, I reckon we are now in jahilliyah (age of ignorance) of Islam in Indonesia, which thrives on hypocrisy, greed and ego and power-driven motives. Radicals so easily point their fingers at others accusing them of blasphemy, when in fact it is they who are committing blasphemy — of the worse kind because it’s done with evil intent.
Islam, born in the seventh century, was intended as an “antidote” to Arabia, which was then considered an age of jahiliyah. So, it’s a pretty ironic state of affairs that we have become what we once fought against.
In relation to the pressure to wear a hijab (though many wear it voluntarily), women are starting to fight back. Many now see it as part of the Arabization of Indonesia and of the caliphate-pushing radical agenda.
Late last year, Indiah, a friend who has been wearing the hijab since 2003 after she went on the haj, told me she was planning to unveil herself in 2020.
She is also one of the proponents of the Selasa Berkebaya (Kebaya on Tuesdays) movement, kebaya being a blouse usually worn with a batik sarong, considered the Indonesian traditional costume.
A young progressive ustad known as Gus Miftah (Miftah Maulana Habiburrahman) recounts how his wife now no longer wears the hijab. She wore it for almost three years, especially when accompanying her husband. One day, he suggested that she take it off “to save Indonesia from the raging influence of Arabic culture”.
She was pretty happy about it, as she didn’t wear the veil before marrying him. Gus Miftah is now the only ustad whose wife doesn’t wear a hijab. You can imagine the bullying they both received, but they stood their ground.
In relation to Ibu Sinta, some women activists have respectfully asked: Why doesn’t she take off her headcover, even though it’s not a hijab, but it’s still a headcover. Ayo Bu Sinta, just do it! You’d go triple viral!

March 6, 2020March 6, 2020 by Igor Dirgantara Categories: SOUTHEAST ASIA Leave a comment

Revisiting the Ukraine-Russia-EU triangular dynamics

Tanvi Chauhan

With the narrative that floats around, one is tempted to think that the Ukraine crisis is all about Crimea; that it started and ended there. So what about the internal oblasts like Odessa, Kharkiv, Luhansk, and Donetsk (the South- Eastern regions) where a protracted conflict broke out? Are they not part of the resolution to the Ukraine crisis? But before any party decides on how to resolve the Ukrainian crisis, it is crucial to understand what needs to be resolved.

What needs to be Resolved?

First, the negotiating status. Formal peace talks began with the Minsk-I ceasefire in September 2014 but Kyiv refused to engage with rebels as negotiation partners, even while Kyiv’s negotiators had no official status, proceeding to brand rebels as ‘terrorists’ (Matveeva, 2018, p. 260). For as long as the insurgents are not considered cohorts in negotiating a peace deal and power sharing arrangements, the Ukraine crisis will not resolve. Second, the political fate of the insurgent territory. At the crisis’s outset, Donbas seemed to concord with Russia about the federalization idea (Davies, 2016, p. 737), but as the conflict progressed, rebels’ aspirations were geared either towards complete independence or irredentism with Russia – the former, Ukraine would never give, and the latter, Russia did not want. The ‘Special Status’ option running into a political impasse coupled with Ukrainian civil activist efforts against Minsk agreements meant that the crisis was not ripe for peace from Kyiv’s side. On the split side, the Donbas rebels’ dissatisfaction with Moscow and Kyiv for neglecting rebel wishes also meant that the crisis was not ready to be resolved from their side either. All parties were dissatisfied with the outcomes. It is not wrong therefore to say that Ukrainian nationalism and monist identity approach was only becoming stronger with rebels’ resistance to Kyiv’s biddings. Thus, for as long as the rebels are not awarded some sort of autonomy or freedom to live their “Russianness,” the crisis will not be resolved. At the same time, for as long as the rebels are firm on irredentist motives instead of attributing some form of loyalty to Kyiv, the SE-Ukraine crisis will prolong and cannot be resolved. It goes without saying that the resolution needs to be political, not military. As with any conflict, ceasefires are only temporary arrangements for until a greater political plan is formed. As the many (failed) ceasefire attempts indicate, Ukraine needs to seriously determine a political solution for the conflict to truly stop.

Ukraine Crisis and European Security

No matter how the Ukraine crisis is resolved, some things from the crisis serve as important notes for European security. First, the Donbas conflict is a strong reminder that for regional stability and order, it is necessary to devote attention to grassroots rebellions instead of single-mindedly fantasizing over the “all-Putin” narrative. Crimea was the tip of the iceberg; it is possible that such dormant grassroots rebellions could foment and induce a regional domino effect throwing the fragile balance off the continent. Second, it is unreasonable to take insurgent groups’ military organization and political aspirations for granted. Within Ukraine, rebels have showed the skill and experience needed to spontaneously mobilize and acquire modern warfare methods, which means, that such revolutions can very much happen despite state defense methods. Was (is) Ukraine prepared for this? Are Kyiv’s European friends prepared for this? Furthermore, when grievances are addressed in the form of violent conflict, a pro-war culture unites people with similar ideologies. How can Europe stop European fighters from fighting in Donbas? The moment that a cultural war becomes war-culture is indeed tricky – so Europe needs to take into account the strength of identities, symbols, and beliefs, and how that can affect the fragile security in the region, instead of brewing the ‘Russia-orchestrates-all’ beverage. Lastly, with whatever political resolution that Ukraine comes up with, European security and stability is only possible with Russia’s cooperation. Antagonizing Russia will not help integrate pro-Russian factions within pro-West states like Ukraine. This would mean not only cooperating with Russia for further regional stability, but also not isolating it. Russia’s past attempts of halting the Novorossiya project in Donbas, postponing elections in rebel territories, enthusiasm for peace prospects including suggesting UN peacekeeping troops cannot be simply rewarded with more economic sanctions. That defeats good faith from Russia. This causes Russia to turn away from cooperation with the EU, and with it, induce its pro-Russian supporters (scattered all over the FSU) to imitate the same.

