Archive for the ‘international relations’ Category
a bonobo world? 11
another bitter-sweet reflection on capacities and failures
I was in a half-asleep state, and I don’t know how to describe it neurologically, but subjectively I was hearing or being subjected to a din in my head, a kind of babble, like in an echoing school canteen. Then I heard a knocking sound above the din, then in a transforming whoosh all the din stopped in my head, it became silent apart from the knocking, and then, as a kind of wakening crystallisation clarified things, another sound, of trickling water. I quickly realised this was the sound from the shower above me, and the knocking was of the pipes being affected by the rush of hot water. But what really interested me was what had just happened in my brain. The din, of thought, or inchoate thought, or of confusedly buzzing neural connections, was dampened down instantly when this new sound forced itself into my – consciousness? – at least into a place or a mini-network which commanded attention. It, the din, disappeared as if a door had been slammed on it.
I can’t describe what happened in my brain better than this, though I’m sure that this concentration of focus, or activity, in one area of my brain, and the concomitant dropping of all other foci or activity, to facilitate that concentration, was something essential to human, and of course other animal, neurology. Something observed but not controlled by ‘me’. Something evolved. I like the way this is shared by mice and men, women and wombats.
But of course there are big differences too. I’ve described the experience, whatever it is, in such a way that a neurologist, on reading or listening to me, would be able to explain my experience more fully, or, less likely, be inspired to examine it or experiment with its no-doubt miriad causal pathways. I suppose this experience, though more or less everyday and unthreatening, is associated with flight-or-fight. The oddity of the sound, its difference from the background din, or perhaps rather my awareness of its oddity, caused a kind of brain-flip, as all its forces, or most of them, became devoted to identifying it. Which caused me to awaken, to marshall a fuller consciousness. How essential this is, in a world of predators and home intruders, and how much fun it is, and how useful it is, to try for a fuller knowledge of what’s going on. And so we go, adding to our understanding, developing tools for further investigation, finding those tools might just have other uses in expanding other areas of our knowledge, and the world of our ape cousins is left further and further behind. For me, this is a matter of pride, and a worry. I’m torn. The fact that I think the way I do has to do with my reading and my reflections, the habits of a lifetime. Some have nerdiness, if that’s what it is, thrust upon them. I’m fascinated by the human adventure, in its beginnings and its future. Its beginnings are connected to other apes, to old world and new world monkeys, to tarsiers, to tree shrews and rodents and so on, all the way back to archaea and perhaps other forms yet to be discovered. We need to fully recognise this connectivity. Its future, what with our increasing dominance over other species and the earthly landscape, our obsession with growth, our throwaway mindset, but also our ingenious solutions, our capacity for compassion and for global cooperation, that future is and always will be a mystery, just outside of our manipulating grasp, with every new solution creating more problems requiring more solutions.
A few hundred years ago, indeed right up to the so-called Great War of 1914, human warfare was a much-celebrated way of life. And we still suffer a kind of hero-worship of military adventurism, and tell lies about it. In the USA, many times over the most powerful military nation on earth, the media are always extolling the sacrifice of those who fought to ‘keep America safe’. This is a hackneyed platitude, considering that, notwithstanding the highly anomalous September 11 2001 attack, the country has never had to defend its borders in any war. Military casualties are almost certain to occur in a foreign country, where the USA is seeking to preserve or promote its own interest, generally against the interests of that country. In this respect, the USA, it should be said, is no better or worse than any other powerful country throughout history. The myth of military might entailing moral superiority, which began with the dawn of civilisations, dies hard, as ‘American exceptionalism’ shows.
But globalism, international trade, travel, communication and co-operation, is making for a safer and less combative human society than ever before. So, as militarism as a way of life recedes, we need to focus on the problems of globalism and economic growth. As many have pointed out, the pursuit of growth and richesse is producing many victims, many ‘left-behind’. It’s dividing families and creating a culture of envy, resentment and often unmitigated hatred of the supposedly threatening ‘other’. The world of the bonobo – that tiny community of a few tens of thousands – tinier than any human nation – a gentle, fun-loving, struggling, sharing world – seems as distant to us as the world of the International Space Station, way out there. And yet…
The Epoch Times and the ‘CCP virus’
Jacinta: So something unusual arrived in our letterbox the other day – a newspaper of sorts. Made out of paper.
Canto: Weird. Haven’t read one of those for a while.
Jacinta: Yes, nowadays we read those things on tablets, just like the Flintstones of yore. It wasn’t a big newspaper – an 8-page broadsheet – but it was unusual in other respects. It was all about China, or rather the Chinese government – the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). And none of it was positive.
Canto: Yes, the newspaper is called The Epoch Times, and has an ‘about us’ column on page 2, which tells us it’s ‘dedicated to seeking the truth through insightful and independent journalism’.
Jacinta: ‘Standing outside of political interests and the pursuit of profit, our starting point and our goal is to create a media for the public benefit, to be truly responsible to society’. All very commendable of course, but the whole paper is devoted entirely to criticising the CCP, highlighting its nefarious tactics and giving a voice to silenced, and sometimes disappeared, Chinese citizens, and also to Australian critics of the CCP.
