Mandela’s incomplete mission

S P SETH

So much has been written about Nelson Mandela that he has increasingly come to be cast as a saint. He probably would have cringed at the kind of accolades bestowed on him by so many people. It is not that he didn’t deserve much of the praise heaped on his life and achievements against heavy, if not impossible, odds. His 27 years’ long incarceration under most difficult conditions for a cause he strongly believed in and championed unceasingly is testimony to one man’s odyssey to achieve, what to most, appeared a hopeless task. And that task was to rid South Africa of apartheid where a very small minority of whites ruled over the country’s majority black population. It wasn’t even as simple as that. In the process, a system of governance based on an ideology of separate development for the two races was intellectually and morally advanced and justified as if it was the most normal thing to do.

Not only that. It was also considered necessary to make blacks believe in the system that condemned them to systemic abuse and violence by consigning them to the so-called separate homelands--Bantustans. Nelson Mandela and his movement challenged the theory and practice of dividing people into superior and inferior races and finally, after many unequal battles, long periods of incarceration and unbelievable state violence, succeeded in achieving their main goal of a new South Africa based on one person, one vote. And thus was born a new South Africa, with Mandela as its first black President in 1994. By any standard it was a revolutionary development brought about without violence at the end, though it was preceded by a lot of state violence inflicted on the blacks and their movement, the African National Congress (ANC), for daring to oppose and fight back the country’s apartheid system.

The release from jail of Nelson Mandela in 1990 was the first clear sign that the white regime was finding governance, based on apartheid, increasingly problematic. And there were important reasons for this. First, the resistance from the ANC and its leadership was creating a crisis of governance and the old methodology of mindless and ruthless violence was proving counterproductive. Even some of the white liberals were becoming supportive of the disbandment of the apartheid system. The second factor was that the white business establishment was increasingly finding it hard to conduct their business as state violence, even at its vicious, wasn’t producing a sufficiently submissive work force. The black trade union movement was growing active and strong, and both the state and the business establishment were finding that the state of affairs in the country was not as conducive to business as usual. Third: the developed world, which provided much of the capital and markets for South African exports, was finally persuaded to impose economic sanctions on such an abhorrent regime. This wasn’t so simple.

Apparently, before Mandela’s release in 1990 and his becoming President in 1994, there were extensive consultations between the white president F. W. de Klerk’s regime and Mandela about the status of the country’s white minority. And their worries were two-fold. First, they worried about retribution from a black majority-governed South Africa. That was addressed in the new constitution. And the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was formed to broadly go through a process of airing and forgiving the bitterness of the past. Second, the whites wanted to maintain control of the economy, which they have continued to do largely. It had the added advantage of assuring investors at home and abroad about a benevolent business climate with the new black majority regime committed to facilitate.

In other words, the transition to black majority rule was more political than economic. As Bernadette Atuahene wrote in a 2011 issue of Foreign Affairs, “Political apartheid may have ended, but economic apartheid lives on.” The question then is: why didn’t Mandela insist on a more equitable economic deal for the country’s black majority? One can only surmise why Mandela put more emphasis on political over the economic? First: the tantalizing prospect of democratic rule, based on one person, one vote, after a long and bloody struggle, was quite enticing. The alternative of holding out for a redistribute and restructured economic blueprint to help blacks out of poverty and destitution had the potential, on surface at least, of a possible descent into civil war. Mandela and the ANC were not willing to take that risk.

Second, over a long struggle and 27-year incarceration, Mandela apparently went through a process of introspection which led him to genuinely opt for national reconciliation based on a broad church  (rainbow coalition) that looked more to the future than past. And he probably hoped that out of this might emerge a pact of sorts aimed at helping the weak and poor blacks with the genuine participation of the country’s rich and privileged white citizens. And if this was Mandela’s hope, it hasn’t materialized. The country’s prosperous and privileged whites are in no mood to share their wealth and opportunities. Indeed, they seem to have coopted the country’s black governing class to maintain and perpetuate economic apartheid and inequities of the old system, and in the process helping themselves to new riches and and privileges from this new nexus between politics and economics of the country. The most glaring example of this was the brutal shooting recently of striking mining workers, reminiscent of the indiscriminate use of state violence against helpless blacks. And the popular disenchantment with the ANC-led government was very much in evidence when the country’s President, Jacob Zuma, was booed by his own people when he sought to speak at the memorial gathering.