Ukraine Crisis and Russian Security

If a political-military resolution is found to end the Ukraine crisis, it has some implications on Russian security too. First, Russia needs to be prepared for calls to the ‘Russian World.’ A population who was driven to go to war because they had faith Russia would repeat Crimea means that such dormant attitudes maybe present within other FSU populations. Matveeva (2018, 286) states that “Russia does not have a universalist approach to regional conflicts,” and Donbas is a clear example of that. Whatever the resolution is agreed upon for Ukraine, a big question that looms over Russian security is about how it would take care of regional military confrontations. Russia uses a bilateral and multilateral approach in order to bind states into a regional order, but the aspect about a military confrontation remains unanswered (Slobodchikoff 2014). Whether we look at CIS or some other multilateral organization, there needs to be some forum which either addresses collective security operations (actual military confrontations) or allows Russia to intervene as necessary. The Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) has been a good tool for Russia in integrating Eurasia against external threats (Hansen 2013), but has Russia seriously considered civil and transnational (internal) conflicts which can turn into full-blown civil wars if allowed? Even if Russia finds it pointless to entertain civil skirmishes like the one in Donbas, how can it ignore the fundamental drive – Novorossiya – which served as the rebels’ motivational catalyst? All this indicates that Russian security is invariably a matter of regional stability, very much taking into account Ukraine. So, it is only in Russian security interests to mollify such uprisings using support from mainland governments and/or a multilateral security architecture, thereby standardizing its approach to such regional hostilities. Unless, of course, it is Russia’s wish to stay mysterious with its security approach. If that be so, such an approach does not bode well for regional security. Secondly, for any sort of crisis resolution to sustain, Russia will have to understand Kyiv’s perspective. Although it has to rush to aid its Russian World when she summons her, Moscow cannot overplay this cultural dimension so much as to explicitly challenge the West and thereby feed into the Western normative discourse. Ukraine will be more than unwilling to make any more concessions past Crimea, so Donbas’s resolution (when it happens), would require sacrifices on both fronts and acknowledgment of bitter history.

Of course rebels in Donbas or Kyiv, the governments in Moscow and Kyiv, as also the wider continents of Europe and America would appreciate a true peace, but ‘peace’ cannot be viewed as an absolute dichotomy: either my way or the highway. A ceasefire may bring about a transient military resolution, but without a political one unanimously agreed by involved parties, it is unlikely that the Ukrainian crisis will end in spirit.

In order to avoid such future conflicts, both Russia and Europe must understand how overlooked conflicts such as those in Donbas have security implications for both of them. For Russia, it means acknowledging the dormant (but very potent) society within the Russian World, as also Russia’s obligation as leader of that world – and while doing all of this, maintaining a delicate balance between itself and the West. For Europe it means acknowledging indigenous uprisings, giving due value to cultural enthusiasm uncontaminated by political conspiracies that feed in the all-Putin perspective, and faithfully cooperating with Moscow to attain regional stability.

So as we see, there is much theoretical resolution to the Ukraine crisis and how that will affect Russian and European securities, but practically, one has to wait to see. As Matveeva (2018, 298) writes, “we can only hope humanity survived in those who went through it,” to which it would do well to add: I hope some foresight and rationality is present in those who are to resolve it.

Tanvi Chauhan is a global studies scholar from the US-based Troy University. She is specialist on the MENA and Eurasia politico-military and security theaters.

References:

Davies, L. (2016). Russia’s ‘Governance’ Approach: Intervention and the Conflict in the Donbas. Europe-Asia Studies, 68(4), 726–749.

Hansen, F. S. (2013). “Integration in the Post-Soviet Space.” International Area Studies Review 16(2): 142-59.

Kofman, M., Migacheva, K., Nichiporuk, B., Radin, A., Tkacheva, O., & Oberholtzer, J. (2017). Lessons From Russia’s Operations in Crimea and Eastern Ukraine. Santa Monica: RAND Corporation.

Matveeva, A. (2018). Through Times of Trouble: Conflict in South-eastern Ukraine Explained from Within. New York: Lexington Books.

Slobodhikoff, M O. (2017). “Challenging US Hegemony: The Ukrainian Crisis and Russian Regional Order.” The Soviet and Post-Soviet Review 44: 76-95.

March 6, 2020 by Igor Dirgantara Categories: SOUTHEAST ASIA Leave a comment

Fundamental legacy of The Nuremberg and Tokyo Trials (1945-1948)

Wedyan AlMadani

These – rather unfortunate – days some voices in Europe are trying, in a quite ahistorical fashion, to question the very fundaments of the antifascist legacy. Dangerous and highly destructive equitation attempts are on the way. Still, this legacy is what finally made the Old continent human and peaceful – a role model to admire and for the rest of us to follow.
These regrettable equitations make it worth to revisit the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials, which are essential pillars of the Human Rights charter brokered right after under the OUN auspices. Consequently, a very legacy of these trials is extraordinary and far reaching. It represents a core building material of the house called Modern Europe – something that the Director of International Institute IFIMES, Dr. Zijad Becirovic repeatedly stresses in his media appearances, as one of the bold but rather rare voices of the right direction and historical responsibility awareness today.
Conclusively, the importance of tribunals is hard to overstate. Its reaffirmation today is needed like never since the very end of the WWII.

