Barack Obama: the miracle man?

S P SETH

In the midst of the world’s worst economic recession since the thirties’ depression, many saw in Barack Obama’s election as US President in 2008, the great hope for a new era. The Bush era’s wars in Afghanistan and Iraq undoubtedly contributed to the dark mood all around and when Obama came on the scene, even as a presidential candidate, there was a swell of hope that things would take a turn for the better with this new lanky black young man at the helm of US affairs and, by extension, of global economics and politics.

In the United States, of course, history was made when a black man became the country’s president, after nearly 150 years of the country’s civil war intended to free the US blacks from slavery. There was a feeling that this black professorial-looking and speaking young man might be the savior they were looking for.

Besides the US, many people in other countries also had much invested in him, both in terms of turning the global economy around and putting an end to the orgy of wars in the Middle East threatening to turn into a global Armageddon of the old religious crusades between Islam and Christianity. So much so that Obama was even awarded the Noble Peace prize, before he had done anything to advance peace. Such was the optimism of the change from the disastrous Bush era that Obama not only seemed a breath of fresh air but also a beacon of hope in a beleaguered world.

It might not be wrong to say that as candidate Obama became President and started on the task of changing the world, the hype came face to face with reality and was found to be sorely wanting.  At home, there were two main issues. First, of course, was the state of the economy with unemployment and under-underemployment at record levels. The subprime home lending had caused havoc with the social and economic lives of millions of people who were unable to service their mortgages. The banking and financial sectors were in a state of virtual collapse, requiring state bailouts. Indeed, in every sense of the word, the United States was in dire straits. And Obama had promised to fix it all. Not surprisingly, people’s hopes were high that somehow this new whiz kid might be able to pull the rabbit out of the hat. Well, over the last five years, things have got a bit better but the state of the economy is still fragile and many are still looking for the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. And, even after Obama’s reelection for another term with a narrow margin, losing heavily among the white voters, his magic wand is nowhere to be seen.

There are varied explanations by all sorts of people for Obama’s failure to live up to his promise. In a long political profile of President Obama, David Remnick of the New Yorker has picked up an assortment of reasons, proffered by many, such as: “He is said to be a reluctant politician: aloof, insular, diffident, arrogant, inert, unwilling to jolly his allies along the fairway and take a 9-iron to his enemies. He doesn’t know anyone in Congress. No one in the House or in the Senate, no one in foreign capitals fears him. He gives a great speech, but he doesn’t understand power. He is a poor executive. Doesn’t it seem as if he hates the job? And so on. This is the knowing talk on Wall Street, on K Street, on Capitol Hill, in green rooms--- the ‘Morning Joe’ consensus.” With such a view of the President across a wide spectrum of people, no wonder President Obama’s charisma is not working.

At another level, President Obama faced the unenviable task of how best to transition the reality of a certain decline in US’ global position and its self-image as arbiter of the world. His preference for diplomatic initiatives on a whole range of issues, like his Cairo speech in 2009 to forge “a new beginning” between the United States and the Muslim world, the unwinding of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the interim nuclear agreement with Iran, seeking to stay out of the Syrian military imbroglio and so on are a recognition of the limits of the US power. The contrast with the Bush period is illustrative when the then president’s close confidants talked of America as an empire creating its own history as it goes along. Obama and his advisers do not talk in such rhetorical flourishes, even though they are hesitant to accept that the US is a declining power. As Anne-Marie Slaughter, who worked at the State Department under Hillary Clinton, is quoted to say, “Obama has a real understanding of the limits of our power. It is not that the United States is in decline; it’s that sometimes the world has problems without the tools to fix them.”

Which means that Obama has to juggle through the “limits of US power” but, at the same time, project that power sufficiently to maintain credibility as a superpower. This is evident in the increasing use of drones in Pakistan, Yemen and other places where costs involved for the US are minimal, but the projection of power quite impressive. Obama spells out his rationale on the use of drones to Remnick in this way: “… I have a solemn duty and responsibility to keep the American people safe…” from terrorists  “intent on killing Americans… They operate in places where oftentimes we cannot reach them, or the countries are either unwilling or unable to capture them in partnership with us…” And pursuing them in the conventional ways would mean, “that America could be fighting a lot of wars around the world.” In that case, “ … the costs in terms of not only our men and women in uniform but also innocent civilians would be much higher.”

