The author looks at Street Art in the Middle East (Libya, Egypt, Lebanon, Iran and Palestine). He draws attention to how in some parts it became an apparent means for protest, while in others it is more widely used to endorse the current regime.

By Dallin Van Leuven, 13th October, 2013

The Arab Spring brought far more than a change of leadership to nations in the Middle East and North Africa.  Its political upheaval introduced a marked increase in the freedom of speech, as well as a challenge to the definition of public space.  At the intersection of these two currents lies street art.  Street art – rather than graffiti – is an appropriate term, with vibrant, poignant expressions of free speech capturing the attention of both residents and passers-by.  But this was not always the case. Although it was already a common tool of resistance in Gaza and the West Bank, it gave new revolutionary artists in Arab states a medium to reach the masses and further an ideal. Emboldened by popular protests, street art erupted upon streets and squares across the region, invading the public sphere with defiant statements or ridiculing depictions of leaders.

However, the advent and use of street art is certainly a contentious issue.  When radical Islamist supporters of the now-deposed President Mohamed Morsi of Egypt violently cleared an opposition sit-in surrounding the Ittahadeya Palace on December 5, 2012, they came with paint cans to paint over graffiti they deemed an “insult” to the president.  In fact, the Syrian revolution began in large part over this issue, when 15 young boys in the southern town of Daraa were arrested and brutally tortured for scrawling anti-regime statements on walls. The subsequent public outcry eventually resulted in the bloody civil war that still rages across Syria.  The power of street art to challenge authority and convey meaning to the public is apparent to artists and authorities alike.

Compare that to art in Iran, where it is used to augment – rather than challenge – the influence of the state.  Depictions of martyrs from Iran’s resistance to the invasion by Iraq can be seen in every town, as well as murals of Imams Khomeini and Khamenei.

Enclosed is a selection of street art from across the Middle East and North Africa, to allow the medium to speak for itself.  All images are property of the author.

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(Cairo, Egypt – March 2011) Many of Egypt’s youth activists had hoped that the goodwill inspired by the revolution would translate into better inter-religious cooperation and respect.

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(Cairo, Egypt – November 2011) This piece depicts Mubarak (though incarcerated then) still orchestrating the civil strife in the country through the military, between thugs, police, and political parties (labeled from left to right).

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(Cairo, Egypt – November 2011) A wanted poster for Mahmoud Sobhy Al-Shennawy, a police officer. He was later found guilty of intentionally shooting out the eyes of protesters with rubber bullets and sentenced to three years in prison.

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(Cairo, Egypt – December 2011) The brutal actions of Al-Shennawy and officers like him made eye patches a symbol of the revolution.  This section of a larger collection lined the street where many protesters lost their eyes.  The street was renamed by some activists to the “Street of Freedom Eyes.”

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(Cairo, Egypt – July 2013) A bearded Islamist shouts, “Legitimacy!”  Supporters of the former President Morsi frequently cited the legitimacy of Morsi’s election as a defense against those who criticized his problematic rule.

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(Cairo, Egypt – July 2013) “This is good, God!” exclaim a pair of Morsi supporters.  This piece arose out of the accusation that the Muslim Brotherhood incited violence in an attempt to gain sympathy from the international community out of their own victimization.

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(Cairo, Egypt – July 2013) “Mubarak, the Military, the Muslim Brotherhood.”  Who is next in the line of despots in Egypt?

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(Beirut, Lebanon – November 2012) Painted on this bullet-riddled building, a garbage man sweeps away bullet casings – remnants of Lebanon’s bloody, 15-year-long civil war.  He is flanked by doves of peace.

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(Bayda, Libya – April 2011) This mural celebrated the support rebels received from countries around the world, while the civil war raged on and NATO bombings had begun.

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(Bayda, Libya – April 2011) The word carved into this man’s back is freedom, by the knives labeled oppression, dictatorship, and corruption.

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(Bayda, Libya – April 2011) This expert piece recalls the violence wrought by Qaddafi’s “bloodthirsty” regime.

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(Benghazi, Libya – April 2011) In one of the late Kais Al-Hilali’s most famous caricatures, he refers to Qaddafi as the “monkey of monkeys of Africa…and everywhere else,” a play on Colonel Muammar Qaddafi’s reference to himself as the “King of Kings of Africa.”  Al-Hilali was murdered under mysterious circumstances at a checkpoint.

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(Tehran, Iran – August 2012) This large mural leaves no doubt as to the Iranian government’s feelings towards the United States.  Written in red below is “Death to America!”

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(Tehran, Iran – August 2012) This collection of street art is on display outside the former US Embassy in Tehran, now affectionately renamed the “US Den of Espionage.”  They mark a defiance to the US, and not the current regime, contrary to the other examples here.

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(Ramallah, West Bank – July 2011) And finally, a simplistic reminder from Palestine.

An assessment of what has contributed to the rise of Al Qaeda in Yemen.  The author points to the contributors of the swelling of their ranks which, among other factors, has included the cutting of the remittances from their richer neighbors after the first Gulf War and the security concerns (drone strikes).

By Richard Wallace, 23rd October 2013

Just a couple of months back, news channels were filled with coverage of the impending threat Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP – the Gulf branch of Al-Qaeda) poses to domestic security in Yemen and international security more broadly. Yemen is rarely in the limelight, with much media attention focusing further north on the Middle East states of the Levant and Iran. When it does catch international attention, the media discourse on Yemen is typically highly securitized, to the extent that the country is increasingly cast as the next Afghanistan, the cradle of chaos, and the new haven and hotbed of international terrorism. Whether or not this is really the case, it is clear that Yemen does face serious challenges from AQAP’s local franchise and the danger is real. So just how did it come to this?

The Emergence of AQAP

AQAP emerged in early 2009 following a strategic merger between the Yemeni branch of Al Qaeda and hardliner Islamist militants from neighboring Saudi Arabia, disgruntled with the perceived corruption of the al-Saud monarchic dynasty and its long time alliance with “the Great Satan”, the US. Indeed, the long border region between the two states is a fertile recruiting ground for AQAP militants.

Notably, the expulsion of many remittance-dependent Yemenis from Saudi Arabia (in the wake of former President Saleh’s expression of public support for Saddam Hussein) during the Gulf War resulted in an influx of disillusioned and newly impoverished Yemenis into an already volatile and economically vulnerable Yemen, adding fuel to a nascent fire of Islamist discontent. It is no coincidence that a large number of al Qaeda operatives in the broader region are Yemeni, and a disproportionate number of inmates (still) held in Guantanamo hail from the southern Arab state. It doesn’t take a seasoned political observer to fathom that youth unemployment mixed with existing socio-economic challenges such as poverty, hunger and illiteracy together constitute a combustible cocktail of resentment that can easily manifest itself through modes of violent political conduct infused with selective religious meaning.

The Oil Effect

Black Gold, that invaluable elixir that drives the engines of development, has proven particularly flammable. Yemenis, with their proud sense of ancient ancestry and national and cultural prestige dating back thousands of years look north to their oil rich and relatively young neighbor with some degree of resentment. Though not without oil reserves itself, Yemen has been politically eclipsed by the dawn of Saudi regional hegemony. Saudi Arabia has proven more capable at managing its natural resources though it benefits from the luxury of being able to spread this wealth over a significantly smaller population. This clear imbalance in oil wealth development has bred a sense of inferiority in the psyche of many young Yemenis and it’s not difficult to understand how they have came to ally themselves with radical jihadists from Saudi Arabia in their common vendetta against the al-Saud.

Oil development in Yemen itself has been relatively uneven. Under Saleh’s regime a narrow group of co-opted regime loyalists from selected tribes in the northern highland regions have thrived the most on lucrative revenues, deeply embedding themselves within a complex web of patronage at the expense of poor local communities in Marib, Shabwa and Hadramaut regions from where the black stuff is being extracted. The prospect of an oil boom was the very catalyst that fused Yemen’s two halves into one in 1990. The political logic driving this was the realization that oil extraction could be better co-ordinated and more fully exploited in a peaceful unified political environment, where potential geopolitical wrangling over who had which slice of the cake could be avoided entirely by wiping away the North-South divide.

Tragically however, the corruption and internal regional imbalances that resulted from the uneven distribution of oil wealth in the new Yemen led to new divisions and socio-economic discontent, through which AQAP has become a key conduit. Vociferous criticism of resource mismanagement and the active drawing of linkages between the everyday suffering of ordinary Yemenis and the injustices perpetrated by an oil-thirsty regime clique have featured prominently in al-Qaeda discourse. This frustration has often translated into violent action as evidenced by frequent al-Qaeda attacks on oil pipelines, notably in 2006-8. In the same period, AQAP launched assaults on foreign tourists, military personnel as well as the US embassy in Sana’a in order to destabilize the state.

Order through Chaos

By early 2010, AQAP had intensified attacks considerably, targeting government facilities and personnel in Abyan, Lahij, and al-Dali’, prompting security experts in the country to concede the emergence of a power vacuum in these areas.  Significantly, AQAP occupied the southern town of Zinjibar in Abyan province in 2011, after armed forces suspiciously withdrew their checkpoints.

Indeed, there is some evidence to suggest that the seizure of the town of Zinjbar as well as a major jail break in 2006, in which current leader Nasir al-Wahayshi escaped, could not have been successfully carried out without the complicity of the authorities. It is perhaps no coincidence that this breakout occurred at a time when the US government began signalling to the Saleh regime that it should embrace political reforms and strengthen democratic institutions. This change in tone came in the aftermath of the regime’s successful campaign against Al Qaeda in 2005.

It has been widely mooted that former President Saleh actively encouraged militant activity to foster domestic instability and scaremonger the US into strengthening political-security ties with the existing regime and into providing extensive financial and military aid to it. Saleh shrewdly understood that the prevailing mentality of policy makers in the White House was guided by the motto “better the devil you know, than the devil you don’t.” US officials knew full well that Saleh was no angel, but also that supporting him and underpinning regime stability was far easier to swallow down than a chaotic unpredictable alternative political reality in which AQAP could potentially operate unhindered in a broad political vacuum.

Thus was Yemen’s political development sidelined but at great cost. In pursuing foreign policy goals viewed through a narrow security lens, the US helped prop up a corrupt political apparatus, which served only to alienate the masses and breed further resentment against the state. This played right into AQAP’s hands, fanning the flames of discontent and fueling the insurgency further.

The response of the Saleh regime, the current Hadi administration and the US to the terrorist threat has proven to be highly controversial and extraordinarily divisive. Saleh sought to lump together the various dissident groups that have challenged state power, mainly AQAP, al-Hirak (Southern secessionists) and the Houthi insurgents in the North. In doing so, Saleh was able to portray these groups as a singular existential, terrorist threat and obtain tacit unconditional US support for military action against them, authorizing disproportionately repressive measures against protests from 2007-2011 that radicalized a new generation of young political activists and convinced many that violence was the only viable means of achieving their political goals. Not an insignificant number of the disillusioned joined AQAP’s ranks.

In the Crosshairs

Drone strikes have split opinion between those who see them as an effective means of decapitating AQAP, targeting the leadership whilst avoiding costly ground assaults, and those who decry the human cost of such strikes, which have in the past resulted in significant civilian casualties or just plainly hit the “wrong guy”. Such was the case with the 2011 drone strike that killed the popular deputy governor of Marib province, who was ironically negotiating with tribal groups in a peacekeeping mission to draw recruits away from AQAP in the region. Such senseless loss of innocent life has infuriated local conservative and impoverished tribal populations, particularly tribesmen bound by strict tribal codes that require them to seek revenge when one of their own is killed in an act of murder. The cycle of violence predictably reinforces itself. There is a growing body of evidence to suggest that drone strikes have contributed to a swelling in AQAP’s ranks from hundreds into thousands over just a couple of years.

In a sense, the US counter-terrorism strategy is simply to cut off one of hydra’s heads, only to cause another two to grow in its place. This reactive security-centered strategy is not sufficient on its own. There needs to be genuine and deep reaching efforts to tackle the underlying socio-economic causes and political grievances of the populace in order to undercut AQAP’s support base. Failure to do so is akin to digging a hole in dry sand.

The latest round of leaks on the NSA could end the spying culture through major policy-shifts promised by President Obama though one should remain sceptical.

By Gulshan Roy, 5th November 2013

The average unemployment rate set to hit a record 12% in the EU; the growth rate stagnating at a dire 0.3%; the much fanfared recovery that never turned up; an ever-so-fragile eurozone:  these are the major themes Angela Merkel would have nervously expected to debate as she appeared in Brussels last Friday for this year’s crucial EU summit. Instead, the meeting was (rather conveniently for her) foreshadowed then dominated by America’s intriguing secret curiosity for the contents her cell phone. In yet another round of blows for US National Security Agency (NSA), The Guardian revealed last week that the agency had been monitoring calls of 35 world leaders without their knowledge, let alone their consent. Edward Snowden has his president biting his nails once again for traditional allies of Washington are understandably outraged.

“Spying on friends is not on at all,” was the upset German chancellor’s first reaction to the disturbing revelations, as the freshly appointed US Ambassador to her country was given the tough first assignment of explaining the NSA’s actions to the foreign minister in Berlin. And it gets worse.

Under the Prism espionage program, millions of private communications between civilians of several countries have also been spied upon, along with those of their leaders. In Germany alone, US intelligence ‘spear-fishermen’ used a pool of up to 60 million communications a day to gather targeted information.

Francois Hollande had in July condemned these operations in unequivocal terms, stating that “such practices, if proven, do not have their place between allies and partners,” before solemnly adding “in the name of our friendship, we owe each other honesty.” The European Parliament wasted little time in promptly passing a resolution that “strongly condemns the spying on E.U. representations.”

Hence, the latest lousy retort from the White House simply stating that “all nations spy on each other” (curiously echoing the position of former State Secretary Madeleine Albright- we’ll come to that in a second) was expected to vent yet more fury within the international community.

But then the journalists properly joined the fray, reverting to an article in Le Monde earlier in the year entitled “Revelations sur Le Big Brother français” revealing that France engaged in a full range of similar spy operations and instantly turning Mr Hollande’s face just as red as his proverbial socialist tie.

Espionage is not a new phenomenon. Societies, groups and businesses have probably been spying on each other since the very beginnings of human civilization. Some readers might be familiar with the fascinating life of Carl Schulmeister, for instance, the famous Austrian double-agent recruited by Napoleon, whose help was seminal to France’s victory in the Battle of Austerlitz.

More recently, as information has increasingly been passed from the human brain onto machines, so have spies adapted to digitalise the game. It was thus under a still imperfect web-space of 1997 that thriving US corporations fell victim to cyber-espionage from foreign firms keen to throw their weight in the competition at a time of accelerating technological change. The FBI estimated that intellectual property losses for American firms due to spying reached $300billion that year and that organised espionage on the Silicon Valley came from 23 different countries (prompting Madeleine Albright’s now-famous shrug). Just for the record, the country that topped that particular spy-list was Germany.

Thus, once history brings a bit of perspective, the dramatic finger-pointing and teeth-showing along with the ‘melancholy of a friend lost’ serenade suddenly seems somewhat of a grotesque spectacle with clumsily-rehearsed lines.

Yet, though spying on each other apparently ought to be treated as a given fact of life, Washington would be ill-advised to re-emulate the shrug-tactic for this time the consequences could be far more serious. The world is angry, and it could respond in kind by taking aim at one of America’s most ferociously-guarded jewels.

The United States is home to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which deals with domains and numbers that allow virtually anyone to access virtually any web address regardless of where in the world the data is stored and without state interference. When compounded with the preference of companies such as Facebook or Google to have their servers based in America, one realises just how ample an asset Washington holds from that market. It doesn’t end there.

Publications by The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal during the year revealed that agreements between the US government and telecom companies allowed the vile NSA to touch up to 75% of total world internet traffic, possibly adding some further substance to rumours that Uncle Sam and Big Brother might in fact be not-so-distant cousins.

In riposte, several countries could hence try to cut through the US internet monopoly to legitimately defend themselves. One of the angriest victims from the revelations was Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff, who last month cancelled her White House meeting with President Obama scheduled for this week in her fury. She is proposing to legislate for companies investing in Brazil to have their servers located in the country rather than abroad. Germany had similar plans earlier this year. China is the epitome of this model, having cut itself from the rest of the worldwide web through what I am told has been dubbed “the Great Firewall” by internet geeks.

Other alternatives exist. Public outrage could also push for EU leaders to come up with legislation that does more than to simply ‘condemn’ foreign intelligence intrusion. The EU bloc could also turn to Geneva and the UN to adopt a resolution that would extend the scope of the 1976 Covenant on International Civil and Political Rights to cover the internet- and would probably win the vote.

However, both these paths of action smell danger and not just for the United States. In the first instance, a Balkanization of the internet will at the very least mean that aggregate costs of mining for sometimes the most basic information will be pushed upwards, ceteris paribus. Worse still, it could create domestic information structures that would encourage despotic regimes to thrive. Multilateral treaties will tend to have the same effect on prices, while leaving the actual problem of espionage entirely whole (the whole point of spying is not to get caught).

Any step in either of these directions would obviously represent a disaster for President Obama, which is why he will have the non-enviable task of resisting pressure both abroad and at home for these measures to be implemented, at least in part. The most hypocritical Republicans in Congress are likely to enjoy joining the cohort of angry foreign statesmen urging the president to pass domestic laws scaling down espionage programs such as Prism. In the very unlikely event that he does, it will mean that Edward Snowden will have effectively shaped US defence policy from exile.

These last two weeks have been particularly damaging for the image of US defence and security strategy as well as its diplomacy, and not only due to the NSA leaks. Earlier this year, I argued on this same page about the drone program that Barack Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize-winning cloak concealed a far more ruthless commander-in-chief. Last week, two damning reports (one from Human Rights Watch on civilian collateral from drones in Yemen and one from Amnesty International covering the same issue in Pakistan) have condemned US security strategy, citing human-rights violations.

It is possible that the current furore will exert enough pressure for Obama to amend what is generally considered to be the untouchable national defence and security strategy legislation. Edward Snowden may well have dealt a further blow to his country’s administration and a section of his supporters have probably started to call for him to be allowed to run for president.

Yet, my hunch is that once the hype has dissipated, Mr Hollande has recovered his natural skin hue and Angela Merkel buys a new mobile phone, nothing will come out of this scandal. The consensus within the pentagon will not magically vanish overnight. National security strategists will not suddenly start attending Sunday mass to discuss morality and human values. The policy overhaul promised by Mr Obama is likely to be more discreet than meaningful.

And so the spies will soon again vanish from the blinding spotlight to resume their routine in dimmer and more tranquil realms, somewhere close to you.

Gulshan Roy has pursued economics and international studies in university, most recently at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London. He regularly writes for publications in Mauritius, which is his country of origin. He can be followed on twitter here.

In this article, the authors provide an overview of the environmental challenges that India faces and how the civil society has stood up to the challenge. 

by Tamanna Adhikari and Anusha Ghosh, 11th November, 2013

Society and environment are intricately intertwined, linked together by societal habits that determine the relationship between a certain community and the environment. With growing urbanization India has witnessed an increase in environmental problems such as land degradation, deforestation, air and water pollution and climate change. Global atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide have increased between pre-industrial period and 2005. Air quality data has shown that air pollution and its resultant impacts can be attributed to emissions from vehicular, industrial and domestic activities. Air quality has been, therefore, an issue of social concern in the backdrop of various developmental activities. The total forest cover of the country, as per the 2005 assessment, constitutes 20.60 per cent of the geographic area of the country. Between 2003 and 2005, the total forest cover had decreased by 728 sq. km. With resource needs having remained unchanged, forests have come under increased pressure of encroachment for cultivation, and unsustainable resource use rendering the very resource base unproductive.

Another key environmental issue in India is that of water pollution. Almost 70 percent of its surface water resources and a growing percentage of its groundwater reserves are contaminated by biological, toxic, organic and inorganic pollutants. Severely polluted stretches on some of India’s major rivers were identified in and around large urban areas. The high incidence of severe contamination near urban areas indicates that the industrial and domestic sector’s contribution to water pollution is much higher relative to rural areas. Besides water pollution, the problem of water shortage compounds to India’s water problems. With the rapidly growing population, along with industrial and urbanization activities, the demand for water is expected to increase even faster. Estimates indicate that by the year 2025, the total water demand will be very close to the total utilizable water resources of the country. Therefore it is evident that the country may have to face an acute water crisis unless clear and strategic measures are adopted now. These patters reflect the urgency of debate with respect to the impact of societal and developmental changes on the environment.

The field of research on environment and society is growing rapidly and becoming of ever-greater importance in policy circles and for the public at large. More recently the term ‘Eco Socialism‘ has found a place in the environmentalist’s jargon. It primarily focuses on restoration of the commons and community participation in environmental conservation.

Chipko andolan of the 1970’s was a cornerstone movement in community engagement in Uttarakhand. A group of peasant women in Uttarakhand acted to prevent cutting of trees and reclaim their traditional forest rights that were threatened by the contractor system of the forest department. The movement created a precedent for non violent protests and viability of human power. Their actions inspired hundreds of such actions at the grassroots and stakeholder levels throughout the region. By the 1980s the movement had spread throughout India and and led to several similar movements in regions as far as Vindhyas. Gradually the Chikpo movement took a new shape. By 1977 the villagers particularly women set up cooperatives to guard local forests, and also organized fodder production at rates conducive to local environment. They joined in land rotation schemes for and helped replant degraded land. The success of the movement went on to become a rallying point for future environmentalists.

In 1968 Garett Hardin propounded his celebrated “tragedy of the commons” theory in which he explored the social dilemma of overusing common property. When applied to an environmental context, Hardin recommended that the tragedy of the commons could be prevented by either more governmental control or by privatizing common property. This view however is contested in the Nobel Prize winning work of Elinor Ostrom. She suggests that handing control of these local areas to National or International regulators can create further problems. Locals have to come up with solutions themselves because the problems affect their lives more than any one else’s. She further argues that when commons are taken up by regulators these local solutions can no longer be used.

In India, policies that have a bottom-up approach, involving the locals at the planning stage have been successful in the past. One such programme is the Joint Forest Management (JFM) programme. JFM aims to empower the locals to participate actively as partners in the management of forest resources. It does this by guaranteeing the locals an equal share of benefits derived from forest protection. Policies that encourage state community partnership should be introduced on a wider scale.

As pointed out earlier, local communities have certain environmental ethics that stood the test of time. It is important that the Government an other institutions recognize and provide assistance and finance to these communities to start their own institutions unique to their region. In rural regions, what is required is the protection and incentivization of the use of traditional knowledge and techniques of environmental conservation. In an urban setting, policies that require RWA’s and other community level institutions to appoint watchdogs at a community level to check environmental degradation in their vicinity can be employed.

Environmental awareness at the consumer level can go a long way in checking degradation. Eco-labels and Green Stickers are labelling systems for food and consumer products. They are forms of sustainability management directed at consumers, intended to enable consumers to take into account the impact of their consumption behaviour on the environment. Globalization has led to a shift in paradigm from government imposed demand and control measures to self regulatory policies like eco-labelling. It is important in a country like India to educate and encourage consumers to buy sustainable products.

Building awareness is the key to the successful implementation of any self-regulatory policy. Therefore it is important to introduce environmental education and create environmental consciousness at the primary school level.

As Kofi Annan said, “In an age where community involvement and partnerships with civil society are increasingly being recognized as indispensable, there is clearly a growing potential for cooperative development and renewal worldwide”. Therefore, key management decisions should be made as close to the scene of events as possible.

 The challenges of grass root rural development in Tamil Nadu

Case study of D. P. Doddy

D.P. Doddy, Erode, Tamil Nadu

Looking at the adverse effects of pesticide use on health and farmer yields in Erode, Tamil Nadu state in India, the author highlights the needed measures to bridge the gap between the remedies available to the government, NGOs and civil society on one hand, and the sustainable options for the farmers on the other.

By Camille Maubert, 23rd November 2013

India’s outstanding economic development following the Green Revolution (1960s) was characterized by a remarkable increase in agricultural production. In the past decades, India’s crop yield was multiplied by four through the use of enhanced crop varieties, fertilizers, pesticides and other chemicals. However, despite such success on the global scale, concerns are emerging at the micro level regarding the sustainability if intensive agricultural exploitation. The biggest challenge facing farmers is the dramatic decrease in soil fertility. Indeed, after five decades of intense farming, some challenges have become alarmingly recurrent. These include disturbances in soil reaction, development of nutrient imbalances in plants, increased vulnerability to pests and diseases, decrease in soil life and so on. All of these problems are symptomatic of an excessive use of pesticides and chemicals by farmers.