Canto: So it’s Australian-based, operating out of Hurstville, a southern suburb of Sydney. Apparently founded back in 2000, it also states ‘we stand against the destruction wrought by communism, including the harm done to cultures around the world’. So, what do you think?
Jacinta: Well… we’re no admirers of so-called communism (which is always dictatorial or oligarchical rule in fact). We’re into open, progressive and collaborative societies. So, while I’m sympathetic to the cause of this newspaper, here’s a criticism. It’s interesting that we’ve had this in our mail now, from this 20-year-old organisation. It comes at a time when the CCP is undoubtedly weakened by the spread of SARS-CoV-2, and will be scrambling to improve its reputation and to limit the economic damage done to China by this disaster. It’s a bit like these China critics and journalists, many of them of Chinese backgrounds themselves it seems, are ‘going in for the kill’ against a weakened adversary. All very ‘nature red in tooth and claw’. And of course I sympathise to a degree, but note that I mentioned ‘collaborative’ before, and in our last post we talked about not playing the blame game at this time. The Epoch Times has an editorial on its second page, entitled ‘Giving the Right Name to the Virus Causing a Worldwide Pandemic’. Their decision is to call it the CCP virus, a name they use throughout the newspaper. I respectfully disagree for a number of reasons. First, it would be a step backward to the Spanish influenza days. As we know, the Spanish flu didn’t originate in Spain, but much of the early reporting of it came from there, while other nations, still engaged in the HSW (Horribly Stupid War) of the period, suppressed the news to maintain morale. This was unfortunate geographical nomenclature, as many people still confusedly believe it came from Spain. Today we wisely use scientific names which refer to the type of pathogen – coronaviruses have their characteristic s-proteins, hepatitis viruses affect the liver, from the ancient Greek root hepat-, etc. This helps make clear that viruses and other pathogens have no nationality and know no borders. It also helps to internationalise science. Second, while we need to know the precise origin of this virus, and to try to shut down what at this stage looks to be the passage from bats to humans via one or more intermediaries, the priorities right now are to stop or reduce its spread, to reduce its effect on human bodies, and ultimately to develop a vaccine to stop it in its tracks. Only after we’ve achieved these things should we be looking at causes and blame.
Canto: Right, like when the Titanic’s sinking, it’s no use wasting time on causes or human failings before the event, all your energies should be spent on saving lives, getting others to collaborate on rescue efforts, and getting the hell away from there. Those other enquiries come afterwards.
Jacinta: Right. Now China is apparently trying to help with supplies of PPE and with its own clinical trials of antivirals and vaccines. Obviously there are political motives there, but if it’s providing effective assistance we shouldn’t reject it. Now, there’s a massive amount of journalism being produced as to the CCP’s motives and its effectiveness in, for example its assistance to Italy, with which it has had long-standing relations, and we shouldn’t be naïve about the CCP’s misinformation campaigns, its dubious politicking, and its cyber-warfare activities, and all of that should be reported on, but in my view, the reporting should always have this question in back-of-mind: Is it (I mean the reporting) helping or hindering the spread and/or defeat of Covid-19? That s the one and only priority at the moment. If the CCP is saving lives and reducing suffering in its own country and elsewhere at the moment, that’s a good thing, and should be welcomed.
Canto: Misinformation costs lives too though. It’s interesting that both Hong Kong and Taiwan, two regions that have reason not to trust anything coming out of the CCP, have performed far better than most in combatting Covid-19. Many Hong Kong residents have been wearing masks since the SARS outbreak of 2003, and the people themselves were ahead of their own government in wanting shut-downs. They’ve experienced only four confirmed deaths – an amazing feat. It really pays – and saves lives – not to trust the CCP, it seems.
Jacinta: So let me give a third reason. China is an economic giant, keen to expand its economic impact around the world. Twenty-five percent of Australia’s manufactured goods come from China. China is the largest customer for our Australian exports, by far. Successive Australian governments have been trying to diversify our trade relations, but it seems that market forces are moving us to an ever-closer reliance on China. So we know that too-strident criticism of the CCP, however deserving, may have a severe economic impact. It places us in a delicate position. The question then becomes one of leverage – finding ways to criticise from a position of amity, or at least some kind of partnership.
Canto: Good luck with that. And we need to show them that we know what’s what, and that we’re not weaklings. And join and participate in international forums that promote human and minority rights, and lend our weight to international criticism.
Jacinta: Yes, and with these caveats, I do want to endorse what The Epoch Times is doing. It’s important that people hear from and about the dissident voices within China, their courage and their suffering. Knowledge is power, and much anger and outrage is thoroughly justified. What has happened to Fang Bin? To Chen Quishi? To Li Zehua? To Ren Zhiqiang? How does the CCP justify its treatment of the late Dr. Li Wenliang and of Dr. Ai Fen? This will not be forgotten, nor will the CCP’s self-interested, deceitful, incompetent and bullying mishandling of the early stages of this outbreak. The party needs to be brought to account, by international forces, in the aftermath of the pandemic.
