NYC Junta

Good Junta last night, I’ll leave it to Rindy to post some of the highlights, but for me that was what the Junta was all about: a bunch of dudes sitting around drinking and having good, engaged conversation about real topics.

Relevant to last night, and other Junta topics, is the continued rioting in Xinjiang.  I’ve enjoyed reading about how the tone-deaf Chinese government tried to set up a PR tour through Urumqi. Apparently they didn’t learn anything from when they tried to usher journalists around Tibet when there was rioting there. Hahaha, I like the opening paragraph from the Gawker story below about this:

http://gawker.com/5309212/china-learns-the-yin-and-yang-of-pr

Anyway, I am following this story with mixed emotions. On the one hand, I love seeing the Chinese government, and generally the Han Chinese, getting their comeuppance. What they are doing in Xinjiang, just as in Tibet, is cultural genocide. The government provides incentives for Han Chinese to move to these frontier states, which have historically been independent as much as they have been a part of China, overtly favors the Han with jobs at the cost of the locals, and doesn’t provide anywhere near the proper safeguards to protect local culture. The clear goal is to change the fundamental character of these places. This is just a more patient, and very Chinese, form of ethnic cleansing and I really feel sympathy for the Uighurs and the Tibetans.

On the other hand, China is not Serbia or Kosovo. It is the only major economy that is growing and it’s stability and continued growth is absolutely essential to any sort of incipient recovery to the global economy.

So, I’m hoping that the rioters get their message out, possibly affect a change of policy, and that China loses huge face. But I also hope that it doesn’t get too bad. Maybe that can work out?

In the News china, discrimination, nationalism, politics, protest, religion, uighurs

Just wanted to post something brief ahead of the next Junta. Like all of you I’m sure I’ve been following the events in Iran closely. I keep hearing the words Velvet Revolution thrown out in terms of the Iranian government’s fears that they will be pushed aside in a wave of liberal protests. But I wonder when a revolution loses its “velvet” character? Some might say that as long as it is a popular uprising and not an insurgent-led effort to topple a government, if the crowd has broadly humanist, universal values at the center of its demands than it can be called that. But does one death change that velvet tag? 10 deaths? 100? I had a hard time squaring the term Velvet Revolution with what was going in Iran after I saw the image of Neda dying on screen from a sniper bullet to the heart. The Czech’s revolution may have had a bit of violence in the early stages as protesters confronted security forces, but the state largerly crumbled as resolute protesters stood their ground. Not so in Iran which has showed a Chinese-like willingness to attack it’s own people. For those of you who haven’t seen the video, here it is:

http://www.inquisitr.com/26835/video-neda-iran-one-life-lost-for-a-greater-cause/

I hope Roger Cohen wins a Pulitzer for his reporting out of Tehran, which has been essential, here is a particularly good piece, which references the Velvet Revolution:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/16/opinion/16iht-edcohen.html?pagewanted=1&sq=velvet%20revolution&st=cse&scp=2

The next Junta will be timely with all this in mind. I keep thinking about how the Chinese are reacting to these events, apparently (no surprise) very cautiously, with chary coverage in the Chinese press. In recent years visiting places like Singapore versus the Philippines, watching elections in the Middle East that produce governments led by hateful Islamists, and generally feeling frustrated with the class of politicians (see Governor Sanford for the latest) that we have leading us, I have felt interested in societies like Singapore and China that function with general freedom but limited public space for political expression. I don’t want to live there, but am fascinated by their success and the bargains that are made between people and government (prosperity in exchange for giving up political participation). But the events in Iran remind us that these things can be overturned quickly and people do not want to be kept in a box. And if democracy has taken some lumps with the rise of China, the snail’s pace of reform in Europe, and the 2000 election in the US, we now have a president in the US that we can be proud of, one who got it totally right when he quoted Martin Luther King to describe how the unrest in Iran has an uncertain outcome but that ” the moral arch of the universe is long but it bends towards justice”.

In the News democracy, iran, protest

Date: Monday, July 6th
Time: 7-9pm
Place: Arrow Bar, 85 Avenue A, btw 5th/6th St.

The next Junta will be centered on the question of democracy in our time.

As democracy spreads through a society, power devolves from the elites and the middle class grows. Theoretically, this process should continue until the poor are also lifted up and empowered – but does it? Or does the middle class become accustomed to wealth and power, and protective of its position, to the detriment of “one man, one vote”?

Recent events in Thailand, Iran and the US have shown examples of democracy today.

• In Thailand, democracy has been hijacked by populism more educated urbanites who wouldn’t mind denying the vote to their country cousins and resulting in military coups and instability;
• In Iran, a religious superauthority has apparently rigged an election to prevent anyone challenging their hold on power – sparking an unrest they didn’t expect;
• And in the US, we have just elected the first minority president in our history only 8 years after a contest so closely divided it required a month of litigation and media scrutiny – and yet did not result in any mass uprising or social turmoil.

Is democracy “the worst form of government – except for all the others”, as Winston Churchill said? Or is “benign authoritarianism”–the Singaporean model–a better way than the chaos of democracy in nearby Philippines, or the flawed system of quasi-democracy and institutional patronage found in Malaysia?

We’re interested in seeing where these questions might lead, and to what other questions they might bring up.

Hope to see you all there-

Rindy and Jeremy

Meetings democracy, iran, politics, protest, thailand, usa