Harvest scene in D. P. Doddy

On average, Indian farmers use 90,000 tons of pesticides per year. One of those commonly used is endosulfyn, which is banned by several health and trade organizations globally. This is the highest consumption rate in the world. The extensive aerial spraying of chemicals on fields has had devastating impacts on land and people. As a matter of fact, research conducted by the Energy and Resource Institute of New Delhi showed that 10% of sprayed pesticides is absorbed by plants and/or drained by rainfall in rivers and soil. This results in the extinction of natural enemies of pests (birds, insects) and the contamination of drinking water, cereals and vegetables consumed by farmers.  This in turn led to a significant increase in psychological, neurological and congenital problems, as well as infertility, cancer and other medical conditions. In addition to damages to the ecosystem and health, the overconsumption of chemicals has nefarious effects on the farmers’ livelihoods. Not only does the excessive pesticide use impact negatively on the productivity of the land, but it also induces farmers to take loans with high interest rates. Indeed, the increased prices of agricultural technology and chemicals pushed many small cultivators to fall into debt, leading to a significant increase in suicide rates in South India. By and large, small farmers face an increased vulnerability to pests, soil degradation and low crop yield.

Family at work on their land in D. P. Doddy

Attempts at improving the resilience of small rural communities have been implemented at the state level by the government of Tamil Nadu and the various subordinated gram panchayats through the development of infrastructure. The improvement of roads has for instance been a focal point of development as it allows farmers to access markets more easily. Also, the construction of public taps, bore wells and water tanks was successful in providing isolated villages with a decent water supply system. Nevertheless, some research and surveys suggest that efforts made by state institutions to boost the development of grass root farms are hindered by the frequent inadequacy of aid to people’s needs. It appears that parts of the top-down measures taken to improve the villages’ livelihoods are not suited to the basic needs of the populations they are meant to support. For instance, some families were provided with eco sanitation units – toilets which allow the collection of human waste to be re-used as compost and fertilizer- but are not using them, instead practicing open defecation. This is because villagers haven’t received adequate awareness education about the use and usages of the units, and therefore either utilize them for other purposes (i.e. storage) or destroy them. In other words, long term sustainability cannot be ensured unless the villagers take ownership of the development aid, which can only be achieved if the initiative comes from the bottom-up. In this sense, one significant challenge facing grass root development in Southern India is not to bring new technologies but rather to teach marginalized farmers how to better use the resources available to them in order to answer their main concerns.

Farmer working on the construction of a recycling pit

In the past ten years, some initiatives have been taken to promote an alternative farming system which minimizes the use of chemicals and encourages the involvement of rural communities as a whole. Among them, the LEISA (Low External Input for Sustainable Agriculture) scheme had a significant impact on Tamil Nadu’s grass root agricultural practices.  This project aims to reduce the consumption of pesticides and fertilizers by encouraging farmers to use organic methods. Incentives for such alteration of agricultural routines are substantial. Indeed, LEISA considerably reduces the input cost of cultivation by relying exclusively on organic components to enrich the soil, protect crops from pests and increase productivity. This process is known as Integrated Farming Development (IFD). IFD is an all-encompassing approach to grass root rural development which emphasizes on the recycling of animal, human and farm waste to produce bio production enhancers including crop pest repellent, growth promoter (panchakavya) and compost. For instance, pest management is one of the most pressing challenges facing small crop producers as they are most vulnerable to natural hazards. As mentioned above, exposure to pests is ordinarily tackled by the extensive and indiscriminate use of chemicals. However, this has proved to be both financially and environmentally unsustainable as it dragged many a farmer into debts and has led to considerable soil degradation and increased crop vulnerability.

IFD attempts to counteract this growing exposure of farmers by promoting the use of widely available resources to produce equally efficient pesticide. As a result, cow urine and weed extract constitutes an eco-friendly and effective pest repellent while the combination of cow dung, urine, milk, curd and ghee successfully replaces fertilizers by enhancing insect and disease resistance in plants. In addition organic matters (cow urine and dung, human waste, food waste and so on) can be converted into renewable energy through fermentation. Manure produces methane, a clean and efficient source of fuel for the production of light, heat and energy compared to other resources used by farmers such as cow dung cake and firewood. As such, it is an effective method in addressing the needs of farmers in energy, especially in isolated areas where central electricity supplies are often unreliable or inexistent.

Women SHG meeting, Nooronswami Pura, Erode, Tamil Nadu

In order to maximize IFD benefits, farmers are encouraged to work together by sharing knowledge and resources. This practice is already in place in most villages due to their social structure as family-based communities where members of the same village are usually roughly related to each other. In addition to these already existing solidarity networks, structures called Community Based Organisation (CBO) are created to facilitate cooperation. In technical terms, the purpose of a CBO is thus to increase grassroots action by empowering people to take control of their lives rather than relying on Governmental support.  These CBOs can take different shapes depending on which people they represent and the type of activities it encompasses. Among them, the most widespread organisations are Self Help Group (SHG) and Farmers Association (FA). An SHG is a CBO based on the concept of microfinance; its goal is to enable those that are less economically stable to have access to funds in the form of low interest loans. The group comprises of similar, likeminded people who meet regularly to discuss their needs and problems with the goal of developing their village and improving their livelihoods through combining their financial savings and distributing low interest loans. A FA on the other hand is a CBO with the specific aim of making farmers more self-sustaining and financially efficient.

Farmers Association bagging crop production

A group of farmers from the same local area unite and collaborate on production and marketing practices. The objectives of the group are to form links with various government agencies to avail farming services, to build their knowledge and skills on farming and its related technologies, and to establish cost-effective making services.

All in all Tamil Nadu’s government, NGOs and civil society are making some substantial progress in terms of promoting tools to help improve grass root development. Nonetheless, these initiatives remain localized and many challenges remain. As mentioned above, the state often brings tools and infrastructure which are not adequate to responding to local need and which villagers often don’t know how to use. The same problem is found in the creation of CBOs which puts people together without taking into account local interests, relationships and power dynamics. As a result, efforts and financial resources are going to waste. A more forward-looking strategy is necessary to ensure sustainable measures to be put in place, and this can be done through investing in education, not only of children but also among adults, to ensure that top-down measures are met by bottom-up responsiveness and impetus.

In this article, the author explores the nature of protests taking place in Bosnia and Herzegovina. 

By Alejandro Marx, 26th November, 2013

The year 2013 has seen major protests around the world, including in Turkey, Brazil Romania and the ongoing ones in Bulgaria. The common thread that these protests have had was that they questioned the role of their elected representatives. Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) has also seen protests, although they haven’t been adequately covered by the international media.

BiH experienced from June 6 2013 a succession of protests in Sarajevo, which later spread to other cities of BiH. The protests were a result of the frustration with the complex working of the State of BiH, created after the 1992-1995 Civil War. BiH is divided into two major entities, Republika Srpska (the Serb entity) and the Bosnian Federation (the Croat and Bosniak entity), plus the Brcko District with is under the control of the both mayor entities. Both entities have their own parliaments. On the national level, the Parliamentary Assembly, with its two chambers (the House of Representatives and the House of Peoples), represents the ethnic groups. Decisions are taken on the basis of an agreement between each of the 3 ethnicities. An ethnic group which considers that a law is against its vital interests can veto it.

The International Community is still importantly involved in the country. The Office of the High Representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina (OHR) oversees the application of the civilian aspect of the Dayton Peace Agreement. It is has considerable power in BiH and can dismiss elected and non-elected BiH officials who obstruct the implementation of the Dayton Peace Agreement. The EUFOR ALTHEA oversees the military implementation of the Agreement. The European Union (EU) is negotiating with BiH, its membership in the European organisation. The Balkans is the next process of enlargement for the EU. The recent membership of Croatia in July 2013 has now put BiH on the border of the EU.

Despite progress in the application of BiH for a Stabilisation and Association Agreement, the European Commission has not given its green light to its implementation, due to the continuous ban on BiH citizens who are not members of the three constituent people (Croat, Bosniak, Serb) from standing as candidates for the BiH Presidency and the House of Peoples. Despite a ruling in 2009 by the European Court of Human Rights (Case of Sejdic and Finci vs Bosnia and Herzegovina).

A protest for the weakest members of BiH society

The reason for the protests in BiH were the continuing absence of new ID law for new-borns since the decision by the Bosnia’s Constitutional Court to abolish in February the Law on Personal Numbers, on the ground of the disagreement on the names of several municipalities in the country which have changed since the 1992-1995 Conflict in BiH. Despite discussions at the State Parliament, MPs from both the Bosnian Federation and the Republika Srpska did not agree on how to reformulate the law on IDs, making impossible for the children born after February to receive ID numbers, stopping them from obtaining passports and health care cards.

The impossibility to obtain a passport for children stopped a couple from taking their daughter, Belmina Ibrisevic, to Germany to receive a bone marrow transplant. The child became the symbol of newborns unable to receive ID numbers. Despite, the decision by the Council of Ministers on June 5 to adopt a temporary measure, valid during 180 days, to issue ID numbers, protesters converged to and blocked the Parliamentary Assembly, on June 6 2013, in Sarajevo to call for a permanent resolution of this issue.

Politicians of the Srpska Republika’s Serbian Democratic Party, one of the two major ruling Serbian parties in BiH, claimed that the protests were staged against them, thus implying a ethnic motivation of the protest. The protesters denied this. Parliamentarians of the 3 constituent peoples were blocked inside the parliament buildings, in addition to foreign investors who were invited to attend a conference.

The protests continued in the following days with protesters coming from the both entities which make BiH. The protests took place also in other cities of the country, showing that it was truly a movement of the general population of BiH, not a particular ethnic group. The protesters also called on Valentin Inzko, the current Head of the OHR to impose a solution. Inzko declined in an interview, on June 14 2013, to take position, saying that BiH parliamentarians must be responsible for their actions. The protest could have turned violent after the announcement that Berina Hamidovic, another sick baby delayed to travel abroad to be operated, had died. The demonstrators reacted by organising a silent commemoration in front of the parliament on June 16 2013. This only made the statement of the protesters more powerful. The Parliament finally gave up resisting the protesters and voted a new ID law, under urgent procedure. However, this law was later vetoed, on July 23 by Bosniak MPs, on the base that their vital ethnic interest was endangered by the urgent procedure used for the vote. On November 5 2013, the Parliament of BiH finally voted changes to the Law on Personal Numbers, finally giving to newborns citizens the possibility of receiving passports and health care cards.

Which future and which meaning?

The failure of the protesters to end the grip of ethnic leaders in BiH is a huge disappointment. Again, issues affecting the daily lives of citizens have been a tool by politicians to bargain and maintain their power in the country. This is the irony of BiH. The politics of ethnicity which were supposed to create a workable democracy in the country, while avoiding its fragmentation, have revealed themselves to be unworkable.

2013 has shown that the political elites of BiH could not be pressured by their population. However, the ethnic basis for politics may soon change. On October 1rst, a census has been launched. It is the first census since the war in BiH. It is seen as potentially changing the current ethnic demographic of the country. Interestingly, it is possible that 35% of the population may declared itself as ethnic Bosnian-Herzegovinian, in opposition to the 3 ethnic groups in the parliament. However, Bosniak NGOs have declared, prior to the publication of Census results, that 54% of the respondents declared themselves as Bosniak. Many citizens are also wishing for a change of the entity and State system. The ethnic groups have very different views. A survey carried out in 2013 by the researcher Roland Kostic shows that a majority of Bosniaks wish for a more centralised BiHState, a majority of the Serb Community prefers independence of the Republika Srpska from BiH, while a Croatian majority wants secession from the Federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina, to create a Croatian autonomous entity inside of BiH.

Belmina Ibrisevic, the baby unable to be treated abroad finally died on October 15 2013 in a hospital in Germany. A protest took place at the front of the BiH Parliament where a mock tomb with a black blanket was unveiled.

The fact that the population could not force the politicians to change the ID law also shows that relations between the population and the State will continue to be conflictive and uncoordinated. It has revealed that the International Community is insensitive to the plight of the BiH people. The Office of the High Representative in BiH used the responsibility of BiH parliamentarians to not support the protesters and maybe save Berina Hamidovic and Belmina Ibrisevic. The insensitiveness of BiH parliamentarians and representatives of the International Community is also a reminder of a wider crisis that democracies are living today with the silence of politicians to protests against austerity measures in Europe and the political infighting during the Shutdown debate in the USA.

Alejandro Marx is a former Junior Analyst of the European Union Institute for Security Studies. He previously worked for various agencies of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe.

The author highlights the limits of the right of self-determination within the colonial context.

By Abdulaziz Khalefa, 12th December, 2013

The latest rift between Israel and Romania over the expanding settlements is the result of the EU’s decision to block funding for settlement expansions. The world court already described these settlements as illegal, yet despite that there is a strong inclination by the US to lecture Israel on why the expansions are bad while at the same time pushing for nothing to stop these expansions. The question remains whether the international legal order can mean anything for existential purposes, or to put it more prosaically, whether it is simply a utility for international political purposes. Only today John Kerry pushed for the continuation of the peace talks which sounds great – but how this can mean anything with the substantive elements (the land) being annexed is still the issue.

It was not until 1945 that the self-determination of peoples was made clear reference to as a principle in the United Nations (UN) Charter.[1]  The original scope of self-determination in article 1(2) has been subject to discussion on whether it is legally binding, or whether it is “a statement of a political aim [which does not necessarily] create legal obligations.”[2]  In this regard one writer explains that “it is disputed whether the reference to the principle in these very general terms was sufficient to entail its recognition as a binding right, but the majority view is against this.”[3]  Irrespective of the original scope of the principle in the Charter, self-determination today has evolved as a right of peoples into both treaty and customary law.  How this happened is attributed to the Charter itself, which constituted the “driving force behind the emergence of growing opinion about the importance of self-determination.”[4]

This opinion was initially expressed through UNGA declarations. While the declarations of the GA are recommendatory,[5] they nevertheless can express rules of conduct that are generally accepted by the members of the UN.[6]  In this case UNGA resolution 1514, titled the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples, stated that “all peoples have a right to self-determination” and that by virtue of that right these peoples are entitled to “freely determine their political status.”[7]  An important aspect in this declaration is article 3, which rejected the requirement of the viability of the concerned people to “stand by themselves” prior to independence.[8]

Only a day after the passing of resolution 1514, the UNGA passed resolution 1541 which identified non-self-governing territories as having reached a full measure of self-government if they (1) emerged as a sovereign independent state (2) became associated with an independent state; or (3) were integrated with an independent state.[9]  Two treaties were subsequently formulated by the UN Commission on Human Rights which referred to the self determination of peoples as a right.[10]  With the practice of granting of independence to the colonized territories, coupled with a sense of legal obligation (opinio juris), the requirements for a customary law became evident.  The right to self-determination has also been contemplated by some as having attained the status of a peremptory (jus cogens) norm.[11]

I must also mention that the right of self-determination is not only a right to a series of options, but a right to substance as well.  While this might seem obvious, this point had to be highlighted by the ICJ in the Case Concerning East Timor.[12]  In response to the Australian contention that their exploiting of oil resources in the Timor Gap did not impede the East Timorese from their series of options,[13] Judge Rosalyn Higgins responded to this argument as “legal deconstructionism”[14] and would “empty the right of self-determination of any meaningful content.”[15]

1)      The Apologetic International Law?

Marrti Koskenniemmi explains that there are two criticisms advanced against international law.  The first is that it is utopian.  This is where the idea of the wholeness of law separate from politics dominates.  It would achieve “logical consistency at the cost of applicability in the real world of state practice.” [16]  The second criticism is that it is apologetic, where the law is flexible and determined by state policy.  It is between these two criticisms that the pragmatist approach to international law is sustained.  So if a particular law is in tension with a state’s interests, the state would apply an apologetic interpretation of the law.  On the other hand the same state would want to apply the same law in a strictly utopian sense on another state if it is an opponent.  The limits of self-determination within the colonial context are to be understood within the framework of these criticisms.

This might seem like a truism which would apply to all subjects of any law.  However given the horizontal nature of the international legal system, the question of how far state consent can be stretched to maintain the “binding” element becomes an issue.[17]  The purposes of rules of obligation in the international legal system is to check the realist perception of an anarchic world order.  An order where boundaries would be delimited based on the balance of power between states.  The most important rules are therefore “the rules governing the use of force.”[18]  To highlight the shifts between apology and utopia, I will use the cases of (1) Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait and (2) the NATO intervention in Kosovo as examples.

Situations permitting the use of force are limited to two justifications according to the UN Charter.  These would be (1) the UNSC deciding to invoke article 42 after it determines that a threat to the peace, breach of the peace or act of aggression is evident or (2) the state(s) concerned invoke article 51 and exercise their inherent right of self-defence.  In the case of Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait on August 2^nd 1990, none of these justifications were applicable.  In response to Iraq’s “breach of the peace”[19] a coalition of forces authorized by a chapter VII resolution were permitted to use “all means necessary” to push Iraq out of Kuwait’s territory.[20]  Iraq was then held liable for all losses stemming out of their invasion including environmental damage through UNSC resolution 687.[21]  Now on the other end of the spectrum, we have the NATO bombing of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) on March 24^th 1999.  This attack by NATO was not authorized by a chapter VII resolution authorizing “all means necessary,” nor was it an act of collective or self-defence.  Madeline Albright who was US secretary of State at the time, made a general reference to some chapter VII resolutions concerning the FRY none of which however permitted the use of force as a justification for the intervention.[22]

In the former case we have the strict application of the legal formalism that is the utopia; in the latter case we have the general argument that the intervention was legitimate irrespective of its legality which is the apology.  The independent variable determining the outcome of either one of these two options is state power.  The vulnerability of a system of law to the power and opinion of the subjects of the law brings into question whether such as system can really be regarded as law.[23]  What happens essentially is that the lines between law and the powerful state’s interests become blurred.  While one can contemplate the idea of a world government, which would essentially (given its status as a differentiated unit above states, in the same relation the state has with the citizen), such an idealistic prescription of what international law needs to be regarded as law is outside the scope of this paper.

2)      The Palestinian people and their right to self-determination

The issue of whether the Palestinians as a people exist in the legal sense is not a subject of debate.[24]  What I am more interested in is how this sense of identity is formed.  There already exists the view of the Palestinians as an “invented people”[25] – what distinguishes the Palestinians as a people is therefore the issue.  Nadim Rouhana offers one model that shapes collective identity of a people.[26]  Of the affective variables in his model, it is perhaps the shared historical experience and sense of common fate that mostly contribute to the self-identification of a Palestinian.  While the Palestinian people inhabited the territory more than a millennium prior to the Arab conquests of the 7^th century CE,[27] the main contributor to the “we” feeling they possess is contingent on the colonial period, dispossession of their land and the romantic sense of belonging to that pending state.

The right of the Palestinian people to have their own state has been on hold for over 60 years.  With the termination of the British Mandate, a proposal by the US to have Palestine become a trust territory was not implemented.  What was presented by the UN was a partition plan which the Arabs rejected.[28]  After the Arab-Israeli war of 1948 the territory has been treated by the US and the Israelis as wavering in a gap, somewhere between a semi-autonomous territory and terra nullius (land belonging to no one).

One indication of the perception of the territory being terra nullius relates to the applicability of humanitarian law; the Israeli contention is that in the aftermath of the 1967 war, the territories in question were not under the sovereignty of any High Contracting Party to the fourth Geneva Convention and so the Convention “is not applicable de jure in those territories.”[29]  Article 49 paragraph 6 of the fourth Geneva Convention provides that “the occupying power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.”[30]  This is relevant to the substantive component of the right to self-determination; in this case the settlement expansions. Following the steady settlement expansions, the Israeli government built a wall around these settlements in the Occupied Territories.[31]  In this regard the ICJ in its Wall Opinion states that the

construction of the wall and its associated regime create a ‘fait accompli’ on the ground that could well become permanent, in which case, and notwithstanding the formal characterization of the wall by Israel, it would be tantamount to de facto annexation.[32]

The wall has, in addition to restricting the freedom of movement, restricted the Palestinian access to water.[33]

What has sustained the poor effective control of the Palestinian territories by the Palestinian government is caused by a combination of the apologetic law and the undermining of the substantive rights of the Palestinians.  While Kuwait has had the strict legal application of the law applied to its liberation in consonance with the utopia framework, the Palestinian pursuit of self-determination is closer to the apology.  Why this is, is perhaps indicated by the fact that the “Quartet’s references to the Wall Opinion are practically non-existent.”[34]  As for the procedural side, reality appears to suggest that Palestinian independence was a gamble; that is by not cashing in on the partition plan the Palestinians have lost their chance at self-determination.

This leaves the Palestinians in a predicament for they are neither a trust territory, nor are they a high contracting party to the relevant human rights and humanitarian conventions according to Israel.[35]  The seeming outcome for the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories is therefore either (1) a gradual de facto annexation of the territories into Israel, or that (2) they seek refuge or citizenship elsewhere.  The benchmarks to be used in assessing the Palestinian’s status in their new state are Max Weber’s German American who would unconditionally fight Germany on one hand,[36]  and the Shia Lebanese with the greater irredentist inclination on the other.

With regards to Israel’s de facto annexation of the Occupied Territories, the Israelization of the current Palestinian-Israelis can indicate the possible extent of assimilation.  One survey (conducted in 1989) indicated that while 80% of the Palestinian-Israelis “would feel better as Israeli citizens if a Palestinian state were to be established in the West Bank and Gaza Strip… only 8% […] are willing to consider a move to such a state.”[37]  This low percentage is attributed to Weber’s “empirical scope of political associations” – it is this empirical scope, or what I referred to above as the fair redistribution of resources, which would sustain some form of assimilation.  Essentially the Israeli-Palestinians are able to call Israel their homeland.[38]  This assimilation should not mean the diminishing of self-identification.  One (and the only) discriminatory redistribution towards the Palestinian-Israelis is the “non-neutrality in […] the preference given to Jews outside Israel to become citizens of Israel if they wish to do so while not extending that preference to” the Palestinians outside the country.[39]

Rehyphenating the priorities of the developed and developing worlds.

By Arvind Iyer, 8th January 2014

Background : The Three Worlds theories of the early postcolonial era that might have served to usefully map the sharply polar geopolitics of the time, continue to circumscribe policy imagination as well as commentary in a manner that limits the genuine planet-wide globalizing of best-practices discovered in any of the erstwhile ‘worlds’. The narratives of newly liberated nations making their unique trysts with destiny or the ‘nationalizing’ of ideology as in socialism with Chinese characteristics are far from timeless or timely at this juncture when wars for self-determination are receding into history, thus precluding preoccupations with self-definition, or assertion of identity, or characterization of doctrines. This article treats an increasingly dominant strain of middle-class political attitudes and aspirations in emerging India as a case study of sorts to illustrate how policy pragmatism and catholicity rather than policy puritanism and conservatism maybe both enabled and necessitated in a world where the problems India shares with America are as pressing as the problems endemic to ‘Chindia’ or the BRIC bloc.

****

Is wealth inequality in America as vividly revealed in this viral video, a first-world problem or one of the first world-problem(s)?  A question cued by the video  is : What is more salient in determining whether a person is suffering in poverty: their position in the ‘first’ or ‘third’ world, or their position in a percentile graph of income wherever they are in the world? One might step back far enough to engage in an exercise of Socratic definition of what ‘poverty’ is, and for that matter, what ‘suffering’ is, but even before going there fully, we may start with examining to what extent are ‘sights and sounds’ of suffering and poverty a reliable basis for working definitions. What our working definitions or archetypes are, will determine what experiences we will recognize as suffering, and also circumscribe our response to the same, and we shall consider both these aspects in turn.

The economist Ashok Desai, in his 1999 book “The Price of Onions” explains how a key difference in how the American middle class and the Indian middle class consumed (at least in the pre-liberalization era) was that Indians ‘purchased goods in less finished form’ than the Americans. His example was that of Indians purchasing whole grain and taking it to a local flour-mill or chakki whereas Americans would purchase their flour packaged by say, Cargill Foods (That illustration is, tellingly, now dated.). Consumption of ‘finished goods’ was to Desai not always a useful marker of affluence or even purchasing power, especially during cross-cultural comparisons. Likewise, the ‘image’ of poverty of an unclad human maybe an instance of attribute substitution where tropical rural attire may be considered the rags of poverty. Like any other heuristic, it works in the ‘ecological niche’ it arose in, but can mislead when misapplied to say, the homeless in the US who are often hoodie-clad than unclad, or to the agrarian countryside in India itself where moneylenders and those who are beholden to them dress nearly alike.