While Mandela was a towering figure with moral principles to match, he has left behind him a clutch of unprincipled and corrupt politicians trying to live off his legacy. But that won’t work unless they deliver on improving people’s lives. In a country where unemployment is over 25 per cent, youth unemployment at 50 per cent, corruption rampant and crime is on the upswing, there is not much scope for dillydallying with people’s lives. Otherwise, South Africa might go Zimbabwe’s way with an emerging Robert Mugabe-like figure raising popular passions for political reasons without helping the blacks and destroying South Africa’s economy in the process. There is a lesson in this for South Africa’s economically dominant white minority. Which is that they should devise ways with the government to help the country’s poor reap the benefits of Mandela’s long and arduous struggle for his people.

Note: This article was first published in the Daily Times.

Contact: sushilpseth@yahoo.com.au

Surveillance state of the USA

By S P SETH

The furore over the tapping of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s personal phone by the US intelligence agencies dramatized spectacularly what Edward Snowden’s whistle blowing had revealed recently. The US intelligence agencies have become a state unto themselves. But it would appear that the White House and other state institutions at the highest level were not entirely ignorant of it and some even were collaborating. Indeed, it has been reported that Angela Merkel had her phone tapped for ten years.  She was not the only foreign leader worthy of this ‘honour’. There were reportedly 35 of them under the NSA’s phone surveillance, among them the Brazilian president who reacted angrily by cancelling her state visit to the United States.

In the case of Angela Merkel, it is important to realize that she grew up in, what was then, East Germany where the state intelligence agency, Stasi, was omnipotent with almost every family being spied upon through relations and friends. And it was a tremendous relief for Germans when the Berlin Wall dividing the two Germanys (East and West Germany) was pulled down in 1989 and the country reunited a year later. And for the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, an erstwhile East German citizen, to find out now that Germany’s closest ally and protector during the Cold War years, the United States, has supplanted Stasi at the international level and is privy to all her personal communications, must come as a shock triggering an understandable fury. In the circumstances, it was not surprising that she reportedly picked up the phone to vent her fury at President Obama demanding an explanation and satisfaction. Which was followed up with the US ambassador being summoned to Germany’s foreign ministry for a formal diplomatic explanation and a dressing down.

About the same time, the French President, Francois Hollande, was not amused to learn that the US intelligence scooped 70 million of its citizens’ personal communications in one month, demanding an explanation from President Obama, with the US ambassador summoned to explain. And Spain had the ‘honour’ of 60 millions of its citizens’ phones tapped, in one month alone. Italy was less ‘distinguished’ with only 46 million of the citizens similarly targeted. The issue of US spying on European countries was a hot subject at the recent EU summit in Brussels, with Germany and France sending delegations to find out answers and to set parameters for such US intelligence activities. According to German Chancellor, Merkel, there has been a breach of trust and that new parameters might be needed to rebuild trust.

Spying between countries is a matter of fact and has been forever. But, generally, friendly countries and their leaders have been treated with greater sensitivity, even where, in extreme cases, this might happen. But since 9/11 terrorist attacks, the US sees terrorism everywhere. Which is not to suggest that it is not a serious problem requiring extensive intelligence gathering to deal with it. But the way US intelligence is operating, as revealed by Edward Snowden, it seems to have developed a momentum of its own for the sake of simply using the technology available. And that is creepy because its potential for misuse against ordinary citizens is mind-boggling. And it is even creepier when the US arrogates to itself the right to equate US security with securing the world, and expect other countries to be grateful for it. It was such errant nonsense that led the US into military adventures like Afghanistan and Iraq, and also contributed to the massive US debt. Remember former president Bush’s dictum about the war on terrorism, which said: if you are not with us, you are against us. Apart from massive data mining, an additional tool to fight terrorism is the mindless expansion of drone killings in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia and other places that have still to be figured out as terrorist hubs.

