Rome Meets Timbuktu

The unification of the two Koreas is an event that most see as a very positive thing.  From a humanitarian point of view, I suppose it is.  The permanent reunification of separated families, the potential to relieve the suffering of millions of North Koreans, and the disarmament of North Korean ballistic missiles are definitely all good things.  There are, however, a plethora of other larger – let’s call them structural – problems that, if not dealt with correctly, have the potential to turn a potentially great event into a nightmare capable of destabilizing an entire region.  As the recent Egyptian “uprising” shows,  a sudden overthrow of a long-time dictators isn’t an improbable scenario.  If something like what happened in Egypt (or Tunisia) were to happen in North Korea, what would it mean – as in, what would happen if unification became a reality?  A recent article from The Diplomat outlines some of the dangers of Korean unification.  As the article points out from the beginining, shortly after unification …

[the] ecstasy would soon give way to reality. The international community would be left with a stabilization and state-building nightmare bigger than Afghanistan and Iraq and much more dangerous than German reunification 20 years ago. Indeed, if unification were to come about this hastily, the cataclysmic event could well go down in history as one of the biggest missed opportunities of our century…. When one considers the massive economic disparities that would also be in play because of a South Korean economy more than twenty-fold that of North Korea’s, the technical end of the Korean War could well mark the beginning of another…. Similarly, sudden unification could produce fateful new geostrategic fault lines. Recall that in 1945-1947, US patience and diplomacy were slowly overtaken by a congealing animus and strategic competition that remained frozen in the 40-year-long Cold War. In addition, mistrust and miscalculation could catalyze a Sino-American rivalry that might polarize all of Northeast Asia and the Indo-Pacific region.

There would be much to plan for in the event of sudden unification. Hard security issues, for instance, would include the disposition of weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery; the movement of military troops and major combat platforms like aircraft carriers; the disarmament and reintegration of the 1.1-million Korean People’s Army; and the future location of alliance bases and forces.

Meanwhile, a raft of state-building issues would ensue, with perhaps the biggest being an unrealistic expectation in northern Korea for a massive economic transfer for which the world would have to be ready to help pay for. That would require new infrastructure, including regional energy grids, all in the midst of turmoil over migration, property rights, educational reform and environmental cleanup. Retributive justice could follow and might well spill over into the region. Things certainly wouldn’t go smoothly.

I don’t think I agree with the author that Korean unification would be a “bigger nightmare than Afghanistan and Iraq.”  North Korea, despite its deep seated political and social problems, is still more or less an “organized society” built around the concept of statehood, and South Korea (who would more than likely take responsibility for a large portion of the costs for economic development and integration) is a highly developed nation with a strong sense of nationalism and Korean solidarity, which extends, in many ways, to the North.  Modernizing the decrepit economic, social, and political institutions of North Korea certainly ins’t a light task, but I don’t see it worse than Afghanistan and Iraq.  Nevertheless,  the condition of a post-unification Korean peninsula is still potentially disastrous.  I can’t help but to think that South Korean economists and economic planners see the unification of the two Koreas as a potential killer of South Korean economic prosperity.  As for military planners, the potential for a 21st century cold war-type standoff between China and the U.S. over Korean unification must certainly be a top concern.  As for re-knitting the ocean-wide gaps between North and South Koreans on issues such as national identification, political ideology, recognized norms of behavior and other social issues, I wouldn’t even know where to start.

I don’t intend any of this to be read as reasons not to seek unification.  There are, however, more than enough things that could turn a huge opportunity for good into an unbelievably bad situation.

Ineptitude At Its Finest

I love Jon Stewart, simply put. The Daily Show is the only thing I’m willing to subject myself to on television. You would have to lobotomize me with an ice cream scoop and maybe even bang around in there a bit with a pair of egg beaters before I could even find anything else on TV entertaining. If I am reincarnated as a dung beetle I’ll fill up on TV, but for now, I’ll continue to find my guilty pleasures elsewhere.
What I have grown to like more than anything else on the show are the political interviews. Jon Stewart is an intelligent man, a fact most people won’t deny. I appreciate the fact that he can utter polysyllabic words, toss out historical and political references at will, and then tie them all together with whoopee cushions and hand buzzers. The man is a comedian first and foremost, and he’ll be the first person to say it.
And that’s the whole point. The other night I watched the Eric Cantor interview and what struck me was Cantor’s inability to defend himself or anything he stood for. He threw out platitude after platitude, but Stewart just kept shooting them down like clay pigeons, and then Cantor would tread air for a little bit until he’d finally sputter out like Wiley Coyote. At one point I thought I could see him writhing inside with anger like a Tickle-Me-Elmo tossed in a full bath, but he composed himself to give a long winded diatribe about the fading American dream that had all the flare of a high school football halftime speech.
So now back to the point. Jon Stewart is a comedian, an intelligent one no doubt about it, but nonetheless a comedian, yet somehow, time and time again, politicians have gone on his show and left stumbling around as if someone had just shot their seeing eye dog. With Cantor, I felt as if he couldn’t even have beaten up on a Sunday morning liberal coffee clatch. He was full of “change” and “baby, please take me back” talk, but really he had nothing other than the same old republican shit, but he hadn’t even bothered to spruce it up and pick the corn out of it.
Jon Stewarts a comedian and a gadfly, not the type of person who should be able to topple politicians. I say this in full respect of the man and I think he would agree. It’s not that Jon Stewart is such a great interviewer, it’s the ineptitude of the people he faces. As much as I like him, we don’t need anymore Jon Stewarts, what we need are people intelligent enough to debate him.

