It's a snow day today and school is close so I thought I might just indulge myself in a post as part of a cathartic process.
My subject today is a multi-dimensional one. Firstly, the times could means that we haven't learned to live in peace with one another. Secondly, it could means that we don't know how to live in "peace" as in peace-time condition.
A post Cold-war era ushered a period of unprecedented peace if we simply looked at the degree and level of cooperation and prevalence of neo-liberalism. It however meant that nations needed to see itself as one body rather than separate states. Everyone had the responsibility of keeping their house in order and to learn how to work with the rest. Like any human organ, no one part is great than another. The brain therefore cannot tell the heart that it is superior to it.
Unfortunately even as we are sucessful in ending wars. We fail to address the underlying suspicion and the conflicts between states. This is the state of the world we live in, evidence in the happening in international organisations like the UN, the media commentaries that invoke these biases and the very perception and attitude of people on the ground. Hence my conclusion of the fact that "We haven't learnt how to live in peace."
I balk at ridiculous notions of Western articles trying to say that because Asian economies saved to much (and in part because of lessons learnt in the Asian Financial Crisis) and hence we supposed and overconsuming America and send it to the slaugther house like a fatted calf. We just can't seem to get it right can't we and so we're the ones to blame for both Financial Crisis. How ridiculous is that? They might as well create a new conspiracy theory to say that it was a intentional and engineered economic assault that heralds a new era of warfare.
Sigh. The divisions of this world. Misunderstandings from being lost in translations. We truly need to listen twice as much as we speak.
Maybe only then we have a common vision and work TOGETHER for all the wonderous agendas of sustainable development, tackling global warming, ridding terrorism and issues of a global nature.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Why adaptive management keeps us ahead
If there is one thing about our local leadership, it is their ability to press ahead and remain adaptive. That is something that Singaporeans should be proud of. Be it the drive into media production like animation and special effects via Fusionpolis, or the life sciences push via Biopolis, these are the little niches that we have attempted to carve for ourselves. Coupled with our continuous push for education (albeit extremely demanding and stressful), it will ensure that our island can keep pace with the world.
It is wonderful that we have understood early that our best resource have been our people. Perhaps the people don't believe that they are valued and would kick up a big ruckuss about our immigration policies or maybe even complain against the education system designed to teach them a life skill of being always able to "fish" (rather than always asking for a fish). Even people outside of our nations have seens the wisdom of our strategy. One example is David Heenan in his book Flight Capital, which talks about the brain drain that faces the United States and how Singapore have been successful in drawing 'foreign talent' (people react viscerably to this word). By the way, David Heenan doesn't like us very much and he doesn't fail to admire us for it.
Comparatively, the United States is in a lot of decline. To put it simply, short-termism has grounded their competitive edge to a blunt tool. It's not just the economy stupid, it's also the other E. Education. Anyhow, populist politics or domestic politics to the U.S. dominates and now we see protectionism on the rise (Not that it wasn't there before). Then of course there was the statement about the Chinese messing them up by currency manipulation. Although there is some truth that the yuan is devalued, it does not hold water as the source of their problems. Here's is a good piece from Foreign Policy.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=4692
Although I might sound harsh, my reason for doing so is simple. Because we are the small boat, we are affected by the wake of the big boats. Plus, we've always been in tow.
It is wonderful that we have understood early that our best resource have been our people. Perhaps the people don't believe that they are valued and would kick up a big ruckuss about our immigration policies or maybe even complain against the education system designed to teach them a life skill of being always able to "fish" (rather than always asking for a fish). Even people outside of our nations have seens the wisdom of our strategy. One example is David Heenan in his book Flight Capital, which talks about the brain drain that faces the United States and how Singapore have been successful in drawing 'foreign talent' (people react viscerably to this word). By the way, David Heenan doesn't like us very much and he doesn't fail to admire us for it.
Comparatively, the United States is in a lot of decline. To put it simply, short-termism has grounded their competitive edge to a blunt tool. It's not just the economy stupid, it's also the other E. Education. Anyhow, populist politics or domestic politics to the U.S. dominates and now we see protectionism on the rise (Not that it wasn't there before). Then of course there was the statement about the Chinese messing them up by currency manipulation. Although there is some truth that the yuan is devalued, it does not hold water as the source of their problems. Here's is a good piece from Foreign Policy.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=4692
Although I might sound harsh, my reason for doing so is simple. Because we are the small boat, we are affected by the wake of the big boats. Plus, we've always been in tow.
Sunday, February 8, 2009
Economic Nationalism
During the U.S. Presidential Election debates last year, I do believe that readers of this blog remember that I've made the observation of some general and strong protectionist tendencies in President Obama. Read here. Of course, there was a strong showing of a commitment to the centre and his selection centrists advisers.
The true test of the pudding however is in the eating. Given the current economic crisis showing no signs of abating nor turning, the policy choices have been revealing. The Economist, undoubtedly one of my favourite periodical for being largely non-partisan and pragmatic has written a great piece in the upcoming issue featuring the revival of "Economic Nationalism". It's the of course another name for protectionism and the retardation of globalisation and international trade.
The article is listed here. http://www.economist.com/opinion/displayStory.cfm?story_id=13061443&source=hptextfeature
In truth, I am extremely worried because it is so much more than their simply trade protection but capital flow protectionism. The impact from jamming world trade is going to make this economic downturn much more severe than it is and could potentially spark political upheaval all around the world and might even prompt revival of the very old enemy of communism or facisms that Obama has eloquently spoken to fight and declared victory over. This is highly unstable for the global order.