Terrorism undoubtedly is a serious problem. But to beat the terrorism drum all the time with an Orwellian terminology and an out-of-control technology is giving it a larger than life image, where citizens of democratic countries are required to passively submit to draconian measures to curtail their privacy and freedom. It was, therefore, heartening when thousands of American citizens recently turned out to protest against the use of an ever-expanding electronic spider web that their government has created to snare them and people of other countries. But instead of doing something to rein in the monster of surveillance, the US intelligence chiefs are against any curb on their activities.

Indeed, they are trying to co-opt their European counterparts in the whole business. According to General Keith Alexander, director of the US National Security Agency (NSA), as reported in the press, “ It [data mining] represents information that we and our NATO allies have collected in defence of our countries and in support of military operations.” And both NSA chief, General Alexander, and US National Intelligence chief, James Clapper, defended spying on foreign leaders, as being a basic pillar of US intelligence operations that had gone on for decades. Indeed, some are even advocating that the media should be prevented from publishing further Snowden disclosures. As a loyal US ally, the British Prime Minister, David Cameron, has gone even further, threatening the British media with punitive action, particularly the Guardian newspaper that has been in the forefront of exposing massive NSA snooping by publishing Snowden’s leaked material.

There is urgent need for greater transparency in the US intelligence collection, like how and why the leaders of friendly and allied countries are ‘worthy’ subjects of spying? President Obama, though, has hinted things might have gone too far, especially in the matter of spying on leaders of friendly countries. Apart from breaching trust among allies and friends, such massive spying on people also undermines the basic values of democratic societies, like going about their daily business without the fear of ‘ Big Brother watching you.’ Such disregard for human values is what bothered Bradley (now Chelsea) Manning, who was recently convicted of leaking material to WikiLeaks. 

In his letter to Obama seeking pardon, he wrote, “ ….It was not until I was in Iraq and reading secret reports on a daily basis that I started to question the morality of what we were doing… We consciously elected to devalue human life both in Iraq and Afghanistan….” In other words, Manning was acting with a higher purpose to restore humanity in policy making in the US in making secret cables available to WikiLeaks.

In the same way, Snowden is reported to have said, “ …I do not want to live in a world where everything I do and say is recorded.” And he added that he couldn’t “in good conscience allow the US government to destroy privacy, internet freedom and basic liberties for people around the world with this massive surveillance machine they’re secretly building.”  The German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, will probably agree with it after her personal experience of NSA phone tapping over the last ten years.

Note: This article was first published in the Daily Times.

Contact: sushilpseth@yahoo.com.au

Is China ready to replace the US?

S P SETH

By hanging their dirty laundry for open display during the recent the fiscal crisis, the US political establishment rightly invited some serious criticism of its dysfunctional system. And the most telling came from Xinhua, the official Chinese news agency. Its commentary called on  “the befuddled world  [by events in the US] to start considering building a de-Americanized world”, including a new international reserve currency. Hitting the US hard by blaming it for the global economic crisis in the first place, the Xinhua said, “The world is still crawling its way out of economic disaster thanks to the voracious Wall Street elites.” Not letting off the US easily and highlighting risks to China’s investments in the US currency, the Xinhua pointed out that, “The cyclical stagnation in Washington for a viable bipartisan solution over a federal budget and an approval for raising debt ceiling has again left many nations’ tremendous dollar assets in jeopardy and the international community highly agonized.”

One can’t entirely blame the Chinese for lecturing the Americans, having been subjected to criticism from the US over a whole range of issues, though not without substance. Apart from exulting at the US political embarrassment, the Chinese have a real stake in the proper management of the US economy because they have invested over $ 1 trillion in US treasury notes and bonds. And any US default would have seriously damaged their investment in what has been generally regarded as, good as gold, US currency instruments. They should, therefore, be pleased, for that reason alone, that the US has come back from the brink, at least for the time being.

However, one may ask if the Chinese are really serious about “a de-Americanized world”, with a new international reserve currency? They certainly would like that but they have never spelled out the alternative. As Professor Jin Canrong of International Studies at Remin University has reportedly said, “We have talked about it for many years…. But in fact, the majority of China’s foreign currency reserves are still in US dollars.” Amplifying it, he added, “Since the late 1980s China has raised the idea of establishing a new world order, both politically and economically, but no one has any idea what that could be. China has been a beneficiary [of the present system], so what is the reason to change it?”