A Side Note and a Note on the Side

It’s my vacation period.  A break from 4 hours of class in Korean. I’ve got some stuff on the docket I want to write about here and over at PC.  I’ll get to it in due time.  I’m going to catch up on my sleep and cash in my “earned laziness” chips.

I did, however, want to note something that I’ve been thinking more about lately:  the rise of China and alternative worldviews.

I’m obviously more aware of China now than I was while living in the United States.  China is just a short plane ride to the east.  However, another reason why I’m probably more aware of China is the rise in Chinese power and influence.  I suppose that China isn’t all that more powerful now than it was 2 years ago, but the reality of a world divided between Chinese ideas and American ideas seems more palpable in the post financial crisis world.  China is moving towards a more definitive stance regarding the east Asian regional balance of power and seems to be positioning itself to take a more assertive role in global politics than it ever has.  America, in the meantime, is in no position to directly challenge China; it’s no longer in vogue, politically, to confront China on matters such as Human Rights, Tibet, or other issues politically sensitive to China.  There seems to be a shift in the global balance of power; or, if not a shift, a shuffling of the cards.  China isn’t likely to play soft-spoken developing giant anymore.  It’s high time to exchange some of its latent power in for the real stuff.

Amongst other things, this got me thinking about how differently the Asian view of things is from the Western, particularly American view.  The notion of inalienable (God-given) rights, private property, and certain political rights is seen through a fundamentally different lens out east.  Or, look at it this way.  Among the great struggles of  man – good/evil, reason/unreason, right/wrong, better/worse, etc there is a certain way that societies define and give answers to these struggles.  Deconstruction notwithstanding, there is a supposed solution to resolve these dichotomies.  The question I have is, how does the “East” approach these problems?  Does the East even perceive the dichotomies like this?  Do they even perceive dichotomies?

It was to answer questions like these that I decided to stay in Asia.  Disappointingly, I must say I’m not sure how to even start an answer to questions such as these.  I can talk, briefly, about the notion of “Asian Values” (as discussed by Amartya Sen and Francis Fukuyama), but it’s nowhere near a definitive answer.  When reading through some of the literature I’m making my way through I make notes on the side that read:  and in Asia…?

Nussbaum Has Some Sharp Followers

Martha Nussbaum, with whom I am becoming increasingly familiar with through reading Amartya Sen, wrote an excellent piece for the The Stone, a surprisingly engaging and intellectual commentary provided by The Times, on the narrowly rejected burqa ban in Spain.  Like any good intellectual, she doesn’t focus exclusively on the legislative incident but instead finds the deeper concepts at play and how they relate to other historical concepts dealing with religious freedom, civil liberties, and human rights.  I’m still digesting her arguments, but I found this one comment particularly piercing, especially from a East-West, post-colonial point-of-view.  The reader said:

I am fairly taken aback by the rash of ethnocentric and fundamentally sexist responses in these comments. There are so many mentions of “saving” and “freeing” these women from the tyranny of their own religion, side-by-side the proposal for an obliteration of their agency. A woman’s body does not need to be policed by the aesthetic preferences of the West.

At the core of the burqa ban is a deeply rooted fear of the ‘other’, and the traditionally heroic Western desire to salvage the dignity of those unfortunate enough to have been born low on the scale of cultural hierarchy.

Those poor girls from the East.  Only the enlightened wisdom from males and feminist in the West can save them!

Or not.

Comments and controversies such as these remind me why people like Edward Said are important.  I’m also reminded of a quote by Karl Marx that has a troublesome connection to the burqa ban controversy:

“The Orient [re:  Muslim women]  cannot represent themselves; they must be represented.”

A Little Struggle Does the Body Good

A recent article form the Diplomat touches on an important development in U.S. – Chinese relations and U.S. foreign policy in general.  The article’s intro sums it up nicely:

In its first year, the Obama administration envisaged a two-pronged foreign policy. The first prong—cooperative strategic engagement—sought to build and sustain cooperative partnerships with states and non-state actors who operated within (or hoped to join) the international order.