References
The Epoch Times, April 20, Special Edition
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_in_Hong_Kong
https://www.australiachinarelations.org/content/understanding-australias-economic-dependence-china
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fang_Bin
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Zehua
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chen_Qiushi
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren_Zhiqiang
https://www.ijidonline.com/article/S1201-9712(20)30111-9/fulltext
the boy in the white palace 5: empêchement? sûrement pas, and farewell
Canto: As we ghouls await the kind of ritual massacre in the USA we’ve been primed for by watching Korean historical dramas, we of course recognise that the current laughing-stock status of that once-proud nation – admitted by a number of American analysts – is really serious stuff. However…
Jacinta: Indeed there are many howevers…
Canto: You do it it yourselves, you do, and that’s what really hurts. Take impeachment – a funny word, actually adapted from the French by the English. An empêchement, from the verb empêcher, to prevent, has in modern French a very everyday meaning, i.e. something that stops you from doing something, but it was first used by the English as a (somewhat ill-defined) politico-legal process way back in the 14th century. It remains just as ill-defined to this day, inhabiting a distinctly grey area between politics and the law.
Jacinta: In those countries that have had the misfortune to adopt this horribly tainted and, IMHO, worthless procedure, it’s inevitably bound up with that nation’s Constitution – and considering that most national constitutions are creaky with age, impeachment suffers from the same creakiness.
Canto: A kind of highly formalised shemozzle. It’s wholly obsolete in the UK, being surplus to requirements, and has never been a thing in Australia. For crimes, of course, we have this thing called law, and if a Prime Minister goes rogue, without quite doing anything he can be arrested for, she gets dropped as the team’s captain, and, depending on how rogue she goes, is either consigned to another place in the team or is dropped from the team altogether. Then the team selects another PM. And it’s not a particularly traumatic event, because the PM isn’t a quasi-king with his own white palace and swathe of courtiers and princeling-in-waiting.
Jacinta: I don’t know whether there’s any point trying to convince Americans of the rottenness of GASP – the Great American System of the Presidency. I suspect they’re rather brainwashed about the beauty and perfection of it all. Rarely do I hear any American ‘expert’ speak critically about GASP, in spite of their intelligence in other areas. It’s a frog-in-the-heating-pan sort of thing.
Canto: Yes, to do away with impeachment means to do away with the super-powers of the Leader, which have actually, I think, led to the boy-king’s cult following. Do away with the superpowers, distribute the powers, thus diluted into ordinary human powers, throughout the principal players of the team, and sharpen up the laws on emoluments, campaign finances and influence peddling, and you might just start getting back to something like a real democracy.
Jacinta: This boy-king is, very obviously to all outside observers, a crime machine. The financial morass of his self-interest takes us to Russia, Turkey, Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia, Azerbaijan, Israel, China, Indonesia and twenty-odd other countries large and small, and common garden corruption is to be found in all these dealings, because that’s all he understands, insofar as he understands anything. The cult following of his ‘base’ is all the more tragic when it’s clear that he despises them all and loves them only as dupes. He would immediately have anyone resembling these workers thrown out of his mar-a-lago shangri-la because he’s only ever comfortable with crooked rich people. But his success is, of course, the USA’s failure, and that is a vast thing. I don’t want to see the USA fail, but I would only want it to succeed from this point through a massive, soul-searching transformation. Not only of its presidential system – and I’m not sure if that system deserves to survive at all – but of its economic system and its criminal justice system. Currently, the USA is a global disgrace and deserves to be. And it will get worse – which will perhaps be a blessing in disguise. It may have to get worse for the transformation to be as fulsome as it needs to be. That, I think, is why we’re watching with such gruesome attentiveness. But I’m not confident that too many lessons will have been learned when we examine political America in five years’ time. The country won’t ‘come together’. It won’t start to rank higher on the Better Life Index. The third world poverty, disadvantage and despair in vast regions of the country won’t be alleviated, and it will continue to call itself the greatest nation on Earth, the leader of the free world, home of the brave and other nationalistic twaddle. And it will continue to be at war with itself while it bullies other nations, as powerful nations inevitably do.
Canto: Yes, we’re getting tired of watching, and maybe we should turn to other things, more positive stuff like science and solutions, heros and sheros, nice, positive go-getters who strive to make the world better and shame us, in the best possible way, with their energetic example. Adios little boy-king, may you finally get what you deserve, and may a chastened nation get out from under…
Droning on
This may be fact or fiction: a US drone, purposed for surveillance, and who knows what else, is flying in or near Iranian air-space, and is shot down. Iran is naturally the major suspect. Applying the shoe-on-the-other-foot test, if an Iranian drone, for whatever purpose, was flying in or near US air-space, would the US shoot it down? My vague guess is – absolutely, 100%. The USA and Iran are currently sworn enemies, for whatever reason. So this kind of drone behaviour would naturally be seen as a provocation and a threat. And just a bit rude.
This surely isn’t rocket science, it’s more like drone ethics. Or am I missing something here?