And how has China been the beneficiary? Because China’s currency wasn’t freely convertible, it has been able to keep its exchange rate artificially low, giving it an enormous competitive advantage in pricing of its goods for export; as well as from low (depressed) wages at home. But it hasn’t been an entirely one-way street. China’s low valued exports helped to control inflation in developed countries, not only through direct export of cheap Chinese goods but also with the US and western outlets setting up their own production lines in China to take advantage of its low production costs. Of course, China’s massive exports enabled it to build up large trade surpluses. But, by investing these surpluses in US treasury notes and the likes, it made available the same as credit to the United States and other developed countries.

Even though the US and other western countries often complained about their trade deficits, and sought revaluation of the Chinese currency to make trade competitive and balanced, they were never serious about taking on China on this, principally because it kept inflation under control in their countries. It is important to realize that inflation had been the curse of economies in developed and developing countries but that largely ceased to be an issue in rich countries with low consumer prices of Chinese goods and availability of credit for almost anything and everything. Partly, of course, the credit availability was the China magic with their surpluses invested in US dollars and, partly, a number of western countries and the United States decided to venture into floating all kinds of credit instruments creating an illusion of ever-increasing economic prosperity. The former US Federal Reserve chairman, Alan Greenspan, called it irrational exuberance but he kept the credit flowing as if the economy was on autopilot, not needing any regulation or direction. And we now know what happened, and the resulting global financial crisis is still causing havoc, with periodic political and financial gridlock in the United States. China, though, has so far weathered relatively well through the global crisis.

Ever since the 9/11 terrorists attacks in the US and the subsequent invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, things haven’t gone too well for the United States. In the midst of it all it experienced the worst recession since the economic depression of the thirties. Even as the US has been pre-occupied with these wars, China has been consolidating its position and expanding its political horizons, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region, laying claims to a number of islands and waters around them in the South China Sea and the East China Sea. But its sovereignty there is contested by a number of regional countries, some of them with security pacts with the United States. But for the US presence and involvement in the Pacific, China would hope to sort it out with its regional neighbors.

China seemed to be cruising along well in its region with the US stuck in its wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. However, Obama’s 2111 announcement of the US “pivot” to Asia with a renewed and and expanded commitment to the region, complicated China’s regional strategy. Beijing would hope that the US’ financial and political problems, over time, constrict it increasingly from over-extending its reach in Asia-Pacific. It is not so much a matter of the US presence and involvement as the perception regionally of its seriousness and capacity to stand by its allies against China. And this recently took a hit when President Obama couldn’t even attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Bali in Indonesia, and the East Asia summit in Brunei because of the crisis at home over the budget and the debt limit. Even though Obama’s absence was understandable but the US image as a dysfunctional superpower didn’t go well in the region. It is this perception that might push regional countries into making peace with China on the latter’s terms.

But even if this were to happen over whatever period of time, China is not prepared yet to replace the US dollar as the world’s reserve currency or a basket of currencies. With European economies in doldrums, and Japan still seeking to emerge from its two decades’ long economic stagnation, it would be difficult to put together a credible basket of international currencies to replace US dollar. And, as for China, it is economically and politically not yet in a position to become the world’s currency repository. In other words, the world might have to live with the US dollar as the world’s reserve currency for an indeterminate period.    

Note: This article was first published in the Daily Times.

Global warming is real

S P SETH

The recent report by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has predicted a virtual Armageddon of global warming in the years to come, by the end of the century at the latest, if humanity fails to put their collective heads together to avert this disaster. The report was in the making for six years involving more than 800 scientists around the world. And their main finding is that it is “extremely likely” that humans are the dominant cause of global warming, with carbon dioxide emissions the main factor. The report, being the fifth major assessment of the UN Panel on climate change, expands on the last one issued in 2007 with new evidence that things are only getting worse.

Amplifying on this, Qin Dahe, co-chairman of the IPCC working group that compiled the report, said, “The atmosphere and ocean have warmed, the amount of snow and ice have diminished, the global mean sea level has risen and the concentrations of green house gases have increased.” And unless the rise in global temperatures is kept down to 2 degrees by the end of this century, which seems a herculean task as the rise might reach 4.8 degrees, the world might be crossing the threshold of managing the impending disaster. As it is, according to the report, each of the past three decades has been warmer than any preceding decade since 1850, and the past thirty years have been warmest since AD 600.

