One World, Many Peaces

Global Relations Lessons From South Africa's World Cup

Spain's victory over the Netherlands wasn't just a matter of national pride or world glory. Despite being a game that made even the announcers apologize for its boringness, the players on each team made clear two very different styles of trying to win that can teach us a lot about global relations, as can the World Cup media coverage.

A striking parallel can be drawn with the recent Stanley Cup victory of the Chicago Blackhawks over the Philadelphia Flyers, a series of games which was whatever the polar opposite of boring is. Going into the final, the Flyers were known as the "bullies" of the league, and the young Chicago team was known for its finesse and skills. (Disclosure: I live in Chicago and grew up with hockey as a quasi-religion in Canada.)  As you can guess, finesse trumped bullying in the end, which is one part of the moral of this story as it related to global relations.

Soccer players are famous for the on-field drama, but when the Spanish player got kicked in the chest by the Dutch, I felt pain, and not just in my metaphoric heart. Let's leave aside the complex political nuances of the "Orange" (Dutch, after their jersey color) playing near what was once the Orange Free State of Dutch settlers later called Boers and who carried out Apartheid. I'm no soccer/football buff by any means, but I know when I see too many yellow cards and too few shots on goal. That's called bullying, just as it is in hockey. And the Dutch rightfully lost, making Spain's win righteous. Unfortunately, that's not how it always works in global relations even if it should.

South Africa did a tremendous job in hosting the world's largest sporting event, giving the continent its rightful place amongst the rest when it comes to prestige potential. However, the media coverage did a despicable job of reporting on the country and its people, say compared to what was done for China during its recent Olympics, using euphemisms like "troubled past" to gloss over the super-human struggles of South Africans still alive today. Nelson Mandela's name popped up a few times, but rarely was what made the World Cup possible to begin with-- the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) headed by Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Desmond Tutu-- ever mentioned. This is the kind of travesty of omission mainstream media commits everyday to the detriment of global relations.

Neither was Apartheid ever faced head on, as a problem or with its triumphal solutions, ostensibly not to mix politics and sports (sorry, that's impossible), actually pushing them below the surface so that they exploded for anyone in the least in the know. The situation in Israel/Palestine is the parallel here. Even a Spanish-born announcer said that his country's team victory was political because it unites Spaniards of different linguistic and cultural backgrounds in ways that have never been done.  Did you notice how few Blacks were in the stadium for the final? Did you know that local vendors were prohibited from being within two miles of the stadium so that major multinational corporations could take the stage?

So in addition to the lessons that skill and finesse beat bullying in sports as they should in international relations, here are two others: Don't erase or suppress the past because doing so creates an un-understandable present that can only lead to a undesired future. Do acknowledge the connections between both sports and politics as part of culture for constructive and destructive purposes alike. And, finally, prestige can never replace collaborative prosperity in domestic or global relations.

Photo credit: babasteve

The Oprah of India: Swami Ramdev from Yoga Guru to Neoconservative Populist Politician

His name is Swami Ramdev, and he captivates more people than Oprah, like her urging self-improvement in personal revolutions, if from within different traditions. He has been credited with reintroducing yoga to the middle and lower classes of India, and by so doing has become one of the country's most sought-after gurus. He is in the process of transforming his yoga empire into a political machine that is hyper-ethnocentric, xenophobic but also impressively empowering. And it's working.

Swamis Ramdev's TV program, "Om Yog Sadhana," and the campus of his Patanjali Yogpeeth Trust organization have brought in millions of people and dollars, regardless of his vow of poverty. The Trust's website welcomes visitors with a cult-like message blending ancient philosophy with contemporary trends in what would be decidedly New Age had it been proposed in the "New World." But because it hasn't, Ramdev is perceived as a visionary along Gandhian lines to some, and simply a wacko to others.

Here are a few of the principles detailed on the Trust's website, which form the basis of his strange but apparently effective combination of spirituality and politicking:

The Five Vows: 1. God has choosen me for self redemption and for welfare of the world; 2. Life has got before it a very sublime goal of service to the nation and service of mankind; 3. I will never assess myself disparagingly; 4. I will maintain a perennial flow of noble sentiments in my life; 5. I will live as a cautious and vigilant representative of my Guru, God and nation.