An urban slum or shanty town seems more obviously poor to even someone who grew up in India, than the pucca houses where Vidarbha farmers who committed suicide lived. None of this is to suggest ignoring familiar symptoms of deprivation, but only a reminder to be mindful that there will always be symptoms that are unfamiliar to us. If only minimalist clothing was simply a sartorial choice in India…if only! Instead, preventable deaths during cold waves continue year after year in Northern India, outstripping civil-society efforts like Goonj Rahat Winters to supply warm clothing to those in need. I once had a connecting flight via Incheon International Airport at Seoul while flying to India from the US for the winter holiday break, and the airport was completely snowed under. I couldn’t help noticing how that didn’t delay the flight nor inflicted the sort of toll a less harsh winter inflicts in India. Famines don’t occur in democracies, Amartya Sen observes, but eradicating preventable winter mortality seems to ask for more than political democracy.

That brings us to the question of what are the institutional changes needed for a proper and sustained response to suffering besides emergency humanitarian interventions. Trains famously ran on time in India during the Emergency, and flights running on schedule in South Korea even during blizzards is credited by some to the disciplining authoritarian legacy of Park Chung-hee. The popularity of the view that ‘democracy gets in the way of what is good for the people’ is attested to by the fact that a celebrity like Rajnikanth (whose influence was a king-making campaigner was evident during a Tamil Nadu state election in 1996) names Lee Kuan Yew as his political role model with his devotees nodding vigorously, endorsing in effect a preference for life in a Bonsai showcase. Whatever the original intent of Tao Te Ching Chapter 3  was, it is now seen as the blueprint of the ‘post-Tiananmen deal’ where the function of the state is to provide material prosperity and guarantee stability even at the cost of civil liberties, by benevolently sparing the people political unrest as it were, and denying them the freedom to go wrong or do wrong.

The undisguised paternalism of the post-Tiananmen deal and the manufactured consent of the Washington Consensus, seem to have lent themselves to an uncanny mix with a The-forefathers-knew-best Indian revivalism, with a generation of Indians brandishing the rhetorical device of a ‘starving voter’ to declare that the only real emancipation is economic and the only real empowerment is an increase in purchasing power. Pressed further to reconcile wannabe Americanism and China-envy with their civilizational pride, these cheerleaders of homegrown neoliberalism respond almost in feature-length with their conception of an ‘Indian Dream’ which they claim will have the same production-value of the American dream but will be free of single-parent households and mid-career burnouts which their ‘rooted’ and ‘holistic’ lifestyle would preclude. Their cheerleading of political freedom and economic freedom is vigorous and their enthusiasm becomes tempered only when talk arises of ‘social freedom’ as it were, or even ‘social justice’, since social conservatism is seen as an indispensable insurance against that American nightmare : the single teen-parent household, which to Indian sensibilities is more a spectacle of suffering than a poor but close-knit family in the Indian countryside. An outright comparison of well-being of a dysfunctional first-world family and a deprived but undivided Indian family is obviously prone to the moral hazard which the fallacy of relative privation poses. However, a juxtaposition of these family portraits may occasion a useful reminder of the limitations of viewing human beings simply as ‘mouths to be fed’ or as ‘producers’ or ‘consumers’, views that we are likely to lapse into if our purview is restricted to just the ‘third world’ or ‘first world’. Prof. Martha Nussbaum’s capabilities approach, widely considered one of the drivers of the conceptual broadening from GDP to HDI, offers a framework that is less limiting of the imagination, and therefore potentially yielding more empowering policy-making, than currently dominant worldviews of numbered worlds and the current world order of bread-and-circuses allow.

Endnote: Instead of wistfully missing joint-family portraits, perhaps we can try to take a fuller view of joint family-portrait(s) of the sort a photo-essay like Peter Menzel’s “What the World Eats” puts together. Lessons on how to make the picture better, comprehensively better according to the menu of Prof. Nussbaum, which involves not just filling the table but also filling the chairs, may involve not just a tutorial by the superpowers to the rest, but genuine turn-taking in a conversation that is not between ‘worlds apart’ but amid ‘worlds together’.

Arvind Iyer is a doctoral student researcher at the University of Southern California working in the broad areas of Computational Neuroscience and biological visual processing. His interests include science popularization, continuing education, secular philanthropy and freethought blogging. He is originally from Mumbai, India.

Satellite mapping by the authorities forces India’s famous cannabis growers deeper into the bush. 

By Shweta Desai, 10th January 2014 (Republished with permission) 

Deep in India’s Himalayas, in the remote and isolated Kullu Valley of Himachal Pradesh, is the quiet village of Malana. When autumn arrives each year, Malana is enveloped in what was once a hopeful air brought on by the new harvest, as lanky cannabis trees bloom wild in panoramic fields and against scattered houses. Farmers and villagers begin cultivating in late September, rubbing the buds of fully bloomed plants between their palms to extract the brown hashish resin known mystically as Malana’s crème. Today this time of year carries with it the dark pall of police interference.

Malana’s crème has a notorious legacy in international stoner culture. It has won the Best Hashish title twice, in 1994 and 1996, at High Times magazine’s Cannabis Cup. Marijuanaphiles the world over have since made this region a popular weed-tourist destination, branded in travel and ganja-hunting literature as the exotic and alluring “Malana and the Magic Valley.” It was inevitable that the farmers would start to realize the global potential of their plants—and that the cops would take any and all measures to prevent these rural agriculturalists from increasing production. The most effective tool in authorities’ arsenal is satellite technology, but the farmers have found a workaround.

Malana is perched on a treacherous cliff, and until recently the only way to reach it was by foot. This helped marijuana farmers avoid the close monitoring of local and national police. But new roads connecting the village with surrounding towns and cities have resulted in a harsh reality for farmer-businessmen ambitious with their valuable crop. Because of these recently paved roads, cops are now able to respond quickly to intel provided by satellite Global Positioning Systems (GPS). They have destroyed Malana’s visible, free-range hemp crops three times in each of the last three years, prosecuting villagers—this year there have been 42 cases—who were growing crops on their private land. Repeated offenses can lead to cancellation of land ownership. This approach by the authorities has prompted citizens to cultivate cannabis in large tracts of government forest, making it difficult to prove ownership.

“The plant was here long before the police came—or the foreigners, the road, the electricity,” says 22-year-old Shanta, a grower. “Even before this bhang [cannabis] became the famous Malana crème. Why are we being made criminals?”

Perhaps the most interesting question is not why, but how.

“With the GPS system we can spot the exact locations of the crops,” says Vinod Dhawan, superintendent of police in the Kullu District. “These places are videographed and marked once the crop is destructed to ensure the villagers don’t come back for cultivation.” With Western customers, comes Western-like authoritarian overreach.

Satellite images procured by the Narcotics Control Bureau—the country’s main drug enforcing agency—have identified 52 independent regions in the districts of Kullu, Mandi, Chamba, Kangra, Sirmour and Shimla, including an estimated 2,500 villages, where cannabis cultivation is a major source of livelihood. The police can act only when they have some information, of course, but the percentage of crop destruction stands at around 40 percent of Malana’s annual take. It’s not a tenable business model for farmers with no other income, so they’ve taken their farms elsewhere.

“We go deep in the forests, where the police cannot see the farms,” says Shanta, who treks five hours each day from Malana into the forests to reach his cannabis farms.

“It takes an expertise of a mountain climber and at least eight hours for the police to climb the high peaks where these farms are,” says superintendent Dhawan. “With the production of cannabis in the valley taking place between September and November, it is practically impossible for us to eradicate cannabis 100 percent in two months time.’’ With little incentive and a tiny budget, the police are fighting an uphill battle.

High yield coupled with cheap labor makes India’s retail prices among the lowest in the world based on quality. The popularity of Malana’s hashish is now intrinsically attached to the livelihood of the villagers, with the majority of the 2,000 or so inhabitants involved in cannabis farming in one way or another. But the production and cultivation of cannabis in India was not always prohibited. Its consumption even today is widely accepted in both religious and social settings. In fact, the government used to set up weed retail shops during holidays like Holi, a festival celebrating the triumph of good over evil.

But growing international pressure in the 1960s, largely led by the United States of America’s war on drugs, led India to codify recreational drugs like weed with harder ones like cocaine and heroine under the Indian Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act of 1985. Conviction under the law for cultivation or sale of any of these carries a prison term of no fewer than 10 years.

Historically, Malana’s villagers used the indigenous plant’s strong fibers to make shoes and its seeds to brew hash oil for cooking. It remains integral as a religious offering to the presiding local deity, Jamlu Devta. It is only recently that the locals have started to truly understand the financial value of their treasure. The cultivation of the crème is a full-fledged trade industry—one unlike any other the people have.

“The police say it’s a drug,” Shanta says. “That it is dangerous. But this is just a plant—a naturally grown one. We don’t know why this is dangerous.”

According to the “World Drug Report 2012″ from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, India has over the course of the last decade become one of the major global sources of hash, along with Morocco, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Lebanon. The reported cannabis cultivation in India stands at 10,539 acres, which is low in comparison with Afghanistan (59,305 acres), Mexico (40,772 acres) and Morocco (23,227 acres).

Villagers say of the 1 million pounds of cannabis and 500,000 pounds of hashish produced in India, a meager 330 pounds comes from the Malana village. The rest, they claim, is from surrounding villages, and even Nepal. Though tasked with cracking down on cannabis production and preventing its circulation in the cities, the police are aware of the sociological difficulties of playing by the book.

“Cannabis is a social and cultural issue,” says Dhawan. “We take all the possible action, but we cannot fight this menace by registering offenses against the local villagers and putting them behind bars all the time. We cannot make these people from Malana orphans.”

Filmmaker Amlan Dutta, a vocal supporter of legalization of cannabis in India, agrees with Dhavan.

“The harsh reality is that hashish has become a means of livelihood,” says Dutta. “However, cannabis farming for social and cultural reasons should not be criminalized.”

In his award-winning documentary BOM: One Day Ahead of Democracy, Dutta highlights the transition in Malana due to development and the struggle for sustenance under the growing police intimidation. Decriminalization of cannabis, he says, would relieve the drug enforcing agencies from the added burden of destroying cannabis plantation and registering criminal offenses against the villagers. It would also allow people from Malana to grow cannabis legally as in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, where the Indian government provides production licenses for medicinal and research purposes.

In the last few years, Dutta initiated the BOM BOM trust with like-minded supporters to retain Malana’s self-sufficient, weed-heavy economy. The trust offers vocational training in sheep rearing, wool production, jam making, honey collection and the creation of alternate products from cannabis like hemp oil and hemp paper. It also sponsors students from Malana for higher education in Kullu valley.

“The villagers know that their sustenance is on something which is illegal,” Dutta says. “So it has become a criminal community. If we can reduce their dependency on hashish production in any way and legalize the cannabis cultivation, we still can save Malana.”

Shweta Desai has a Masters in International Relations and has previously worked as a journalist and as a research analyst, working on resource based conflicts in Middle East and on development trends in Vietnam and Thailand.

An overview of the Islamic state’s capacity to adopt the current human rights norms – the author holds that the globalization of human rights remains ineffective in transcending cultural barriers. Only when the philosophical ideology is translated into different cultures, as opposed to a more positivist approach, can the gap between globalized human rights and different nations be further mitigated.

By Shafeea Riza, 8th February 2014

1. Introduction

In an increasingly globalising world, where international human rights law plays a dominating role in global politics, one cannot help but wonder whether globalisation of human rights law effectively translates into the domestic realms of the receiving state. I ask this question in relation to Islamic states. Islamic states have responded to the international human rights law norms in different ways. Despite the “universal” aspect of these human rights, and its somewhat adoption by Islamic states, what transpires foremost is the tension between these rights and Islamic traditions.[1] Although there is general consensus of the international human rights law among Islamic states, insistence on holding on to Islamic values appear to be pre-dominant.[2] Such an observation begs the question asked at the beginning of this paper: whether globalisation of human rights truly transcends cultural barriers?

This paper focuses on the relationship between international human rights law systems and Islamic states. In analysing this relationship, I will focus on the response of Islamic states to international law norms. I claim that the universalism contended by international human rights law and norms has trouble in finding legitimacy before competing ideologies that reflects strong cultural identities. I draw support from the infamous proposition made by Samuel Huntington, in his article titled ‘The Clash of Civilizations?’ where he contends that the Western concept of universal human rights is a product of the Western culture and civilisation and hence may not be acknowledged as a concept that is universal by other civilisations.[3] I agree with Huntington as such a hypothesis help to explain why despite formal incorporation of international human rights law norms into legal systems of Islamic states, the two ideas does not sit comfortably with each other. In making this claim, I aim to demonstrate the general trend of responses of Islamic states to the international human rights law norms. Further, to show that globalisation of human rights remain ineffective in transcending cultural barriers.

The argument in this paper is developed in four sections. The section following this introductory section will discuss globalisation of the concept of human rights through international law regimes. Section 3 will discuss the response of Islamic states to international human rights law norms. Islamic states have responded generally in two ways in relation to international human rights. The recent most method has been to directly incorporate international human rights principles into the domestic laws of the state. By contrast, the second method has been to “Islamicise” international human rights by articulating human rights according to Islamic values. I argue that the although the first form is direct acceptance and the second form is resistance, irrespective of the nature of response, international human rights law does not effectively translate into Islamic legal traditions. This is because of the standards unique to the values of Islamic traditions, which finds legitimacy amongst its peoples. In my conclusion in section 4, I will present a final analysis which explores the academic debate on the universalism of international human rights and Islamic traditions. I seek to demonstrate that in its very essence, these two are competing ideologies and therefore one cannot be completely reflected on to the other.

It is important to note at the outset that the topic in hand is a vast one in nature. Due to the limitation on space, I am forced to limit my discussions only in so far as to demonstrate my point for the purposes of the argument made in this paper.

2. Globalisation of the concept of human rights

The concept of globalisation in its common usage has a number of meanings. The discussions of globalisation and human rights usually focus on economic rights that resonates themes such as right to development and inequality.[4] It is true that the globalisation of the economies has brought different cultural identities into contact and has made cross-transmission of ideas and ideals possible. [5] In this analysis, I use the concept of globalisation to mean the rise of the consciousness of the world as a whole.[6] Here, I refer to the rise of the social and cultural consciousness of the world where there is “interdependence and local and national embeddedness of the world society”.[7] It is this social and cultural consciousness of a perceived world society that manifests standards, which aspire to be held by all human beings. It is these aspirations that drive global movements such as human rights. In this part of the analysis, I seek to focus on the role of globalisation as an agent of promoting international human rights law norms and the extent of its influence in the political and legal systems of certain Islamic countries. Before, an inquiry is made in this respect; it is imperative that I set out what I mean by globalisation of human rights through international law regimes.

2.1 Human rights as a universal concept – the appeal to globalisation

The appeal to globalisation by international human rights law lies in the ‘universal’ claim made by the concept of human rights. This is an interesting observation to make, as this highlights the dichotomy between the affects of globalisation on human rights and vice versa. Whereas the trends of globalisation drive the course of human rights, by contrast, human rights do not affect the trends of globalisation.[8] It will be later noted in this analysis how this dynamics play out in the global political stage which affects the positive law in Islamic states.

The concept of human rights in a globalised worldview bases itself on certain fundamental philosophical denominations such as human dignity, equality and freedom.[9] It has been said that all conceptions of human rights essentially come down to the sanctity of human life, which dignifies the human life and pronounces its inviolability.[10] These ethical and moral pronouncements have become the basis of the human rights concept, which makes an appeal to a natural law argument, that human rights is an overriding concept.[11] Under the natural law viewpoint, therefore, human rights are rights belonging to humans by virtue of being human.

In the global stage, such a natural law perspective has given effect to, in an effort to universalise, to positive law outcomes. Many scholars in the human writes debate opine that the International Bill of Human Rights exemplifies the position of public international law on human rights.[12] The International Bill of Human Rights consists of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) of 1948, the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) of 1966, along with the ICCPR’s Option Protocol. Although not binding, the UDHR since its adoption by the United Nations General Assembly has become the single most influential human rights document. It has been suggested that it is undoubtedly the document that manifests the philosophical foundations of what is to be considered as a universal human right.[13] Similarly, scholars who argue in favour of the International Bill of Human Rights, contend that although there is no full academic or political consensus on the authority of some aspects of this Bill, these rights are nonetheless representative and ultimately definitive of statements of what international opinion considers to be human rights.[14]

The caveat is that the concept of international human rights, which has the connotation of being universal, finds their most immediate precursors and articulations from the European and American experiences of the late eighteenth century.[15] It is what these nations developed as fundamental constitutional rights that have formed the rudimentary basis of the United Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). The stigma attached to the UDHR as a construct of Western leadership is the primary reason why the retort to a universal concept of human rights lies in rejecting the concept. The retort to a universal standard of human rights is resonated not only within the Islamic countries but also within other traditions that define themselves by their own traditions and standards.[16] Within these cultures, as I will argue in this paper, to find legitimacy of a universal concept has been a complex task and remains as an unfulfilled one. Nevertheless in the stage of global politics, such a universal standard promulgated through international law remains as the primary instrument that drives the globalisation of human rights.

2.2 Globalisation as an agent of promoting international human rights law

International human rights law and democracy are intertwined themes that are foremost in today’s global politics. International institutions and their affiliated network of nation states and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) play a huge role in playing watchdog to activities of other nation states. This well-connected network is a demonstration of the impact of globalisation itself as it evidences the shared consciousness of ideals within the network. Together, this network plays an important role as an agent of promotion and imposition of these ideals on the world society. For example, international institutions and their shared ideals of governance most evidently affected the democratisation processes of the newly democratised Islamic states such as Afghanistan[17], Iraq[18] and the Maldives. In incorporating democratic ideals and universal concepts of human rights into the newly drafted constitutions of these countries, international agencies played a vital role. Not only these countries were under immense international scrutiny but also under deadlines and strong recommendations of the international agencies.[19]

3. International Human Rights law and the Response of Islamic States

In understanding the response of Islamic states to the international human rights law, it is imperative that one comprehends the concept of human rights in Islam.  The concept of human rights in Islam as a religion and in Islam as a form of positive law finds two very different results. As a Muslim writer myself, and coming from although a moderate Islamic legal system, it is imperative that one appreciates this distinction in any commentary of human rights in Islamic traditions. In order to identify the true basis of the concept of human rights in Islam, both as a religion and form of law, I argue that one has to look into the ethics of Islam. Islam is a religion, which does not only proclaim how to worship the God but in its very essence is an embodiment of integrated instructions for the mankind on how to conduct his affairs between the state and individual, between individual themselves and individual and God.[20] These ethical embodiments of Islam primarily lie in the divine revelation of God that all Muslims believe to be the Holy Quran. Nevertheless, what has become to be understood as human rights in Islamic states reflect little of the philosophical foundations of the Quran. Because the basis of the concept of human rights that has been taken into positive law is not primarily based on a philosophical reading of the ethical Islam in the Quran. The positive law rather is based on Islamic law principles, which is commonly known as Shari’ah.[21]

The positive law in Shari’ah is based on pre-modern interpretations and jurisprudence of the Quran and Sunnah, which is the embodiment of the Prophet’s sayings and practices. Since tenth century, Islamic scholars and jurists have been reluctant to open the Quran and Sunnah for interpretation and this has formed the political ideology of most Islamic states. This political ideology entailed in understanding Islamic law is a helpful tool in analysing the response of Islamic states to international human rights law.

3.1 Importation of international human rights law into constitutional framework

The most recent trend of newly democratising Islamic states, such as the Afghanistan, Iraq and the Maldives have been to import international human rights law into the constitutional framework of the country. I use the word ‘importation’ here because on an analysis of the constitutional provisions of these countries one could see a rather direct reference to international human rights law. In the Afghan constitution, the preamble effectively establishes commitment to Islam, the United Nations Charter and the UDHR.[22] Furthermore, Article 7 reiterates the obligation to abide by the United Nations Charter and UDHR. In another example, the Maldivian Constitution of 2008 provides a comprehensive chapter on fundamental rights and freedoms.[23] Although the reference to UDHR is formulated in less direct terms than in the Afghan Constitution, the interpretation of these fundamental rights and freedoms are obligated by Article 69 to be interpreted in a manner that underlies values of ‘human dignity, freedom and equality’[24] in reference to standards in open and democratic societies. Article 69 also provides that in interpreting a right a court shall taken into account the international treaties that Maldives is a party to. In light of the foregoing account, it is evident that these instruments purport to give a direct reference to international human rights law.

An interesting point to note here is that like all other Islamic constitutions, these newly enacted constitutions are subject to constitutional Islamisation provisions that create an over-arching obligation for all the laws of the country to conform to Islamic law. To this effect, Article 3 of the Afghan constitution and Article 10 of the Maldivian constitution provide that no law shall be contrary to Islamic law principles. The outcome is that despite the reference to an international standard of human rights in the constitution, where a right is in conflict with Shari’ah principles, by virtue of constitutional Islamic principles, Shari’ah will prevail.

For example, where personal laws are determined by Shari’ah principles, it is impossible for international law standards of human rights to claim legitimacy because the very essence of Islam as a religion lies in conducting such affairs of the individual. For instance, dissolution of marriage and women’s testimony are areas where Shari’ah principles have already determined gender-based differential treatments in that women have different statuses before law as opposed to men. In marriage dissolution under Shari’ah, a man may unilaterally dissolve the marriage where as the woman does not have an equal right in such matters. In relation to testimony, women have different statuses as to men in that the general rule is a woman’s witness is only allowed in matters where women are only privy.[25] Otherwise, there is always a number requirement to a woman’s testimony, which equally does not apply to a man in similar situations. For example, in economic transactions, Islamic scholars believe the rule to be that “one male witness equals two female witnesses” according to Quranic principles.[26]

These rules when compared with international standards of human rights may demonstrate a clear violation of the equality and non-discrimination rights of women. Equality and non-discrimination under international human rights standards mean equal protection of the laws and equality before the law notwithstanding discrimination on any basis such as gender. Despite the provision to these international standards in constitutions, these standards are not translated into the domestic realm due to the over-arching obligation to observe the Islamic principles. In the Maldivian context, despite the constitution of 2008, the Shari’ah principles in relation to testimony continues to be applied by virtue of Women’s Testimony Act 1972 and Evidence Law Act 1976 which gives reference to the Shari’ah based evidence law principles. This is a situation where the question asked in the beginning of this paper becomes most relevant because one can observe that although international human rights law norms may be formally recognised by a domestic legal system, it really does not translate itself to the normative standards of the system. This is primarily because of the existence of a culture that has a competing ideology with the universalism claimed by international human rights law.

3.2 Islamisation of human rights as a response to international human rights law

The foregoing account represents the response of some Islamic states to international human rights law in their efforts to transform to democracy. In contrast, here I seek to demonstrate the response of certain Islamic states which has taken a different course of direction. In making this demonstration, I use the example of a human rights schemes that Islamic states have put together in a collective effort to portray Islamic values.

In response to international human rights law instruments such as the International Human Rights Bill, Islamic states in collective groups have promulgated the idea of Islamisation of human rights. By ‘Islamisation of human rights’ I mean the modification of the concept of universal standards of human rights that befits Islamic traditions and values. Islamic states and scholars have put forward several reasons for the promulgation of an Islamicised concept of human rights.  As I will explain in the following section, these reasons resonate many themes such as cultural relativism, cultural nationalism, self-determination or purely political strategy. In any case, the cultural differences posed by these two ideologies come out as a major theme.