The world is indeed looking to the United States for leadership and I sense this with many of my peers here. This is especially so for the people from Asia as the region supports so many export-orientated economies.
This could however be President Obama's most glorious moment and opportunity if he can rally for a new and stronger international order. A global consciousness. Global citizenry. That the world acknowledge that they are economically entwined and need to cooperation and coordinate casting Realpolitik aside.
Singapore is in dire need of this new vision. Considering our boast as a global city, we are truly not and a segment of xenophobic and nationalistic Singaporeans have proven themselves to be myopic and dangerous. On one hand, I feel that our government will be able to make the right call but that might cost them politically because of the growing sentiments of nationalism. The anti-establishment groups and political entities via the blogsphere has totally capitalised on this moment and prove themselves to be nothing more than power corrupt opportunists. However, part of this blame must be laid on the government for not liberalising civil discourse earlier so that we may develop a more non-partisan civil society that is balanced and anchored on pragmatic and sound logic. Now, the emotive voice and gain momentum and will prove to be extremely difficult to stop and extreme.
We are living at a great turning point in history. As the Chinese always say that in every crisis (危机), there is great danger (危), but there is also a great opportunity (机) as well for a better and stronger international order that will send the not only the economic nationalist but the realist to the grave.
The true test of the pudding however is in the eating. Given the current economic crisis showing no signs of abating nor turning, the policy choices have been revealing. The Economist, undoubtedly one of my favourite periodical for being largely non-partisan and pragmatic has written a great piece in the upcoming issue featuring the revival of "Economic Nationalism". It's the of course another name for protectionism and the retardation of globalisation and international trade.
The article is listed here. http://www.economist.com/opinion/displayStory.cfm?story_id=13061443&source=hptextfeature
In truth, I am extremely worried because it is so much more than their simply trade protection but capital flow protectionism. The impact from jamming world trade is going to make this economic downturn much more severe than it is and could potentially spark political upheaval all around the world and might even prompt revival of the very old enemy of communism or facisms that Obama has eloquently spoken to fight and declared victory over. This is highly unstable for the global order.
The world is indeed looking to the United States for leadership and I sense this with many of my peers here. This is especially so for the people from Asia as the region supports so many export-orientated economies.
This could however be President Obama's most glorious moment and opportunity if he can rally for a new and stronger international order. A global consciousness. Global citizenry. That the world acknowledge that they are economically entwined and need to cooperation and coordinate casting Realpolitik aside.
Singapore is in dire need of this new vision. Considering our boast as a global city, we are truly not and a segment of xenophobic and nationalistic Singaporeans have proven themselves to be myopic and dangerous. On one hand, I feel that our government will be able to make the right call but that might cost them politically because of the growing sentiments of nationalism. The anti-establishment groups and political entities via the blogsphere has totally capitalised on this moment and prove themselves to be nothing more than power corrupt opportunists. However, part of this blame must be laid on the government for not liberalising civil discourse earlier so that we may develop a more non-partisan civil society that is balanced and anchored on pragmatic and sound logic. Now, the emotive voice and gain momentum and will prove to be extremely difficult to stop and extreme.
We are living at a great turning point in history. As the Chinese always say that in every crisis (危机), there is great danger (危), but there is also a great opportunity (机) as well for a better and stronger international order that will send the not only the economic nationalist but the realist to the grave.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
American T T Durai?
Just when you think it can't happen to the U.S. , they've confirmed my suspicion that it can. Everywhere around the world is the same if you look hard enough. Human nature is such and are often avarice.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/28/opinion/28dowd.html?emc=eta1
Tell me that if you are Singaporean and after reading the above-mentioned that it does not remind you of T T Durai.
Please do not be mistaken that I'm trying to sling mud on the good reputation of the United States but what I'm trying to prove here is the failure of man in general. It's not just the fat cats on Wall Street, or other rich and prominent people. We've all to varying degrees enhanced our self-interest build on others demise and misery when we should all "share the burden". Unfortunately, sharing the burden is counter-intuitive so we will continue to be witness to such "indecency" or insensitivity. Regardless of your post code, country of residence. So wake up and smell the flowers and recognise the nature of this world we live in.
The only thing we can do is to debate the degree of the "crime" and decide whether we would punish it or not but we will never make it stop.
Apologies for being rather fatalistic today.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/28/opinion/28dowd.html?emc=eta1
Tell me that if you are Singaporean and after reading the above-mentioned that it does not remind you of T T Durai.
Please do not be mistaken that I'm trying to sling mud on the good reputation of the United States but what I'm trying to prove here is the failure of man in general. It's not just the fat cats on Wall Street, or other rich and prominent people. We've all to varying degrees enhanced our self-interest build on others demise and misery when we should all "share the burden". Unfortunately, sharing the burden is counter-intuitive so we will continue to be witness to such "indecency" or insensitivity. Regardless of your post code, country of residence. So wake up and smell the flowers and recognise the nature of this world we live in.
The only thing we can do is to debate the degree of the "crime" and decide whether we would punish it or not but we will never make it stop.
Apologies for being rather fatalistic today.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
A More Perfect Union
I've received a mail from the Tuft's President and it was the speech that was made by President-Elect Obama on the issue of race in the United States titled, "A More Perfect Union". I share similar sentiments on the wonderful cogent and powerful message that was communicated in this speech. More importantly, I see some nuggets of wisdom that we can apply even in Singapore that prides itself on principles of meritocracy and racially harmonious society.
