Two short articles. One on China and Tibetan Buddhism, the other on China vs. the Vatican.
Month: December 2011
A bit of cross-party parliamentary civility?
A Briton in America notices something about comparative politics. Britain’s House of Commons reeks of conflict. The rival parties glare at one another from opposite benches. Debates are barbed and sometimes vicious—especially during the gladiatorial spectacle of prime minister’s questions. America’s Congress is different. Members of the House of Representatives sit shoulder-to-shoulder in the shape of a horseshoe. Debates, such as they are, are marked by an exaggerated decorum. The casual observer might easily conclude that America has the more consensual form of politics and Britain the more adversarial.
…Compared with the total war that is American politics, the British version is sport (amateur sport at that: the $1 billion that Mr Obama is said to be seeking for his re-election campaign would pay for an entire British general election 20 times over).
Islam and democracy: Uneasy companions
Islamist spokesmen and leaders of the revived Islamist mainstream are bending over backwards to give reassurances that they will promote a peaceful, pluralistic and tolerant version of Islam. The rights of women and religious and ethnic minorities will be respected, they say, and the people’s democratic verdict will be accepted if they lose elections.
Whatever their doubts, most democrats in the Arab world reckon that Islamists who say they will abide peacefully by the rules of the game must be allowed—indeed encouraged—to participate in mainstream politics: far better than forcing them into a violent, conspiratorial underground. All the same, the well of mistrust on both sides runs deep.
Many liberals still think the Islamists, however mild they sound today, are bent on taking over in the long run, would abandon democracy once they got into power and would use every sort of chicanery and violence to achieve their goal.
Two articles on the relationship between Islam and democracy in light of the 2011 “Arab Spring”
Liberalism under attack in China
On May 23rd four people went to a police station in Beijing with a petition demanding justice. Victims of official wrongdoing often make such trips, and usually they are given short shrift. But this was no ordinary group of the downtrodden. The petition bore the names of nearly 10,000 people accusing a liberal intellectual of slandering Mao Zedong and attempting to overthrow the Communist Party itself. Emboldened by a chill political wind, diehard Maoists in China are rising to confront their critics.
The Maoists’ appeal for the arrest of Mao Yushi, a well-known economist (and no relation of the late chairman), is their most concerted public attempt in many years to put pressure on the government. A clutch of Maoist websites frequently vilify intellectuals such as Mr Mao. But campaigning openly for someone to be put on trial is unusual. It is a symptom of a recent escalation of ideological struggles between China’s West-leaning liberals and conservative hardliners.
Nigeria's prospects: A man and a morass
Can the new government of Goodluck Jonathan clean up corruption and set enterprise free in Africa’s most populous country?
With Mr Jonathan’s inauguration on May 29th, and the formation of a new government, many expect a turnaround. Two-thirds of Nigerians think the election will change their lives, according to a poll conducted by the International Republican Institute, an American outfit that promotes democracy. “We dream,” says a girl shining shoes. “What else can we do?”
The stupidity of Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan claimed that the Russian language had no word for “freedom.” (The word is “svoboda“; it’s quite well attested in Russian literature.) Ronald Reagan said that intercontinental ballistic missiles (not that there are any non-ballistic missiles—a corruption of language that isn’t his fault) could be recalled once launched. Ronald Reagan said that he sought a “Star Wars” defense only in order to share the technology with the tyrants of the U.S.S.R. Ronald Reagan professed to be annoyed when people called it “Star Wars,” even though he had ended his speech on the subject with the lame quip, “May the force be with you.” Ronald Reagan used to alarm his Soviet counterparts by saying that surely they’d both unite against an invasion from Mars. Ronald Reagan used to alarm other constituencies by speaking freely about the “End Times” foreshadowed in the Bible. In the Oval Office, Ronald Reagan told Yitzhak Shamir and Simon Wiesenthal, on two separate occasions, that he himself had assisted personally at the liberation of the Nazi death camps.
Read Hitchens’ takedown of Reagan from Slate
The End of History? by Francis Fukuyama
Francis Fukuyama is an American political scientist, political economist, and author. He is a Senior Fellow at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law at Stanford. Before that he served as a professor and director of the International Development program at the School of Advanced International Studies of the Johns Hopkins University. He is best known for his book The End of History and the Last Man (1992), which argued that the worldwide spread of liberal democracies may signal the end point of humanity’s sociocultural evolution and become the final form of human government.
Read this article which is based on a lecture he presented at the University of Chicago.
“What we may be witnessing is not just the end of the Cold War, or the passing of a particular period of postwar history, but the end of history as such: that is, the end point of mankind’s ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government. This is not to say that there will no longer be events to fill the pages of Foreign Affair’s yearly summaries of international relations, for the victory of liberalism has occurred primarily in the realm of ideas or consciousness and is as yet incomplete in. the real or material world. But there are powerful reasons for believing that it is the ideal that will govern the material world in the long run.”