The Universal Islamic Declaration of Human Rights (UIDHR) was a direct response to UDHR from some Islamic states. The UIDHR was prepared by representatives from Egypt, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and other countries under the auspices of the Islamic Council in 1981.[27] Like several scholars, Elizabeth Mayer, in a comprehensive critique of the UIDHR, has opined that it is generally representative of the conservative Muslim opinion. This suggests that the UIDHR was in itself a form of resistance propagated by the Islamic states which wanted to assert their cultural values against the international human rights law standards with an intention for the former to be the guiding principles for human rights in the Islamic states. The assertion of a universal Islamic concept of human rights is very much evident by the fact that UIDHR relies on Shari’ah to determine scope and qualification of all rights.[28] Further, Mayer suggests the broad definition given to ‘Shari’ah’ in the UIDHR seems to leave room for the governments to freely determine what “Islamic” principles to apply amongst the various schools of Islamic jurisprudence that exists within Islamic law.[29] Such a motive seems to be a deliberate attempt by the Islamic states to allow for the differences in religious interpretations that a state adopts and also to incentivise participation of nation states which may have differing religious views based on schools of thoughts. In other words, it portrays the attempt made by UIDHR to put together the values that conform to Islamic traditions and to give it the stamp of legitimacy.

For example, in relation to equality rights, the UIDHR, in its Arabic version provides certain categories on the basis of which it is impermissible to discriminate. Mayer critically notes that the list does not include sex or religion.[30] Here, the formulation of equality in UIDHR reflects the principles, which are privy to Islamic traditions. Discriminations made based on sex and religion in Islamic law may find legitimacy amongst Muslims who may in turn believe that to be a justified case based on their religious understandings. The claim of international human rights law standards of being universal notwithstanding these moral convictions which are founded upon on equally competing ideologies seem to overlook critical basics of the concept of human rights. The basis of concept of human rights, as already mentioned in this paper, lies in the moral or ethical pronouncements of human beings, which in itself entail a subjective connotation to it. What is considered to be an overriding ethical pronouncement may differ from one society to another. The claim of universality made by international human rights law standards is one which claims legitimacy notwithstanding these differences. In the following section, which will discuss the final analysis will inquire why international human rights law standards need to take these differences into account in order to find legitimacy within distinct cultures such as Islam.

4. Conclusion – A final analysis

In light of the foregoing discussion it is clear that the universal concept of human rights as promulgated by international human rights law does not effectively transcend the cultural barriers inherent in Islamic tradition.  The responses of the Islamic states evidence the difficulty with which one must translate the universal standard into Islamic traditions if at all it is to be done. This brings the analysis of this paper, to a final one, which focuses on the broader issue of whether international human rights law effectively transcends cultural barriers? There has been a multitude of views that highlights the answer of this question, be it given in the affirmative or otherwise. In this paper, I contend the negative – that the claim to universality made by international law standards overlook the cultural differences and in doing so loses its legitimacy in distinct cultural systems.

Here, I highlight on the hypothesis made by Samuel Huntington when he said that the next pattern of conflict would be that between the civilisations.[31] He defines civilisations as the single highest manifestations of cultures and as such defines Islam as one of such civilisations. Huntington identifies that the western ideal of a universal concept of human rights as a construct of the West, which he identifies as a particular civilisation. Huntington seems to suggest that the universal claim made by a western notion of human rights would lose its claim amidst cultural differences in other civilisations. Some human rights scholars make a similar appeal to cultural identity in relation to globalisation effects. Yash Ghai suggests that due to the effects of economic globalisation the lines between nation states as an identifier has diminished which has led for the manifestation of a need amongst people to relate some form of identity. This form of identity is easily taken by cultures which is why the rhetoric of cultural relativism has found its way into human rights.[32] Furthermore, Mayer also offer an explanation of the cultural relativism argument in relation to globalisation by drawing support from Karen Engle’s analysis which indicates, when invoked against human rights universality, “culture” could be a proxy of for many different concerns such as preservation of national sovereignty and opposing Western double standards.[33]

Amongst the Muslim thinkers, on the one hand there are those who firmly contend the above. Abu al-’A'la Mawdudi[34] and Sultan-Hussein Tabandeh[35] are the most quoted scholars in this debate who rejects the UDHR on the basis of being a Western construct which does not fit with the conceptualisations of human rights in Islam. On the other hand, there are those Muslim thinkers who make an appeal to accommodate the international standards of human rights within Islamic traditions by searching for solutions within Islamic traditions.[36] They call for the reform of Shari’ah through re-interpretation of Quran and Sunnah that give effect to a broad formulation of rights than the existing one. But they also reject the universal claim made by international human rights law by contending the Western bias in questioning the legitimacy of cultural differences.[37]

In light of the foregoing analysis, I submit that for the philosophical motivations of a universal concept of human rights to take legitimacy in strong cultures such as Islam, these motivations shall find legitimacy within these cultural traditions. To begin with this task, the universal claim made by international human rights law shall cease overlooking the cultural differences and treating them as violation of the overriding concept of human rights in international law. The success of the universal concept of human rights in international law lies not in the effective translation of the positive law into the domestic systems. The universal concept of human rights can effectively transcend the cultural barriers when it manages to translate its philosophical ideology into different cultures. To this end, the universal language of human rights must also speak the values and traditions that represents dominating cultures. And thus, this should be the goal of the globalisation efforts of human rights.

In this article, the author delves into the relationship between the United States and Pakistan in context of the Islamic Militancy in the extended region of Afghanistan-Pakistan. 

By Camille Maubert, 10th April, 2012

In 2001, Pakistan allied itself with the US on the grounds that it would assist in the War on Terror’s effort to tackle terrorism. At the time, the two countries’ interests seemed to coincide, as they had a common target – Al Qaeda and foreign fighters. Yet, from 2003 onwards, the expansion of the American war against the Taliban and its increased pressure on Pakistan to act against the Islamic militants who use the Afghan-Pakistani border to provide the Taliban with safe havens put the Pakistani leadership in a difficult situation. The unpreparedness of Pakistan to answer the US’s demands to repress these groups led to the current diplomatic standoff whereby there seems to be no alignment of strategic interests, let alone coordination between the US and Pakistan, and their respective policies remain fundamentally adversarial.

The premise of this study is to challenge the current understanding of the situation, which is overwhelmingly based on perceptions and representations rather than real insight into Islamic militancy.

Islamic Jihad or Pakistani Nationalism?

Despite the consensus on the decisive role played by militant organizations like the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and the Haqqani network in providing safe havens, logistical support and training to Taliban fighters, important questions like “who are the militants, who is supporting them and why?” are overlooked.

There is a strong argument that the reason why Islamic militants have such an overwhelming presence in the Afghan-Pakistani border region is because of the radicalisation of the population by madrassas and its sympathy for the jihadi ideology. Such an approach is flawed as it conveys a stereotypical understanding of the militant reality, and overlooks the deeper psychological and political fault lines underpinning it. Indeed, Islamic militants are fighting a revolutionary jihad for ideological purposes, to reform the state and impose a radical version of Islam. Conversely, most Pakistanis practice a more moderate version of Islam and thus do not support radical groups out of sympathy for their ideological agenda. Rather, those who join militant groups put forward reasons that stem from collusion, misinformation, support for the Afghan jihad and, mostly, Pakistani nationalism. Indeed, invasive American actions (drone strikes) have propped up support for militant groups out of patriotic sentiment. In other words, militant organisations have hijacked the nationalist concept of jihad as used during partition, and widely supported by Pakistanis, to justify violent action (against American infringements on Pakistani sovereignty and denounce the subordination of Pakistani leaders to American will (A 2009 Gallup Survey reveals that 59% of Pakistanis consider the US as the biggest threat, while only 11% chose the Taliban). As a result, support for Islamic militants spreads more easily through the various layers of Pakistani society, as they claim to act in the defence of the Muslim nation from external domination.

Therefore, it is the failure of Western analysts to make the distinction between ideologically motivated militants and nationalist Pakistanis that makes cooperation difficult. In the US, the post 9/11 environment and the need to mobilise people against terrorism promoted an unsophisticated understanding of what Islamic militancy is about by having the media “fuse shots of Osama Bin Laden, veiled women, (…) and riots in Kashmir and Palestine, thereby lending the visual impression that the West is confronted with a crazy, irrational faith” (Majid 2010:101). This securitisation of Islamic militancy is intrinsically flawed because it promotes an all-encompassing understanding that merges ideological and nationalist agendas into the same threat, making its targeting indiscriminate and, ultimately, counter-productive. Conversely, the Pakistani approach to Islamic militancy recognises that some elements – the Pakistani Taliban – do represent a threat, but it also acknowledges that it cannot crack down on those organisations as most jihadi groups historically enjoyed state sanction to wage jihad against the state’s enemies in the name of Islam and the Nation. Therefore, it is necessary to explore the relationship between the Pakistani state and Islamic groups in order to understand its reluctance to implement direct military action against them.

Islamic Groups as Pakistan’s Strategic Asset

Were the Pakistani civilian government willing to cooperate with the US, such commitment would only be a shallow promise if it proves to be unable – or unwilling – to convince the military and Inter-Services Intelligence to abide by its will. Not only is Zardari’s government unable to do so – given the historical weakness of Pakistani civilian governments – but it will not, as this would undermine the Pakistani strategic doctrine as a whole. Indeed, Islamic militants have been and remain the most reliable linchpin for Pakistan to project power where it matters; Kashmir. Since Partition, Islamic radicals and the army have teamed together to construct and secure Pakistan’s sovereignty and identity through the tactical use of guerilla warfare in Pakistan’s border regions.

Therefore, the reason why Pakistan does not – and will not – act against Kashmiri-based groups is that its whole foreign policy is founded upon issues of (Muslim) national identity, meaning that it uses militancy to challenge the Indian regional domination. Since this discourse informs Pakistan’s very identity narrative and exercises a powerful hold on the national imagination, it is impossible for Pakistani leaders to renounce it, especially as its influence has been reinvigorated by the fight for (Muslim) freedom in neighboring Afghanistan.

Similarly, Afghanistan is an aspect of Pakistan’s Indian policy. Indeed, Pakistan’s actions in Afghanistan are determined by its entrenched fear of encirclement and the necessity to limit Indian influence at its Western flank. Successive governments have therefore maintained strategic links with Islamic groups in Afghanistan and supported a proxy war aimed at undermining Indian assets. Interestingly, the post 2001 security environment increased the links between Kashmiri and Afghan groups, thereby strengthening the legitimacy of local groups and undermining the ability of the state to identify and target specific individuals.

However, this apparent predicament serves Pakistani interests in the long term; Aware of the need to preserve strategic depth against India and a friendly government in Afghanistan, Pakistan has no interest in withdrawing support to Afghan Islamic militants and the Pakistani groups that prop them up.

Questions like “how much support these groups truly get from the army and the ISI, and how much of it is provided by independent individuals”, remains unanswered. Yet what is clear is that the problem to which Pakistan is confronted with regards to Islamic militancy is one of control. Pakistan is in a situation where the state created organisations on the basis of identity for (geo)political purposes but has lost control over them as they were reinforced by traditional values and developed a life of their own. In effect, not only are Islamic organisations attractive to some sections of the population, they also are ingrained in the state apparatus – they recruit retired personnel from and have relatives working for the army. Given the kinship base of the Pakistani society, this makes them extremely difficult to root out. Consequently, Pakistan understands that disarming the militants would cause more damage than turning a blind eye, as it may lead to an internal conflict of interests within the army between pro-Western and nationalist elements. Such situation, it has been argued, would provoke the collapse of the only strong institution able of holding the state together.

Furthermore, the areas in which militancy is highest are those where the state doesn’t exert authority or governance – North West Frontier Province, Balochistan, Kyber-Pukhtoonkhwa. In these areas, the pre-eminence of Islamic organisations is all the more important that they fill the power vacuum and provide the population with social services that the state is failing to supply. The most notable example is that of LeT’s charity wing Jamaat ud-Dawa (JuD). After the 2005 earthquake and 2010 floods, JuD provided immediate relief to the population and further integrated itself at the grassroots level. As a result, LeT has been increasingly able to act independently from state sponsor, another reason for Pakistan not to provoke any rupture. What is needed, therefore, is a solution that acknowledges the structural weaknesses of the Pakistani state, the strength of its society, and promotes negotiation rather than coercion.

A Path to Reconciliation?

The difficulty with both US and Pakistani positions is that they are directly reliant on the states’ narratives. In that sense, finding a solution implies that they would have to compromise on those narratives. This is unlikely to happen since, on one hand, the American demands are based on the deeply entrenched ideological principles of the War on Terror, and, on the other hand, the Pakistani reluctance to comply is rooted in the certitude that militants are necessary to its regional strategy – and to an extent its national identity.

These discursive incompatibilities are reinforced by the process of securitisation at play. By framing Islamic militancy as a security threat, the US – and some pro-Western Pakistani civilian leaders – has promoted a military solution, which limits are becoming more visible. The protests steered by drone strikes and the backlashes met by the Pakistani army in Federally Administrated Tribal Areas and North West Frontier Province demonstrate that the use of force is ultimately inefficient as it increases anti-Americanism, steers sympathy for militants, and further disturbs Pakistan’s unstable political landscape.

As observed above, the reason why cooperation has so far failed between the two allies is the mismatch of each other’s vital interests. While the US demands are informed by the short-term requirements of its Afghan strategy, the Pakistani position is determined by a long-term approach to militancy and regional security. In addition, the securitisation process has led to a situation where the US promotes an all-encompassing definition of the militant threat which pushes for the elimination of all organisations linked to Islamic militancy. But what it fails to understand is that Islamic militancy is deeply rooted in the Pakistani society and state apparatus and, as such, it cannot simply be isolated or suppressed.

Therefore, any solution to the problem posed by Islamic militancy would have to acknowledge that it is not only a security threat but rather a socio-economic and nationalist phenomenon. Additionally, it would have to recognise Pakistan’s structural weaknesses and its lack of capacity to impose its will on some sections of the population. Pakistan is a negotiated state, which means that coercive measures from the top-down are unlikely to be successful if they are not supported by local stakeholders. In finding a solution, Pakistan itself has a role to play, as it would have to acknowledge its need for a consistent strategy against its home grown militants – which it lacks so far – to ease cooperation with the US and start to positively engage the militants.

There is a growing understanding that soft power is ultimately more likely to successfully change militant behaviours and counter the growth of violent extremism as it impacts directly on the grass roots level. Indeed, long-term American engagement in issues like education and development would decrease its perception by the population as a security threat and help diffuse more positive representations. Tactical attempts have mostly proven to be successful, as shown by the American help in flood relief in 2010. However, this policy so far happens to be unsuccessful on the strategic level as its positive contribution in winning Pakistanis’ hearts and minds is outbalanced by the negative impact of drone attacks. Therefore, in order to decrease the scale of Islamic militancy, Pakistan would have to restore its sense of sovereignty, which means that the US would have to cease its activities across the border. At the time of writing, such evolution is yet to happen. This is due to the intense climate of mistrust that characterises the relationship between the US and Pakistan, whereby neither side seems to be willing to tone its rhetoric – and demands – down for fear of being thought to make concessions on its narrative.

Islamic militancy highlights the complexity of the US-Pakistan bilateral relation by confronting their intrinsically different strategic and identity narratives. One demands a rapid military solution, the other prioritises its long-terms interests, and both are informed by domestic pressure and ideological discourses. Only when those uncomfortable realities are acknowledged will dialogue be possible. Ultimately, the militant challenge puts the ability of the two allies to engage in a long-term partnership to a test as it will show whether conflicting demands can be complemented by common goals.

Inside the Mudhumalai Forest

Coffee plantation where Masinan works

Salim (left) and Masinan (right)

Everyone in India has a story to tell. There just aren’t enough ears.

Karthik Radhakrishnan is a Structural Engineering Graduate from the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. He is originally from Chennai, India. He is in particular interested in the rural affairs of India with a focus on farmer suicides, children’s education and women empowerment. Email : karthik.radhakrishnan87@gmail.com

In a piece prepared especially for the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA), the authors look at the “South-South” relationship between China and Brazil to understand the extent, drivers and lessons from their technology cooperation.

By Hyosun Bae & Zoraida Velasco, 7th May, 2014

Cooperation in the fields of technology is under the constant pressure of global competition. Countries are finding themselves in a race to increase their innovation capacity. This is particularly the case for emerging markets like Brazil and China. This race includes significant multi-dimensional commitments from government towards industry development and collaboration in an effort to develop mutually benefitting opportunities. Fully utilizing their growth in financial and technological capacity, Brazil and China have expanded their collaboration on renewable energy technology. Technology cooperation is a way to develop opportunities for reciprocal knowledge-sharing and investment.

Through the use of case study and literature review, this paper analyses the bilateral cooperation between Brazil and China on wind power technology. It focuses on the public and private sectors’ research and development (R&D) of wind technology between the two countries. The extent and the outcomes of wind technology cooperation are closely examined to verify the significance of the cooperation relative to each state’s unilateral technology development. Furthermore, an analysis of the drivers for this technology partnership, which derive from a myriad of policies and interests developed by each actor, are considered. By identifying the motives for their collaboration, we seek to delve deeper into the extent of cross-country technology cooperation. Based on our analysis, potential implications from the Sino-Brazil wind technology cooperation will be derived, which will provide an insight to understand the increasing South-South cooperation.

In addressing the research outlined above, various indicators are used to measure the extent of the bilateral technology cooperation. Collaborative R&D expenditure on wind technology and the size of mutual energy investments are the first indicators examined. By observing this data, we gauge the increase in public and private willingness to participate in technology cooperation projects. Nevertheless, evaluating the effectiveness of the cooperation requires more comprehensive evidence. An analysis of the empirical data related to patents filed or granted between Brazil and China relative to the increased efforts put in for the collaboration serves as an additional indicator of the extent of this bilateral relationship. It is important to note that evidence of immediate and tangible outcomes from the collaboration is not presented due to the fact that the technology cooperation is in its initial stages and does not currently produce these results.

South-South Cooperation

There is a wide array of definitions describing South-South cooperation. One adopted by the United Nations states: “South-South cooperation is a broad framework for collaboration among countries in the South in the political, economic, social, cultural, environmental and technical domains.”[1] Ranging from bilateral, regional, sub-regional, and interregional networks of developing countries, South-South cooperation allegedly aims to share knowledge, skills, expertise and resources for collaborative development. Often, evidence of this new phenomenon in development is drawn from rapid increase in South-South flows of trade, investment and technology.[2]

Within the technological perspective, South-South cooperation examines the exchange of expertise and capacities necessary to meet the specific developmental needs of the participating states. South-South cooperation is at the crux of recent developmental dialogues due to its anticipated benefits to developing countries. By definition, South-South cooperation should be ‘owned’ by developing countries themselves whether at the governmental, public, private, non-governmental or individual level. From South-South cooperation, international stakeholders anticipate to observe “enhancement of the multiplier effect of technical cooperation; increased knowledge of and confidence in the capacities; development of indigenous technology for better adaption to local needs; and development of new capacities.”[3]

While a comprehensive list of preconditions for South-South cooperation is yet to be compiled, a fruitful South-South technology cooperation is generally premised on a shared definition by participants of the possibilities and gains attainable through the partnership.[4] Thus, the critical stages of South-South cooperation are as follows: 1) identifying common areas of collaboration; 2) possessing the necessary technology or scale of experience; 3) understanding returns to technology cooperation; and 4) adhering to the promised process politically and financially. Technology cooperation among developing countries may occur when the technologies acquired by the participants are similar in its advancement or in need for improvement within an industry.[5]

Brazil and China, in particular, have actively endorsed South-South cooperation in the past decade. Both developing countries are leaders in their regions and are increasingly considered by developed nations as key players in international negotiations. For instance, Brazil co-initiated the India-Brazil-South Africa (IBSA) Dialogue Forum which focused on energy and medical technology cooperation. Additionally, the Brazil-Mozambique antiretroviral medicine collaboration has been particularly successful.[6]

Yet, no comprehensive academic research has been conducted to precisely define, measure or comprehend the implications of this sudden surge of South-South cooperation. Unlike the traditional North-South cooperation which has been incentivized to report its activities, no such monitoring framework has been set up to accurately depict the scope of its South-South counterpart.[7] Much of the research on South-South cooperation still remains as advocacy or anecdotal knowledge. Thus, by examining the case of Brazil-China wind energy technology cooperation, we hope to understand the extent, drivers and lessons learned from this South-South technology cooperation.

Brazil’s Wind Energy Industry

In Brazil, wind energy is predominantly generated for installed capacity to be connected to the grid.[8] Most of the Brazilian wind power generation potential is in the Northeast region[9] and as the fastest growing source of power generation in Brazil today, wind energy has a potential estimated at 300GW and the industry expects to contract at least 2.5GW per year by 2020.[10]

In 1992, Brazil installed its first wind-energy turbine in Fernando de Noronha Archipelago. Since then, and with 4,600 miles of coastline, Brazil is taking advantage of its geographic location to develop their wind power industry.[11] In 2013, almost half of the new capacity installed came from new wind farm complexes: Asa Branca (160 MW), Calango (150 MW), and Renascenca (120 MW).[12] Additionally, the wind industry is crucial for Brazil’s national energy security as it is expected to create more than 70 thousand jobs, produce $21.2 billion Brazilian Reals (approximately USD 9.48 billion[13]) in investments, supply energy to 8.5 million households, reduce CO2 by 4 million tons, and improve the rates of storage reservoirs.[14]

<Figure 1> Brazilian Energy Mix-Installed Capacity (in GW)

In 2002, ten years after the first wind-energy turbine was installed, the government created Proinfa, a program to incentivize the use of renewable sources which encouraged businesses to invest in renewables like biomass, small hydroelectric plants, and wind.[15] That same year, ABEEólica, the Brazilian Wind Energy Association was established. Today it represents over 80 member companies involved in manufacturing, intermediary services, consulting, development, and investments.[16]

During the early 2000’s Brazil suffered a severe energy shortage prompted by a drought that affected the country’s hydroelectric dams. This caused a negative impact on the country’s economy and the government had to ration electricity. This situation heightened the urgency to diversify energy sources and seek new renewable technologies.[17] According to executives at the Global Wind Energy Council, “Brazil will most likely double its total installed capacity in 2014, and nearly do so again in 2015.” [18] Last year Brazil led Latin America in this industry, adding 953 MW of new capacity. The government contracted over 10 GW through to 2018 and will probably add more to that number after the auction scheduled for June of this year takes place. While projects were fully commissioned some of them faced the issue of not being able to connect to the grid by the end of the year. Nevertheless, in an effort to alleviate some of the pressure, a new system to auction transmission lines will also take place.[19]

In 2013, Brazil held three auctions[20] which booked a total of 4.71 GW of new projects. This is a record for the wind industry in Brazil[21] at 142% more than the 2 GW goal,[22] and certainly an indication of the steady growth the industry is experiencing. Furthermore, it represents an effort to diversify their energy matrix, which 74 percent of is based on hydropower, by supplementing it with wind-power plants.[23]  The Brazilian Electricity Regulatory Agency (ANEEL) is the entity responsible for carrying out Brazil’s energy auctions through a delegation from the Ministry of Mines and Energy. When holding reserve auctions, ANEEL, in an effort to reduce operational costs of the system, purchases additional energy supply for the National Integrated System (SIN).[24]

<Figure 2>

Source: GWEC | Global Wind Report – Annual Market Update 2013

China’s Wind Energy Industry

While the wind energy industry experienced overall growth across the world in the recent decade, China emerged as the most prominent player above all.  Besmirched with defame as the world’s biggest carbon dioxide producer, China also holds, paradoxically, the world’s greatest cumulative and newly installed wind capacity. As shown in Figure 3, in 2013 alone, China has installed more than 16 GW of wind capacity, adding up to 91,412 MW in total.[25] With more than 622 wind farms established and 45,000 wind turbines erected, China’s wind energy accounts for 28.7% of the global total.[26] Near two-fold continuous growth in newly installed wind power capacity clearly resonates China’s role in the global wind market.

