Politics

No, I’m not talking about the cricket - I don’t think I’ll ever be able to understand how anyone could watch a game that goes for five days without slipping into a boredom induced coma. I’m referring to the continued attacks on Indian students in Melbourne (I’m happy to say that this isn’t happening in the part of Australia I live in), the news of which has been a very sad reflection on Australia in the international media. The Victorian police and the Australian government have both tried to deny that there is a racist element to these attacks, but while that may have been true when there were only a few of them, there have been so many now that I think a racist motive must be undeniable to any reasonable person. I don’t believe Australia is a racist country, but like every other country on earth, there are certainly still plenty of racists here. And neither the police nor the government will be able to do much about them while they bury their heads in the sand and pretend they don’t exist.

Indeed, the government and the Australian media seem to have taken to blaming the Indian media for stirring up this problem. Once again, there was originally some truth to this, and I’m sure it did amplify the hatred of the racists behind these attacks. But that doesn’t even come close to being an excuse for these attacks, which really have been happening (and they are continuing to happen, with the result that one Indian man has now been murdered, and another doused and set alight). This is totally and utterly inexcusable, and it has been going on for far too long now. The recent cartoon in the Indian media portraying the Victorian police as the Ku Klux Klan was certainly over the top, but I can understand how they feel - why is it taking so long for the Victorian police to get any leads on these attacks, when they’ve been going on for so long now? It just doesn’t seem to make any sense.

The Australian government and the Victorian police need to stop trying to deny the obvious racist element to these attacks - and trying to blame the Indian media for them - so they can take serious action to stop these terrible crimes. If nothing else, our huge foreign student industry depends on it.

After looking as though no deal might be struck at all, a last minute agreement has been reached at the Copenhagen summit on global change. Although the deal is disappointing, as Obama says, it is only the beginning, not the end, and in my opinion far better than no deal at all. At least now we have something to build on - as Australia’s leading campaigner on climate change Tim Flannery has said, I think we have to accept the political realities, and accept this deal as a positive outcome overall. Read the rest of this entry »

With Obama’s announcement of a 30,000 strong troop surge in Afghanistan, I thought it would be a good opportunity to look back on the so-called “war on terror”, and how well it has been prosecuted by both US administrations involved (Bush and Obama). Although I’ve always been of the opinion that the war in Afghanistan was probably a losing battle, given that the US and its allies are already there, I guess it makes sense to try and “finish the job” with a massive troop surge. It is different from the situation in Iraq, in as much as Afghanistan actually was a haven for terrorists, and likely will be again should the Taliban regain control of the country. Importantly though, there must be some kind of deadline for when the US and its allies pull out, regardless of whether the surge is successful or not. Obama’s timeline of a staged pull-out starting in 18 months seems reasonable. Read the rest of this entry »

Image courtesy of Reuters: Johannes Eisele

November 9 marks the 20th anniversary what must be one of the most joyous and important events in modern history - the fall of the Berlin Wall. It is amazing to think that only 20 years ago the world was still clearly divided into east and west, communism and democracy. I think the Berlin Wall is the ultimate example of how absurd this conflict became - a wall dividing an historic city into two sections at a seemingly arbitrary point, which people could not cross lest they be killed. I heard a story of one young man whose parents lived in east Berlin, but who had just moved all of his things into an apartment in west Berlin the day before construction of the wall began. He spent the night at his parents’ place, and then could no longer get back to his apartment the next day! Well actually, he did try to, and became one of the first people to be killed attempting to cross from east to west.

We must never forget that only in the last 50 years, political ideology allowed such an absurdity to not only happen, but be accepted as commonplace. It is a reminder of how susceptible we are to simple ideologies that give us a sense of certainty and identity. Today, the “red terror” has been replaced with Islamic terrorism, and an extremist response to it - i.e. a resurrection of the centuries old conflict between Muslims and Christians - may lead us into a real war this time, and not just a “cold war” (indeed, to a large extent it already has). We must never allow extremist religious and political ideologies to take us into WWIII; we must use reason to fight the forces of fundamentalism.

I’m sure you’ve all heard about this story by now: Obama gets asked by a 4th grader why everybody hates him so much! Although I obviously can’t personally agree with his Christian sentiment, he actually does make a valid point: Christians are supposed to be loving and tolerant, but far right wing conservative Americans have shown themselves to be about the most hateful and intolerant group of people this side of fundamentalist Islam. And at least Muslim fundamentalists are honest about their hatred and intolerance - fundamentalist Christians go on about love when all they do is hate, and go on about freedom when they want to suppress the freedom of everyone who disagrees with them. They claim to represent American values when in fact America was founded on secular values (hence the separation of church and state in the constitution), and they claim to represent Christian values when in fact their behaviour is very much against to the teachings of Jesus Christ.