Abolitionism Resources
PBS on Abolitionism
Cornell University’s abolitionism site: “I Will be Heard”
Was Abe Lincoln a Racist?
Slave Narratives
Library of Congress Selection of Slave Narratives
U of Virginia Slave Narrative Site
Sociology For The South, Fitzhugh
Sociology for the South, or, the Failure of Free Society (1854) was George Fitzhugh’s most powerful attack on the philosophical foundations of free society. In it, he took on not only Adam Smith, the foundational thinker of capitalism, but also John Locke, Thomas Jefferson, and the entire liberal tradition. He argued that free labor and free markets enriched the strong while crushing the weak. What society needed, he wrote, was slavery, not just for blacks, but for whites as well. “Slavery,” he wrote, “is a form, and the very best form, of socialism.”
Read Fitzhugh’s attempt at an intellectual argument in support of slavery.
The Life of Sulla
Plutarch’s take on Sulla (c. 138 BC – 78 BCE).
Portraits of Civil War Soldiers
The photos are rich, the facial hair is awesome, and the commentary, provided by David Plotz, is thoughtful and good humored.
Here’s an FYI: “Facial hair was associated with a few things: It was associated with a new idea of manliness. It was associated with new ideas about religion, a new passion for Old Testament religion and a sense that you were stepping back into the righteous days of the Hebrew prophets. It was associated also with militarism, because it really became popular in Anglo-American culture after the Crimean War. And finally, and I think most interestingly, it was identified with radical nationalist politics in Europe. Beards really took off in places like France, Italy, and Austria, that were undergoing liberal revolutions. I think it bespeaks a sense that both the Union and Confederate soldiers felt that they were nationalist revolutionaries.”
Amazing Photos from the Battle of the Bulge
From Dec. 16, 1944 to Jan. 25, 1945, American, British, Canadian, Belgian, and French forces fought to stop the final major German offensive of World War II: The Battle of the Bulge was launched in the heavily forested Ardennes Mountains of Belgium. While Allied forces ultimately triumphed, the bitter victory left tens of thousands dead on both sides. Here, in a series of rare photos from LIFE.com, is a look back at the pivotal, brutal, seven-week struggle known as the Battle of the Bulge.
A Fiery Gospel: How the “Battle Hymn of the Republic” changed America
The “Battle Hymn” became the leading anthem of the Union cause and would emerge as one of the most enduring works of art of the Civil War years. Meanwhile, the tale of the poem’s composition—one of the great creation stories in American letters—became nearly as famous as the poem itself; it became, in a sense, an inextricable part of the poem. The millennial meanings attached to the hymn, with its portrayal of Union forces—God’s “terrible swift sword”—as apocalyptic agents, and the account of the hymn’s origins fed off each other. Together, they encouraged a sense of providential national identity deeply seductive to American audiences—then and now.
Iran shows off captured US drone on state television
Perhaps Iranian political culture would be less fixated on conspiracies if certain nations would not secretly invade Iranian airspace.
Interpreting The Constitution In The Digital Era
GPS monitors can track your every movement. Brain scans can now see lies forming in your brain. And advancements in genetic engineering may soon allow parents to engineer what their children will look and be like.
These new technologies are “challenging our Constitutional categories in really dramatic ways,” says George Washington University law professor Jeffrey Rosen. “And what’s so striking is that none of the existing amendments give clear answers to the most basic questions we’re having today.”
Listen to this episode of Fresh Air, where Rosen, the co-editor of the Constitution 3.0: Freedom and Technological Change, details how technological changes that were unimaginable at the time of the Founding Fathers are challenging our notions of things like personal vs. private space, freedom of speech and our own individual autonomy.