<Figure 3> Global Installed Wind Capacity (2005-2013)                      

China’s rapid expansion of wind power rests on its abundant wind resources, mainly located in the northern and western Inner Mongolia, far off from electricity demand-centers.[27] Distant wind resource exacerbates electricity loss from the current weak power transmission system. Meanwhile, rich offshore potentials – as much as 500 GW of exploitable wind energy – remain mostly untapped in the southeast coast by the Taiwan Strait. [28] Still in its experimental stage, near offshore and far offshore wind technology is expected to be heavily invested by the Chinese government until 2050.[29] In total, wind energy accounts for 2.6% of the national total energy consumption in 2013.[30]

Stemming from its initial attempt to support the development of the renewable energy industry, Beijing established its first National Renewable Energy Law in 2005. Envisioning 15% of national energy consumption to originate from renewable energies, the Chinese government adopted multiple incentivizing mechanisms to scale up wind power bases. With ambitious guidelines and targets to galvanize the domestic wind industry, the Chinese government guaranteed both financial and infrastructural support for potential energy developers. Flexible and low-cost capital is offered by the China Development Bank (CDB), tax breaks are granted, and roads are built to facilitate access to wind resources. Similarly, state policy intervention facilitated wind power industry pricing mechanism. Differentiated feed-in tariffs – guaranteed, long-term and fixed purchase prices of energy – were adopted in 2009.[31] From these ‘push’ and ‘pull’ initiatives, the Chinese wind industry experienced positive spill-over effects to related sectors, such as power transmission and wind turbine manufacturing.[32] Government’s supporting measures do not come untied, however. Explicit obligations were imposed on power producers regarding the specific size of the wind turbines and compliance with local content restrictions.[33]

Institutional support for the industry was particularly conducive to the success of Chinese wind manufacturers. Despite the difficulties in 2012, eight Chinese firms have secured their positions among the top 15 global wind turbine suppliers by annual market share in 2013.[34] In particular, Goldwind, also China’s largest domestic wind equipment provider, has ranked second with 10.3 percent of global market share.[35] Explosive growth in the last decade for Chinese wind turbine manufacturers is highly dependent on its domestic demand. Securing domestic wind turbine market share had been the government’s deliberate protectionist policy to develop the industry. High import tax on foreign equipment, local content requirements, and subsidies for domestically produced wind turbines were exemplary policies implemented by the Chinese government to spawn local manufacturing firms.[36] Currently, these policies have been loosened upon request from foreign manufacturers but domestic firms are often prioritized over foreign counterparts. [37]

Although tacit knowledge was transferred from motor industries which expanded into wind turbine industry, China’s wind energy greatly benefitted from foreign technology transfer and cross-border technological learning. Various means of acquiring foreign technology were explored by China’s wind industry, for example: importing foreign equipment, clean technology support for development aid, licensing, foreign direct investment, joint design, joint ventures, and acquisition of foreign firms.[38] Influx of foreign wind energy technology to China is evident from patent data as well; China was the largest recipient of wind energy technology transfer, mostly originating from Europe and the US.[39] Once the know-how and technology is acquired from foreign sources, low production cost of wind turbines clearly set apart Chinese firms from the rest, boosting sales at an exorbitant rate.

Traditionally, domestic R&D for innovating wind technology had primarily remained within the public sector. Overseen by the central government, research on wind energy technology was conducted by public universities and research institutes, such as Tsinghua University and China National Renewable Energy Centre (CNREC).[40] Recognizing the disjunction between national-level R&D and wind industry companies, the government offers greater support for individual firm-level R&D (especially the state-owned enterprises) and encourages relationships between public research institutes and private enterprise.[41] Increasingly, private wind energy firms are also partaking in active R&D efforts by establishing domestic and overseas R&D centers.[42]

Despite its temporary setback in 2012, China’s wind energy industry recuperated in 2013 and is expected to continue its growth in the future. Challenged with insatiable demand for energy and exacerbating air quality, the Chinese government will uphold its commitment to the expansion of the wind energy industry. Remaining hurdles for the Chinese wind industry lie in power transmission systems. In 2013, 11% of transmitted wind power was lost and some regions energy loss reached up to 35%.[43] Shortage and poor maintenance of existing power grids threaten stable supply of wind energy to its demand centers. Further research on wind energy transmission and expansion of grid system is needed for sustainable transmission of wind energy in China.

Extent of Sino-Brazil Wind Technology Cooperation

China’s role in a South-South relationship is seen as a big, aggressive, and powerful state using its government-owned enterprises to procure the resources they lack to advance their economy.[44] However, while this has not necessarily been the case in all sectors of the renewable energy industry between China and Brazil, there are traces of this type of relationship in some aspects of the wind energy sector.

During the past five years, Brazil and China surged up to be new leaders in this sector globally. These two emerging countries also share similar grand wind energy expansion goals for the future.[45] To accommodate the burgeoning renewable energy market, both Brazil and China are dedicated to acquiring and further developing relevant technology. Recognizing the mutual benefits of collaborating in technology, Brazil and China have cooperated since 2011 on the development of wind technology at multiple levels.

Institutional

China and Brazil officially established diplomatic ties in 1974 when they opened embassies at each capital.[46] Scientific collaboration between Brazil and China dates back to the 1980s when the two countries embarked upon a joint venture to develop and launch three Earth observation satellites to monitor oil exploration activities with the China-Brazil Earth Resources Satellite (CBERS). They collaborated and financed the launch of two satellites into space, the CBERS 1 and SACI 1.[47] This highly successful project encouraged Sino-Brazil bilateral relations and served as a basis for setting up the China-Brazil High Level Coordination Committee (CBHCC).

The CBHCC was established in 2004. Two years later a mining and energy sub-committee was created and in[48] 2008, a science and technology subcommittee held its first meeting. Since then, the two countries have established several formal centers for collaboration: the China-Brazil Joint Laboratory of Agricultural Sciences, China-Brazil Nanotechnology Research Centre, and of most relevance to this paper, the China-Brazil Center for Climate Change and Energy Technology Innovation. Furthermore, Memorandums of Understanding have been signed establishing a Biotechnology Center and Meteorological Satellite Joint Research Center.[49]

Following this endeavor, the government of the People’s Republic of China and the government of the Federative Republic of Brazil (2010-2014) signed the Joint Action Plan, which enhances mutual investment and cooperation in the renewable energy sector, and emphasizes further collaboration between the two countries. This is a result of successful foreign relations among the two countries. According to a 2011 report from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China on the bilateral relationship,

“Positive outcomes were made in China-Brazil practical cooperation. Brazil moved up the ranks as China’s ninth largest trading partner while China remained Brazil’s largest trading partner and export market as well as the second largest source of imports. Smooth progress was made in major cooperation projects on energy, infrastructure and finance. China’s investment in Brazil saw fast growth. The Brazilian GASENE natural gas pipeline constructed by China was completed ahead of schedule and with high quality.”[50]

Furthermore, this relationship is strengthened by their common memberships in international organizations and multilateral mechanism like the United Nations, the G20, the BRIC and the BASIC. Through their involvement in these, both countries have continued steady communication and cooperation on matters like the international financial system and climate change.

Public

China and Brazil’s cooperation at the public level encompasses energy innovations as they relate to climate change and technologies.[51]A formal approach to develop this cooperation was instituted in 2009 when the two countries co-established the Brazil-China Center for Climate Change and Energy Technology Innovation (the Center). This initiative serves as their flagship public sector technology partnership and it gathers specialists and government representatives from the two countries to discuss opportunities of cooperation in renewable energy.[52] With the support of FINEP, the Brazilian Innovation Agency, the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro’s (UFRJ) Coppe graduate school and the Tsinghua University in Beijing established a partnership to collaborate in research and innovation geared towards developing energy technologies that protect the environment.[53] FINEP, a Brazilian financing agency for projectsof the Ministryof Science, Technology and Innovation, funds the Center’s work.[54] The Center also facilitates information exchange through joint seminars, conferences, academic events and policy advisory meetings.[55] This partnership, provides a forum where stakeholders from premier engineering universities, private companies, government agencies, development banks and NGOs can regularly convene to discuss research, policy, technology transfer, innovation, and climate change mitigation issues within the renewable energy field.[56] Since its inception, the Center has hosted over 25 events in more than eight cities. Of most relevance are the World Bioenergy Symposium and the events organized during the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) in 2012.[57] Another noteworthy collaboration in academia is Brazil’s ‘Science without Borders” program which has assisted engineering student exchange between the two countries.[58]

Private

Chinese private investment in Brazilian energy industry coincided with similar but smaller-scale investments in the rest of the BRICS energy sector. As illustrated in <Figure 4>, energy investment originating from China to Brazil increased dramatically between 2009 and 2010, after the Joint Action Plan agreement was finalized.[59]

<Figure 4> China’s Energy Investment in BRICS

Source: the Heritage Foundation, China Investment Tracker Map

In 2013, energy investments from China to Brazil reached USD $22.2 billion, or 69% of total Chinese investment in Brazil.[60] Sudden surge of capital invested in the Brazilian energy industry did not last long, however. Since 2010, investments decreased gradually and were overridden by Russia in 2013. Energy sector capital flow between Brazil and China oscillated over the last decade, ranging as high as USD 11,160 million in 2010 and as low as zero. While increase in energy investment does not immediately translate to increase in technology cooperation, overall growth in bilateral energy investment provides the structural platform for individual corporations to collaborate on their expertise (see Figure 5). This is particularly significant for the wind energy sector where the key private wind energy corporations are often subsidiaries of larger power firms.

The majority of technological knowledge sharing in wind energy for Brazil and China occurs through the means of licensing, foreign direct investment and joint design activities.[61] Five noticeable wind energy technology collaborations in the private sector have taken place between Brazil and China since 2010, as shown in <Figure 5>. Means of entry adopted by the Chinese firms were strategic partnership, partial acquisition and contract for the wind turbine products.

<Figure 5> Brazil-China Private Sector Wind Energy Investment and Cooperation

Source: International Energy Agency | Energy Investments and Technology Transfer Across Emerging Economies:
The Case of Brazil and China

For instance, New Energy and Furnas, subsidiaries of two major power producers, China Three Gorges Corporation (CTGC) and Electrobras, solidified their strategic partnership at the end of 2011.^[62] This six-year partnership bolsters technology expertise exchange while jointly targeting commercial opportunities.^[63] Whereas the scope of the technology cooperation between the two subsidiaries has not gone public, based on the extensive R&D expenditures of their parent companies it can be deduced that this cooperation will fully utilize the technological capacity available.[64]

Drivers of cooperation

Common goal for wind energy

The world’s urgency to shift to low carbon economies leads countries like China and Brazil to pursue cooperation in energy technologies to diversify and advance their industries.  In the case of South-South cooperation between Brazil and China, their wind energy industry is ripe to develop a successful partnership. These two emerging countries also share similar grand wind energy expansion goals for the future.[65] In the last few years, both Brazil and China have become leaders in the global wind energy sector. Both countries ranked in 2013 among the top 10 newly installed wind capacity. China’s 91 GW of installed wind capacity is the highest in the world and Brazil has also accumulated 3.4 GW, growing at an even faster rate than China.[66] Furthermore, China is the largest energy consumer in the world, with coal comprising almost 70 percent of its energy consumption.[67] According to 2012 numbers, Brazil is the 7th largest energy consumer in the world,[68] however, unlike China, its energy consumption is more diversified. In fact, over 80 percent of Brazil’s energy consumption comes from oil, other liquid fuels and hydroelectricity.[69] Yet both countries have been identified as key drivers of growth for the global wind industry, particularly as by 2018 China is expected to reach an installed capacity of 193 GW while Brazil is predicted to reach a capacity of 11 GW.[70] According to a report from the International Energy Association, “[t]he global financial crisis and a reduction in investment in wind energy in the United States and Europe attracted big wind manufacturers to Brazil.”[71]

Brazil offers the ideal climate conditions for China to tropicalize its wind turbines. As China continues to improve its wind energy technologies[72] it will need to adapt it to the tropical weather predominant in Africa and Latin America. This will give China and Brazil the opportunity to better meet the demands of other developing countries in need of ‘tropicalized technologies’[73] which coupled with the prospective growth of wind installations in both countries, will serve as important drivers for cooperation in research and development (Ilan E. Cuperstein, personal communication, April 7, 2014). Additionally, Brazil’s 4,600 miles of coastline offers prime real estate for the research and development of off-shore wind technologies. This is relevant and makes this opportunity mutually beneficial to both countries because they each have most of their energy demand centers located near their coastlines.[74]

Government policies

In the 2000s, Brazil developed and implemented programs, incentives and policies to foster the growth of its renewable energy industry. The first significant one was Proinfa in 2002. It encourages businesses to invest in renewables like biomass, small hydro plants, and wind.[75] Its goal was to contract a total 3,300 MW of new capacity, split evenly between bioelectricity, small hydro, and wind sources. Proinfa established a fixed feed-in tariff for each technology for the electricity produced over the first 20 years of operation. Although it was a successful pioneering program for the industry, it was criticized for the even split among the three renewable energy sources because it did not consider the different technological aspects of each sector. Furthermore, a large percentage of the equipment had to be made in Brazil to be eligible for the best financing options.[76]

Towards the end of 2012, the Brazilian Development Bank (BNDES) issued a new system to eliminate the 60 percent national-content requirement and allow producers to qualify for preferential funding upon meeting three of four new criteria. These are based on the national-content of the different components of the industry.

<Figure 6>

Source: BNDES.gov.br – BNDES Improves Rules for Accreditation of Wind Turbines

According to the International Energy Agency, “local content requirements provide another challenge, yet also an opportunity for Chinese investment in Brazil… [while] China seeks to expand into overseas market operations, Chinese firms may be more willing than other international competitors to develop manufacturing operations in Brazil.”[77]

China has instituted market-based pricing schemes, energy efficiency measures, and competition among energy firms, while also making greater investments in upstream hydrocarbon plays and renewable energy projects. By 2017, the government aims to cap coal use to below 65% of total primary energy consumption; by 2020, they hope to raise non-fossil fuel energy consumption to 15% of the energy mix as a function of their 12th Five-Year Plan.[78] This aforementioned plan, gives sectors like energy, automobile, IT infrastructure and biotechnology a higher level of importance. This is clearly in line with the plan’s three main priorities: sustainable growth, industrial upgrading and the promotion of domestic consumption. Furthermore, the Medium-and-Long-Term National Plan for Science and Technology reinforces research and development that strives to better manage energy resources and encourages academia and industries to pursue international cooperation.[79]

Evaluation of cooperation

Institutional

The bilateral agreements signed between the two governments, CBHCC and Joint Action Plan, laid the foundation for technological cooperation in the energy sector. Increased Chinese investment in the Brazilian wind industry and other major areas of cross-border collaboration is a reflection of this improved intergovernmental dialogue.[80] While each country’s governmental policies strive to strengthen international collaboration this is only seen at the inter-governmental level and it is not reflected throughout other domestic policies. For example, BNDES’s national-content funding regulation poses a threat to Chinese firms seeking to expand into the Brazilian wind market. Brazil’s international collaboration and domestic industrial policies are not aligned and are contradictory to each other’s objectives, hindering further collaboration with China. <Figure 7>, depicts an increase in investments between 2009 and 2010 from China into Latin America, with Brazil in the lead.

This occurred after the Joint Action Plan was finalized. Current numbers on the graph show a significant decrease of investments in Brazil after 2010 with an increase towards neighboring South American countries, such as Argentina, Chile and Venezuela. These countries have similar natural resources but lax regulations which may be more attractive for Chinese investors.[81]

<Figure 7> China’s Energy Investment in Latin America

In the meantime, in 2009, when China joined the World Trade Organization, they were pressured into removing their national content requirement which had been 70 percent since 2004.[82] Although this was designed to increase foreign direct investments, Chinese state-owned enterprises still control more than 85 percent of the domestic wind energy market share.[83]

Public

A long-standing bilateral relationship between the two countries contributed to the creation of the Center and established a platform for the development of technology cooperation. In particular, the government’s initial brokering of collaboration between recognized educational institutions marked an important step toward fostering the renewable energy industry in both countries. The Center’s budget receives funding per project from the government and a very limited amount through private partnerships. On average, it reaches a total of USD 4 million per year. This segregated funding structure makes it hard to sustain the Center’s programs and staff (Ilan E. Cuperstein, personal communication, April 7, 2014).

In 2011, the Center signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to establish a wind energy specified research facility. Under the terms of this memorandum, China would provide the necessary equipment, while Brazil would supply the land and human capital to conduct research on improving Chinese products. Unfortunately, the joint venture did not materialize as China was unwilling to meet the national-content requirements unless Brazil guaranteed sales for the equipment produced. Although Brazil has since modified its national-content requirements to promote greater flexibility, China does not feel confident in the capabilities of this endeavor and will not commit to investing in a plant. Furthermore, although Brazil has improved its incentives infrastructure to attract and promote collaboration in renewable energies, its domestic bureaucracy continues to stymie efficiency. For instance, operations at the Center have suffered because grant award disbursement can take years to be issued (Ilan E. Cuperstein, personal communication, April 7, 2014). This poses a serious threat to an industry in which fast-paced technological innovation is critical. Moreover, the absence of cross-patent application of wind technology between China and Brazil suggests that further policy reforms must take place to encourage greater cooperation.[84] Lastly, the Center lacks private sector involvement, which may severely constrain execution of R&D projects.

Private

Initially, wind technology was transferred to China without active local R&D support. Although a handful of the wind turbine corporations stemmed off from a related field, such as the motor engines industry, China was devoid of necessary technical and tacit knowledge to develop wind turbines. Thus, licensing, foreign direct investment (FDI) and joint ventures were the primary means of acquiring advanced technology from early innovators, namely Denmark, the Netherlands, Germany and the United States.[85]  With the rapid development of China’s wind industry in the last decade, however, outward FDI targeted acquisition of foreign companies with desired technological capacity. For example, CTGC’s partial acquisition of a Portuguese renewable energy subsidiary firm equipped China with the wind technology expertise that CTGC lacked.[86]

However, evidence of similar technology acquisition or joint R&D efforts between China and Brazil’s wind energy corporations is lacking in multiple dimensions. First, the number of potential collaborative efforts only account up to five incidents between 2010 and 2013. Furthermore, the scheduled strategic partnership between XJ Wind Power and Santa Catarina State Government is yet to materialize. Second, encounters of Sino-Brazil wind industry produced no joint ventures or similar active technology development. Strategic partnership, acquisition nor contracting guarantees knowledge flow between the participating firms (see Figure 5). Third, private sector’s cooperation were often not disclosed or limited to the public. Difficulty in measuring the accurate cooperation size is critical to fully capturing the scope of private sector engagement between Brazil and China’s wind industries.[87]

Hindered Sino-Brazil wind technology cooperation in also evident in cross-border patenting behavior between the two partners. <Figure 8> illustrates China’s international patenting activity with major actors in the wind industry. No wind technology patents are filed to the World International Patenting Organization that would indicate technology collaboration between Brazil and China among three categories: 1) Brazil owned Chinese invention, 2) Chinese owned Brazilian invention, and 3) Brazil-China co-invention.[88] Similarly, no collaboration was observed between China and other BRICS countries other than India. Lack of patenting activities indicate that collaborations were limited in depth and scope to produce a significant outcome.

In sum, institutionalized technology cooperation at the international level failed to trickle down to the private level to galvanize further exchange of wind energy technology. Regardless, substantial potential exists for private collaboration in R&D. Wind turbine manufacturers heavily invest in R&D and smaller energy subsidiary firms also have large parent companies with substantive R&D capabilities. Goldwind, for instance, invested 133,706 RMB for its R&D (ranked 1765^th in the world) and Eletrobras, the parent company of Furnas, is the second largest corporate investor in R&D in Brazil with over 90 labs and private technology research centers.[89]

<Figure 8> China Wind Energy Technology International Patenting Activity 

Source: WIPO (International Patent Applications filed under the PCT) – Accessed through Patentscope, April 10, 2014

Lessons Learned

South-South Cooperation

There is a general positive outlook for the successful development of increased South-South cooperation between China and Brazil. Nevertheless, a lack of a monitoring framework to accurately measure the extent of this relationship still needs to be developed; and until a reporting mechanism is established, understanding of this type of relationship is limited to advocacy efforts and anecdotal knowledge.

In the case of China and Brazil, both countries are seen as regional leaders with the capabilities to leverage relationships in the political, economic, social, cultural, environmental and technical areas. While technology cooperation between China and Brazil has been fruitful in other renewable energy sectors, due to the limited amount of data available, the wind industry has not seen the same results.

Improvement of Government Policies

While there is a clearly mutually beneficial relationship to be had between Brazil and China, our research shows that government regulations and entities attempting to increase FDI, may cause a counterproductive effect on China’s interest in Brazil’s wind industry. Consequently, there has been a decline in investment from China into Brazil and an increase into other neighboring Latin American countries with more lax policies. While both countries define clear expectations at a macro level for the furtherance of research and development of renewable energies, other local content requirements and cultural bureaucracies are discouraging the expansion of this relationship in the wind energy sector.

Moreover, China’s paradoxical North-South mentality breeds reluctance to co-develop technology with Brazil. Patent evidence proves little advancement in this area and the example of the failed wind energy research facility through the Brazil-China Center for Climate Change and Energy Technology Innovation demonstrates interest but a lack of willingness to compromise. For a relationship between these two countries to be fruitful, they need to see these types of ventures as mutually beneficial. Government policies at all levels need to be improved so as to encourage more collaboration.

Involvement of Private Sector

Private sector technology cooperation lies at the crux of future South-South technology cooperation. While public research and development collaborations on wind energy may stimulate the initial process of Sino-Brazilian scientific networks, the absence of the private sector will ultimately thwart the cooperation.  As illustrated in detail above, the Brazil-China private wind industry collaboration on R&D efforts are stymied by protectionist policies whether it be explicit in the regulations or de facto. Thus, there is a need for governmental support to actively link public cooperation institutions and private sector partners to engage in fruitful discussion on maximizing returns to cooperation. For instance, strengthening private wind industry associations’ linkages, Abeeolica and China Wind Energy Association, may also stimulate further cooperation in private sector.

Fully supporting the private wind industry’s role in developing the potentials and renovating loopholes of wind energy technology is fundamental to supporting the Brazil-China cooperation. Near and far offshore wind industry are common potentials of both Brazil and China which promises high returns on capacity. While China arose as initial non-European leader for this particular advanced technology, it is crucial that Chinese wind energy corporations are incentivized to fully collaborate with the Brazilian counterpart to explore this newly emerging market. Grid transmission systems pose great threat to the viability of wind energy in both Brazil and China. A comprehensive network of wind turbine manufacturers, wind energy operators and power transmission managers from Brazil and China is desirable to promote cooperation overall.

[1]“United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation – what is SSC?”http://ssc.undp.org/content/ssc/about/what_is_ssc.html (accessed 4/30/2014, 2014).

[2] Ibid

[3]“United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation – what is SSC?”http://ssc.undp.org/content/ssc/about/what_is_ssc.html (accessed 4/30/2014, 2014).

[4]Marco Antonio Vieira and Chris Alden, “India, Brazil, and South Africa (IBSA): South-South Cooperation and the Paradox of Regional Learship,” Global Governance, no. 17 (2011), 507-528.

[5]Amitqva Krishna Dutt, South-South Economic Cooperation: Motives, Problems and Possibilities (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame,[2013]).

[6] Options for facilitating the development, transfer and dissemination of clean and environmentally sound technologies, General Assembly, A/68/310, Sixty-eighth session, Sustainable development: implementation of Agenda 21, 12 August 2013.

[7] Options for facilitating the development, transfer and dissemination of clean and environmentally sound technologies, General Assembly, A/68/310, Sixty-eighth session, Sustainable development: implementation of Agenda 21, 12 August 2013.

[8] “World Energy Council 2004 Survey of Energy Resources.” (2004).

[9]“Industry Profile | Brazil Energy S.A.”http://brazilenergy.com.br/en/portfolio/brazil-wind/perfil-do-setor/ (accessed 4/30/2014, 2014).

[10]“Brazil Windpower 2014.”http://www.brazilwindpower.org/en/ (accessed 3/27/2014, 2014).

[11]“Brazil Windpower 2014.”http://www.brazilwindpower.org/en/about.asp (accessed 4/10/2014, 2014).

[12]“GWEC | Global Wind Report – Annual Market Update 2013 – GWEC-Global-Wind-Report_9-April-2014.Pdf.”http://www.gwec.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/GWEC-Global-Wind-Report_9-April-2014.pdf (accessed 4/30/2014, 2014).

[13] 1 BRL = 0.447258 USD – 4/29/2014 http://www.xe.com

[14]“GWEC | Representing the Global Wind Energy Industry.”http://www.gwec.net/abeeolica-celebrates-record-levels-wind-power-brazil/ (accessed 3/25/2014, 2014).

[15]“Programme of Incentives for Alternative Electricity Sources (PROINFA) | World Resources Projects.”http://projects.wri.org/sd-pams-database/brazil/programme-incentives-alternative-electricity-sources-proinfa (accessed 4/10/2014, 2014).