The world needs to embrace global citizenship. Singapore for one has a country that depends so much on the interactions with the outside world, in terms of attracting FDI, human capital and even trade should continue to be a cosmopolitan society. A place that people can come and fulfil dreams see out a better life and belong. That should be the guiding principle of our policy and not one of exclusion and denial. I think it is therefore worthwhile to read and consider what the 44th President of the United States have spoken in this wonder speech on a more perfect union. This is also my snub to the partisan politics that I've witness in my country that argues for a more nationalist and protectionist policy. Narrow-mindness will never get my vote.
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"A More Perfect Union," Remarks of Senator Barack Obama, Philadelphia, PA, March 18, 2008
Note: Video as well as the text of this speech is also available online at http://www.barackobama.com/2008/03/18/remarks_of_senator_barack_obam_53.php
"We the people, in order to form a more perfect union."
Two hundred and twenty one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words, launched America's improbable experiment in democracy. Farmers and scholars; statesmen and patriots who had traveled across an ocean to escape tyranny and persecution finally made real their declaration of independence at a Philadelphia convention that lasted through the spring of 1787.
The document they produced was eventually signed but ultimately unfinished. It was stained by this nation's original sin of slavery, a question that divided the colonies and brought the convention to a stalemate until the founders chose to allow the slave trade to continue for at least twenty more years, and to leave any final resolution to future generations.
Of course, the answer to the slavery question was already embedded within our Constitution - a Constitution that had at is very core the ideal of equal citizenship under the law; a Constitution that promised its people liberty, and justice, and a union that could be and should be perfected over time.
And yet words on a parchment would not be enough to deliver slaves from bondage, or provide men and women of every color and creed their full rights and obligations as citizens of the United States. What would be needed were Americans in successive generations who were willing to do their part - through protests and struggle, on the streets and in the courts, through a civil war and civil disobedience and always at great risk - to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time.
This was one of the tasks we set forth at the beginning of this campaign - to continue the long march of those who came before us, a march for a more just, more equal, more free, more caring and more prosperous America. I chose to run for the presidency at this moment in history because I believe deeply that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together - unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes; that we may not look the same and we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction - towards a better future for our children and our grandchildren.
This belief comes from my unyielding faith in the decency and generosity of the American people. But it also comes from my own American story.
I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas. I was raised with the help of a white grandfather who survived a Depression to serve in Patton's Army during World War II and a white grandmother who worked on a bomber assembly line at Fort Leavenworth while he was overseas. I've gone to some of the best schools in America and lived in one of the world's poorest nations. I am married to a black American who carries within her the blood of slaves and slaveowners - an inheritance we pass on to our two precious daughters. I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins, of every race and every hue, scattered across three continents, and for as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible.
It's a story that hasn't made me the most conventional candidate. But it is a story that has seared into my genetic makeup the idea that this nation is more than the sum of its parts - that out of many, we are truly one.
Throughout the first year of this campaign, against all predictions to the contrary, we saw how hungry the American people were for this message of unity. Despite the temptation to view my candidacy through a purely racial lens, we won commanding victories in states with some of the whitest populations in the country. In South Carolina, where the Confederate Flag still flies, we built a powerful coalition of African Americans and white Americans.
This is not to say that race has not been an issue in the campaign. At various stages in the campaign, some commentators have deemed me either "too black" or "not black enough." We saw racial tensions bubble to the surface during the week before the South Carolina primary. The press has scoured every exit poll for the latest evidence of racial polarization, not just in terms of white and black, but black and brown as well.
And yet, it has only been in the last couple of weeks that the discussion of race in this campaign has taken a particularly divisive turn.
On one end of the spectrum, we've heard the implication that my candidacy is somehow an exercise in affirmative action; that it's based solely on the desire of wide-eyed liberals to purchase racial reconciliation on the cheap. On the other end, we've heard my former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, use incendiary language to express views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide, but views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation; that rightly offend white and black alike.
I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy. For some, nagging questions remain. Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely - just as I'm sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.
But the remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren't simply controversial. They weren't simply a religious leader's effort to speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country - a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.
As such, Reverend Wright's comments were not only wrong but divisive, divisive at a time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems - two wars, a terrorist threat, a falling economy, a chronic health care crisis and potentially devastating climate change; problems that are neither black or white or Latino or Asian, but rather problems that confront us all.
Given my background, my politics, and my professed values and ideals, there will no doubt be those for whom my statements of condemnation are not enough. Why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the first place, they may ask? Why not join another church? And I confess that if all that I knew of Reverend Wright were the snippets of those sermons that have run in an endless loop on the television and You Tube, or if Trinity United Church of Christ conformed to the caricatures being peddled by some commentators, there is no doubt that I would react in much the same way.
But the truth is, that isn't all that I know of the man. The man I met more than twenty years ago is a man who helped introduce me to my Christian faith, a man who spoke to me about our obligations to love one another; to care for the sick and lift up the poor. He is a man who served his country as a U.S. Marine; who has studied and lectured at some of the finest universities and seminaries in the country, and who for over thirty years led a church that serves the community by doing God's work here on Earth - by housing the homeless, ministering to the needy, providing day care services and scholarships and prison ministries, and reaching out to those suffering from HIV/AIDS.