The alternative Obama has chosen is that, “…where possible, we can take targeted strikes, understanding” the attendant risks in civilian casualties. To lessen these risks, “What I have tried to do is to tighten the process so much and limit the risks of civilian casualties so much that we have the least fallout from those actions. But it’s not perfect.” Obama might find some solace in his line of reasoning but, on the face of it, it is not working. Instead it is deepening hostility among Muslims against the US, and the vicious cycle of violence and counter-violence continues. Within the US, this is the path of least resistance. American people seem indifferent to drones strikes, as it doesn’t involve boots (soldiers) on the ground. 

Obama has tried to grapple with America’s multiple problems involving its troubled economy and overreach of power. And he has sought to rally the nation behind him on a national agenda overriding partisan politics. The success, if any, has been limited. Considering the enormity of the task in the midst of the country’s partisan and fractious politics, combined with a dollop of racism against the country’s first black President, it was always going to be a tremendous challenge. And with Obama soon becoming the lame duck President, he might not have any political capital left to even consolidate some of his gains, like the Obamacare health insurance for millions of uninsured Americans.   

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

Contact: sushuilpseth@yahoo.com.au 

Australia-Indonesia: a dangerous impasse

S P SETH

Australia and Indonesia are engaged in a dogfight of sorts, with potential to escalate. The relations between the two countries have punctuated over the years between friendship and open hostility. The worst period in the last few decades was Australia’s championing of East Timor’s struggle for independence from Indonesia. Indeed, without Australia’s active involvement on the side of East Timor at the national and international level, East Timor probably would still be under Indonesia’s rule. It is ironic, though, that the independent state of East Timor is now engaged in a legal battle in the International Court of Justice at Hague fighting to get its proper share of oil revenues by having the maritime boundary re-adjudicated, which Australia allegedly rigged in its favor. But that is a different issue.

Coming to the present tense relationship between the two countries, its trigger is the recent change of government in Australia, with the conservative leader, Tony Abbot, becoming the country’s new Prime Minister. For Australia’s conservative ruling coalition, the refugees seeking asylum in Australia from different countries is being projected as an avalanche of people likely to swamp the country, posing all sorts of problems. Worse still that many of them are from Muslim countries, with potential for terrorism. During the recent elections, Tony Abbot’s party made “stopping the boats”, carrying refugees, a central issue of their campaign. And played up their previous ‘success’, under the former conservative prime minister, John Howard, in stopping the flow of refugees through a highly punitive policy.  Even the Labor Party government, now in opposition, was quite tough on the refugee issue, but Tony Abbot prevailed viewed as toughest and likely to deliver.

Jakarta comes into the picture because many of the “boat people” (as the refugees are called here) use Indonesia as a transit point, hiring unsafe boats and risking their lives to reach Australia. The Abbot Government has upped the ante, against the wishes of Jakarta, to push the boats back to Indonesia. And to accomplish this, it has set up an operational command centre with an army general, answering to the Immigration Minister. The whole exercise is called Operation Sovereign Borders, with Australian naval vassals pushing the refugee boats back into Indonesian waters; and if considered unsafe, the refugees are transferred into newly bought boats able to make the trip back to Indonesia. In other words, the entire jargon of the operation is straight from a war-fighting manual.

All this is all being done against Indonesia’s expressed wishes, with its foreign minister putting it mildly as ‘unhelpful’. In pushing the boats back, Australian vassals have breached Indonesia’s maritime boundary a few times, acknowledging and apologizing for the ‘unintended’ transgression. Not surprisingly it evoked a harsh response from Indonesia, with the country’s navy increasing patrolling of its maritime border. Australia, though, is determined to “stop the boats”, regarding it as a simple matter of protecting its borders from the “illegals”, as the refugees are called here. To consider that these refugees, in their leaky boats, would be a threat to Australia’ sovereignty is stretching the imagination, to put it mildly, but it works well with the domestic political constituency.

  

Speaking from Switzerland, where he was attending the World Economic Forum, Abbot said that, “Stopping the boats is a matter of sovereignty and President Yudhoyono of all people ought to understand… just how seriously countries take their sovereignty…” , an apparent reference to Indonesia’s sensitivities about the separatist movement in its restive province of West Papua. In other words, the boat people are threatening Australian sovereignty, and if Indonesia is not prepared to stop them from heading towards Australia, Canberra would be fully entitled to  ‘turn back the boats’, the political slogan that won Tony Abbot the elections.