* * * *

Noam Chomsky once said, “For the powerful, crimes are those that others commit.” This was not the case for Germany and Japan post-World War II. The victorious Allied powers established the first international criminal tribunals to prosecute political and military officials for war crimes and other atrocities committed during wartime. The four major Allied governments; the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and the Soviet Union, set up the International Military Tribunal (Nuremberg trials) in Nuremberg, Germany, to prosecute and punish the major war criminals of the European Axis.
The tribunal presided over a combined trial of senior Nazi political and military leaders, as well as several Nazi organizations. The less-recognized International Military Tribunal for the Far East was created (Tokyo trials) in Tokyo, Japan, following the 1946 proclamation by Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, U.S. Army General Douglas MacArthur. The tribunal presided over a series of trials of senior Japanese political and military leaders to prosecute and punish Far Eastern war criminals. The Nuremberg and Tokyo trials differed in several important aspects including their origins, compositions, and jurisdictions.
The Allied powers established the policy that international tribunals in Europe and in the Far East after World War II would focus on, most importantly, a decision on individual criminal liability for crimes against peace. The Allied governments, and specifically the United States, sought after this policy as a solid step toward organizing an international legal system for discouraging future aggressors and averting the sort of war devastation that the Axis aggression had caused. This US-enlivened policy, first presented at Nuremberg, was repeated and pursued precisely at Tokyo. Luc Reydams and Jan Wouters argued that “The Nuremberg and Tokyo Charters were drafted by a handful of statesmen from the highest echelons of government for whom an international tribunal was not a goal unto itself, but a means to a very specific end.” The Tokyo Charter, necessitated that the principal charges against the defendants be crimes against peace while deeming charges on war crimes and crimes against humanity as discretionary. Therefore, a great part of the court battles at Tokyo rotated around substantiating aggressive war charges, despite the fact that proof of Japanese wartime atrocities was, truth be told, likewise exhibited.
In June 1945, the day of the signing of the United Nations Charter at the San Francisco Conference, delegations of the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and the Soviet Union, negotiated in London on the regulating principles for prosecuting war criminals. It is noteworthy that the respective heads of these delegations; Robert Jackson, David Maxwell Fyfe, General I.T. Nikitchenko, and Robert Falco later served in notable roles at the International Military Tribunal. Meeting in Potsdam to discuss the future of Germany and Europe, Truman, Churchill, and Stalin affirmed the London talks.
In August 1945, the four major Allied governments signed the 1945 London Agreement, which established the International Military Tribunal. The Charter of the International Military Tribunal was adjoined to the London Agreement and defined the tribunal’s constitution, functions, and jurisdiction. One judge from each of the Allied governments formed the Nuremberg tribunal, the Allied powers also supplied a team of prosecutors. The Nuremberg Charter also provided that the International Military Tribunal had the authority to prosecute and punish persons who committed any of the following crimes: Crimes Against Peace (planning and making war), War Crimes (responsibility for crimes during war), Crimes Against Humanity (racial persecution), and Conspiracy to Commit other Crimes.
The tribunal held its opening session in the Palace of Justice in Nuremberg, and the trials lasted from November 1945 to October 1946. Twenty-two Nazi political and military leaders were indicted, including Hermann Goering, Rudolph Hess, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Alfred Rosenberg, and Albert Speer. The tribunal found nineteen individual defendants guilty and sentenced them to punishments that ranged from death by hanging to fifteen years of imprisonment. Three defendants were found that they are not guilty, one committed suicide before the trial, and one did not stand trial due to physical or mental illness.
Unlike the International Military Tribunal, the International Military Tribunal for the Far East was not created by an international agreement, but it nonetheless emerged from international agreements to prosecute Japanese war criminals. In July 1945, the United States, the United Kingdom, and China signed the Potsdam Declaration, in which they stated that “We do not intend that the Japanese shall be enslaved as a race or destroyed as a nation, but stern justice shall be meted out to all war criminals, including those who have visited cruelties upon our prisoners. The Japanese Government shall remove all obstacles to the revival and strengthening of democratic tendencies among the Japanese people. Freedom of speech, of religion, and of thought, as well as respect for the fundamental human rights shall be established.” and urged the Japanese government to, “proclaim now the unconditional surrender of all Japanese armed forces, and to provide proper and adequate assurances of their good faith in such action.” The war in Europe had ended but the war with Japan was continuing at the time the Potsdam Declaration was signed. Nonetheless, the Potsdam Declaration was not signed by the Soviet Union because it did not declare war on Japan until the United States dropped the second atomic bomb on the city of Nagasaki.
Japan surrendered on the 14th of August 1945, six days later. Officials of the US State Department leaned toward holding an intergovernmental conference to establish special international tribunals, but the State-War-Navy Coordinating Committee came up with the plan to use the power of the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers, General Douglas MacArthur, mindful of the experience with the London Conference where Justice Robert Jackson had enormous difficulty coming to an agreement with other delegations on the Nuremberg Charter.
At the following Moscow Conference, held in December 1945, the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union with affirmation from China agreed to a basic structure to occupy Japan. General MacArthur was granted authority to “issue all orders for the implementation of the Terms of Surrender, the occupation and control of Japan, and all directives supplementary thereto.”
In January 1946, General Douglas MacArthur issued a special proclamation to establish the International Military Tribunal for the Far East. The Charter for the International Military Tribunal for the Far East was adjoined to the proclamation. Similar to the Nuremberg Charter, it outlined the composition, functions, and jurisdiction of the tribunal. The Charter provided for General Douglas MacArthur to assign judges to the International Military Tribunal for the Far East from the countries that had signed Japan’s instrument of surrender: Australia, Canada, China, France, the Netherlands, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States, as well as British India and the Philippines. Each of these countries also had a team of prosecutors. As with the International Military Tribunal, the International Military Tribunal for the Far East had jurisdiction to prosecute individuals for Crimes Against Peace, War Crimes, and Crimes Against Humanity. However, the International Military Tribunal for the Far East had jurisdiction over crimes that occurred over a greater period of time, from the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931 to Japan’s surrender in 1945.
The International Military Tribunal for the Far East oversaw the prosecution of twenty-five Japanese political and military leaders. The Emperor of Japan Hirohito and other members of the imperial family were not indicted. In fact, the Allied governments allowed Emperor Hirohito to retain his position on the throne, albeit with diminished status. The trials took place from May 1946 to November 1948. The International Military Tribunal for the Far East found all defendants guilty and sentenced them to punishments ranging from death to seven years’ imprisonment.
The Nuremberg and Tokyo trials contributed significantly to the development of international criminal law and served as models for a new series of international criminal tribunals that were established in the 1990s. Moreover, the reference to “crimes against peace,” “war crimes,” and “crimes against humanity” in the International Military Tribunal Charter represented the first time these terms were used and defined in an international instrument. These terms and definitions were also adopted in the Charter of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, and have been depicted and expanded in a succession of international legal instruments since that time. The conclusions of the Nuremberg trials also served as models for the Genocide Convention 1948, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1948 and paved the way for the establishment of the International Criminal Court.

In conclusion, the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials legacy itself is extraordinary, and its importance is hard to overstate. Nuremberg and the international community’s experience with the ad hoc tribunals demonstrate that international justice doesn’t have to be perfect to be good. Holding up Nuremberg to an impossible, imagined standard is neither fair nor productive.
We cannot forget that the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials and, fifty years later, the establishment of the International Criminal Court aimed to safeguard peace in all regions of the world. The achievements of these great trials in elevating justice and law over inhumanity and war give promise for a better tomorrow by paving the way to deal with international crimes. Furthermore, the international system has made huge contributions to the birth and development of modern international law.

About the author:
Wedyan AlMadani is a Saudi scholar.
She is Jeddah-based Legal Advisor, and specialist in international law and relations.

References
Bard, M. G. (2002). The Nuremberg trials. San Diego, CA: Greenhaven Press.
Brook, T. (2001). The Tokyo Judgment and the Rape of Nanking. The Journal of Asian Studies, 60(3), 673-700. doi:10.2307/2700106
Carnegie Endowment for international peace. (n.d.). The Potsdam declaration: August 2, 1945. New York.
Cho, J. M., Roberts, L. M., & Spang, C. W. (2016). Transnational encounters between Germany and Japan: perceptions of partnership in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.
Crawford, J. (2012). Brownlies Principles of Public International Law. Oxford University Press.
Janis, M. W., & Noyes, J. E. (2006). Cases and commentary on international law. St. Paul, MN: Thomson/West.
Piccigallo, P. R. (2011). The Japanese on Trial: Allied War Crimes Operations in the East, 1945-1951. Austin: University of Texas Press.
Reydams, L., Wouters, J., & Ryngaert, C. (2012). The Politics of Establishing International Criminal Tribunals. International Prosecutors, 6–80. doi:
10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199554294.003.0002
Taulbee, J. L. (2018). War Crimes and Trials: A Primary Source Guide. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, LLC.
United Nations, the Charter of the International Military Tribunal (Nuremberg Charter) retrieved from: https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/documents/atrocity-crimes/Doc.2_Charter%20of%20IMT%201945.pdf
United Nations, International Military Tribunal for the Far East (Tokyo Charter) retrieved from: https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/documents/atrocity-crimes/Doc.3_1946%20Tokyo%20Charter.pdf