In my first book, Dreams From My Father, I described the experience of my first service at Trinity:
"People began to shout, to rise from their seats and clap and cry out, a forceful wind carrying the reverend's voice up into the rafters....And in that single note - hope! - I heard something else; at the foot of that cross, inside the thousands of churches across the city, I imagined the stories of ordinary black people merging with the stories of David and Goliath, Moses and Pharaoh, the Christians in the lion's den, Ezekiel's field of dry bones. Those stories - of survival, and freedom, and hope - became our story, my story; the blood that had spilled was our blood, the tears our tears; until this black church, on this bright day, seemed once more a vessel carrying the story of a people into future generations and into a larger world. Our trials and triumphs became at once unique and universal, black and more than black; in chronicling our journey, the stories and songs gave us a means to reclaim memories that we didn't need to feel shame about...memories that all people might study and cherish - and with which we could start to rebuild."
That has been my experience at Trinity. Like other predominantly black churches across the country, Trinity embodies the black community in its entirety - the doctor and the welfare mom, the model student and the former gang-banger. Like other black churches, Trinity's services are full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor. They are full of dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear. The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America.
And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright. As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children. Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect. He contains within him the contradictions - the good and the bad - of the community that he has served diligently for so many years.
I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother - a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.
These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.
Some will see this as an attempt to justify or excuse comments that are simply inexcusable. I can assure you it is not. I suppose the politically safe thing would be to move on from this episode and just hope that it fades into the woodwork. We can dismiss Reverend Wright as a crank or a demagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated racial bias.
But race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now. We would be making the same mistake that Reverend Wright made in his offending sermons about America - to simplify and stereotype and amplify the negative to the point that it distorts reality.
The fact is that the comments that have been made and the issues that have surfaced over the last few weeks reflect the complexities of race in this country that we've never really worked through - a part of our union that we have yet to perfect. And if we walk away now, if we simply retreat into our respective corners, we will never be able to come together and solve challenges like health care, or education, or the need to find good jobs for every American.
Understanding this reality requires a reminder of how we arrived at this point. As William Faulkner once wrote, "The past isn't dead and buried. In fact, it isn't even past." We do not need to recite here the history of racial injustice in this country. But we do need to remind ourselves that so many of the disparities that exist in the African-American community today can be directly traced to inequalities passed on from an earlier generation that suffered under the brutal legacy of slavery and Jim Crow.
Segregated schools were, and are, inferior schools; we still haven't fixed them, fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, and the inferior education they provided, then and now, helps explain the pervasive achievement gap between today's black and white students.
Legalized discrimination - where blacks were prevented, often through violence, from owning property, or loans were not granted to African-American business owners, or black homeowners could not access FHA mortgages, or blacks were excluded from unions, or the police force, or fire departments - meant that black families could not amass any meaningful wealth to bequeath to future generations. That history helps explain the wealth and income gap between black and white, and the concentrated pockets of poverty that persists in so many of today's urban and rural communities.
A lack of economic opportunity among black men, and the shame and frustration that came from not being able to provide for one's family, contributed to the erosion of black families - a problem that welfare policies for many years may have worsened. And the lack of basic services in so many urban black neighborhoods - parks for kids to play in, police walking the beat, regular garbage pick-up and building code enforcement - all helped create a cycle of violence, blight and neglect that continue to haunt us.
This is the reality in which Reverend Wright and other African-Americans of his generation grew up. They came of age in the late fifties and early sixties, a time when segregation was still the law of the land and opportunity was systematically constricted. What's remarkable is not how many failed in the face of discrimination, but rather how many men and women overcame the odds; how many were able to make a way out of no way for those like me who would come after them.
But for all those who scratched and clawed their way to get a piece of the American Dream, there were many who didn't make it - those who were ultimately defeated, in one way or another, by discrimination. That legacy of defeat was passed on to future generations - those young men and increasingly young women who we see standing on street corners or languishing in our prisons, without hope or prospects for the future. Even for those blacks who did make it, questions of race, and racism, continue to define their worldview in fundamental ways. For the men and women of Reverend Wright's generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years. That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table. At times, that anger is exploited by politicians, to gin up votes along racial lines, or to make up for a politician's own failings.
And occasionally it finds voice in the church on Sunday morning, in the pulpit and in the pews. The fact that so many people are surprised to hear that anger in some of Reverend Wright's sermons simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour in American life occurs on Sunday morning. That anger is not always productive; indeed, all too often it distracts attention from solving real problems; it keeps us from squarely facing our own complicity in our condition, and prevents the African-American community from forging the alliances it needs to bring about real change. But the anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races.
In fact, a similar anger exists within segments of the white community. Most working- and middle-class white Americans don't feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race. Their experience is the immigrant experience - as far as they're concerned, no one's handed them anything, they've built it from scratch. They've worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor. They are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away; in an era of stagnant wages and global competition, opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your dreams come at my expense. So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that an African American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed; when they're told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time.
Like the anger within the black community, these resentments aren't always expressed in polite company. But they have helped shape the political landscape for at least a generation. Anger over welfare and affirmative action helped forge the Reagan Coalition. Politicians routinely exploited fears of crime for their own electoral ends. Talk show hosts and conservative commentators built entire careers unmasking bogus claims of racism while dismissing legitimate discussions of racial injustice and inequality as mere political correctness or reverse racism.
Just as black anger often proved counterproductive, so have these white resentments distracted attention from the real culprits of the middle class squeeze - a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices, and short-term greed; a Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests; economic policies that favor the few over the many. And yet, to wish away the resentments of white Americans, to label them as misguided or even racist, without recognizing they are grounded in legitimate concerns - this too widens the racial divide, and blocks the path to understanding.
This is where we are right now. It's a racial stalemate we've been stuck in for years. Contrary to the claims of some of my critics, black and white, I have never been so naïve as to believe that we can get beyond our racial divisions in a single election cycle, or with a single candidacy - particularly a candidacy as imperfect as my own.