[16]“GWEC | Representing the Global Wind Energy Industry.”, http://www.gwec.net/abeeolica-celebrates-record-levels-wind-power-brazil/ ed., Vol. 2014, u).

[17]“Brazilian Wind Power Gets a Boost – NYTimes.Com – NYTimes.Com.”http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/09/brazilian-wind-power-gets-a-boost/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=1 (accessed 4/29/2014, 2014).

[18] “GWEC | Global Wind Report – Annual Market Update 2013 – GWEC-Global-Wind-Report_9-April-2014.Pdf.”, http://www.gwec.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/GWEC-Global-Wind-Report_9-April-2014.pdf ed., Vol. 2014, t).

[19]“GWEC | Global Wind Report – Annual Market Update 2013 – GWEC-Global-Wind-Report_9-April-2014.Pdf.”http://www.gwec.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/GWEC-Global-Wind-Report_9-April-2014.pdf (accessed 4/30/2014, 2014).

[20]“GWEC | Representing the Global Wind Energy Industry.”, http://www.gwec.net/abeeolica-celebrates-record-levels-wind-power-brazil/ ed., Vol. 2014, u).

[21]“GWEC | Representing the Global Wind Energy Industry.”http://www.gwec.net/global-wind-grows-12-5-2013/ (accessed 2/19/2014, 2014).

[22]“Good Winds Boost Wind Power in Brazil.”http://www.alstom.com/press-centre/2014/2/good-winds-boost-wind-power-in-brazil/ (accessed 4/30/2014, 2014).

[23]“Developing Countries & Global Climate Change: Electric Power Options in Brazil | Center for Climate and Energy Solutions.”http://www.c2es.org/publications/developing-countries-global-climate-change-electric-power-options-brazil (accessed 4/30/2014, 2014).

[24]“Brazil’s Wind Power Auction Spurs More Clean Energy Development.”http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2009/12/brazils-wind-power-auction-spurs-more-clean-energy-development (accessed 4/29/2014, 2014).

[25] The figure refers to the statistics in 2013 from Global Wind Energy Council. “GWEC – Global Wind Statistics 2013 – GWEC-PRstats-2013_EN.Pdf.”http://www.gwec.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/GWEC-PRstats-2013_EN.pdf (accessed 4/10/2014, 2014).

[26]“Wind Energy Data for China – Country Wind Farms.”http://www.thewindpower.net/country_windfarms_en_9_china.php (accessed 4/30/2014, 2014).

[27]“China Wind Energy Development Roadmap 2050 – China_wind.Pdf.”https://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication/china_wind.pdf (accessed 4/10/2014, 2014).

[28]“China Wind Energy Development Roadmap 2050 – China_wind.Pdf.”https://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication/china_wind.pdf (accessed 4/10/2014, 2014).

[29] Ibid., 28.

[30]“GWEC | Global Wind Report – Annual Market Update 2013 – GWEC-Global-Wind-Report_9-April-2014.Pdf.”, http://www.gwec.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/GWEC-Global-Wind-Report_9-April-2014.pdf ed., Vol. 2014, t).

[31]“GWEC | Global Wind Report – Annual Market Update 2013 – GWEC-Global-Wind-Report_9-April-2014.Pdf.”http://www.gwec.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/GWEC-Global-Wind-Report_9-April-2014.pdf (accessed 4/30/2014, 2014).

[32]Joanna I. Lewis, “
Building a National Wind Turbine Industry: Experiences from China, India and South Korea,” Int. J. Technology and Globalisation 5 (2011), 281-305.

[33] Ibid, 4.

[34]“North American Windpower: Top 15 Wind Turbine Suppliers of 2013 Revealed.”http://www.nawindpower.com/e107_plugins/content/content.php?content.12710 (accessed 4/30/2014, 2014).

[35] Ibid, 8 wind turbine manufacturing firms included in the world’s top 15 wind turbine supplier list and their market share in 2013 are: 2. Goldwind (10.3%); 8. United Power (3.9%); 9. Mingyang (3.7%); 11. XEMC (3.2%); 12. Envision (3.1%); 13. DEC (2.3%); 14. Sinovel (2.3%); 15. Sewind (2.2%)

[36] Pedro Campos Silva, Britta Klagge and Zhigao Liu, “Constructing China’s Wind Energy Innovation System,” Energy Policy 55 (2012), 370-382.

[37]“North American Windpower: Top 15 Wind Turbine Suppliers of 2013 Revealed.”http://www.nawindpower.com/e107_plugins/content/content.php?content.12710 (accessed 4/30/2014, 2014).

[38] For more detail on means adopted by China’s wind turbine manufacturers for acquiring technology, refer to Appendix.1 of Pedro Campos Silva, Britta Klagge and Zhigao Liu, “Constructing China’s Wind Energy Innovation System,” Energy Policy 55 (2012), 370-382.

[39]Ivan Hašcic et al., “Climate Policy and Technological Innovation and Transfer,” (2010).

[40]“China National Renewable Energy Centre (CNREC) | Open Energy Information.”http://en.openei.org/wiki/China_National_Renewable_Energy_Centre_(CNREC) (accessed 4/30/2014, 2014).

[41]Campos Silva, Klagge and Liu, Constructing China’s Wind Energy Innovation System, Vol. 55, 2012), 370-382.

[42]Ibid.

[43]“GWEC | Global Wind Report – Annual Market Update 2013 – GWEC-Global-Wind-Report_9-April-2014.Pdf.”, http://www.gwec.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/GWEC-Global-Wind-Report_9-April-2014.pdf ed., Vol. 2014, t).

[44] Vieira and Alden, India, Brazil, and South Africa (IBSA): South-South Cooperation and the Paradox of Regional Learship, 2011), 507-528.

[45]“GWEC | Global Wind Report – Annual Market Update 2013 – GWEC-Global-Wind-Report_9-April-2014.Pdf.”, http://www.gwec.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/GWEC-Global-Wind-Report_9-April-2014.pdf ed., Vol. 2014, t).

[46]Lorenzo Riccardi, “Chinese Tax Law and International Treaties,” in (Switzerland: Springer International Publishing, 2013), 111.

[47]“NASA National Space Science Data Center.”http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/masterCatalog.do?sc=1999-057A (accessed 04/10, 2014).

[48]Denis Best and Joerg Husar, Energy Investments and Technology Transfer Across Emerging Economies: The Case of Brazil and China (Paris: International Energy Agency,[2013a]).

[49]“Vice Minister Cao Attends 3rd Session of China-Brazil High-Level Coordination and Cooperation Committee.”http://www.brics-info.org/vice-minister-cao-attends-3rd-session-of-china-brazil-high-level-coordination-and-cooperation-committee-2/ (accessed 4/30/2014, 2014).

[50]“Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China.”http://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/ (accessed 4/30/2014, 2014).

[51]“Brazil-China Center | Coppe.”http://www.centrochinabrasil.coppe.ufrj.br/en/conheca-centro/ (accessed 4/10/2014, 2014).

[52]“The China-Brazil Center: Wind Power and Biodiesel are to be the Main Areas of Cooperation | Coppe.”http://www.centrochinabrasil.coppe.ufrj.br/en/projects-and-research/the-china-brazil-center-wind-power-and-biodiesel-are-to-be-the-main-areas-of-cooperation/ (accessed 4/10/2014, 2014).

[53]Ibid.

[54]Ilan E. Cuperstein, Sino‐Brazilian Technology Cooperation:The Case of the China Brazil Center of Climate Change and Energy Technology Innovation (Rio de Janeiro: Brazil-China Center for Climate Change and Innovative Energy Technologies,[2014a]).

[55]Ilan E. Cuperstein, Sino‐Brazilian Technology Cooperation:The Case of the China Brazil Center of Climate Change and Energy Technology Innovation (Rio de Janeiro: Brazil-China Center for Climate Change and Innovative Energy Technologies,[2014b]).

[56]“Brazil-China Center | Coppe.”http://www.centrochinabrasil.coppe.ufrj.br/en/conheca-centro/ (accessed 4/10/2014, 2014).

[57]Ilan E. Cuperstein, Sino‐Brazilian Technology Cooperation:The Case of the China Brazil Center of Climate Change and Energy Technology Innovation (Rio de Janeiro: Brazil-China Center for Climate Change and Innovative Energy Technologies,[2014c]).

[58] Ibid, 9.Ilan E. Cuperstein, Sino‐Brazilian Technology Cooperation:The Case of the China Brazil Center of Climate Change and Energy Technology Innovation (Rio de Janeiro: Brazil-China Center for Climate Change and Innovative Energy Technologies,[2014d]).

[59]Best and Husar, Energy Investments and Technology Transfer Across Emerging Economies: The Case of Brazil and China (Paris: International Energy Agency, 2013a), 20.

[60]“China Global Investment Tracker Map.”http://www.heritage.org/research/projects/china-global-investment-tracker-interactive-map (accessed 4/10/2014, 2014).

[61]Lewis,
Building a National Wind Turbine Industry: Experiences from China, India and South Korea, http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ884383.pdf ed., Vol. 5, 2011), 281-305.

[62]Denis Best and Joerg Husar, Energy Investments and Technology Transfer Across Emerging Economies: The Case of Brazil and China, 19.

[63]Ibid., 20.

[64]“Investing in European Research.”http://ec.europa.eu/invest-in-research/index_en.htm (accessed 4/30/2014, 2014).

[65]“China Wind Energy Development Roadmap 2050 – China_wind.Pdf.”, https://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication/china_wind.pdf ed., Vol. 2014, m).

[66]“GWEC – Global Wind Statistics 2013 – GWEC-PRstats-2013_EN.Pdf.”, http://www.gwec.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/GWEC-PRstats-2013_EN.pdf ed., Vol. 2014, s).

[67]“China – Analysis – U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).”http://www.eia.gov/countries/cab.cfm?fips=CH (accessed 4/10/2014, 2014).

[68]“World Energy Statistics | World Energy Consumption & Stats.”http://yearbook.enerdata.net/ (accessed 4/10/2014, 2014).

[69]“Brazil – Analysis – U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).”http://www.eia.gov/countries/cab.cfm?fips=br (accessed 4/10/2014, 2014).

[70]Best and Husar, Energy Investments and Technology Transfer Across Emerging Economies: The Case of Brazil and China (Paris: International Energy Agency, 2013b), 19.

[71]Ibid., 19

[72]“China Wind Energy Development Roadmap 2050 – China_wind.Pdf.”, https://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication/china_wind.pdf ed., Vol. 2014, m).

[73]“Emerging Powers – Brazil.”http://www.emergingpowers.org/index.php/emerging-powers-submenu/112-emerging-powers/emerging-powers/51-brazil (accessed 4/28/2014, 2014).

[74]“China Wind Energy Development Roadmap 2050 – China_wind.Pdf.”, https://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication/china_wind.pdf ed., Vol. 2014, m).

[75]“Programme of Incentives for Alternative Electricity Sources (PROINFA) | World Resources Projects.”, http://projects.wri.org/sd-pams-database/brazil/programme-incentives-alternative-electricity-sources-proinfa ed., Vol. 2014, ac).

[76]Sergio Valdir Bajay, “Medium and Long-Term Energy Planning in Brazil: How the Implementation of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Programs are being Carried Out in Brazil” (http://www.iei-la.org/index.php/projects/workshop-germany-brazil-comparing-the-brazilian-and-german-public-policies-experiences-on-renewable-energy-sources-and-energy-efficiency, 2013).

[77]Best and Husar, Energy Investments and Technology Transfer Across Emerging Economies: The Case of Brazil and China (Paris: International Energy Agency, 2013a), 20.

[78]“China – Analysis – U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).”, http://www.eia.gov/countries/cab.cfm?fips=CH ed., Vol. 2014, i).

[79]“Erawatch Medium- and Long-Term National Plan for Science and Technology Development 2006-2020.”http://erawatch.jrc.ec.europa.eu/erawatch/opencms/information/country_pages/cn/policydocument/policydoc_mig_0004 (accessed 4/10/2014, 2014).

[80]Denis Best and Joerg Husar, Energy Investments and Technology Transfer Across Emerging Economies: The Case of Brazil and China (Paris: International Energy Agency,[2013c]).

[81]“China Global Investment Tracker Map.”http://www.heritage.org/research/projects/china-global-investment-tracker-interactive-map (accessed 4/10/2014, 2014).

[82]Campos Silva, Klagge and Liu, Constructing China’s Wind Energy Innovation System, Vol. 55, 2012), 370-382.

[83]Pedro Campos Silva, Britta Klagge and Zhigao Liu, “Constructing China’s Wind Energy Innovation System,” Energy Policy 55 (2012), 370-382.

[84] Cross-patent application data collected from WIPO patent database; Duan Liping, “Analysis of the Relationship between International Cooperation and Scientific Publications in Energy R&D in China,” Applied Energy 88 (2011), 4229-4238.

[85]Campos Silva, Klagge and Liu, Constructing China’s Wind Energy Innovation System, Vol. 55, 2012), 370-382.

[86]Denis Best and Joerg Husar, Energy Investments and Technology Transfer Across Emerging Economies: The Case of Brazil and China (Paris: International Energy Agency,[2013d]).

[87]. Climate Policy and Technological Innovation and Transfer: An Overview of Trends and Recent Empirical Results (Paris: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development,[2010]).

[88] WIPO patenting data accessed through Patentscope on April 10, 2014. Refer to <Appendix A> for details.

[89]“IRI – the 2013 EU Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard.”http://iri.jrc.ec.europa.eu/scoreboard13.html (accessed 4/30/2014, 2014).

<Appendix A>

Cross-border Patenting Activity

Source:

-          WIPO (International Patent Applications filed under the PCT)  accessed through Patentscope

-          Last Updated on April 10th, 2014

Wind Energy Technology:

-          Wind energy technology refers to a combination of following International Patent Classifications:

• B63B 35/00: Vessels or like floating structures adapted for special purposes
• B63H 11/00: Effecting propulsion by wind motors driving water-engaging propulsive elements
• E04H 12/00: Towers; Masts, poles; Chimney-stacks; Water-towers; Methods of erecting such structures
• H02K 7/18: Structural association of electric generator with mechanical driving motor, e.g. turbine

Types of International Patenting Activities:

-          Foreign Ownership of Chinese Invention

• Patent filed by Residents in Respective Country Invented by Resident(s) from China

-          Chinese Ownership of Foreign Invention

• Patent filed by Residents in China Invented by Resident(s) from Respective Country

-          Co-Invention

• Patent Invented by Resident(s) of China and Resident(s) of Respective Country

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50. Vieira, Marco Antonio and Chris Alden. 2011. “India, Brazil, and South Africa (IBSA): South-South Cooperation and the Paradox of Regional Learship.” Global Governance (17): 507-528.

Compliant disobedience and remembered forgettings.

By Arvind Iyer, 20th June, 2014

The past: a new and uncertain world. A world of endless possibilities and infinite outcomes. Countless choices define our fate: each choice, each moment – a moment in the ripple of time. Enough ripple, and you change the tide… for the future is never truly set. -Charles Xavier, X-Men:Days of Future Past

Ma-Lo is an amateur short film in Malayalam released in 2012, and was well-received in the film festival circuit in the state of Kerala, widely considered one of the more socially progressive states in India. The film has for its setting the rapidly urbanizing and ambivalently modernizing contemporary Indian mindscape where sexual mores are in flux, forcing a reconsideration of default notions of commitment, fidelity and personal autonomy. The short-film, though admittedly not intended as an activist intervention, lends itself to a wider discussion of the autonomy of individuals and societies in lifestyle choices and policy-making. This discussion considers both the unexploited scope of such autonomy (which postmodernist critiques help bring to light), and also of some objective constraints on such autonomy (which no postmodernist reformulation can wish away). Here, archetypal ‘breakups’ and ‘regime changes’ are treated as illustrations respectively of the individual and collective exercise of human autonomy when faced with an ‘irrevocable past’. The presentation will be in a lounging format that has become popularly associated with the Slovenian cultural critic and translator Slavoj Žižek switching nonchalantly between ‘cultural theory’ and ‘geopolitical commentary’. Much of the article hereonward references the short-film, that can be viewed below.

Ma-Lo, Video on Youtube courtesy of Immortal Frames (with English subtitles)

(Spoiler warning: Plot details below.)

In the denouement of the short-film,what is it that makes Robin reconsider his earlier default patriarchal position? Tellingly, it was not the argument that consensual pre-marital relationships as an exercise of human autonomy are a Good Thing. Instead, what changes Robin’s mind is an ‘It could have been you!’ argument, suggesting that premarital affairs are a Bad Thing which can afflict anyone, and hence must be ‘forgiven’. In other words, the protagonist does not accept sexual autonomy as a Good Thing, but only resignedly as a Bad Thing that cannot be helped and must be lived with. Few things certify an action as a transgression than viewing it as an object of ‘forgiveness’ or ‘tolerance’. Writing in the chapter titled Denial:The Liberal Utopia in the 2010 book Living in the End Times, Slavoj Žižek argues that  the influence of ideology is consummate when it begins to regulate even its transgressions. In the short-film and the premises of its resolution, the challenge to a patriarchal norm itself ends up as only a subversion of the norm in deference to more fundamental patriarchal assumptions. Far from amounting to a secession from patriarchy, conceding that the change in praxis is a ‘necessary evil’ but evil regardless, amounts to a concession to patriarchy further reinforcing it. It doesn’t help either that the only time Lincy is shown to be exercising any agency is while making the first revelation about her past, and is shown to be passive, not uttering a word in response as Robin makes the decision ceded to him, without even having to explain his stance.

The ending motif in Ma-Lo resembles the ending of The Dark Knight (2008) too much for it to be coincidental. Wouldn’t exposing the ‘darker side’ of the fallen foe and leaving it visible, count more as evidence of the winner’s fight and victory to have been a righteous one? In many epic narratives, casting a fallen foe as a ‘noble foe’ rather than a common criminal seems to make for a more glorious narrative. However, the ‘turn’ at the end of The Dark Knight isn’t to reveal a ‘noble foe’ but to declare that this was no foe at all. Saying that this wasn’t the ‘real enemy’, and shrugging off the fight with an “It was nothing!” especially after what might have been a fight for survival, is a display of machismo that someone in the flush of triumph may find to hard to resist. Dismissing what might to onlookers have seemed a mortal enemy as ‘not real’ enough to merit fear, makes for better victorious bluster than having gotten the better of a matched foe. The enemy is not just eliminated, but dismissed out of even past existence this way. Such casting of mortal enemies as false alarms belongs to the category of revisionist narratives which Žižek in the same book chapter referenced above, calls ‘retroactive grounding’ where a new legal order established by a successful rebellion serves to redesignate itself and its opponents in the records hereafter considered official. Successful revolutions acquire the means to enable the rewriting history to suggest that it was their ‘governments in exile’ that were always legitimate and it was the ancien regime (which may have been in power for centuries) was treated as being in power only thanks to a kind ‘mistaken identity’ that led usurpers to be treated as rulers. The categories of Establishment and Resistance therefore are subject to considerable ambiguity when a Resistance succeeds in capturing power. Like it is said of an Establishment that lost sway that “It wasn’t an Establishment worth the name to start with”, instances can also be found  where it is said of a Resistance that lost its way that “It wasn’t a Resistance worth the name as it went on.” A recent instance of such a ‘delegitimized Resistance’ is available courtesy of the New York Times in its coverage of Egypt’s presidential election:

Although the term “revolution” typically refers to the overturning of one legal order to establish another, Judge Sami argued that Egypt’s revolution had violated the country’s constitutional traditions, and thus “a revolution against the revolution” had become necessary.

Moving on from War to Love, a relationship that was once seen as a realization of  ‘true love’ maybe treated as no more than a ‘false start’ or ‘mirage’ after a later relationship seems ‘truer’, changing a person’s terms of viewing their own history to an extent that may diminish the status of some previous life events as landmarks.

The ideological influence of patriarchy was recognized earlier as supply terms of reference such as ‘fidelity’ for evaluating any amorous engagement. However, not all assumptions that lead to a preference of monoamory need necessarily to involve patriarchal premises. Someone rejecting traditional gender roles -and hence rejecting patriarchy at least in theory- may well uphold a preference of undivided attention or affection or commitment as a desirable property of a relationship. Monoamory may hence be a legitimate non-sexist sexual preference compatible with human autonomy.The requirement of ‘undivided-ness’ may be treated as fulfilled by serial mono-amory, which in theory can be viewed as relaxation of ‘strict monoamory’ which requires a non-amorous past and allows only one love affair in a lifetime. Someone who is subject to an ideological preference of ‘strict monoamory’ but fell in love more than once, cannot meet the requirement of ‘only one love affair in a lifetime’ but can nevertheless choose to treat only one affair in a lifetime as true love at any given time. While thus revising one’s personal history to remove love from some affairs, similar devices that make the ‘enemy’ and the ‘Establishment’ disappear can be employed to make disappear ‘lovers’ that never were. The American late-night talk-show host Stephen Colbert, in this interview with family therapist Esther Perel has this quip to offer about the Other that not quite is.

Honey, I wasn’t pushing you away. I was just pulling me towards myself.

The notion that so-called ‘second lives’ are the lives that were always meant to be, and also the ones we lead all along without acknowledging, finds a memorable tongue-in-cheek illustration in the faux-serious(or faux-satirical) subtitle of Colbert’s book America Again : Re-becoming the greatness we never weren’t.

So, it appears we can choose not only whether someone will be our enemy or lover but also whether someone was our enemy or lover. Memories are histories (or all that passes for a historical record) and can also make histories. Misremembered experiences and planted memories can influence future behaviors, like in the dramatic illustrations presented by psychologist Elizabeth Lotfus in this TED talk. Creating a shared memory, that is, a shared history, of a ‘wounded civilization’ or a ‘wronged nation’ can result in the making of a history of reparation-seeking and narratives of a ‘nation in decline’ can lead to a history of anxious displays of influence, of ‘protesting too much’ and protecting too much. While such a postmodernist treatment of history makes a useful contribution of forcing an examination of assumptions, omissions, framings and eventual influences of historiography, it goes without saying that ‘changing what was’ does not mean that our species is in a position to make the sort of interventions in X Men: Days of Future Past.

The limits of revision in altering the course of history can be illustrated using this couplet from William Blake’s Auguries of Innocence, which the polymath Jacob Bronowski in his book A Sense of The Future considers an instance of a ‘poetic metaphor’ where ‘the imagery is factual’.

A dog starv’d at his Master’s gate

Predicts the ruin of the State

A revision of the historical narrative can perhaps cast the ‘ruin of the State’ as merely a ‘state of ruin’ coming to a necessary end, and that any dispensation under which such conditions prevail does not merit the name ‘State’ in the first place. However, even after this revision the dog remains starved and unrevived, just like retiring a term like ‘declinism’ does not change stagnant wages or shrinking middle-classes, or stopping to think of an ex-partner as a ‘lover’ in one’s head causes the ‘unhappening’ of the activities engaged in together before the said partner became an ‘ex’.

The outcomes of India’s recently concluded parliamentary election may be framed by the country’s self-identified liberals as a ‘daily opportunity to dissent’ as was suggested in a Facebook comment that political commentator and blogger Shivam Vij quotes with some exasperation. Columnist Mihir Sharma observes that “The thin victories for politically and socially liberal parties in India are won on the back of the numbers game: of alliances, caste arithmetic and candidate choice.”, and in doing so, points to the starving dog beneath the frame that refuses to go away, irrespective of whether transfers of power are viewed as ‘wins’ or ‘losses’, ‘crises’ or ‘opportunities’. As an aside, we may see again at play in both those commentaries a retroactive delegitimization of the sort we saw above, where the outgoing UPA government in India which for a decade was routinely characterized as ‘Center-Left’ is now spoken of as never having been truly ‘liberal’ in the first place. A week’s political commentary of this sort seems enough to wash the veneer of liberalism off a decade-long dispensation. That by itself seems to suggest that liberal positions and postures held by governments may reflect not the intrinsic structure of the underlying (often unacknowledged) political consensus, but a stretch of it that was unsustainable. Likewise the online audience approval of the permissive line taken by a film like Ma-Lo, may not yet reflect a social consensus, since the visible liberal postures may be ones that are assumed on cue rather than assimilated into routines. To tell apart on camera from in character behaviors, the done up from the done, and situational from constitutional tendencies, requires a kind of social criticism and cultural critique that listens between soundbites and keeps looking between photo-ops.