March 6, 2020 by Igor Dirgantara Categories: SOUTHEAST ASIA Leave a comment

De-evolution of Europe The equation of Communism with Nazism (First Part)

Anis H. Bajrektarević

It was indeed cynical and out-of-touch for the EU (Parliament) to suddenly blame, after 80 years, the Soviet Union for triggering WWII. It is unwise (to say least) to resurrect the arguments surrounding the circumstances of the start of World War II. The historians have agreed, the history has been written and well documented, and is in our books already for many decades.
There is no point in contemporary politicians of eastern flank of the EU (with a striking but complicit silence from the central Europe) pushing up the facts regarding who was to blame. There are neither mandated, nor qualified or even expected to do so.
Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, Mussolini ‘s Italy and its satellites (helped by the ring of Useful Idiots, then called Quislings) were the culprits and that is universally accepted with no exception. It is now all in the past. Let us leave it there and not in the 21st century which has severe multiplying challenges, especially for the EU, that are still waiting to be tackled.
* * * * *

Enveloped in its own myopia of economic egoism and überfremdung phobia, Europeans are in fact digging and perpetuating defensive self-isolation. While falling short to constructively engage its neighborhood (but not conveniently protected by oceans for it like some other emigrant-receiving countries), Europeans constantly attract unskilled migrants from that way destabilized near abroad. The US, GCC, Far East, Australia, Singapore, lately even Brazil, India, or Angola – all have enormously profited from the skilled newcomers. Europe is unable to recognize, preserve, protect and promote its skilled migrants.

Simply, European history of tolerance of otherness is far too short for it, while the legacies of residual fears are deep, lasting and wide. Destructive efforts towards neighbors and accelatered hatreds for at home are perpetually reinforcing themselves. That turns Europe into a cluster of sharply polarized and fragmented societies, seemingly over history and identity, but essentially over the generational and technological gap, vision and forward esteem.

One of the latest episodes comes from a recent political, and highly ahistorical, initiative to make an equation of communism with Nazism. Driven by the obsessive Russophobe notion, this myopic short-term calculus may bring disastrous long-term consequences – first and most of all for the Slavic Eastern/southeastern Europe, as well as to the absent-minded Scandinavian Europe, or cynically silent Central Europe.

Needleless to say, consensus that today’s Europe firmly rests upon is built on antifascism. This legacy brought about prosperity and tranquility to Europe unprecedented all throughout its history. Sudden equation of communism with Nazism is the best and fastest way to destroy very fundaments of Europe once for good.

One is certain, the EU-led Europe is in a serious moral and political crisis of rapid de-evolution. Let’s have a closer look.

Una hysteria importante
History of Europe is the story of small hysteric/xenophobic nations, traditionally sensitive to the issue of ethnic, linguistic, religious, and behavioristic otherness. If this statement holds the truth, then we refer to events before and after the Thirty Years’ War in general and to the post-Napoleonic Europe in particular. Political landscape of today’s Europe had been actually conceived in the late 14th century, gradually evolving to its present shape.
At first, the unquestioned and unchallenged pre-Westphalian order of Catholicism enabled the consolidation and standardization of the feudal socio-economic and politico-military system all over the Europe. However at its matured stage, such a universalistic world of Holy Roman Empire and Papacy (Caesaropapism) is steadily contested by the explicitly confrontational or implicitly dismissive political entities, be it ideologically (the Thirty Years’ War culminating with the Peace of Westphalia) or geopolitically (Grand Discoveries and the shift of the gravity center westwards). The early round of colonizers, the two Iberian empires of Spain and Portugal, are the first entities that emerged, followed by France, Holland, England and Denmark. (Belgium too, although it appeared as a buffer zone at first – being a strategic depth, a continental prolongation of England for containment of Central Europeans, of Dutch and Scandinavians from the open sea, while later on also becoming a strategic depth of France for balancing Britain and containment of Denmark and Prussia.)
Engulfed with the quest of the brewing French revolution for the creation of a nation state, these colonizers, all of them situated on the Atlantic flank of Europe, have successfully adjusted to the nation-state concept. Importantly, the very process of creation/formation of the nation-state has been conducted primarily on linguistic grounds since religious grounds were historically defeated once and for all by the Westphalia. All peoples talking the Portugophone dialects in one state, all Hispanophone dialects in another state, all Francophone dialects in the third state, etc. This was an easy cut for peripheral Europe, the so-called old colonizers on the Atlantic flank of Europe, notably for Portugal, Spain, France, England, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Sweden.
Although geopolitically defeated at home, in France, and ideologically contained by the Vienna Congress and its instrument – the Holy Alliance of Eastern Conservative Courts, the very idea of a nation-state remained appealing. Both of that-time federations of theocracies (the non-territorial principle-based Habsburg and the Ottoman empires) were inevitably corroding by two ‘chemical’ precursors: secularism (enlightenment) and territoriality. Once the revolutionary 1848 ousted the principal guardian of feudalism and Rimo-Christian orthodoxy in Europe, Metternich, the suppressed concept got further impetus. And, the revolutionary romance went on…
Interestingly, the very creation of Central Europe’s nation-states was actually enhanced by Napoleon III. The unification of Italophones was his, nearly obsessive, intentional deed (as he grew up in Nice with Italian Carbonari revolutionaries who were fighting papal and Habsburg’s control over the northern portions of today’s Italy). Conversely, the very unification of Germanophones under the Greater Prussia was his non-intentional mis-chief, with the two subsequently emerging ‘by-products’; modern Austria (German-speaking core assembled on the ruins of mighty multinational and multi-lingual empire) and modern Turkey (Turkophone core on the ruins of mighty multiracial and multi-linguistic empire).