And why do they hate Obama so much anyway? I mean, Bush sent hundreds of Americans to their deaths in a senseless, illegal war, but that’s okay for them. On the other hand, Obama is trying to do something to bring health care to more Americans - even if you disagree with his plan, surely any sensible person can see that he is at least trying to do something for the benefit of the American people? Bush basically sent hundreds of innocent Americans to die for the benefit of Halliburton and the arms trade, while Obama is at least trying to save American lives, by taking them out of this war and trying to improve their health care. How could anyone have such a twisted value system and delusional world view as to think they should hate Obama, while at the same time supporting Bush?

POSTSCRIPT: I forgot to ask everyone what they think of Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize! Personally, I agree with Obama himself that he doesn’t yet deserve it, and I hope he makes good on his statement that he will take it as a call to action. Perhaps he can start by putting some teeth into his administration’s demand that there should be no more Israeli settlements on Palestinian land…

Thanks to a tip from Firefly, I’ve just learned about the ridiculous controversy sparked by President Obama’s recent address to the students of America. Although (as the video above shows) it was a completely non-political pep talk, conservative parents tried to prevent their children from watching it, and some schools in conservative areas provided their students with opt-in forms, requiring their parents to give written consent for their children to watch the President’s speech! They say it’s to prevent their children from being brainwashed by a left wing political agenda, but once again, there was no political content in Obama’s speech whatsoever. I think what it’s really about is a fear that if their children watched Obama’s speech, they might find that what he says makes a lot of sense, and that - heaven forbid - they might actually like him. Is there any better example of how the far right tries to suppress even the most basic information, for fear that it may expose their fragile beliefs? After all, if their belief system wasn’t so fragile, then why are they so afraid of open discussion and information, even when it’s completely apolitical, or just plain common sense? How can they be so hypocritical as to cite freedom of speech, while suppressing any speech from anyone on the left?

Image courtesy of Reuters: Sukree Sukplang (file photo)

With my blog’s birthday, my own birthday, an update on my activities and the launch of my Amazon wish list, last month ended up being a little bit “me me me!”. So I’d like to return my blog to normal transmission this month, starting with turning my attention to someone for whom I have a great deal of admiration: Aung San Suu Kyi. I’m sure she’s somebody who doesn’t need any introduction to regular readers of my blog - let’s just say that she’s an icon of democracy, peace and determination in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds, and a woman of extraordinary courage and strength. Read the rest of this entry »

NOTE: I originally posted this on November 4 last year, but it seems it got a little lost in the flurry of pre-election posts. So as I again don’t have time to do a new post this week, I thought I’d re-post it.

After all my serious election related posts, I thought it was time for a humorous one as Americans head off to the polls. On the surface, this brilliant Mad TV sketch is a parody of a Steve Jobs Apple keynote (and it actually works pretty well on that level), but underneath it is actually an even funnier parody of something else entirely. Definitely one of the cleverest comedy sketches I’ve ever seen!

It seems pretty ironic that just after my previous So How’s Obama Doing? post went up, two events occurred that could well come to define his presidency. One of these was his very impressive Cairo speech. Given how keen George W. was to go to war with the Muslim world, I think it’s pretty hard to argue that Obama represents more of the same. Cynics will say it’s just another one of his charming public performances, but the reality is, when it comes to diplomacy, speeches like this do matter - a lot. He has once again demonstrated his remarkable diplomatic skill in negotiating his way between what are in many ways opposing ideologies, which is exactly what is needed if there is to be peace between the west and the Muslim world. While Bush burnt more bridges than perhaps any other US President in history, Obama has what it takes to rebuild them as few other people do. Yes, a lot of it does come down to charm, but once again, in matters of diplomacy this is a very positive attribute. Plus it’s not as if his speech lacked substance anyway, and I think his expressed intent is genuine. Read the rest of this entry »

A couple of stories in the news this week - combined with the passing of Obama’s first 100 days in office earlier this month - have led me to ponder how his administration has been doing since his historic election. The first such story was the upholding of Prop 8 by the Californian high court - it seems we still have a fair way to go before all forms of discrimination have been removed from the legal system. (I’m sorry to say that Australia is no better in this respect - as a Christian, our Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is against gay marriage as well, even though he is fairly progressive otherwise, and he did give more legal rights to gay couples.) In fairness, even though Prop 8 was passed during the Presidential election, it doesn’t really have anything to do with Obama’s administration as such. Nevertheless, it did lead me to think about how things have been going since January 20, along with another story in the news which I was very happy about indeed - the fact that Washington is finally telling Israel what they should have done all along: no more settlements, period. It’s ridiculous that even though this is a fundamental requirement of the road map to peace, Israel has been allowed to completely ignore it without the US government saying or doing anything. It finally looks as though we might be seeing the start of a fair and evenhanded approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

I’m wondering what my readers think of how well Obama has been doing (please note that I’m after genuine answers to this question, not unsubstantiated political propaganda). Given the cold, harsh political realities, I personally think he’s been doing about as well as can reasonably be expected, given that he is facing what must surely be the most difficult circumstances any President has had to deal with since World War II - it’s really quite ridiculous how much things deteriorated from the time George W. Bush came into office until he left. He’s left poor Obama one hell of a big mess to fix.