Looking ‘under the hood’ of a headline (or hashtag) by ‘deconstructing’ a ‘triumph’ or ‘debacle’ may yield clearer assessments in material terms of gains made or costs(and opportunity costs)incurred. The postmodernist project of re-reading and re-writing history might well have some promise in the making and shaping of history by revealing opportunities for the exercise of autonomy that would otherwise be missed. What is not promised is that we can simply rephrase and reframe ourselves out of any heartbreak or deficits or debacles. All cannot be faked in love and war, though perhaps much more(or less) can be faced than we now dare(or care) to imagine.

Arvind Iyer is a doctoral student researcher at the University of Southern California working in the broad areas of Computational Neuroscience and biological visual processing. His interests include science popularization, continuing education, secular philanthropy and freethought blogging. He is originally from Mumbai, India.

Figure 1 The Wall in Bethlehem Governorate

Writing about her visits to the West Bank, the author shares with us her impressions of the separation wall.

By Margaret McKenzie, 5th July, 2014

It will have been a decade on July 9 since the International Court of Justice (ICJ) passed its advisory opinion saying Israel must cease construction of the Wall and dismantle sections, compensate for damage caused; and, return Palestinian property or provide compensation if restitution is not possible. The Wall has always been contentious with radically polarizing opinions, exemplified by the many different terms for the Wall depending on who you speak to – “Separation Fence”or “gader hafradeh” in Hebrew, “Apartheid Wall” or “al jidar al azil” in Arabic, are just a few terms used to describe the Wall separating the West Bank from Israel. The Wall depicted in the photos below around the West Bank is illegal under international law.

As an American, I pass easily from one side of the Wall to another; and I do not see the so-called “security fence” fulfilling its objective of improving long-term security. The Wall stands twice as high and four times as long as the Berlin Wall, and most of it does not run along the 1967 Green Line borders, but often goes beyond the line into Palestinian Territory. The Wall increases tensions and causes a racial divide between people. The first time I crossed it on Christmas Eve, I was on a bus, and the young soldiers at the checkpoint of the Wall to Bethlehem asked only the Palestinians to step out of the bus, to pass through on foot like animals. When I stood up to be searched and cross on foot as well, I was told gruffly that it was not necessary. On my next trip, I walked through “The Terminal” outside of Ramallah, which is designated for Palestinians.

Figure 2 – A Terminal outside of Ramallah.

Imagine being humiliated on a daily basis, standing for forty-five minutes sometimes and being treated as a second-class citizen. Imagine doing this for ten years, while knowing that the world court has said it is illegal and unjust, but having to submit to it because the 19 year old solider at the Wall holds a gun, and you have nothing. According to a former Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) soldier from Breaking the Silence giving a tour of Hebron, the IDF are “encouraged to make Palestinian’s lives hell.”

The coverage of the three Israeli boys who were killed last month is only a small indicator of the staggering contrast of how western media interprets a death on each side – while the missing Israelis made headlines, western media seemed to ignore the fact that, on average, one Palestinian child dies every 3 days.

My most recent trip to the West Bank this year was the most eye-opening yet. I stayed in a refugee camp enclosed by the Wall.

The first day I arrived in Aida Refugee Camp, a Palestinian camp in the Bethlehem Governorate north of Bethlehem City, I walked with camp residents along the Wall. On the east and north sides of the camp, the Wall is an unremitting reminder of the resident’s prison. As I took photos of the Wall, one resident remarked that foreigners come in and draw the graffiti art. Residents of the camp would rather not do so as it makes the Wall beautiful. They want to be reminded daily of the scar that tears through their land.

Figure 3 Art on the Wall in Aida Refugee Camp

The asymmetrical power is evident just by comparing access to water – illegal Israeli settlements receive 24/7 access to running water, while Palestinian communities obtain sporadic supplies of water, particularly in the summer. Aida Camp residents informed me of springs on the other side of the Wall, which are now less accessible because of the checkpoints.

One of the students I worked with at Aida Camp, a 15 year old boy, was arrested shortly after I left the camp. The photo of his arrest was taken by a local photographer I met at Lajee Center. As depicted by this graphic, Israeli and Palestinian children are tried under different legal systems, perpetuating the cycle of hate. The Wall is just another reason for him and other residents in the West Bank to fight – they want to achieve freedom, and no Wall will stop that desire. A line on the Wall that stood out to me was a paraphrased Edmund Burke quote, “Good men have only to remain silent for evil to prevail.”

Figure 4 The Wall in Bethlehem Governorate

Kurdish Fighters – Photo courtesy of Free Kurdistan

In making the case for Kurdish independence, the author reviews the favorable prospects of the Kurdish state. He explains that “the West must support Kurdish independence to right the wrongs of the past and create stability in the Middle East.”

By Hawar Shawki, 22nd August, 2014

Straddling the borders where Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria converge in the Middle East, the Kurds constitute the largest number of people in the world without their own independent sovereign state. Long a suppressed minority, the wars against Saddam Hussein in 1991 and 2003 resulted in the creation of a semi-autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in the Federal Republic of Iraq. The KRG has inspired the Kurds elsewhere to seek cultural, social, and even political autonomy, if not independence. Kurdish history has seen many nationalist movements, but a fully independent sovereign state has yet to come to fruition and be recognised by the United Nations and other nation-states.

The Kurds have occupied the same mountainous region for thousands of years. The fact that a Kurdish state does not exist is basically an accident of modern history, made almost 100 years ago. An independent sovereign state would right the 1922 wrong in which a British and French diplomats synthetically carved out modern states from the defeated Ottoman Empire. In the Kurdish case, the lack of statehood appears not quite logical. Independence or autonomy for the Kurds, which had been on the agenda in 1921,[1] somehow disappeared from the agenda in 1922, so there was to be no Kurdistan: it was a non-decision of 1922, that was, in effect, a decision.

In the past few years, Kurdistan has rapidly become a symbol of hope in terms of economic prosperity, equality, security and safety. Many believe that an independent Kurdistan is now more feasible than ever. The United Kingdom and the United States should take hold of this historic occasion to support a new and strong ally in the Middle East. Recent events inside Iraq and Syria have strengthened the moral and strategic arguments for an independent, sovereign Kurdistan.

As Iraq heads toward an uncertain future, a newly independent Kurdistan would quickly become one of the best British and American allies in the Middle East. The country would be what Jordan is to the West, a strong official partner in the region, but also a popular partner; similar to the relationship the U.S. has with the Israel. In fact, Kurdistan already has public support from Israel as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was of the only leaders so far call for Kurdish independence. The U.K. and U.S. would be wise to grasp this extraordinary prospect and provide its diplomatic muscle to the Kurdish cause. On the other hand, there is also a moral argument to be made from this situation. From cultural repression to the chemical weapons campaign in the 1980s, the Kurds have suffered for decades as unwanted outsiders at the hands of the Baghdad elite.

At present, the Kurds have a military known as the Peshmerga (those who face death) with a civilian commander-in-chief and modern state institutions. In the last 10 years, Kurdistan has attracted billions of dollars in foreign investment with oil & gas leading the economic boom, and is pretty much the only place in Iraq where westerners and others from Iraq actually feel secure.

Its army has women fighting in the front line and are not seen as second class citizens with many working in both the public and private sector. The KRG has outlawed Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) and forced and underage marriages. It is the closest you will get to a Western Europe state in the region in terms of socially liberally and progressive policies. Unfortunately, corruption, nepotism and freedom of the press have a long way to catch up in terms of Western standards, but relatively speaking, Kurdistan is progressing further than its neighbours in the region.

Given the circumstances in Iraq today, most sane and rational people know this 100 year experiment is over. The U.S. and U.K. failed miserably in the 2003 invasion Iraq. However, for both governments’ policy is to keep Iraq unified and not allow the Kurds to break away. This policy will bite them back hard in the future. Kurdistan became an example of what all of Iraq should have looked like after the initial invasion as US neo-conservatives prophesised. Instead, the Americans ignored the peaceful and prospers Kurdistan region and gave its full attention and tax payers’ dollars to Baghdad.

President Barzani of the Kurdistan Region recently announced that parliament will put together a referendum. Without doubt, it will probably be 99% in favour of independence. It is in the best interest of the region and the West to support an independent Kurdistan to at least give the people of Kurdistan what they’re owed and right the wrongs of history.

Hawar Shawki is a graduate of the Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. He is currently in the United States pursuing a Juris Doctorate concentrating on International Law. Hawar is also a Government Relations Consultant for the Kurdish National Congress of North America, a non-partisan, non-profit organisation advocating for Kurdish self-determination.

[1] Yildiz. K and Blass. T, The Kurds in Iraq: The Past, Present and Future, Kurdish Human Rights Project, (2003), p.26.

China in Afghanistan: Valuable Ally or Emerging Threat?

In this article, the author explores the competing US and Chinese discourses on China’s Peaceful rise strategy, using the PRC’s economic involvement in Afghanistan as a case study. It argues that although China’s interest in Afghanistan is perceived and framed as a threat by the US, it also represents a momentous opportunity for Afghanistan and its neighbors.

By Camille Maubert, 17th March, 2012

Karzai’s attempt to build an Afghanistan with American democratic characteristics and Chinese economic dynamism highlights the delicate positioning at play, whereby Afghanistan is subjected to different and sometimes contradictory foreign influences. Indeed, while the US is the biggest player in Afghanistan, China is also preparing to assume a long-term role in the country. In fact, the successful Chinese Metallurgical Corporation’s bid on the Aynak copper mine in Lowgar province, worth US$4 billion, promoted China as the largest single foreign investor in the country’s history. This had the West shudder by reminding it how powerful – and potentially threatening – a neighbor the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is.

“We do the heavy lifting and they pick up the fruits” – the American narrative

Since 2001, China’s involvement in the country shifted from disinterest to ever-growing investments in the country’s infrastructures, mineral wealth and agriculture. However, its expanding commercial interests are deeply controversial because of their political reach. Indeed, China, who has gained control of strategic assets without shooting a single bullet, has been accused of free-riding on the stability provided by the American troops in order to secure access to natural resources. In fact, American troops not only bring general security in the Logar province, but they also trained the 1500 Afghan National Police soldiers who are directly protecting the infrastructures.

This behavior is perceived as unacceptable because of China’s refusal to share the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF)’s burden. Indeed, the Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson, Mr Gang, made it clear that it is “out of the question to send Chinese troops (…) in Afghanistan” and discounted NATO’s request to use the Wakhan corridor for logistical supplies. This is interpreted as an indirect confrontation with US interests and goals in the region; and seen with suspicion by the West. Arguably, it is assumed that there is a correlation between increased economic power and amplified political weight; that is to say that because China expands its economic assets in Afghanistan, it will inevitably increase its political influence by the same token. Some indeed fear that China’s business in Afghanistan and Central Asia could alter the balance of power in areas vital to the US’s strategic interests.

By shunning away from any major security role and distancing itself from ISAF, China conveys the image of a profit-focused actor who utilizes its powerful national companies to expand influence in Afghanistan and who doesn’t balk at dealing with rogue actors. Indeed, while China benefits from the US tackling transnational Islamic terrorism, it also adopts a very cautious and balanced diplomacy with both the United States and the Taliban: Being a direct target of terrorist activities because of its policy on Xinjiang’s Muslim minority, and Aynak being located in a potentially Taliban-controlled area, China is in effect willing compromise with all regional actors to maintain stability.

However, the depiction of China’s involvement in Afghanistan and the wider region as a threat to Western interests is biased by the widespread “China Threat theory” which impregnates Western analysis. Because Western interpretations of China’s role in Afghanistan derives from the way the West sees China –as a threat – and the way it sees itself – as liberal and benevolent – it is fair to assume that an examination of the Chinese discourse is needed in order to grasp the other side of the story.

Afghanistan and the Direct Investment Model – The Chinese narrative

What distinguishes China from other actors in the Afghan reconstruction is its outstanding ability to project funds into unstable and high-risk areas. Indeed, its national companies have the capability to deal with risks associated with investing in remote and unsecure regions where Western companies cannot – yet – penetrate. The China Metallurgical Group, by accepting the risks associated with such investment and adding incentives like the building of infrastructures – power plant, hospital, mosque – outbid the West.

The comparative advantage of China over American and European investors is rooted in its Direct Investment model, which offers loans below market rates and have the attractive feature of not associating economic development with political reforms. Indeed, while Western donors and investors condition aid on democratic and human rights improvements, for developing countries like Afghanistan, China’s policy of non-intervention in internal affairs is appealing because it allows them to prioritize economic development. This strategy has been criticized in the West because it is seen as providing support for authoritarian regimes; but, so far, it seems more successful in bringing stability to war-torn countries that Western humanitarian and counter-insurgency missions. Based on successful results in Africa, this macro-level system will have a positive impact on Afghan stability in that it will promote a virtuous circle of economic development in the wider region – Central Asia, Xinjiang, Afghanistan – and will reduce Afghanistan’s dependence on international aid, therefore advancing the wider American goal of stability.

The reason for and implication of such strategy resides in China’s primary security interest in its Western province of Xinjiang. The PRC is indeed most concerned about cross-border terrorism coming from its Western and Southern neighbors. Despite the militarization of its borders and the increased security cooperation with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, China is very vulnerable to Islamic militancy spillovers from Afghanistan and the Pakistani safe havens. Hence the implementation of a cautious policy of economic development and support to Afghanistan’s reconstruction which enforces stability while at the same time remaining distant from the US initiatives to avoid being associated with the controversial War on Terror.

By providing training to the Afghan police and anti-drug factions, investing in local resources and promoting cooperation between Central Asian governments on the “three evils” – fundamentalism, terrorism and separatism – China aims to maintain dialogue and cooperation and consolidate its long-term presence. This calculation is based on the assumption that by developing a Central Asian economic sphere – in which the opening of the Wakhan corridor would play a crucial role in reviving the Silk Road – China will securely reinforce its economic rise while avoiding becoming the target of Islamic militantism.

One could safely assume from its involvement in Afghanistan that China is pursuing a narrow interpretation of its interests. Although the PRC officially adheres to the shared principles of the War on Terror such as anti-terrorism – from which it profits to legitimize its Xinjiang policy – or anti-narcotics, it also rejects the all-encompassing US strategy and rather prioritizes domestic security and development. Indeed, China claims that far from seeking regional hegemony, it wishes to preserve the international order and pursue its national interest within it.

Afghanistan at the cross-roads of the US-China agendas

What stems from those two conflicting narratives is that the stereotypical distinction between a disinterested West and a voracious China is not relevant in the sense that it stems from ideological perceptions rather than rational observation. Consequently, the idea of China as a threat doesn’t stem from the reality of it as an expanding power but rather from “perceptions, especially those regarding the potential that Beijing will become an example, source or model that contradicts Western liberalism as the reigning paradigm” (Stephen Chan 1999). Indeed, because China, by making profits in Afghanistan, doesn’t fit in the normative expectations of the US on how it should act, it is displayed as a threat to global peace. This means that the idea of China as a threat to the regional status quo is more a self-fulfilling prophecy than an actual reality in the sense that, by framing China as a menace, the US may not only push it towards brinkmanship but also lose its attractiveness to the Afghan government and people, and therefore further get bogged down.

Afghanistan is the place where two narratives and strategic cultures met – the Western fear of losing its hegemony and the Chinese confidence in expanding its economy. Because China’s domestic and economic concerns shape its approach to foreign policy, it is engaging with Afghanistan in its own terms, which is understood as a threat by the West but also as an unmatched opportunity by Afghanistan.

The post China in Afghanistan: Valuable Ally or Emerging Threat? appeared first on INPEC.

The Unhappiness Factory of Kashmir

In an April 2012 issue of Open Magazine, the editor Manu Joseph wrote a provocatively titled essay, “Sorry, Kashmir is Happy”. Unsurprisingly, this article became the subject of heated discussion. In this InPEC article, the author – Sualeh Keen, a Kashmiri writer, poet and cultural critic – brings some perspective to the issue.

By Sualeh Keen, 7th May 2012

Trauma in Kashmir is like a heritage building—the elite fight to preserve it. ‘Don’t forget,’ is their predominant message, ‘Don’t forget to be traumatised.’ They want the wound of Kashmir to endure because the wound is what indicts India for the many atrocities of its military. This might be a long period of calm, but if the wound vanishes, where is the justice? India simply gets away with all those rapes, murders and disappearances? So nothing disgusts them more than these words: ‘Normalcy returns to Kashmir’; ‘Peace returns to the Valley’; ‘Kashmiris want to move on’.

When Manu Joseph wrote these words in the Open Magazine article ‘Sorry, Kashmir Is Happy’, it was but expected that ‘they’ would get disgusted and outraged. ‘They’ are the intellectual writers and online activists that constitute the second generation of Kashmiri Muslim separatists, the first generation being the Pakistan-trained mujahideen who fought with AK-47s, grenades, rockets, and bombs against ‘Hindu India’ in search of Azadi (literally, ‘freedom’). While originally Azadi meant the valley’s accession to Pakistan, after the Pakistan-sponsored armed uprising in the early 90’s failed and with the onset of internal turmoil in Pakistan, the meaning of Azadi has shifted from accession to Pakistan to independence from both India and Pakistan. This demand is largely confined to the Kashmiri Muslim community of the Kashmir valley, while finding little or no support in the Jammu and Ladakh regions of the Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) State. Even in the valley, opinions are divided in favour of independence, accession to Pakistan, greater autonomy or self-rule within the Indian union, and political status quo.

That the people of Kashmir have suffered in these two decades of militancy is an undeniable fact. Terrorism imposes a price on everyone including the non-combatants. In Kashmir, even a failed grenade attack can make life a nightmare for the people living or working in a locality—through crackdowns, identification parades, frisking, beatings, interrogation, torture—making the people resent this abnormal intrusion of fear, hurt, and death into their lives. Their resentment turns to hostility, which takes the shape of resistance to the State, and to military and paramilitary personnel, because that is all that they can react to. It is difficult to open a front against shadowy enemies (terrorists) who don’t wear uniforms that would identify them and who can take anyone down anywhere with no accountability whatsoever. This threat of random violence is what makes terrorism so successful. And when the State responds forcefully with counter-terrorism measures, again, the special powers accorded to the armed forces pave the way for the abuse of those powers. So, not just the costs of terrorism, the subsequent costs of counter-terrorism are also borne by ordinary people caught in the crossfire. Ironically, the violent Azadi movement and the misery it unleashed in society provided the raw material for the new generation of largely non-violent separatists to justify their demand for Azadi. Towards this effect, the separatists base their political narrative entirely on the “oppression and human rights violation by the armed forces of India.” While seeking justice for the fake encounters, custodial murders, etc. committed by the men in uniform (armed forces), the separatists are silent about the murders, rapes, abductions and extortions committed by the so-called mujahideen. In other words, there is an attempt to distort or redefine truth in a way that the effect becomes the cause.

After the mass mobilization during the Amarnath Land Row in summer 2008, the separatists have become louder and shriller. Over the past few years, there has been a significant shift in the position of the separatist intellectual ranks. Those who were ‘balanced’, ‘moderate’, and ‘diplomatic’ have suddenly taken a more extremist position and become more vocal in their tone. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, in an extremist camp, the loudest voices are readily hailed as the voices with ‘real pain’ for the people. As such, many formerly objective and moderate voices are becoming louder by the day, so as to be seen as the ‘legitimate’ representatives of the people. But secondly and more importantly, this pandemonium is strategic from their side. The separatists have for the first time in many years, after they picked up guns, been able to garner some sort of wider public attention and interest in Kashmir, and begun to extract solidarity from other groups in India and the West—mainly Leftist groups, which in my opinion may be well-intentioned but have a severe lack of understanding of the local complexities of the issue. The separatists feel that for the first time in years they have gained the moral upper hand on India (during the terrorist phase of this movement, morality was thrown to the wind) and they want to drive this in every time, not letting their guard down ever for once, not admitting any slippage, no room for doubt, no room for self-critique, no room to entertain those who exhibit less than complete service to the cause. This is a war that they need to win at all costs and they are encouraged by imagined signs of victory. However, not all of them personally think that Azadi is achievable, but they hope to achieve something lesser with this posturing and by playing hardball. But they dare not declare their scepticism about the achievability of Azadi publicly, lest it be seen as a sell out by the separatist crowd.

It is easy to see why ‘peace’ and ‘normalcy’ is their kryptonite. Last year, lest a literary festival ‘Harud’ that was to be held in Kashmir be seen as a ‘sign of normalcy’, the shrill online Azadi supporters, including a few pro-azadi Kashmiri writers based abroad, launched a boycott movement that succeeded in convincing the organisers to cancel the event. But sorry, Kashmir is normal and happy. Anybody who visits Kashmir will agree that the scene has changed drastically from 2010; not just in public space but in private conversations as well. “Azadi is gone!” is the verdict of almost all the people one meets – in Kashmir’s villages and in towns. What are the people happy about? Happiness is a relative term. The people are happy that, after the three successive years of unrest (2008 to 2010) that brought life to a standstill, they can breathe again in a free atmosphere, live a normal life again, attend to their businesses, go to their educational institutions, without stone-pelting protestors taking to the streets, without deaths, without protracted shutdowns and curfews imposed by the separatists and the State respectively.

I have often criticized the extremism of the Azadi supporters, who, after the brouhaha over Manu Joseph’s article, can be called “The Unhappiness Factory”. The separatists are only interested in exaggerating the figures of victims, demonizing India, and exhorting people to make sacrifices at the altar of Azadi, while acting as fire starters or as torch-bearing cheerleaders standing outside the fire or as pall bearers and mourners. The most notable characteristic of the workers of the “The Unhappiness Factory” is that they are not content in seeing human rights violations (HRVs) being put to an end or seeing that victims get justice. No, they want nothing like that to happen, because justice for the victims and an end to HRVs would portray “Endia” (India) as a responsive and responsible “Demon-crazy” (Democracy), and that will undermine and devalue the sacrifices of the martyrs. They are very clear that they want nothing less than secession from India, even if India’s human rights record improves to become the best in the world, which is fine, because people may seek secession from a larger country for one reason or the other. But the aspiration of which ‘people’ do the separatists represent? The separatists are unable to or refuse to accept the hard reality of the divided opinion of the people of J&K State.

The cumulative positive contribution of the separatists towards the betterment of Kashmir draws a blank. Rather than supporting, the separatists can be seen pooh-poohing the local movements about RTI, corruption, environment, etc. They even try to morally pressurize victims against taking compensation from the State. These “Einsteins” think that switching off and rebooting the main power switch would make every malfunctioning appliance in the house function properly on its own, miraculously, as soon as the light of Azadi dawns. That Kashmir may on the contrary get plunged into darkness is a risk this vocal minority is willing to take on behalf of every Kashmiri, even those who don’t agree with them, because according to them “Azadi is for everybody,” notwithstanding the differing opinions of some Kashmiri Muslims and religious and ethnic minorities in the valley, the entire Pandit community that fled away from the violent Islamist Azadi movement in 1990 and the people of the Jammu and Ladakh regions of the J&K State. And until thy “Free-doom” has come, every other enterprise in the valley should be suspended, cynically mocked, or termed as inconsequential. Only Azadi is of value and only the separatist knows what is good for the people whether they agree to it or not.

Yoginder Sikand, in his candid article ‘Why I Gave Up On ‘Social Activism’, gave an apt description of such negative disseminators of unhappiness:

“The hatred that often passed for ‘progressivism’ in ‘activist’ circles was truly astounding, and I fell lock-stock-and-barrel for it. One was trained only to look for the negative in every nook and corner, and, if it didn’t exist where one looked, to imagine and fervently believe that it did. One’s whole life became one great protest. Protesting against real or imaginary injustice was almost the only respectable thing to do. It was as if there was nothing at all good in the world to celebrate, and even as if celebration and joy were themselves an ‘unnecessary diversion’ or a ‘unaffordable luxury’ that truly committed ‘activists’ had to carefully shun. That explained why many ‘progressives’ and ‘radicals’ were horrifically negative as human beings, many of them being irritatingly obnoxious, judgemental, cantankerous, dour and sullen. Their penchant for protest made them only more so. Believing themselves to be somehow morally superior to others because they had, so they thought, devoted themselves to the ‘oppressed’ made many of them painfully sanctimonious and proud.”