The Five Targets: 1. 100% voting; 2. 100% nationalistic thinking; 3. 100% total boycott of foreign companies, and complete support to swadeshi; 4. 100% organization of patriots; 5. To make a healthy, prosperous and cultured Bharat by developing a 100% yoga - practicing Bharat.

The Seven Norms of Good Conduct: 1. Vegitarianism; 2. Addiction-free; 3. Healthy; 4. Competent; 5. Dedicated; 6. Non-political life; 7. Commitment to devote at least two hours daily to yoga and national interest.

The Seven Norms of Nationalism: 1. Nationalism; 2. Enterprise; 3. Transparency; 4. Foresight; 5. Humanitarianism; 6. Spiritualism; 7. Humility.
 
The radical if curious neoconservatism, steeped in populism and ultra-nationalism, Ramdev is in the midst of proposing as a quick fix malaise solution to India's rapid modernization in recent years is appealing mostly to the lower and middle classes, although he is not without upper class support as well.

Ramdev calls his spiritual-political movement Bharat Swabhiman, and intends to eradicate corruption, crime and poverty from India with an aim to transform it into a World Power. The Oprah of India is thus just as much a current event creating the future as the Oprah of America.

Major Change in Afghanistan Strategy Hardly Makes US News, Shift from War to Peacemaking

In major world news that has received very little attention within the US, Afghanistan President Karzai is preparing to pitch and execute a new peacemaking plan with the Taliban in his country. In an abrupt about face that comes in the wake of Yemen’s similar peacemaking plans with Al Qaeda, Karzai announced on BBC over the weekend that he is prepared to make disarmament deals with the Taliban. This just weeks after President Obama promised more troops for and military action in Afghanistan, to the great dismay of many citizens and commentators. Is this a split in policy?

The top NATO military commander for Iraq and Afghanistan, General McChrystal, seemed uneasy in his doublespeak about the shift in Afghan policy towards more peacemaking as it relates to the US troop buildup towards more warfare. In McChrystal’s own words, and keep in mind that he initiated the successful call for a troop surge:

As a soldier, my personal feeling is that there's been enough fighting. I believe that a political solution to all conflicts is the inevitable outcome. And it's the right outcome. I think any Afghans can play a role if they focus on the future, and not the past.

He was responding to a question regarding Taliban in government in saying “any Afghans.” President Obama has not even mentioned the efforts President Karzai has made in recent days to gather support for his peacemaking plans at the 70-party international conference in London Thursday, undermining both of their authorities, to say nothing of the Nobel Peace Prize committee. The US Undersecretary of State went as far as to say the troop surge and reconciliation were complimentary, dumbfounding peace experts.

In stark contrast to General McCrystal, President Karzai seems resolute in his pursuance of peace, if unsure as to how his allies and current foes will react. He even went so far as to call for “peace at any price,” a doctrine that has proven dangerous to hold fast historically. “We trust them [the Taliban] because we are in a relationship together,” he added. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton went silent on the matter, and even the BBC changed the title of its report to Karzai being “moot” about peace prospects a day after the video interview was released.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown championed the idea of reconciliation with Taliban, saying  the Afghan government can “bring over some people previously associated with the Taliban by the renunciation of violence, this would be of value to the peace process.” We would expect that such momentous changes, which if successful could bring home American soldiers and increase the lifespan of Afghanis considerably, would be heralded by domestic media. They have not been in the least.

American news channels as well as news distributors such as AP and Reuters have missed this major shift in policy on the part of the Afghan leadership, to the extent that it is hard to imagine that they did not purposefully ignore it, or were censored by the powers that be domestically. Instead, we have news about warlords being appointed, bombs going off and troops being rallied, making Iraq and Afghanistan wars indistinguishable insofar as news reporting about them is concerned. President Karzai’s new peacemaking approach to the Taliban would quicken the safe return of American soldiers and lead towards a better future for Afghanistan, but as far as US news is concerned it seems hardly a current event worth mentioning.