The annual report of the World Meteorological Organization has also warned against global warming. As reported in Britain’s Financial Times, it said “The first 10 years of this century were the hottest in 160 years and filled with more broken temperature records than any other decade as global warming continued to accelerate.” Which is reflected in rising sea levels, melting of Arctic ice, and the world’s glaciers, thawing of permafrost releasing methane which is even more toxic for the atmosphere than CO2, acidification of oceans damaging coral reefs and sea life and so on. All these changes, as we are already seeing, will increase the frequency of disastrous occurrences like tropical cyclones, bush fires, floods and the likes.

The obvious question is: what is causing global warming? As mentioned earlier, it is largely caused by increased carbon emissions into the atmosphere by reckless use of fossil fuels to fuel the ever-expanding global economies. The CO2 thus emitted is trapped into the atmosphere, increasing global temperatures. As sea levels rise further, some of the low level countries will be at high risk of becoming uninhabitable or sinking altogether. Which could lead to massive internal and external migrations. And such mass migrations, particularly to other countries, might lead to a highly dangerous global situation with some countries raising barriers to keep out the environmental refugees. Besides, increasing frequency of droughts might lead to nasty conflicts around water shortages and shrinking arable land. Therefore, global warming is not only going to upset the ecosystem, but it is likely to create military conflicts between neighbors and in the world at large.

Another factor causing global warming is the shrinking of the world’s forests due to land clearing for agriculture, urban development, timber exports and so on. The forests are the world’s natural carbon sinks as this is, in a way, their oxygen. With the forest cover shrinking all over the world, the carbon emissions have nowhere to go but into the atmosphere. To these two will be added the thawing of permafrost releasing methane gas that will make things even worse.

What can be done to mitigate the situation, if not actually reverse it? So far, despite all the international conferences on the subject, there is no real progress. There is some wrangling over specific targets to reduce carbon emissions, with developed countries urging developing economies to commit to them. Which would amount, more or less, to them accepting a permanently lower level of development for their people who are already among the most deprived in the world. The developing countries have, by and large, no viable options for economic development without using fossil fuels. Their argument is that the world is in such a mess environmentally because the United States and the developed countries of the west recklessly exploited global resources, including fossil fuels, over the last two centuries or more. And they still are not slowing down. Looking at the new sources of oil and gas being extracted, like from tar sands in Canada and shale rocks in the US and elsewhere, the discourse on climate change seems strong on rhetoric than action.

The only effective way to deal with global warming, and keep temperatures from rising over 2 degrees, is to reorient economies from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources, such as solar, wind etc. It seems so simple, yet there are many problems. The most important is the vested interests of the global oil industry with its enormous resources to impede, delay or sabotage any real movement away from fossil fuels. Second, for renewable energy sources to become competitive, there is need for greater investment in new technology, both by the industry and the governments. And this is not forthcoming, even in the midst of all the scientific evidence of the impending disaster.

Indeed, the skeptics and climate change deniers are not even convinced by the science of climate change. They deny that humans have anything to do with climate change, if it is happening at all. For them it is nature taking its own course, as it has done all through the ages. Some even suggest that it is a political conspiracy by the Green and Left forces to bring down the capitalist system. However, over many years now, most scientists have arrived at the conclusion, as reflected in the recent UN report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, that global warming is real and the humans, by and large, are responsible for it.

While the world needs to address this impending disaster urgently with all the measures at its disposal, there is need to recognize that as long as the governing model of limitless economic growth remains the norm, with greed and conspicuous consumption its guiding principle, we seem to be headed towards inevitable disaster. It is simply not sustainable, because planet doesn’t have limitless resources to support bottomless human greed. Therefore, even with all the mitigating measures, we might still end up exhausting the nature’s bounty. There is a need, therefore, to work in harmony with nature than to confront and seek to overpower it, wherein lies the path to destruction.

We need to downsize our plunder and vandalism of the planet to conserve its resources and partake of them with a sense of humility, equity and shared enterprise. And that will require a new international economic order to avert the impending Armageddon from global warming. We don’t have much time and hence the need for urgent collective action.

  Note: This article was first published in the Daily Times.

Contact: sushilpseth@yahoo.com.au