Some of the shrillest proponents of Azadi operate online from urban Kashmir, elsewhere in India, or from abroad. Beneath their veneer of Leftist ‘progressive’ and ‘liberal’ word salads resides a foundation of xenophobic regional-religious chauvinism they can barely conceal and is hardly an improvement over that of their gun-wielding Islamist predecessors. Using what is essentially a Leftist jargon, they warn of the “occupying forces” using “progress, development and peace” to undermine the Azadi movement, even though a better education or a career in a peaceful setting is what took many of them to places outside the valley. Those who warn of the “capitalist consumer carrot” should go to a Kashmiri wedding and Waazwan (wedding feast—no carrots on the menu) where ordinary Kashmiris can teach them (and the rest of India) a thing or two about consumerism that is very much indigenous! It becomes a futile task of imposing and seeking to universalize the unfettered-capitalism debate (legitimate in other contexts) to a localized phenomenon and to individual choices to the point of absurdity. It is extremely patronizing and hypocritical of the computer-savvy city slicker or a non-resident Kashmiri to tell people that they did not need decent jobs and infrastructure.

No wonder, Manu Joseph’s interview of the top ranking Indian Administrative Services (IAS) officer from the valley, Dr. Shah Faesal (which forms the backdrop of his ‘Sorry, Kashmir Is Happy’ article) was harshly criticized of by the online separatists, which compelled the target of criticism to respond in a Facebook group (Dr. Shah Faesal’s comments on Facebook group ‘Moderate Voice Of Jammu, Kashmir And Ladakh’ can be found here and here). The separatists conveniently turned a blind eye to the pioneering work done in the area of RTI (Right To Information) by Dr. Shah Faesal. Incidentally, one of his first RTI cases was about finding the whereabouts of a civilian picked up by the Border Security Forces in 1990 and never seen again. But the separatists are not interested in all these ‘charades’ of justice or making heroes out of individuals who work within the ‘system’. How dare Dr. Shah Faesal say that to love peace and normalcy is commonsense and commonsense is winning in Kashmir.

When Manu Joseph criticizes the non-resident online separatists, it makes him sound more like a writer who is just getting to know Kashmir. By no means are a few non-resident Kashmiris the only intellectual cheerleaders of street violence and ideologues of separatist sentiment. The very same Kashmiri youth residing in Kashmir whom Manu Joseph interacted with and who want peace, normalcy and KFC in Kashmir are the ones who become votaries of street violence and anti-State sentiment. The reason cannot be generalized because each person has his own motives. Reasons could range from some young people going for a radical chic image, the emotional contagion of the vocal separatists, guilt-laden psychodynamics, occupational hazards of being an aspiring journalist in the valley who wants to be noticed, of being a victim of the ‘victimhood’ propaganda, being paid or instructed to write with a certain slant, not to mention the instant fanfare among mutual back-patting Azadi supporters. Indeed, the main bulk of the output of “The Unhappiness Factory” is home-made and not manufactured on the laptops of non-resident ‘intellectual stone-pelters’.

Also, Manu Joseph’s article is to be faulted for doing a superficial symptomatic diagnosis. It does not address why the same people who want normalcy now, were in the streets three years in a row, and, given a suitable stimulus, may well come out on the streets again in the future. The article does not offer solutions for ensuring that normalcy is not disturbed by the forces of unhappiness in future. Yes, many people have moved on, but to where?

The ball is in the State’s court and it is up to the State to ensure that the dividends of peace are not squandered away with its habitual apathy, complacency and inefficiency. I recommend that Manu Joseph’s article be read in conjunction with the nuanced piece by Praveen Swami and by Ajai Shukla, which I feel should be taken seriously by the State. The committed workers of “The Unhappiness Factory”, a vocal minority, are not the same as the majority of Kashmiris. Many of the latter also have no love lost for India due to the high-handedness of security forces and the political machinations of the Centre, but they simply wish that the rule of gun would end and they could live life normally, like people anywhere in the world, including India. While “The Unhappiness Factory” is inconsolable, the majority of Kashmiris will settle for something less than Azadi or make do without political restructuring. They do not appear to be so keen any longer on utilizing the blood of martyrs but in seeing that blood is shed no more. The State needs to address the desires of these people rather than a loony fringe.

In a nutshell, the State also needs to get a move on. After all, “The Unhappiness Factory” will do what it does best and that is not going to change, perhaps never. Oppositional politics derives its raison d’être from the wrongs of others, and if the state is farsighted and forthright, the “Factory” will shut down on its own. In any case, negativity has diminishing returns, and finally the quest for happiness and affirmation of life wins the day.

So here is to happiness and normalcy. Here is to life!

Sualeh Keen is a Kashmiri writer, poet, graphic artist, and cultural critic. He works as a marketing communications professional. He created the Facebook group “Moderate Voice Of Jammu, Kashmir And Ladakh” as a platform to promote dialogue between various stakeholders of the State.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect InPEC’s editorial position.

Also Read: Heyns, the Final Straw for AFSPA in India? – This article discusses the controversial Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA) of India. A United Nations Human Rights Council report is set to be released on this in the near future.

Bibliography

Sorry, Kashmir Is Happy’ by Manu Joseph, Open Magazine, 21 April 2012.
“Why Should Suicide Bombers Buy Life Insurance?” by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, Freakonomics blog.
‘Victory For A Vocal Minority’, Outlook Magazine, 29 August 2011.
‘Why I Gave Up On Social Activism’ by Yoginder Sikand, Countercurrents.org, 19 April 2012.
‘Face of Hope Reflects Calm in Kashmir’ by Manu Joseph, The New York Times, 29 February 2012.
‘In Kashmir, some hot potatoes’ by Praveen Swami, The Hindu, 23 April 2012.
‘Charging ahead in Kashmir’ by Ajai Shukla, Business Standard, 1 May 2012.

The post The Unhappiness Factory of Kashmir appeared first on INPEC.

Is Mali the ‘next Afghanistan’?

Andrew Lebovich analyses the popular attitudes on the security situation in northern Mali to look at the potential risks to international security and the risks that are, at present, overstated.

Mr. Lebovich is a contributor to the popular foreign policy blog The Washington Note, and his work has appeared at ForeignPolicy.com and The Atlantic Online. He also writes a formerly weekly, and now twice-weekly brief with Foreign Policy on legal issues in the struggle against terrorism, the Legal War on Terror (LWOT).

By Andrew Lebovich, 13th June, 2012.

The title of this post is a question I’m seeing more and more, and it reflects the growing concern in Washington, Paris, and African capitals that the security situation in northern Mali is spiraling out of control. In this kind of environment, bad news tends to echo loudly and quickly. The most recent example of this is the strong reaction in the international press to an interview Nigerien President Mahamadou Issoufou gave to France 24 this week, in which he said that Afghans and Pakistanis were in Mali training fighters, in addition to confirming that French hostages held for nearly a year and a half by AQIM were in “good health” and still alive. This news has garnered quite a bit of attention, especially in the Francophone media, though it should be noted that RFI reported the presence Pakistani trainers in Timbuktu and in Kidal a month ago, to considerably less attention. Still, this and other signs of the degradation in the security environment in northern Mali and the growth of AQIM have spurred speculation about whether or not northern Mali was becoming a “West African Afghanistan“, a new Somalia, or a jumping-off point for terrorist attacks elsewhere.

While I think some of this concern is warranted, I think some of this language and concern may be, for the moment, a bit overwrought, as I will explain in this piece. This post is my attempt to sort through some of the current popular attitudes about the security situation in northern Mali, the very real risks to regional and international security that may be looming in the north, and the equally real constraints on militant groups attempting to impose shari’ah in northern Mali or project force beyond Mali’s already porous (or nonexistent) borders.

First, the bad news

Long before the Tuareg rebellion and the birth of Ansar Al-Din, AQIM and its predecessor the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) were using Malian territory to strike other countries. The period from 2005-2011, in addition to seeing a number of kidnappings of Westerners in the Sahel, saw attacks against military, government and foreign targets (including the murder of French and American citizens) in Mauritania, attacks against border guards and customs agents in Algeria, and similar attacks and confrontations in Niger. During this period, AQIM’s involvement in kidnapping for ransom (KFR) and various smuggling networks may have netted upwards of 200 million euro – though these numbers are very fuzzy, and do not take into account the money the group has had to spend to simply operate and survive in one of the harshest environments on earth.

More recently, the AQIM “splinter” group the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa (MUJWA), based in Mali, has conducted a suicide bombing in the southern Algerian city of Tamanrasset and kidnapped seven Algerian diplomats in the city of Gao. Moreover, foreign fighters appear to have reinforced MUJWA, AQIM, and Ansar Al-Din. The latter group in particular has admitted to welcoming fighters from Somalia, Niger, Tunisia, and elsewhere (though of course this information has not been confirmed independently). AQIM, according to unconfirmed reports, has been reinforced by “Maghrebin” jihadists and steered others, in particular Mauritanians, to Ansar Al-Din. And while reports of more than 100 Boko Haram fighters being present in Gao may be an exaggeration, there is enoughcircumstantial evidence of their presence in Mali (and the alleged presence of AQIM members in Nigeria) to conclude that the groups may be tightening their links.

So to sum up, we now have a situation where at least three-to-four jihadist or hardline Islamist groups are active and “in possession” of much of northern Mali, including the cities of Gao, Kidal, and Timbuktu. These groups appear to be operationally active and training new fighters for different regional militant organizations, and possibly securing areas of operation for future training or attacks in the region. This is not to mention the role that these groups, in particular AQIM, appear to be playing in enforcing a harsh interpretation of shari’ah law and supporting Ansar Al-Din, which seems to have quickly accumulated a suspiciously large amount of money, weapons and personnel, especially given the much smaller size and less diverse composition of the organization – an issue I previously discussed here – when it was created late last year. Regardless, AQIM and its key leadership in the Sahel are almost certainly active in northern Mali, and will likely stay there, whether they remain deeply involved with Ansar Al-Din or pull back to focus on jihadist activity while allowing Ansar Al-Din to worry about the implementation of shari’ah in Mali, per the recent instructions of the group’s Kabylia-based leader Abdelmalek Droukdel.

This is not the Afghanistan you are looking for

Setting aside for a moment the causes of concern in northern Mali, there are a number of structural and local particularities that may inhibit the emergence of northern Mali as a new “safe haven” for jihadist groups. For one thing, northern Mali is a rather isolated place, with large, relatively barren distances between population centers. This makes it difficult, though clearly not impossible, to bring fighters into the country, and could put groups of fighters at risk if they venture out of the cities, as happened in March when Mauritanian aircraft attacked a convoythey believed to include AQIM members, including Yahya Abu Al-Hammam, the head of one of AQIM’s sub-units, who is reportedly present in Timbuktu. While it is unclear if the aircraft actually found their target, Western aircraft may have more luck, if they end up getting involved in the fighting (NB: This is not an expression of support for the use of manned or unmanned aircraft in the Sahel, simply an observation).

This isolation also means that it is difficult to re-supply fighters, whether with fuel, food, or ammunition. While smuggling networks for these materials are present and well-established in the Sahel, Mali’s neighbors can damage militant groups by tightening their grips on these smuggling routes or by attacking jihadists who expose themselves while trying to obtain supplies. This happened last month, when a rapid Algerian helicopter strike reportedly decimated a column of MUJWA fighters who tried to steal two fuel trucks in Tinzawaten, on the Mali-Algeria border.

In this vein, it is worth keeping in mind that while Afghanistan in the 90′s was bordered by at least one state that tolerated or may have even supported the Taliban, who then gave shelter to al-Qaeda and the numerous jihadist groups who used the country as a training base, northern Mali is surrounded by countries that are not exactly disposed to welcoming a jihadist-controlled state next door. Mauritania has repeatedly attacked AQIM targets in Mali, Niger has been vocally pushing for an intervention to root out AQIM and its allies, and while Algeria has been reticent to commit military forces to a foreign intervention, the Tinzawaten incident demonstrates the latter’s willingness to use force – potentially across the border – if its interests are threatened. And behind all of this is the possibility of European (really French) or American involvement in providing logistical or intelligence support for an ECOWAS or African Union force or direct airstrikes. While such a foreign intervention may have a very negative impact on the overall security situation in northern Mali, something will eventually have to give. As former diplomat and Mali watcher Todd J. Moss told Reuters last week, “Western policymakers will absolutely not allow a jihadist safe haven” in Mali.

Moreover, I believe that Ansar Al-Din in particular and those supporting it remain limited on a local level. While residents of Kidal, Gao and Timbuktu appear to have grudgingly welcomed the security and harsh justice Ansar Al-Din brought in the wake of the departure of the Malian army from the north, that appears to be changing. Protests have broken out in all three cities in the wake of the implementation of shari’ah (most recently in Kidal), the banning of soccer and smoking in Gao, and the destruction of a sacred holy site and a national monument in Timbuktu. After suppressing these protests Ansar has pulled back, especially in Timbuktu and Kidal; in Timbuktu, where the group has already put a local face on its actions, Ansar has attempted to show their appreciation for and willingness to protect the city’s patrimony. And in Kidal, after receiving significant pushback for having assaulted female protesters, Ansar reportedly chose not to intervene during the second days’ protests. While Ansar Al-Din has been able to keep a lid on such protests so far, it is likely that these will grow if the group continues to pursue the implementation of shari’ah in the public sphere. And if protests continue to break out, the group will be faced with a hard choice between allowing the protests or suppressing them, given that violence may provoke protesters further, or push local notables influential within the organization – such as Ifoghas “chief executive” Alghabass Ag Intallah in Kidal – to push Ansar to moderate its behavior.

These local tensions could become more acute in an environment where multiple armed groups could eventually form in opposition. To put a spin on the Weberian expression, for the moment Ansar Al-Din and AQIM, dominant in terms of armament and manpower, have a monopoly on the threat of force in northern Mali. They have used this threat that the two groups used to push the MNLA and then the primarily Arab FNLA out of Timbuktu, as well as toassert their authority in Gao.

However, Ansar Al-Din and AQIM have so far resisted using anything more than targeted force, showing a potential unwillingness to unleash full-scale civil war in northern Mali. And other challengers to their authority may lurk in the wings; the National Liberation Front of the Azawad (FNLA) has threatened to kick AQIM out of Timbuktu; former Malian army commander El Hajj Gamou has formed his own group, the Republican Movement for the Restoration of the Azawad (MRRA); and another group purportedly composed of Songhaï and “black Tuareg”, the Movement of Patriots for Resistance and the Liberation of Timbuktu (MPRLT), has also promised to retake Timuktu. And the first clashes between Ansar Al-Din and MNLA fighters may have taken place in Kidal this week, though a number of people have since denied that any fighting took place. And the Songhai militia Ganda Iso’s members remain in and around Gao, even if the group fell apart after its leader was killed in combat with the MNLA in March.

For the moment, all of the groups mentioned except the MNLA exist primarily on paper, and the MNLA, reportedly lacking in arms and ammunition, has mostly cooperated or at least avoided conflict with Ansar Al-Din, to the point of briefly merging and then splitting with Ansar at the end of May. Still, there is the possibility that one or more armed groups could emerge to challenge or at least provoke Ansar Al-Din and its jihadist allies, especially if armed opposition groups receive support from abroad or from regional entities. Such opposition would again leave Ansar Al-Din and its allies in a position where they might have to actually use force against local populations, which could drastically alter the delicate balance of power and push local populations into open opposition. This would dramatically complicate life for Ansar Al-Din, and could potentially make the “safe haven” in northern Mali a bit less so.

None of this is to undermine or downplay the severity of the threat posed by the security situation in northern Mali, as the presence of hardline militant groups could threaten regional and international security, not to mention the security of the local populations forced to live under their harsh rule. Rather, it is important to keep in mind when analyzing the situation in northern Mali the important limits on hardline militant groups’ freedom of operation. While these factors may not be definitive in the long run, they will be important in shaping how these groups react to endogenous and exogenous pressure in the weeks and months to come.

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Economic sanctions are not only shattering the lives of the Iranian people but also strangling Iran’s social and cultural development. Iran is headed for a humanitarian catastrophe unless steps are taken to avert it.

[This article is based on a talk presented by independent researcher Mehrnaz Shahabi on November 17 at the Nour Festival of Arts in London, which seeks to celebrate, explore and promote culture and arts in the Middle East and North Africa.]

By Mehrnaz Shahabi, 17th December, 2012

For 33 years now, since the 1979 Iranian Revolution, Iran has been the target of US economic sanctions, which have increased in scope and severity over time. The impact of sanctions on populations is not always quantifiable and can be contradictory. Despite their negative impact in isolating and hindering Iran’s economic progress, and the tragic loss of life due to the boycott of spare parts for the aging Iranian airline, in so far as necessity is the mother of invention, sanctions in many instances have acted as an impetus for technological progress; and the experience of success and survival through adversity has infused a collective sense of empowerment and self-confidence.

When I was asked in July to talk about the impact of sanctions on Iranian society, the idea was to place some emphasis on the arts and artists. Since then, the reality of the humanitarian catastrophe unfolding as a result of the economic warfare on Iran has shifted the emphasis, by necessity, from the artists to their audience, since it is inconceivable to think of arts separately from the audience at which it is directed.

The current sanctions by the US and the EU, under the pretext of a manufactured dispute over Iran’s civilian nuclear programme, are comprehensive sanctions against Iran’s economy for inflicting intentional collective punishment. The damage to the economy and the injury inflicted on the lives of the population in all respects is unambiguous and lethal.

Impact on Healthcare

These sanctions, which went into effect at the end of July 2012, target, amongst other things, Iran’s banking and export of oil. Export of oil comprises 80 percent of Iran’s foreign revenue which finances infrastructural work, social and welfare services, hospitals, schools, universities, state employees’ salaries and pensions. The value of Iranian currency has declined by 80 percent in the past year. The prices of imported machinery, medicine, and many types of foodstuff have risen beyond the reach of ordinary people. Many factories and businesses have folded, and unemployment is mounting.

However, the most critical impact of sanctions is on the availability of drugs and the health of the population. Iran is making 97 percent of its needed drugs domestically, and pharmaceuticals are heavily subsidised. The devalued currency means that raw materials imported for drug production are now a lot more expensive. In many cases, the raw material cannot even be paid for because of the banking sanctions, particularly as the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), in compliance with the EU sanctions has stopped its electronic communication services for Iranian financial institutions and transactions from Iran. As a result, even domestically-produced drugs are becoming unavailable. Two drug manufacturing companies closed this October, and pharmacies are experiencing widespread closures and bankruptcies.

The most advanced life saving drugs cannot be made in generic form.These include drugs for heart disease, lung problems, kidney disease and dialysis, multiple sclerosis, thalassemia, haemophilia and many forms of cancer.

All of the surgeries for thousands of haemophilic patients have been cancelled because a shortage of coagulant drugs. A 15-year-old child died at the end of October due to the absence of coagulant medication. The head of Iran’s Haemophilia Society has said, “This is a blatant hostage-taking of the most vulnerable people by countries which claim they care about human rights. Even a few days of delay can have serious consequences like haemorrhage and disability.”

The drugs for many forms of cancer, particularly leukaemia, which is rife in Iran, cannot be imported, and this absence of drugs is happening in a context where the number of cancer patients in Iran has risen dramatically. It is predicted that by 2015 there will be a “cancer tsunami” in Iran.

In Iraq, a UNICEF survey estimated that 500,000 children under five had died, as a result of sanctions on the country, between 1991 and 1998. One can presume that by the time of the 2003 invasion, and under deteriorating conditions of poor water sanitation, malnutrition, disease, and the near absence of medication, many more would have died in the entire population. With millions of lives currently at risk in Iran, it is predicted that the death rate there could dwarf the casualties in Iraq.

I was in Iran recently and returned last Tuesday. Whilst there, this dire humanitarian situation was confirmed by medics and chemists with whom I spoke. Also, some students in medical chemistry told me that they can no longer afford the ingredients to make the drugs required for their doctorate work.

The Effect on Culture and Arts

There is no doubt about the direct or indirect detrimental effects of these sanctions on Iranian society at economic, political, social, cultural and artistic levels. I attended the re-launch of the magazine Danesh va Mardom (Science and People). The writers, poets, translators, and scientists present there were unanimously concerned about the impact of sanctions. I was told how the price of paper had multiplied more than fivefold. In fact, the publishers syndicate has recently warned that publishing is no longer viable.

The double impact of the devalued currency and financial sanctions have made it very difficult to access scientific and other academic papers to keep abreast with the most recent developments and to have effective scientific and cultural exchanges with those outside of Iran. I heard repeatedly from very bright graduates that there was no prospect for jobs and no budget for research, and that there is an unprecedented flood of “brain drain” out of the country.

An example of a visible impact on the arts is the virtual winding up of the National Symphony Orchestra, which according to its young conductor, Barda Kiaros, has not practiced and whose musicians have not been paid for over two months. He says that the Tehran Symphony Orchestra too does not receive the recognition it deserves and has not performed the work of great composers in concert for two years.

Abdolhossein Mokhtabaad, a famous composer and traditional singer, commented on the effects of sanctions and expressed the belief that the economic situation is not conducive to arts. He said that artists are not supported and likened artistic work in Iran to the work of a tightrope artist — always walking on a thin line.

For an insecure, debilitated, and hand-to-mouth population, artistic appreciation and artistic expression become a rare luxury, even irrelevant on the hierarchy of their people’s priorities. Not only do sanctions destroy the infrastructure for cultural and artistic development, they also create a state of economic and political siege directed at forced regime change, which is intensifying the securitization of Iranian society with dire consequences for civil and political rights, including artistic expression.

The strangulation of Iran’s rights and silencing of its voice on the international scene then finds its parallel in the strangulation and silencing of Iranians’ rights and voice, including artistic expression, at the domestic level. As in Iraq, sanctions are not only destroying the most vulnerable sections of the population but are devastating and weakening the middle class in Iran as the historical engine for creativity and scientific and cultural progress.

No one amongst the leaders or the grassroots of Iran’s legitimate domestic opposition has called for sanctions on Iran. In fact, they have warned that sanctions and war will be the biggest blow to the civil society and democratic aspirations in Iran.

Artistic expressions may defy political repression and economic poverty and find channels and forms of expression, as exemplified by the proud achievements of Iranian cinema. However, there is a tipping point when hardship does not strengthen but destroys the cultural and artistic development, in the long-term and at a societal level.

The economic sanctions on Iran are illegal under the international law and meet the UN definition of genocide. Nonetheless, US Congressman Brad Sherman has said “Critics [of the sanctions] argued that these measures will hurt the Iranian people. Quite frankly, we need to do just that.” Similarly, Congressman Gary Ackerman said, “The goal…is to inflict crippling, unendurable economic pain over there.” These sentiments to target the population to feel the pain of the sanctions are echoed by other Western statesmen.

The UN Convention on Genocide defines genocide as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such…[including] causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; [and] deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.” How else are we to interpret the sanctions affecting the import of baby milk and tetanus vaccine, and the announcement by Iran’s Ministry of Health that Iran’s medical drug reserves will run out within two months?

Denis Halliday, who resigned as the UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Iraq after 34 years of service for the UN in protest against the impact of economic sanctions on the people of Iraq, described the sanctions as genocidal. Another humanitarian catastrophe and another genocide is now unfolding in Iran. Iranian society and Iranian artists are being strangulated into silence and a collective silent death, unless we intervene boldly in true artistic spirit.

Update: Iran’s Ministry of Health announced on November 30 that with the Central Bank’s release of $130 million of its foreign currency reserves at a relatively cheap emergency exchange rate, the import of urgently-needed pharmaceutical drugs had begun. The Central Bank also agreed to allocate $1.5 to 2 billion from its foreign currency reserves to cover the pharmaceutical needs of the population for the next year.

The emergency health crisis, however, will only be temporarily abated. On the same day as the announcement of Iran’s Ministry of Health on November 30, the US Senate approved another round of draconian sanctions against Iran’s economy. These sanctions, which came as an amendment to the US National Defense Authorization Act, further target Iran’s ports, shipbuilding, shipping, and energy sectors. In violation of the international trade law, the sanctions also attempt to deplete Iran’s foreign currency reserve by penalizing countries who make payments of gold or other precious metals in exchange for Iran’s gas and oil, as Turkey did this year when it reportedly paid $6.4 billion in gold for Iranian natural gas.

This article was originally published in the Fair Observer.

Mehrnaz Shahabi is an anti-war activist and independent researcher. She lives in the UK. She can be reached on mshahabi@blueyonder.co.uk

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