Hot Off the Press-- 2009: The Year in Review from One World, Many Peaces with Antony Adolf

 

 

What was 2009 all about — or was but you didn’t hear about it? How will 2010 and beyond take shape? 2009: The Year in Review is One World, Many Peaces’ answer. Antony Adolf, author of Peace: A World History, shares the stories he covered throughout the year as “Current Events Creating the Future” — Ours.

Includes three new essays by Antony Adolf published together for the first time:

•Buyers and Buy-Nots: The New Economics of Poverty and Affluence
•Post-Islamophobia: How Cultural Integration Can Prevent Terrorism and Build Peace
•A Missile Shield by Any Other Name: Is Obama's Global Military Strategy Taking Shape in Eastern Europe?

One World, Many Peaces: The Blog and Podcast will start anew on January 5. Thank you for a great year and have a safe and happy New Year!

 

Che Who? Obama's Global Cult of Personality Begins

President Obama has now reached a pinnacle of global popularity cults matched only by Che Guevara. Cults of personality are a constant throughout human history, but in recent times they have been primarily based on nationality, race and/or ideology, a powerful propaganda machine and a perception of merit (think Nelson Mandela, Adolf Hitler, George Washington and Mao Zedong). Obama has now earned himself a place among them and others, and has bettered them in certain respects.

Obama was limited to the national, racial and ideological cults until late last week, when the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to him for, as his campaign rhetoric went and acceptance speech acknowledged, "change" and "hope" that have yet to turn into any actual results, national or global. And in this too he has a lot in common with Che, but that is not my point here. There are much bigger problems and possibilities than Obama talking the talk but not walking the walk yet. Literally and for only 10 months.

As the New York Times reports: "A CD of President Barack Obama's inaugural speech has sold a half million copies in Japan, leading publishers to flood the market with over a dozen language-learning titles centered on his oratory." The worldwide market is about $8 Billion dollars annually. Then there is the infamous Obama Chia Pet, not to mention the innumerable  T-Shirts, posters and other thingamabobs meant only to make money by capitalizing and so perpetuating Obama's cult of personality.

Thanks to mass media and the Internet, the scope of the scope and speed of the spread of Obama's cult of personality is beyond anything Castro could have imagined in plastering Havana with Che posters after his victorious revolution in the 1950s. Obama too has brought about a unique global revolution, as previously reported on One World, Many Peaces, but it has yet to bear any fruits worth saving the seeds for future generations, as he would have us believe. Kings and queens never had it so sweet. Liberalism has not had a comparable cult since Adam Smith, but he put forth some powerful ideas at least.

So this is a warning to the world now and in the future: Obama's global cult of personality is just beginning, and there may be no stopping it even if he his killed tomorrow. He would actually then become the martyr that all long-lasting cults of personality depend on:  religious (i.e. Jesus), philosophical (i.e. Socrates), racial (i.e. Dr. Martin Luther King) and political (i.e. Gramsci). Cults, of personality and otherwise, tend to inhibit their members ability to think, let alone participate in constructive critical dialogue. Therein lies the danger that only Obama himself can temper.

Because Obama's global cult of personality is in its infancy and has done nothing (and so nothing wrong), it is all the easier to become an unknowing, unthinking member. I, for one, still want to believe that he will be an agent of change towards peace and prosperity worldwide that would equal his cult of personality.  But I will not sacrifice constructive critical dialogue in his or anyone else's name (including my own), and deeply fear for those who do and will, and what can happen at their mercy. As a current event creating the future, Obama's global cult of personality cannot be a neutral force.

Peace One Day Video by Antony Adolf on Peace: A World History

In celebration of the United Nations International Day of Peace, September 21st (Gandhi's birthday), the star-studded Peace One Day campaign is holding an inspirational peace video contest. Along with contributions by Angelina Jolie, Ban Ki Moon, Paul McCartney, Jude Law, Alanis Morissette, Lenny Kravitz and many others, here is the inspirational video by Antony Adolf on Peace: A World History: 

 

 

Looking for a way to building peace on September 21? Thousands of events and activities in your community and around the world are available here. Want to share your experience with the world afterwards? Then Speak Your Peace!with One World, Many Peaces.