When Tony Abbot came to power a few months ago, he paid his first official visit to Indonesia, which he had described as Australia’s most important neighbour stressing that Jakarta (Asia) rather then Geneva (Europe) would be the centerpiece of Australia’s foreign policy. And during his visit and meetings with Yudhoyono, he apologized about some exuberant election time statements that the opposition, Abbot and his party, had made about returning the boat people; hoping to enlist Indonesia’s help in stopping the boats at its starting point (s) in that country. His visit set a positive tone to build on their bilateral relationship.

But it was a false start because, as soon as it was revealed, through leaks from Edward Snowdon material, that Australia (as part of the “five eyes” special intelligence sharing arrangement between the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand), was involved in tapping the phones of President Yudhoyono, his wife and his inner circle, the goodwill evaporated. The reaction in Jakarta was swift and sharp, leading to a virtual suspension of important aspects of the relationship between the two countries. President Yudhoyono took it quite personally when Tony Abbot came out with the standard response of neither denying nor confirming intelligence matters; studiously avoiding any sort of regret or apology notwithstanding his profuse expression of special relationship with Indonesia during his just-completed Jakarta visit.

Inevitably, when the issue of Australian naval intrusions into Indonesian waters became news, the mix became quite explosive, diplomatically speaking. The Australian naval personnel have now started transferring “the illegals” into safe boats specially purchased and push them towards Indonesian shores. And to seek the cooperation of countries like Sri Lanka and Malaysia to prevent refugees sailing from their destinations, Australia is making them a gift of naval vassels to intercept “boat people” heading towards Australia. Its intent is not only to enlist the cooperation of the regional countries in Australia’s “stop the boats” policy but also, it would appear, to isolate Indonesia as a “recalcitrant’, a term Paul Keating, a former Australian Prime Minister, used against Malaysia’s former Prime Minister, Mahathir, in a different context.

Australia-Indonesia relations have been difficult at the best of times and when Jakarta senses that Canberra is railroading its strategic objectives ignoring Indonesian sensitivities, the going gets even tougher. The Australian experience of acting tough during the East Timor’s liberation struggle, with Indonesia losing the territory, is inspirational and might be a useful guide to deal with Indonesia. And it appears that, despite all the huff and puff from the Indonesian government, Australia might temporarily achieve the objective of “stopping the boat,” as their flow has already turned into a trickle and, in some month(s), stopped altogether. But, in the process, the resultant national humiliation for Indonesia will become a hot issue in the forthcoming elections in that country, further damaging their bilateral relationship.

Indonesia is the world’s largest Muslim country of about 250 million people and Australia needs its cooperation over a wide range of issues, besides immigration control, like on drugs, terrorism and so on. And to be snubbed and humiliated by a small country like Australia with a population of about 23 million rankles and shapes national attitudes and perceptions over period. In the meantime, the standstill from the intelligence saga of spying on President Yudhoyono, his wife and his inner circle continues. As the Chinese proverb goes: Australia and Indonesia are going through interesting times. 

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

Contact: sushilpseth@yahoo.com.au   

Capitalism and the world’s ills

S P SETH

Even as the world’s high and mighty met in Davos, Switzerland, for the World Economic Forum to discuss how best to make the world’s rich even richer, the Oxfam came out with a damning report highlighting the gross imbalance between the world’s richest few and the vast number of its poor. It says that just 85 of the world’s richest control as much wealth as half the world’s population that is 3.5 billion people. And this is despite the worst global financial crisis, starting 2007-8, since the Great Depression of the thirties. The responsibility for this lies largely with the top banks, financial institutions and their chief executives. But they have not only escaped largely unscathed but many have ended up doing pretty well out of it. The Oxfam says, “This massive concentration of economic resources in the hands of the fewer people presents a significant threat to inclusive political and economic systems.”