Despite being geographically in the heart of Europe, Switzerland remained a remarkably stable buffer zone: Highly militarized but defensive and obsessively neutral, economically omnipresent yet financially secretive, it represents one confederated state of two confronting versions of western Christianity, of three ethnicities and of four languages. Absent from most of the modern European politico-military events – Switzerland, in short – is terra incognita.
Historically speaking, the process of Christianization of Europe that was used as the justification tool to (either intimidate or corrupt, so to say to) pacify the invading tribes, which demolished the Roman Empire and brought to an end the Antique age, was running parallel on two tracks. The Roman Curia/Vatican conducted one of them by its hammer: the Holy Roman Empire. The second was run by the cluster of Rusophone Slavic Kaganates, who receiving (the orthodox or true/authentic, so-called Eastern version of) Christianity from Byzantium, and past its collapse, have taken over a mission of Christianization, while forming its first state of Kiev Russia (and thereafter, its first historic empire). Thus, to the eastern edge of Europe, Russophones have lived in an intact, nearly a hermetic world of universalism for centuries: one empire, one Tsar, one religion and one language.
Everything in between Central Europe and Russia is Eastern Europe, rather a historic novelty on the political map of Europe. Very formation of the Atlantic Europe’s present shape dates back to 14th–15th century, of Central Europe to the mid-late 19th century, while a contemporary Eastern Europe only started emerging between the end of WWI and the collapse of the Soviet Union – meaning, less than 100 years at best, slightly over two decades in the most cases. No wonder that the dominant political culture of the Eastern Europeans resonates residual fears and reflects deeply insecure small nations. Captive and restive, they are short in territorial depth, in demographic projection, in natural resources and in a direct access to open (warm) seas. After all, these are short in historio-cultural verticals, and in the bigger picture-driven long-term policies. Eastern Europeans are exercising the nationhood and sovereignty from quite a recently, thus, too often uncertain over the side and page of history. Therefore, they are often dismissive, hectic and suspectful, nearly neuralgic and xenophobic, with frequent overtones.
The creation of a nation-state (on linguistic grounds) in the peripheral, Atlantic and Scandinavian, as well as Central Europe was relatively a success-story. However, in Eastern Europe it repeatedly suffered setbacks, culminating in the Balkans, Caucasus and the Middle East. The same calamity also remained in the central or Baltic part of Eastern Europe.

Keeping the center soft
Ever since Westphalia, Europe maintained the inner balance of powers by keeping its core section soft. Peripheral powers like England, France, Denmark, (early Sweden and Poland to be later replaced by) Prussia and Habsburgs, and finally the Ottomans and Russia have pressed on and preserved the center of continental Europe as their own playground. At the same time, they kept extending their possessions overseas or, like Russia and the Ottomans, over the land corridors deeper into Asian and MENA proper. Once Royal Italy and Imperial Germany had appeared, the geographic core ‘hardened’ and for the first time started to politico-militarily press onto peripheries. This new geopolitical reality caused a big security dilemma. That dilemma lasted from the 1814 Vienna congress up to Potsdam conference of 1945, being re-actualized again with the Berlin Wall destruction: How many Germanies and Italies should Europe have to preserve its inner balance and peace? As the latecomers, the Central Europeans have faced the overseas world out of their reach, as clearly divided into spheres of influence solely among the Atlantic Europeans (and Russians).
In rather simplified terms, one can say that from the perspective of European belligerent parties, both world wars were fought between the forces of status quo and the challengers to this status quo. The final epilogue in both wars was that Atlantic Europe has managed to divert the attention of Central Europeans from itself and its vast overseas possessions onto Eastern Europe, and finally towards Russia.
Just to give the most illustrative of many examples; the Imperial post-Bismarck Germany has carefully planned and ambitiously grouped its troops on the border with France. After the assassination of the Austrian Archduke in Sarajevo (28 June 1914), Europe was technically having a casus belli – as the subsequent mutually declared war between all parties quickly followed this assassination episode and the immediate Austrian ultimatum to Serbia. However, the first armed engagement was not taking place on the southeastern front, as expected – between the Eastern belligerent parties such as Austria, Serbia, Russia, the Ottomans, Greece, Bulgaria, etc. The first military operations of WWI were actually taking place in the opposite, northwest corner of Europe – something that came only two months past the Austrian ultimatum to Serbia. It was German penetration of Belgian Ardennes.
Still, the very epilogue of la Grande Guerra was such that a single significant territorial gain of Germany was achieved only in Eastern Europe. Despite a colossal 4-years long military effort, the German western border remained nearly unchanged.

The end of WWI did not bring much of a difference. The accords de paix – Versailles treaty was an Anglo-French triumph. These principal Treaty powers, meaning: Atlantic Europe, invited Germany to finally join the League of Nations in 1926, based on the 1925 Treaty of Locarno. By the letter of this treaty, Germany obliged itself to fully respect its frontiers with Belgium and France (plus demilitarized zone along Rhine) with the unspecified promise to arbitrate before pursuing any change of its borders with Czechoslovakia and Poland. The same modus operandi applied to the Austrian borders with Italy, Yugoslavia, Hungary and Czechoslovakia. The Locarno accord actually instrumentalized two sorts of boundaries around Central Europe (Germany–Austria): strict, inviolable ones towards Atlantic Europe; but semipermeable and soft towards Eastern Europe.
That is how the predominant player from Central Europe, Germany, was accepted to the League, a collective system which the Soviet Russia (meaning: Rusophone Europe) was admitted to only a decade later (1934).
Soon after, this double standard sealed-off a faith of many in Europe and beyond.

(End of the 1st Part)
Vienna, 04 JAN 2020

March 6, 2020 by Igor Dirgantara Categories: SOUTHEAST ASIA Leave a comment

Pakistanisation of Britain: Is Johnson the last UK Prime Minister?

ENES GÜZEL

U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson won a considerable victory in December’s U.K. general election after voters backed his pledge to “Get Brexit Done” and take Britain out of the European Union by the end of January. It was the biggest Conservative majority since Margaret Thatcher in 1987.

As this election was all about Brexit, one can say that with this election, the Brexit dilemma is finally over and long-awaited stability is on the horizon. For many years, Brexit has consumed too much time and energy in the U.K. and occupied much of the country’s political, social and economic life.

No Exit (Brexit as the Huis Clos)

Both Boris Johnson and his predecessor Theresa May lacked a parliamentary majority and had failed to obtain approval for withdrawal bills from Parliament. With this election, Johnson has now gained the parliamentary majority, which provides him with enough seats in Parliament to pass his Brexit deal with the European Union without negotiating with other parties. The victory gives him the full mandate to deliver Brexit. Once the U.K. Parliament has ratified the withdrawal agreement, the European Parliament will give its consent in January, before the U.K.’s departure on Jan. 31.

Well-informed Philip Stephens of the Financial Times laments: “Mr Johnson’s insistence on an end-2020 deadline for negotiations with Brussels means the best Britain will get from the EU is a bare bones deal covering trade in goods. The damage to the economy inflicted by Brexit will thus be at the pessimistic end of expectations. The facts of geopolitics are likewise unaltered”. This basically reinforces a diagnosis of prof. Anis H. Bajrektarevic about the ‘classical imperial self-entrapment’, when professor says that: “…it is how the capability of the Anglo-Americans to maintain its order started to erode faster than the capacity of its opponents to challenge it”.