More peace-related videos can be found at One World, Many Peaces TV on YouTube. We hope you make your September 21st a current event creating a future of peace.

TV Interview on Peace: A World History by Antony Adolf

My thanks to the WGN Midday News team and everyone who has watched and given positive feedback so far. The interview aired nationally (US) yesterday, and is available on AOL Television now and YouTube soon. To many more...

Language Rights as Human Rights

Someone who studies endangered languages for a living once told me that when a language dies, so does a way of understanding who we and the world are; I would add a chance to integrate and improve both as well. Combine this notion with another saying, "what doesn't kill me makes me stronger" and we find ourselves closer to the predicament in which Kurdish speakers in Turkey and Spanish speakers in the US, among many other people around the globe, find themselves on a daily basis.  To what extent is the denial of the right to communicate in a language a violation of human rights?

UNESCO's world language week ended this past Sunday, and during it legislator Ahmet Turk spoke in his native Kurdish tongue in the national parliament to which he and the constituency he represents belong. Regardless of the irony in his name, state-run television cut off the broadcast immediately. In contrast, when Penelope Cruz was at the Oscar podium receiving her reward, she pointedly made part of her speech in Spanish, to great applause and no cut offs anywhere. Yet, the drive to circumscribe both minority languages in the countries in which they are communicated is strong, albeit unequally. So one wonders whether in linguistic xenophobia (in these cases, from the inside out) degrees, personas or  platforms bear more weight in challenging status quos.

Kurdish was made an "illegal language" in Turkey in 1991, barred from state-run institutions such as schools, courts and administrative buildings. In 2006, responding to mass immigrant rallies, the US Congress voted on an act to make English the "official" language of the country for the first time in its history. Both pieces of legislation are a denial of the fact that for centuries if not millennia, multilingualism was de facto within the territories now called national geo-political borders. Banning, suppressing or hierarchically positing languages for the sake of national or international unity is,  like the anti-war protestor slogan goes, fucking for virginity. Regardless of how noble the ends may or may not be, the means are counter-productive because they are based on and perpetuate mutual exclusivity. The ultimate outcome is what I and others have called a logocide, when an endangered language becomes extinct and with it a part of the polity whose unity was supposed to be preserved in so doing.

Growing up in the province of Quebec during the second heyday of nationalist separatism was in some ways the luckiest, and in others a most traumatic experience of my life. Because my parents were both immigrants, I was forced to go to a French school under the infamous Law 101, speaking Greek and English at home, and English in my community. At the time, I often confused the benefits of becoming multilingual with the banes of being branded an internal outsider, and acted out accordingly. So began without me yet knowing my concerns with how languages can bring people together but also keep them apart, literarily, legally or otherwise, which eventually sparked and fuelled my concerns about how peace, peacemaking and other social formations can be paradoxical in the same way. 

To my knowledge, as of this writing, language rights are not human rights. Despite or because of violations of both perhaps they should be made so before endangered languages as current events become reactively endangering languages aimed at preventing a universally or nationally monolingual future where worldwide mind control is possible.

See Antony Adolf's Multilingualism and Immigration in U.S. Public Policy for more in-depth analysis of these issues.

Culinary Protectionism and Anti-Immigration Impulses

Taste buds, it seems, can be allies of cultural integration and economic empowerment as of mutually exclusive, self-limiting policies alike. Pasta is rarely if ever the first thing to come to mind when we think of protectionism and anti-immigration impulses. Yet the city council of the Tuscan town of Lucca in Italy, a picturesque tourist hot spot for international visitors, recently announced a new initiative to crack down on immigrant-run restaurants serving non-Italian food in order to protect its culinary heritage and corner the food consumption market in its centro storico, or historic center.