This is a searing indictment of the much touted and promoted system of free wheeling capitalism where the poor keeping getting poorer in many cases and the rich seem to be aiming for stratosphere in wealth accumulation. And the governments keep humoring investors through a bevy of incentives of lower taxes, free and subsidized land for their operations, low production costs and any number of other freebies to attract them to their shores. The so-called ‘trickle down theory’ by which the increased wealth from capitalist mode of production will, over period, reach the poor doesn’t seem to stack up even in the rich countries where, as the Oxfam report shows, the poor are only getting poorer. In the US, for instance, the wealthiest 1 per cent of the population grabbed 95 per cent of growth between 2009 and 2012, while the bottom 90 per cent became poorer. There is something terribly wrong in today’s economic growth model with this kind of inequality and inequity, leading to political and social volatility all over the world.

It was, therefore, refreshing when Pope Francis, spiritual head of the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics, talked about the “tyranny” of capitalism. In an address to foreign ambassadors accredited to the Vatican, he condemned “the cult of money” that is making life a misery for many people. He condemned the “…dictatorship of an economy which is faceless and lacking any truly human goal.” He said that, “While the income of a minority is increasing exponentially, that of the majority is crumbling.” And unchecked capitalism has created “ a new, invisible, and at times virtual, tyranny.”

Pope Francis has now spoken on this theme quite a few times. He reportedly said recently, “In this [capitalist] system, which tends to devour everything which stands in the way of increased profits, whatever is fragile, like the environment, is defenseless before the interests of a deified market, which becomes the only rule.” And this is at the crux of most problems in the world. For instance,  “Inequality [it fosters] eventually engenders a violence which recourse to arms cannot and never will be able to resolve.” He has sought to highlight how the worship of money is creating a moral void in the world where people are disconnected from what it means to be human. He has spoken of “immigrants dying at sea, in boats which were vehicles of hope and became vehicles of death.”  And he said pointedly that, “In this globalized world, we have fallen into globalized indifference… We have become used to the suffering of others.”

Not surprisingly he has drawn the ire of some conservative commentators like the influential US broadcaster, Rush Limbaugh, calling his utterances as “pure Marxism.” Such criticism is ill informed. What is wrong with saying that money and the system (capitalism) which deifies it, should be made to “serve” people and not to “rule” them?

The argument in support of free market capitalism is that it allocates resources efficiently and productively where they are most needed, thus creating and growing wealth leading to greater employment. The problem, though, is that wealth distribution, if and when it happens, is so skewed that the bottom end of the society ends up with crumbs. Besides, the process of wealth creation is invariably based on exploitation, nationally and internationally, of cheap labour of the most vulnerable sections of the society. The recent fires in Bangladesh textile factories, with virtually no fire safety system and the cheapest labor costs, are illustrative of the exploitative nature of the capitalist mode of production. These vulnerable people in Bangladesh and elsewhere in poorer countries where Western brand names are manufactured, are doubly exploited, first by the local manufacturer who has no regard for the safety of his workers and, secondly, by the Western companies that insist on buying at the cheapest rates and raking obscene profits back home. If this is called the efficient allocation of resources by exploiting those who are most vulnerable and hence work for a pittance to increase profits of faceless capitalists, then there is something seriously wrong in the way the system operates. It is totally devoid of basic morality and justice, which requires us to treat our fellow beings, as we would like to be treated ourselves.

Apart from the ethics, or the lack of it, the free market capitalism creates periodic booms and busts; the latest bust, starting 2007-8, is still trying to work its way out. And the victims are invariably the lower ends of a society, as we are witnessing in the United States and Europe. If capitalism were such a rational system based on efficient allocation of resources, what would explain these periodic ups and downs causing the utmost havoc on the poor and middle strata of a society? In the global financial crisis, those responsible for skewing the system and causing the crisis, like the banks and other financial institutions, have been bailed out at the expense of the ordinary tax payers; but many millions of hard working ordinary people have lost their jobs and much more. To quote Obama from his recent State of the Union address, “Today, after four years of economic growth, corporate profits and stock prices have rarely been higher, and those at the top have never done better.” But, he added, “ average wages have barely budged. Inequality has deepened. Upward mobility has stalled…”

Let us not sing praises of a system that celebrates events like the Davos Economic Forum to make rich richer, but instead initiate a new global dialogue and action plan to create a new global system that not only creates wealth but also oversees its fairer distribution. And therein lies the solution to many of the world’s ills, including rampant violence that we witness everyday on our television screens. Pope Francis has done a great service by taking on the captains of an economic system, which is greatly in need of transformation.

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

Contact: sushilpseth@yahoo.com.au