But I have asserted a firm conviction - a conviction rooted in my faith in God and my faith in the American people - that working together we can move beyond some of our old racial wounds, and that in fact we have no choice if we are to continue on the path of a more perfect union.
For the African-American community, that path means embracing the burdens of our past without becoming victims of our past. It means continuing to insist on a full measure of justice in every aspect of American life. But it also means binding our particular grievances - for better health care, and better schools, and better jobs - to the larger aspirations of all Americans -- the white woman struggling to break the glass ceiling, the white man whose been laid off, the immigrant trying to feed his family. And it means taking full responsibility for own lives - by demanding more from our fathers, and spending more time with our children, and reading to them, and teaching them that while they may face challenges and discrimination in their own lives, they must never succumb to despair or cynicism; they must always believe that they can write their own destiny.
Ironically, this quintessentially American - and yes, conservative - notion of self-help found frequent expression in Reverend Wright's sermons. But what my former pastor too often failed to understand is that embarking on a program of self-help also requires a belief that society can change.
The profound mistake of Reverend Wright's sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It's that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country - a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black; Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old -- is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past. But what we know -- what we have seen - is that America can change. That is true genius of this nation. What we have already achieved gives us hope - the audacity to hope - for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.
In the white community, the path to a more perfect union means acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination - and current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the past - are real and must be addressed. Not just with words, but with deeds - by investing in our schools and our communities; by enforcing our civil rights laws and ensuring fairness in our criminal justice system; by providing this generation with ladders of opportunity that were unavailable for previous generations. It requires all Americans to realize that your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams; that investing in the health, welfare, and education of black and brown and white children will ultimately help all of America prosper.
In the end, then, what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world's great religions demand - that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Let us be our brother's keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister's keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well.
For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle - as we did in the OJ trial - or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina - or as fodder for the nightly news. We can play Reverend Wright's sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she's playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.
We can do that.
But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we'll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.
That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, "Not this time." This time we want to talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children and Asian children and Hispanic children and Native American children. This time we want to reject the cynicism that tells us that these kids can't learn; that those kids who don't look like us are somebody else's problem. The children of America are not those kids, they are our kids, and we will not let them fall behind in a 21st century economy. Not this time.
This time we want to talk about how the lines in the Emergency Room are filled with whites and blacks and Hispanics who do not have health care; who don't have the power on their own to overcome the special interests in Washington, but who can take them on if we do it together.
This time we want to talk about the shuttered mills that once provided a decent life for men and women of every race, and the homes for sale that once belonged to Americans from every religion, every region, every walk of life. This time we want to talk about the fact that the real problem is not that someone who doesn't look like you might take your job; it's that the corporation you work for will ship it overseas for nothing more than a profit.
This time we want to talk about the men and women of every color and creed who serve together, and fight together, and bleed together under the same proud flag. We want to talk about how to bring them home from a war that never should've been authorized and never should've been waged, and we want to talk about how we'll show our patriotism by caring for them, and their families, and giving them the benefits they have earned.
I would not be running for President if I didn't believe with all my heart that this is what the vast majority of Americans want for this country. This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has shown that it can always be perfected. And today, whenever I find myself feeling doubtful or cynical about this possibility, what gives me the most hope is the next generation - the young people whose attitudes and beliefs and openness to change have already made history in this election.
There is one story in particularly that I'd like to leave you with today - a story I told when I had the great honor of speaking on Dr. King's birthday at his home church, Ebenezer Baptist, in Atlanta.
There is a young, twenty-three year old white woman named Ashley Baia who organized for our campaign in Florence, South Carolina. She had been working to organize a mostly African-American community since the beginning of this campaign, and one day she was at a roundtable discussion where everyone went around telling their story and why they were there.
And Ashley said that when she was nine years old, her mother got cancer. And because she had to miss days of work, she was let go and lost her health care. They had to file for bankruptcy, and that's when Ashley decided that she had to do something to help her mom.
She knew that food was one of their most expensive costs, and so Ashley convinced her mother that what she really liked and really wanted to eat more than anything else was mustard and relish sandwiches. Because that was the cheapest way to eat.
She did this for a year until her mom got better, and she told everyone at the roundtable that the reason she joined our campaign was so that she could help the millions of other children in the country who want and need to help their parents too.
Now Ashley might have made a different choice. Perhaps somebody told her along the way that the source of her mother's problems were blacks who were on welfare and too lazy to work, or Hispanics who were coming into the country illegally. But she didn't. She sought out allies in her fight against injustice.
Anyway, Ashley finishes her story and then goes around the room and asks everyone else why they're supporting the campaign. They all have different stories and reasons. Many bring up a specific issue. And finally they come to this elderly black man who's been sitting there quietly the entire time. And Ashley asks him why he's there. And he does not bring up a specific issue. He does not say health care or the economy. He does not say education or the war. He does not say that he was there because of Barack Obama. He simply says to everyone in the room, "I am here because of Ashley."
"I'm here because of Ashley." By itself, that single moment of recognition between that young white girl and that old black man is not enough. It is not enough to give health care to the sick, or jobs to the jobless, or education to our children.
But it is where we start. It is where our union grows stronger. And as so many generations have come to realize over the course of the two-hundred and twenty one years since a band of patriots signed that document in Philadelphia, that is where the perfection begins.