Imagine the culinary landscape of North America had not a whole lot of entrepreneurial first-generation immigrants the guts, gusto and gastronomical know-how to open diners and restaurants for their communities and the new wider ones in which they came to live. Yes, that includes an implied dearth of hot dogs, pizza and hamburgers as well as sushi, curries, chop sui, tacos and foie gras. Forget tv shows like Top Chef and Hell's Kitchen. And yes, doing so was and is what allowed their children to become other types of professionals from doctors to engineers, boosting quality of life for them and their inherited countries.  Even those who stick to the proverbial meat and potatoes would lose something if all Greek-owned (or once so) diners charicatured in My Big Fat Greek Wedding had been or were to be forced to close.

The great irony in the Italian case is that many of the key ingredients used in their "native" foods were a few short centuries ago originally imports: tomatoes and potatoes from South America, and the iconic pasta from Asia thanks to Marco Polo's pioneering global voyages. The following statement by the right-wing, anti-immigration Italian politician is tantamount to a selective historical revisionism, not to say poor judgment: "This is not a battle against anything or anyone, but a defense of our culture and our agriculture... In Italy we have available 4,500 typical food products. Every one of these represents the culture and history of our country."

The targets of this culinary protectionist initiative fueled by impulses of misguided immigration reform are mostly kebab houses and Chinese restaurants. In attacking the measure, a more moderate but equally misguided official said that the measure would also unintentionally  stop high-end French restaurants from serving oysters and champagne. Thanks for the prioritization,   buddy, I'm sure foreign students touring Europe and tired of eating free leftover pasta at youth hostels will appreciate it as much as your entourage. This line of policymaking is not the same as that which seeks to safeguard traditional regionally-produced foods such as Feta cheese and local wines, but one mistaking cultural exclusion for promotion and economic limitation for preservation.

One of the cherished privileges of having lived in urban centers such as Montreal, Vancouver and Chicago was to be able to eat what was  for me exotic foods from dozens of countries for less than I could have cooked them for myself at home. Many culinary experts also contend that no food traditions are genuinely singular. I would add that to enact policies that affirm this illusion takes away from unequaled role food has, does and will continue to play in bringing members of local communities and worldwide immigrant networks together while empowering their and their children socio-economically, a vital longtime current event which has created the future in which we live.

Censoring Violence and Selective Morality

If you asked 100 people and ethics experts what is more morally wrong, murder or rape, chances are that they would say it’s a poorly phrased question and their answer would be both equally (or at least we may hope so).  But a clear-cut answer came from Amazon a day before Valentine's Day, when the internet's largest retailer pulled a Japanese video game simulating rape and sexual assaults from its site while keeping thousands of others that simulate other kinds of corporeal violence. So what?

The point is not to open the Pandora's box about violence in media, but to stress the highly problematic selectivity of the moral issues open to debated within it. Games in which murder, theft, assault and even genocide are encouraged or even required to win regularly receive top awards and highest sales, as do movies and television shows that depict them, whether in glorification or damnation. Why? Because apparently for those who play and watch them, recreationally or addictively, they are as entertaining as entertaining can be and a lot of money is made as a result, including by Amazon. The morally offended may find a little comfort in the "rating" system but not satisfaction.

Nor is the point to posit a litmus test for tired arguments pro and con violence in the media; though the debate is decades (if not centuries) old, a stalemate status quo seems to have been reached in the public arena  outside academia with which everyone is ok enough not to do anything too serious about it until a new kid's in town. Among the most popular defensive arguments for these types of pass times is the possible cathartic effect they have on users: "The more I play violence, the less I do it," or so the line goes.  At the risk of being misinterpreted in the hopes of provoking debate:  Should this logic not apply to all kinds of video game violence equally? And if not, why not?

What, then, is the point? Stifling debates through which collective ethical decisions are made is more dangerous than any kind of media violence.  In putting its foot down on one kind of violence and not others, the slippery selectivity of Amazon's moral lip service becomes clear. Censoring one kind of violence and not others conspicuously legitimizes those which remain, weakening the overall societally healthy debates surrounding the entertainment value and/or ethical detriment of media violence altogether. In this case, shutting a door does not open a window, depleting the intellectual oxygen in the room, and the vigor of our moral minds and hearts consequently suffers as a current event creating the future.