Stephens goes on lamenting: “…the Pax Americana is ending as power shifts to China and other rising states and the US grows ever more reluctant to assume global leadership. The rules-based international system is fragmenting. Coming decades will more closely resemble the great power competition of 19th-century Europe than the end-of-history liberal order many imagined would persist after the end of the cold war. These are all trends that will leave Britain — a middle-ranking nation with widely dispersed global economic and security interests — more vulnerable than most comparable democracies. The last time the UK claimed a serious global role was during the 1960s when it operated a string of military bases across the Middle East and south-east Asia. After sterling’s devaluation in 1967, Harold Wilson’s government beat an enforced retreat from the last outposts of empire east of Suez. The withdrawal from Singapore and the Gulf marked Britain’s admission it was a European rather than a global power — a shift cemented by joining the European Community. Half a century later, Mr Johnson’s government proposes to turn things on their head. Britain, we are to suppose, is once again a global power… This charade will soon reach beyond absurdity.”

Scotland’s homeland call

Although the December election came as a relief for many people that uncertainty is now over and Britain can finally leave the European Union, the election has brought greater challenges even bigger than Brexit. Nationalist parties both in Scotland and Northern Ireland have also achieved victories. As these two countries voted remain in the 2016 Brexit Referendum, their respective nationalist parties have called for a break away from the U.K. to remain in the European Union. As a result, calls for independence have put the political and territorial integrity of the United Kingdom at stake.

In this election, Scotland voted overwhelmingly for the Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP). Tories lost almost all their seats in the country, as the SNP made a strong comeback under Nicola Sturgeon. The SNP captured 48 of Scotland’s 59 seats in Scotland, which immediately intensified the debate over independence. The result provides the party with a mandate to ask for a new Scottish independence referendum. SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon after the election reiterated her argument in following the election results: “Boris Johnson has a mandate to take England out of the EU. He must accept I have a mandate to offer an alternative future for Scotland.” On the other hand, Johnson said he would refuse the referendum. Therefore, it will be interesting to see how he will resist the pressure from the SNP to call for another independence referendum in Scotland.

Northern Ireland – and the beat goes on

Equally significant is that the Tories’ former coalition partner, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), has lost its majority of seats in Parliament. Northern Ireland elected more Irish nationalists, who support unification with the Republic of Ireland, than pro-British unionists for the first time since 1921. As one of the crux questions regarding Brexit has centered around the position of Northern Ireland, the issue still remains unsolved.

Theresa May’s withdrawal agreement with the EU was rejected three times by the U.K. Parliament because of opposition to the Irish backstop by hard-Brexiters within the party. Subsequently, Johnson’s new deal, which removes the Irish backstop, was rejected by coalition partner DUP on the basis that the deal would create an economic border in the Irish Sea between Britain and Northern Ireland.

However, as the DUP’s influence on Brexit has now seeped away, the Tories’ large majority means that the government can now progress with Johnson’s initial deal that unionists argued would weaken Northern Ireland’s position in the U.K. This could eventually prompt calls for a border poll.

As a result, the question is what Brexit will mean for the relationship between Northern Ireland and the U.K. and whether or not Northern Ireland remains part of the U.K. or unifies with the Republic of Ireland.

This election clearly offered Johnson a political endorsement to pull the U.K. out of the EU and move onto negotiations about Britain’s future relationship with the bloc; however, the bigger challenges ahead for Johnson appear to be whether he will be able to keep the union intact and stop any secession from the kingdom. There is already a large amount of pressure from the SNP and Sinn Fein, which want to leave the U.K. and remain part of the EU. It will be interesting to see how Johnson will tackle that challenge and preserve the political and territorial integrity of the kingdom.

While many hailed the Tories’ victory in the election as the end of the Brexit saga, the latter seems to have a long life ahead. It is not only going to affect the U.K.’s relationship with the EU but may also represent the end of Britain’s territorial integrity.

Author is Deputy researcher at TRT World Research Centre, PhD candidate majoring in political science and international relations

March 6, 2020 by Igor Dirgantara Categories: SOUTHEAST ASIA Leave a comment

Hong Kong: No more China’s disheartened capitalism, please

Wan T. Lee

Hong Kong’s unrest started in June 2019. It was triggered by the plans to allow extradition to mainland China. Critics felt this could compromise judicial autonomy and jeopardise free-speech legacy.
Until 1997, Hong Kong was under the British rule as an overseas territory (effectively a colony), but then returned under the mainland China jurisdiction. Under the Deng’s “one country, two systems” arrangement, it has considerable autonomy, and Hongkongers (Mandarin: 香港人) enjoy comparatively more civic rights.
The controversial bill was finally withdrawn in September 2019. Under the slogan ‘too little too late’, the demonstrations continued, growing even larger. Protesters now demand full democracy and an independent inquiry into police actions.
Lately, clashes between police and activists have turned worryingly violent; police firing rubber bullets and occasionally even live rounds, while protesters counter-attacking officers by throwing stones and petrol bombs.

Generational and Class struggle is back?
What still remains rather underreported are social and generational dimensions of the protests. Hence, it indeed feels to comment on some distorting interpretations and oversimplified views.
As an illustration, one can take reporting such as James A. Dorn’s columns (eg. “If protesters want to protect Hong Kong’s way of life, they must win the war of ideas”). This author is cited as a China specialist. Essentially, he is a senior fellow of the Cato Institute, a conservative think tank similar to The Heritage Foundation, which often declares Hong Kong the “world’s freest economy”, even though Hong Kong’s working class endures horrid living conditions here.
Authors like him allude to a “war of ideas” and do criticise socialism with Chinese characteristics, even though China has made tremendous economic progress and enjoyed political stability. One wonders why such views and opinions about Hong Kong or China should be considered or adopted.
China has not dictated how the US or other Western countries should run their economies or political systems, nor has it solicited advice from these free market theoreticians or think tanks. China has lifted at least half a billion people out of poverty, helping to alleviate poverty globally.
Another country which has done exceptionally well and which has not subscribed to neoliberal dogma but retains strong state control of the economy and political freedom is Singapore.
Hong Kong’s main problem is that the sacrosanct free market has become a political excuse for government non-interference, allowing tycoons and big businesses to freely game the system, gorge themselves on Hong Kong’s resources and create large wealth disparities that have contributed to our current social and political instability.
This neither alleviated the suffering of Hong Kong’s working class nor solved the housing problem. Rather it has allowed tycoons to profit. The city needs tax reform so that government revenue does not rely on land sales.
The policy of non-intervention has led to tycoons and big businesses privatising necessities like housing, health care, education and, through the Mandatory Provident Fund, retirement savings. This benefits the private sector at the expense of the public.
Driven by an unrestrained greed, someone wishing to monetise, gambles with our future. Simply, compare the Gini for Hong Kong of 1997 and of today, and see yourself.