The world needs to embrace global citizenship. Singapore for one has a country that depends so much on the interactions with the outside world, in terms of attracting FDI, human capital and even trade should continue to be a cosmopolitan society. A place that people can come and fulfil dreams see out a better life and belong. That should be the guiding principle of our policy and not one of exclusion and denial. I think it is therefore worthwhile to read and consider what the 44th President of the United States have spoken in this wonder speech on a more perfect union. This is also my snub to the partisan politics that I've witness in my country that argues for a more nationalist and protectionist policy. Narrow-mindness will never get my vote.
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"A More Perfect Union," Remarks of Senator Barack Obama, Philadelphia, PA, March 18, 2008
Note: Video as well as the text of this speech is also available online at http://www.barackobama.com/2008/03/18/remarks_of_senator_barack_obam_53.php
"We the people, in order to form a more perfect union."
Two hundred and twenty one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words, launched America's improbable experiment in democracy. Farmers and scholars; statesmen and patriots who had traveled across an ocean to escape tyranny and persecution finally made real their declaration of independence at a Philadelphia convention that lasted through the spring of 1787.
The document they produced was eventually signed but ultimately unfinished. It was stained by this nation's original sin of slavery, a question that divided the colonies and brought the convention to a stalemate until the founders chose to allow the slave trade to continue for at least twenty more years, and to leave any final resolution to future generations.
Of course, the answer to the slavery question was already embedded within our Constitution - a Constitution that had at is very core the ideal of equal citizenship under the law; a Constitution that promised its people liberty, and justice, and a union that could be and should be perfected over time.
And yet words on a parchment would not be enough to deliver slaves from bondage, or provide men and women of every color and creed their full rights and obligations as citizens of the United States. What would be needed were Americans in successive generations who were willing to do their part - through protests and struggle, on the streets and in the courts, through a civil war and civil disobedience and always at great risk - to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time.
This was one of the tasks we set forth at the beginning of this campaign - to continue the long march of those who came before us, a march for a more just, more equal, more free, more caring and more prosperous America. I chose to run for the presidency at this moment in history because I believe deeply that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together - unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes; that we may not look the same and we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction - towards a better future for our children and our grandchildren.
This belief comes from my unyielding faith in the decency and generosity of the American people. But it also comes from my own American story.
I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas. I was raised with the help of a white grandfather who survived a Depression to serve in Patton's Army during World War II and a white grandmother who worked on a bomber assembly line at Fort Leavenworth while he was overseas. I've gone to some of the best schools in America and lived in one of the world's poorest nations. I am married to a black American who carries within her the blood of slaves and slaveowners - an inheritance we pass on to our two precious daughters. I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins, of every race and every hue, scattered across three continents, and for as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible.
It's a story that hasn't made me the most conventional candidate. But it is a story that has seared into my genetic makeup the idea that this nation is more than the sum of its parts - that out of many, we are truly one.
Throughout the first year of this campaign, against all predictions to the contrary, we saw how hungry the American people were for this message of unity. Despite the temptation to view my candidacy through a purely racial lens, we won commanding victories in states with some of the whitest populations in the country. In South Carolina, where the Confederate Flag still flies, we built a powerful coalition of African Americans and white Americans.
This is not to say that race has not been an issue in the campaign. At various stages in the campaign, some commentators have deemed me either "too black" or "not black enough." We saw racial tensions bubble to the surface during the week before the South Carolina primary. The press has scoured every exit poll for the latest evidence of racial polarization, not just in terms of white and black, but black and brown as well.
And yet, it has only been in the last couple of weeks that the discussion of race in this campaign has taken a particularly divisive turn.
On one end of the spectrum, we've heard the implication that my candidacy is somehow an exercise in affirmative action; that it's based solely on the desire of wide-eyed liberals to purchase racial reconciliation on the cheap. On the other end, we've heard my former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, use incendiary language to express views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide, but views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation; that rightly offend white and black alike.
I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy. For some, nagging questions remain. Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely - just as I'm sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.
But the remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren't simply controversial. They weren't simply a religious leader's effort to speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country - a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.
As such, Reverend Wright's comments were not only wrong but divisive, divisive at a time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems - two wars, a terrorist threat, a falling economy, a chronic health care crisis and potentially devastating climate change; problems that are neither black or white or Latino or Asian, but rather problems that confront us all.
Given my background, my politics, and my professed values and ideals, there will no doubt be those for whom my statements of condemnation are not enough. Why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the first place, they may ask? Why not join another church? And I confess that if all that I knew of Reverend Wright were the snippets of those sermons that have run in an endless loop on the television and You Tube, or if Trinity United Church of Christ conformed to the caricatures being peddled by some commentators, there is no doubt that I would react in much the same way.
But the truth is, that isn't all that I know of the man. The man I met more than twenty years ago is a man who helped introduce me to my Christian faith, a man who spoke to me about our obligations to love one another; to care for the sick and lift up the poor. He is a man who served his country as a U.S. Marine; who has studied and lectured at some of the finest universities and seminaries in the country, and who for over thirty years led a church that serves the community by doing God's work here on Earth - by housing the homeless, ministering to the needy, providing day care services and scholarships and prison ministries, and reaching out to those suffering from HIV/AIDS.
In my first book, Dreams From My Father, I described the experience of my first service at Trinity:
"People began to shout, to rise from their seats and clap and cry out, a forceful wind carrying the reverend's voice up into the rafters....And in that single note - hope! - I heard something else; at the foot of that cross, inside the thousands of churches across the city, I imagined the stories of ordinary black people merging with the stories of David and Goliath, Moses and Pharaoh, the Christians in the lion's den, Ezekiel's field of dry bones. Those stories - of survival, and freedom, and hope - became our story, my story; the blood that had spilled was our blood, the tears our tears; until this black church, on this bright day, seemed once more a vessel carrying the story of a people into future generations and into a larger world. Our trials and triumphs became at once unique and universal, black and more than black; in chronicling our journey, the stories and songs gave us a means to reclaim memories that we didn't need to feel shame about...memories that all people might study and cherish - and with which we could start to rebuild."