The article goes on to describe how quite the opposite happened.  China is becoming increasingly resilient to any overtures by the U.S. to join “liberal international order,” and has instead taken advantage of an over-committed, relatively weaker U.S.  Attempts made by the Obama administration to ease pressure on China and lay a foundation for a “multi-partner” world have been meet with either ambivalence or blatant defiance.  China is using its nascent super power status to challenge the status quo in east and southeast Asia, regardless of what the U.S. thinks.   The author of the Diplomat article calls this a “backfire” to the original idea of Chinese inclusion in the U.S. lead world order.  However,  if the U.S. is able to shake itself free of the futile and counterproductive ideas that lead it into two foolish state-building operations and a loss of a considerable amount of global power and influence, the rise of China as a direct challenge to U.S. global primacy could end up being a very positive thing for America.  Two things come to mind:

1.  Liberal internationalism and its radical cousin Neoconservativsm cannot be the foundation upon which the U.S. maintains its current global role.  (Neo)Realism, given all its shortcomings and inadequacies, is probably still the best theory for statesmen to follow – at least when it comes to great power competition.  Realizing this will help silence those who are still clinging the chimera of a prefect liberal order based maintained and insured by U.S. dominance.  Given the U.S.’s relative decline in power, its fruitless overseas commitments, and its uncertain economic condition, returning to a more rational policy of strategic-only commitments and a focus on domestic nation building can put America back on solid ground.

2.  Competition with China is probably the one thing that will (or at least could) push more rational ideas about foreign policy and statecraft to the forefront.  Mearsheimer warned at the end of the Cold War that we would soon “miss” it.  He wasn’t implying a nostalgia for being on the brink of nuclear holocaust but merely that a bi-polar world is more secure and better directed.   A bi-polar – or more bi-polar world – will force the United States to focus on rebuilding and re-strengthening America and to forgo silly expeditions in alien lands.  Either policy makers will readjust or the U.S. won’t realize its mistakes thus hastening its decline towards the great powers cemetery.  U.S. History suggests otherwise, but I’m not holding my breath.

I don’t worship the concept of the “free-market,” but I do agree with the notion that competition makes for better quality, cheaper, and more efficient products.  Products here being wiser U.S. policies.  Such concepts imply an evolutionary take on progress.  Like a discarded projection television, those who fail to adapt to a changing environment are left behind.  The international environment is changing, and the U.S. is not.  Conventional wisdom suggests stagnation inevitably precipitates decline.

Side Note

I’ll be mixing things up a bit this weekend.  I’m going to start putting some stuff up on this site or perhaps another site I’ll start.  Something different.  New, too.  I think it prudent to share some of my experiences, ideas, pictures, and the like with family and friends.  Not the typical ex-pat travel blog.  Those suck and I don’t have the time to waste on meaningless musings about food and this picture I took of a building.  I’ll bring more to the table than quotidian, day-to-day experiences.  Anyway, the bottom line is I’ll be shaking things up.  You’ll see.

Just a moment ago I came across this quote in Rushdie novel I’m reading.  It’s post-colonial in genre and I’d like to do some more with it.  But, for now, I’m just going to put it out there.

… again the curious possessive fascination of the hedonistic West with the ascetic East.  The arch-disciples of linearity, of the myth of progress want, from the Orient, only its fabled unchangingness.

More later.  I’m tired.

Constructivism and Existentialism

I find the sociological and philosophical approach of “constructivism” extremely interesting and, in my opinion, the most accurate.  I’m solidly convinced that what we know as reality is socially and historically contingent, rather than inevitable consequences of human nature.  In other words, we construct the meaning of life, it is not constructed for us.  Our interaction with our environment gives both us and it meaning. What we can know is what we have socially constructed.  “Things” in and of themselves mean absolutely nothing; the extent of their meaning goes only as far as we allow it.  This ontological approach can be smoothly integrated with several other philosophies.  I find the blending of constructivism with existentialism a highly invigorating mix of philosophies that produces a highly stimulating, if somewhat unnerving, outlook on life.

Moral Practical Reason

Natural Law is tricky.  I have a hard time buying into the old Stoic notion that there is some cosmic law of reason which always was, currently is, and always will be.  I’ve typically sided with philosophers like Jeremey Bentham when he said:

“natural rights is simple nonsense: natural and imprescriptible rights, rhetorical nonsense,—nonsense upon stilts.”

Land of Opportunity

Sorry Amurika, not you.  You’re straggling behind, handicapped by combustible financial derivatives, overseas fantasies, and paranoid tea-baggers.  Tis’ a party I don’t fancy to attend.  It seems the neo-con hangover has left you hazy, unable to regain your bearings quite right – that morning after feeling of anxiety and stupidity.

Another Saga

This is the first part of a two part fictional piece on hate and child hood warfare amongst other things.  That’s all I have to say…

I liked listening to my dad talk about the neighbors because according to him they were all dumb, doltish, and reprehensible to the point that a mosquito would drink the blood from an abscessed hog’s ass before going near one of them.  This was something we could agree upon.  As much as my father was like them in some ways, it pained him to associate with them.  It was excruciating to see, like watching a snail slowly belly across a bed of broken glass.  He had contempt for all of them, and it always registered in the spaghetti smile that he fought to put forward during these encounters.  “Oh, really.  Hmmm.  So how’s Jason doing?  Is he still in 1^st grade?  Again huh.  Well, if there’s anything worth doing, it’s worth doing twice.  Well, he’s a…he’s not a, uhm, dumb kid, he’ll pull through.  A guy at work told me the other day his boy has been in college for seven years now.  I’m pretty sure he can color in the lines and all that dumb shit, he just…well, anyway, tell Jason hello from me and the boy.”