Massive social costs to enrich few – Parasites among us
Nowhere in the world is housing as unaffordable and nowhere has it made property developers as wealthy. Allowing markets to set prices only reinforces the housing crisis, as does letting local and foreign investors buy up property despite the housing shortage. Another absurdity is calling for more free competition to break up the property cartel.
As professor Anis H. Bajrektarevic observed and compared: “… it seems that the narrative by which the ‘freedom’ obsessed and spoiled capitalist youth is fighting the big egalitarian communist apparatus is overly simplified and is, thus, short in capturing the truth… It is [what is happening last months in Hong Kong] closer to an outcry of excluded and pauperised youth – quite similar to the one on the streets of Europe, whose protests faded away years ago … [Well] educated but disfranchised youth that feels the generational warfare replaced the social welfare… The Hongkongers are not fighting against the egalitarian ideas or system. Quite to contrary, they are bitterly opposing social inequality and endemic generational exclusions. The very tomorrow of European society might be – prudently or violently – decided on the streets of Hong Kong.”
A low-tax regime mostly benefits the landlord class and big business. Hong Kong residents actually pay among the highest taxes in the world in the form of high rents and housing prices, yet they have scant social safety nets. A wealth tax and more progressive taxes should be imposed to generate government revenue, instead of relying on land sales.
Hong Kong needs the opposite of the free-market dogma, so we can have more humane living conditions and social stability. Or as a former Vice-chancellor of the Hong Kong University wonderfully captured: “Neither violence, nor Beijing, can fix City’s housing shortage and lack of a social safety net.”
Many Hongkongers have lost out due to economic changes, and many have deep-seated distrust of mainland China. The Hong Kong government must first address their social exclusions and financial insecurities, enhancing all-generational debate before it can work on fostering a sense of Chinese identity.

About the author:
Wan T. Lee is a Hong Kong based scholar and researcher.

December 9, 2019 by Igor Dirgantara Categories: SOUTHEAST ASIA Leave a comment

Romania 101: In its second Century – challanges ahead

Motto: “The light is on for those who see, not for the blind ones.
Mihai Eminescu Romanian poet

Corneliu PIVARIU

The Great Union of December 1st, 1919 was a stellar moment for Romania, which was achieved by Romanian visionary and patriotic politicians with international support yet above all with the blood sacrifice of hundreds of thousands of Romanian soldiers, anonymous in their sacrifice yet eminents by sacrifying their lives on the sanctuary of imortality as a kin. It was a strictly national objective, not directed agains anyone of the worlds family of nations.
In fact, Romania paid in blood, probably more than other nations, its achievements of unity and independence and the strategic mistakes of the political class during different historical periods of the last 101 years as well.

War to the fore

After 1918, two essential moments marked in a dramatic way Romanias contemporary history: The Second World War (where Romania lost around 800 thousand people, military and civilian) while the end of this universal scourge marked the fall into the then USSR arch of influence (with the acceptance it should be said and reiterated of the other Moscows allies during the war) and the socialist (communist) political orientation. The second moment is represented by the events of December 1989 when on the backgound of Nicolae Ceaușescu’s and the Communist Party’s removal from power, the orientation towards a democratic society and free market has been resumed going into a transition period which even the dead’s spirits and the aspirations of those who remained to achieve it have wanted to be a very short one yet proved to be longer than we wished. The greatest achievements of the almost 30 years of post-December 1989 period are Romanias joining NATO (29th of March, 2004) and the European Union (1st of January, 2007).
During the almost 50 years of communist dictatorship, some hundreds of thousands more Romanians perished (the exact figure is difficult to quantify), great part of the intellectual elite, generals, valuable politicians who could not survive a terror regime instituted in 44 penitenciaries, 72 forced labour camps, 63 deportation centers, compulsory domiciles, 10 psychiatric hospices with political real cause. We can ask ourseves if Soljenitsins gulag was more terrifying than the gulags set up during communism in a space called Romania.
After The Second World War, Romania could not come back to its territorial configuration consecrated by the Great Union and, moreover, the Kremlin leadership took care that through arbitrary drawing up of the frontiers (and in 1952 by imposing the establishment of the Hungarian Autonomous Region, which changed its name in Mureș Autonomous Region in 1960, afterwards abolished in 1968 only by the administrative territorial division into counties) and that left several possibilities for the neighbours and minorities possible discontents and aspirations especially of the Hungarian one for achieving its political designs in Romania and in the area.
During the socialist period we notice two important moments: the withdrawal of the Soviet troops (June-July, 1958), while they remained in the other socialist countries until 1990; the 1968 moment the invasion of Czechoslovakia, when Romania was the only socialist country that did not take part in , followed by an independent policy from Moscow, by the development of relations with democratic Western countries and by a pervasive economic development (with great sacrifices and hardships for the population) promoted by Nicolae Ceaușescu.
After December 1989 events, when some outside forces sought Romania’s dismemberment as well – something that succeeded later on in cases of former Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia – we went through the Târgu Mureș events of March, 1990, another plot of tearing Transylvania away and of manipulating, through part of international media the reality of those events. In fact, a feature of the almost last 30 years is represented by the action of our Hungarian co-nationals to gain territorial autonomy on ethnic criteria, backed almost continuously by Budapest although, according to Brussels assessments, the rights the Hungarian minority enjoys in Romania exceed those applied in the European states and, even more, the ethnical Romanian citizens in the areas with Hungarian prevailing population are subject to numerous discriminations.
When Hungary further acts and prepares actions for condemning the Treaty of Trianon (among others Budapest will organize on 11-13 of June, 2020 a conference on the issue) a treacherous declaration in favor of the Transylvanian Hungarians’ cultural and territorial autonomy was signed on 12th of October, 2018 in Cluj Napoca and the actions aimed at Romanias dismemberment, especially by creating an independent Transylvania, will go on, as the separatist options gain ground in the European Union and Brussels proves unable to articulate a real management of the Union.