That has been my experience at Trinity. Like other predominantly black churches across the country, Trinity embodies the black community in its entirety - the doctor and the welfare mom, the model student and the former gang-banger. Like other black churches, Trinity's services are full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor. They are full of dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear. The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America.
And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright. As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children. Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect. He contains within him the contradictions - the good and the bad - of the community that he has served diligently for so many years.
I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother - a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.
These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.
Some will see this as an attempt to justify or excuse comments that are simply inexcusable. I can assure you it is not. I suppose the politically safe thing would be to move on from this episode and just hope that it fades into the woodwork. We can dismiss Reverend Wright as a crank or a demagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated racial bias.
But race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now. We would be making the same mistake that Reverend Wright made in his offending sermons about America - to simplify and stereotype and amplify the negative to the point that it distorts reality.
The fact is that the comments that have been made and the issues that have surfaced over the last few weeks reflect the complexities of race in this country that we've never really worked through - a part of our union that we have yet to perfect. And if we walk away now, if we simply retreat into our respective corners, we will never be able to come together and solve challenges like health care, or education, or the need to find good jobs for every American.
Understanding this reality requires a reminder of how we arrived at this point. As William Faulkner once wrote, "The past isn't dead and buried. In fact, it isn't even past." We do not need to recite here the history of racial injustice in this country. But we do need to remind ourselves that so many of the disparities that exist in the African-American community today can be directly traced to inequalities passed on from an earlier generation that suffered under the brutal legacy of slavery and Jim Crow.
Segregated schools were, and are, inferior schools; we still haven't fixed them, fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, and the inferior education they provided, then and now, helps explain the pervasive achievement gap between today's black and white students.
Legalized discrimination - where blacks were prevented, often through violence, from owning property, or loans were not granted to African-American business owners, or black homeowners could not access FHA mortgages, or blacks were excluded from unions, or the police force, or fire departments - meant that black families could not amass any meaningful wealth to bequeath to future generations. That history helps explain the wealth and income gap between black and white, and the concentrated pockets of poverty that persists in so many of today's urban and rural communities.
A lack of economic opportunity among black men, and the shame and frustration that came from not being able to provide for one's family, contributed to the erosion of black families - a problem that welfare policies for many years may have worsened. And the lack of basic services in so many urban black neighborhoods - parks for kids to play in, police walking the beat, regular garbage pick-up and building code enforcement - all helped create a cycle of violence, blight and neglect that continue to haunt us.
This is the reality in which Reverend Wright and other African-Americans of his generation grew up. They came of age in the late fifties and early sixties, a time when segregation was still the law of the land and opportunity was systematically constricted. What's remarkable is not how many failed in the face of discrimination, but rather how many men and women overcame the odds; how many were able to make a way out of no way for those like me who would come after them.
But for all those who scratched and clawed their way to get a piece of the American Dream, there were many who didn't make it - those who were ultimately defeated, in one way or another, by discrimination. That legacy of defeat was passed on to future generations - those young men and increasingly young women who we see standing on street corners or languishing in our prisons, without hope or prospects for the future. Even for those blacks who did make it, questions of race, and racism, continue to define their worldview in fundamental ways. For the men and women of Reverend Wright's generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years. That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table. At times, that anger is exploited by politicians, to gin up votes along racial lines, or to make up for a politician's own failings.
And occasionally it finds voice in the church on Sunday morning, in the pulpit and in the pews. The fact that so many people are surprised to hear that anger in some of Reverend Wright's sermons simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour in American life occurs on Sunday morning. That anger is not always productive; indeed, all too often it distracts attention from solving real problems; it keeps us from squarely facing our own complicity in our condition, and prevents the African-American community from forging the alliances it needs to bring about real change. But the anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races.
In fact, a similar anger exists within segments of the white community. Most working- and middle-class white Americans don't feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race. Their experience is the immigrant experience - as far as they're concerned, no one's handed them anything, they've built it from scratch. They've worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor. They are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away; in an era of stagnant wages and global competition, opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your dreams come at my expense. So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that an African American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed; when they're told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time.
Like the anger within the black community, these resentments aren't always expressed in polite company. But they have helped shape the political landscape for at least a generation. Anger over welfare and affirmative action helped forge the Reagan Coalition. Politicians routinely exploited fears of crime for their own electoral ends. Talk show hosts and conservative commentators built entire careers unmasking bogus claims of racism while dismissing legitimate discussions of racial injustice and inequality as mere political correctness or reverse racism.
Just as black anger often proved counterproductive, so have these white resentments distracted attention from the real culprits of the middle class squeeze - a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices, and short-term greed; a Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests; economic policies that favor the few over the many. And yet, to wish away the resentments of white Americans, to label them as misguided or even racist, without recognizing they are grounded in legitimate concerns - this too widens the racial divide, and blocks the path to understanding.
This is where we are right now. It's a racial stalemate we've been stuck in for years. Contrary to the claims of some of my critics, black and white, I have never been so naïve as to believe that we can get beyond our racial divisions in a single election cycle, or with a single candidacy - particularly a candidacy as imperfect as my own.