Protests in Russia, Winter 2011-12
Summary of the 4 December 2011 State Duma election results
| Parties and alliances | Seat composition | Popular vote | % | ± pp swing |
||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Seats | ± | % | ||||||||
| United Russia | 238 |  77 |
52.88% | 32,379,135 | 49.32% | 14.98% |
||||
| Communist Party | 92 |  35 |
20.46% | 12,599,507 | 19.19% | 7.62% |
||||
| A Just Russia | 64 | 26 |
14.21% | 8,695,522 | 13.24% | 5.50% |
||||
| Liberal Democratic Party | 56 | 16 |
12.45% | 7,664,570 | 11.67% | 3.53% |
||||
| Yabloko | 0 |  0 |
0% | 2,252,403 | 3.43% | 1.84% |
||||
| Patriots of Russia | 0 | 0 |
0% | 639,119 | 0.97% | 0.08% |
||||
| Right Cause | 0 | 0 |
0% | 392,806 | 0.60% | new party | ||||
| Total | 450 | 0 | 100% | 64,623,062 | 100% | |||||
| Valid ballot papers | 64,623,062 | 98.43% | ||||||||
| Invalid ballot papers | 1,033,464 | 1.57% | ||||||||
| Eligible voters | 109,237,780 | Turnout: 60.10% | ||||||||
| Source: Summary table of election results – Central Election Commission | ||||||||||
| Candidates | Nominating parties | Votes | % |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vladimir Putin | United Russia | 45,513,001 | 63.64 |
| Gennady Zyuganov | Communist Party | 12,288,624 | 17.18 |
| Mikhail Prokhorov | Independent | 5,680,558 | 7.94 |
| Vladimir Zhirinovsky | Liberal Democratic Party | 4,448,959 | 6.22 |
| Sergey Mironov | A Just Russia | 2,755,642 | 3.85 |
| Valid votes | 70,686,784 | 98.84 | |
| Invalid votes | 833,191 | 1.16 | |
| Total votes | 71,519,975 | 100.00 | |
| Registered voters/turnout | 109,610,812 | 65.25 | |
| Source: Central Election Commission of the Russian Federation | |||
- Medvedev Responds with Proposals for Systemic Change (NYT Dec 22)
- How far can the resistance to Vladimir Putin go? (New Yorker Dec 12)
- Is this a Russian Spring? (BBC Dec 7)
Your assignment–Write, and post a 750-1000 word essay which:
1. Cites all three of the above articles (other resources are available below)
2. Synthesizes the given articles with previous lectures, readings, and discussions
3. Is thesis-driven and evidence-based
4. Attempts to pose an original argument
5. Answers these questions:
- Summarize the 2011 Duma election results. What do these results suggest?
- What are the causes of post-election political discontent in Russia? To what extent are these grievances valid?
- According to Remnick’s piece in the New Yorker, how is the suppression of civil society at the heart of the problem in Russia? Do you tend to agree with his assertions? (If you want more scholarly info on civil society in Russia, see the pieces posted below.)
- Specifically how have Putin, Medvedev, and United Russia responded?
- Conclude by hazarding a response to these questions: Is this the end of an era in Russia? The beginning of the end? Neither?
BRING A PRINT COPY TO CLASS IN ADDITION TO POSTING AS A COMMENT
EXTRA CREDIT: Up to 7 points for offering a substantial (200+ word) and evidence-based refutation of a classmates’ essay. (this is probably the only extra credit for the semester)
“A Balanced Assessment of Russian Civil Society” from Colombia University. More optimisitc than Remnick
Russian Democracy in the Absence of Civil Society. Not so optimistic.
Photo Essay: The Anti-Putin Brigade (Foreign Policy)
Thousands Call on Putin to Go (BBC Dec 25)
Day By Day Summary (Slate Dec 4-12)
Alexei Mukhin, director of the Center for Politial Information think tank, agreed that Putin is increasingly the target but stressed that the opposition continues to lack a comparable leader figure. “Russia without Putin” is the strongest slogan, but it is at the same time the weakest one,“ Mukhin said in an interview. “Because the answer is: ok, Putin, leaves, and then what? Nothing is being offered instead. There is no strong figure that would be able to compete with Putin. It is the weak point, where the pro-government forces are going to strike.”
How does the Kremlin see all this? Check out the state-owned RIA Novosti covers the 2011 protests. Want a hint? December 29th headline: “Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez has blamed the United States for being behind the recent wave of protests in Russia against the outcome of the December 4 parliamentary elections”
Below: Discussion with Anastasia Mirzoyants, the Eurasia Project Manager at Intermedia & ; Jeffrey Mankoff, Associate Director of International Security Studies at Yale University and a visiting fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
30 minute video: The Stream speaks to Anastasia Mirzoyants, the Eurasia Project Manager at Intermedia, a leading consulting firm; Jeffrey Mankoff, Associate Director of International Security Studies at Yale University, Anatoly Karlin, student at UC Berkeley, gives some context to the numbers in this op-ed for Al Jazeera. Karlin also runs the blog Supreme Oblivion
Why Do So Few Blacks Study the Civil War?
We knew, of course, about Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman. But our general sense of the war was that a horrible tragedy somehow had the magical effect of getting us free. Its legacy belonged not to us, but to those who reveled in the costume and technology of a time when we were property.
Our alienation was neither achieved in independence, nor stumbled upon by accident, but produced by American design. The belief that the Civil War wasn’t for us was the result of the country’s long search for a narrative that could reconcile white people with each other, one that avoided what professional historians now know to be true: that one group of Americans attempted to raise a country wholly premised on property in Negroes, and that another group of Americans, including many Negroes, stopped them. In the popular mind, that demonstrable truth has been evaded in favor of a more comforting story of tragedy, failed compromise, and individual gallantry. For that more ennobling narrative, as for so much of American history, the fact of black people is a problem.
Lincoln's Greatest Speech, Garry Wills
Frederick Douglass called it “a sacred effort,” and Lincoln himself thought that his Second Inaugural, which offered a theodicy of the Civil War, was better than the Gettysburg Address.
Historian Garry Wills does a magnificent job of unpacking Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address