(Post-) December 1989 residual heat

The evolution of the Romanian political class after 1989 was greatly influenced by the socialist past and, thereafter, by the political evolutions in Europe and the USA. It would be mistaken not to mention the influence Moscow still exerts in Romania with persuation in many fields of the political, economic and social life.
Unfortunately, most of the valuable Romanian intellectuals refrained and further avoid to be directly involved in the political life. That resulted in a political class which, in general, is not able to meet the populations expectations and the desired evolutions. As my dear colleague prof. Anis H. Bajrektarevic often repeats: „Eastern Europe is probably the least influential region of the world – one of the very few underachievers. Obediently submissive, therefore rigid in dynamic environment of the promising 21st century, Eastern Europeans are among last remaining passive downloaders and slow-receivers on the otherwise blossoming stage of the worlds creativity, politics and economy.”
The most illustrative example is represented by the four presidents who could not stand above times, each of them due to different reasons: the first – as a result of the socialist-communist education he received especially in Moscow; the second an university professor (lecturer) who declared himself being defeated by the former Securitate; the third – conditional on his training as long-haul commercial navy officer – yet with a political instinct that kept him in power for two mandates and who knew how to maneuver abroad for gaining support; the fourth a mayor of a provincial town unexperienced in great politics who nevertheless gained in November 2019 a second mandate although in his first one, he shone internationally through obedience and that played the most important role in his recent victory. The 66% of the votes he got in the second round (and more than 90% of the votes of the Romanians living abroad) signals a widespread popular appreciation. The direct involvement of the SPP (Protection and Security Service) has no relevance yet it proves Romanias original democracy, never met in any other of the EUs countries.
In Romania indeed, a semi-presidential state, the president has no decision-making competences of first importance, especially in the economic field, as he cannot either fire the prime minister or dissolve the parliament (except under very particular conditions), precisely for avoiding the emergence of a new dictatorship. Yet that does not mean the president cannot be a factor for cristallyzing the peoples aspirations and to create, within the political class, a consensus for Romanias future durable development. It is exactly this kind of project which is nowhere to be found now. Besides, since around 15 years, Romania hasnt had any important country project and that proves the weak leadership capabilities of the entire political class and especially the presidencys, who are required to chrystallize all the nations forces to that purpose.
The separation of powers is affected by the struggle of the four powers although there are numerous cases when the magistrates powers (judges and prosecutors the latter being included amongst the magistrates according to a model which is not to be found in other European Unions coutries) is used by forces and interests which are not beneficial to the Romanian state in achieving its specific objectives, sometimes under the pretext of fighting corruption (predominantly the domestic one, without touching any of the great corporations).
Several thousands of judges and prosecutors enjoy a special status in the society as a result of the importance of their work and dispose of a power they believe that many do not realize yet they have. In 2018 only a law on the magistrates accountability was issued at a time when judgements of the European Court of Human Rights against Romania placed the latter on the first place as number of condemnations per capita or on the third place after Turkey and Russia (wich have much bigger populations).
However, the governing political forces, the president included, call for abolishing the Department for Investigating the Criminal Offences Accountability in Justice in spite of the fact that the High Court of Cassation and Justice opposed the abolishment, securing thus a a privileged position for the said social category. The much touted Mechanism for Cooperation and Verification on justice set up by the EU was and is still used more as a Brussels political instrument (or by some countries) against Romania especially on economic grounds and not for the initially declared purpose.
Romanias accession to Schengen Area is further postponed although the country met the technical requirements since more than five years and that entails yearly economic losses of around 2 bill. Euro. The reasons behind are the particular interests of certain EU members and especially the presidents lack of action who, although represents us in the European fora, has never presented a report on his activity at the EU.
The citizen still does not get the needed respect and the state, instead of being the citizens servant, has still the mentality of being above him.
The current situation in Romania is due first of all to us: some of us remained with a prejudicial obstinacy in the Byzantine reflex of complaining to the Sublime (High) Porte” which was later replaced by obsequios low-bow to Moscows, Brussels, Washingtons Portes or to other great European capitals. The forest could have not been cut if the axe had not the handle carved from the very wood of the forest, a proverb says, and we still have enough traitors, some of them in rather important positions, including abroad, of whom the magistrates have not yet the courage of dealing with.

Fit for defeat ?

After 1990, unhappy with the general situation in the country and seeking a better life, more than 4 million Romanians left the country for the EU, USA, Canada and other countries and in their greatest majority they are physicians, professors, engineers, researchers, technicians and highly qualified workers. It is the biggest contemporary population exodus from a country after the one provoked by the civil war in Syria. The danger of this situation was not correctly interpreted by the political class either. Let alone taking effective measures to prevent the weakening of the peoples national being!
The situation of the education is more than alarming. We had 26 ministers of Education during the last 29 years, most of them concerned about changing the law of education. According to public data, 42% of the pupils under 15 are functional (workable) illiterates. The relatively recent step of granting 6% of the GDP to education must be followed by decisive measures so that education become a top national priority. The latest 2019 budgetary adjustments cut 2 billion lei (around 500 mil. euro) from the budget of the education.
Romania – a country able to easily secure food for a population of 90 million people – continues to import in 2019 much more food products than it produces.
The situation of the development of infrastructure, roads, railways, energy is deplorable. During the almost 30 years since the fall of communism we were not able to build a highway crossing the Carpathians and our country is the laggard in Central and Eastern Europe with 783 km of highways. Romania has the same number of kilometers of railroads approximately 11,000 km as it had 100 years ago (in 1989 we had 24,000 km), and the average circulation speed for the passenger trains is 45km/h. In exchange, we are well placed in what the Internet speed is concerned, on the fifth place worldwide.
The post 1989 period is characterized economically by the foreign capitals taking over the subsoil resources, the public utilities and banks, as the Romanian capital was not supported for dealing with the situation. In a special report, a Ernst&Young research is quoted whereby the takeovers (mergers and acquisitions) in the economies of the former socialist countries are analysed and clasified in three cathegories, takeovers by foreign capital, takeovers where the buyer and the seller are indigenous and takeovers from abroad which finds out that Romania is on the first place in what takovers by the foreign capital are concerned, 67% of them, and by far on the last place in what takeovers abroad are concerned, with 3% only. No country in the region witnessed such a discrepancy, of more than 22 times, between what the indigenous capital ceded to foreign capital on its own markets and what it managed to take over from the foreign capital on the latter markets. The foreign capital externalizes yearly to their origin countries pre-tax profits of at least 35-40 billion euro.
A crime is perpetrated since many years against Romanias forests and implicitly against its citizens. In 2019 only, 39 mil. cubic meters of timber are disforested (of which 18 20 mil. cubic meters unlawfully). The president and the government are notorious for their non involvement and their absolute lack of a position for addressing this situation and preventing unlawful deforestation to be followed by steady steps of reforestation.
So thats Romanias real end-result in brief at the anniversary of 101 years since the Great Union. We could be proud of the achievements of the past yet at the same time we must be aware of the current problems and think of the future with solutions adapted to both the actual situation and to the perspective.
The current international situation is a complex one and important changes are taking place in the international order at a time when Romania, consumed with petty domestic disputes, is quite inexistent. No one but us will act for our sake except strictly within specific interests. Romania may have the future it deserves if it wants to act in this regard. Another 30-40 years will be probably needed for that.

About the author:
Corneliu PIVARIU is highly decorated two star general of the Romanina army (ret.).
For the past two decades, he successfully led one of the most infuential magazines on geopolitics and internatinal relations in Eastern Europe – bilingual journal ‚Geostrategic Pulse’.

December 9, 2019 by Igor Dirgantara Categories: SOUTHEAST ASIA Leave a comment