But I have asserted a firm conviction - a conviction rooted in my faith in God and my faith in the American people - that working together we can move beyond some of our old racial wounds, and that in fact we have no choice if we are to continue on the path of a more perfect union.
For the African-American community, that path means embracing the burdens of our past without becoming victims of our past. It means continuing to insist on a full measure of justice in every aspect of American life. But it also means binding our particular grievances - for better health care, and better schools, and better jobs - to the larger aspirations of all Americans -- the white woman struggling to break the glass ceiling, the white man whose been laid off, the immigrant trying to feed his family. And it means taking full responsibility for own lives - by demanding more from our fathers, and spending more time with our children, and reading to them, and teaching them that while they may face challenges and discrimination in their own lives, they must never succumb to despair or cynicism; they must always believe that they can write their own destiny.
Ironically, this quintessentially American - and yes, conservative - notion of self-help found frequent expression in Reverend Wright's sermons. But what my former pastor too often failed to understand is that embarking on a program of self-help also requires a belief that society can change.
The profound mistake of Reverend Wright's sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It's that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country - a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black; Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old -- is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past. But what we know -- what we have seen - is that America can change. That is true genius of this nation. What we have already achieved gives us hope - the audacity to hope - for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.
In the white community, the path to a more perfect union means acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination - and current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the past - are real and must be addressed. Not just with words, but with deeds - by investing in our schools and our communities; by enforcing our civil rights laws and ensuring fairness in our criminal justice system; by providing this generation with ladders of opportunity that were unavailable for previous generations. It requires all Americans to realize that your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams; that investing in the health, welfare, and education of black and brown and white children will ultimately help all of America prosper.
In the end, then, what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world's great religions demand - that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Let us be our brother's keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister's keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well.
For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle - as we did in the OJ trial - or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina - or as fodder for the nightly news. We can play Reverend Wright's sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she's playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.
We can do that.
But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we'll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.
That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, "Not this time." This time we want to talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children and Asian children and Hispanic children and Native American children. This time we want to reject the cynicism that tells us that these kids can't learn; that those kids who don't look like us are somebody else's problem. The children of America are not those kids, they are our kids, and we will not let them fall behind in a 21st century economy. Not this time.
This time we want to talk about how the lines in the Emergency Room are filled with whites and blacks and Hispanics who do not have health care; who don't have the power on their own to overcome the special interests in Washington, but who can take them on if we do it together.
This time we want to talk about the shuttered mills that once provided a decent life for men and women of every race, and the homes for sale that once belonged to Americans from every religion, every region, every walk of life. This time we want to talk about the fact that the real problem is not that someone who doesn't look like you might take your job; it's that the corporation you work for will ship it overseas for nothing more than a profit.
This time we want to talk about the men and women of every color and creed who serve together, and fight together, and bleed together under the same proud flag. We want to talk about how to bring them home from a war that never should've been authorized and never should've been waged, and we want to talk about how we'll show our patriotism by caring for them, and their families, and giving them the benefits they have earned.
I would not be running for President if I didn't believe with all my heart that this is what the vast majority of Americans want for this country. This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has shown that it can always be perfected. And today, whenever I find myself feeling doubtful or cynical about this possibility, what gives me the most hope is the next generation - the young people whose attitudes and beliefs and openness to change have already made history in this election.
There is one story in particularly that I'd like to leave you with today - a story I told when I had the great honor of speaking on Dr. King's birthday at his home church, Ebenezer Baptist, in Atlanta.
There is a young, twenty-three year old white woman named Ashley Baia who organized for our campaign in Florence, South Carolina. She had been working to organize a mostly African-American community since the beginning of this campaign, and one day she was at a roundtable discussion where everyone went around telling their story and why they were there.
And Ashley said that when she was nine years old, her mother got cancer. And because she had to miss days of work, she was let go and lost her health care. They had to file for bankruptcy, and that's when Ashley decided that she had to do something to help her mom.
She knew that food was one of their most expensive costs, and so Ashley convinced her mother that what she really liked and really wanted to eat more than anything else was mustard and relish sandwiches. Because that was the cheapest way to eat.
She did this for a year until her mom got better, and she told everyone at the roundtable that the reason she joined our campaign was so that she could help the millions of other children in the country who want and need to help their parents too.
Now Ashley might have made a different choice. Perhaps somebody told her along the way that the source of her mother's problems were blacks who were on welfare and too lazy to work, or Hispanics who were coming into the country illegally. But she didn't. She sought out allies in her fight against injustice.
Anyway, Ashley finishes her story and then goes around the room and asks everyone else why they're supporting the campaign. They all have different stories and reasons. Many bring up a specific issue. And finally they come to this elderly black man who's been sitting there quietly the entire time. And Ashley asks him why he's there. And he does not bring up a specific issue. He does not say health care or the economy. He does not say education or the war. He does not say that he was there because of Barack Obama. He simply says to everyone in the room, "I am here because of Ashley."
"I'm here because of Ashley." By itself, that single moment of recognition between that young white girl and that old black man is not enough. It is not enough to give health care to the sick, or jobs to the jobless, or education to our children.
But it is where we start. It is where our union grows stronger. And as so many generations have come to realize over the course of the two-hundred and twenty one years since a band of patriots signed that document in Philadelphia, that is where the perfection begins.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
The Gazette on Gaza
There is an immense material out there for you to seem understanding on the conflict and the commentary come from both sides.
My personal favourite source is from RealClearPolitics. Here is the posts of the moment.
Thomas L. Friedman from the The New York Times speaking on the dangers of Iran leveraging on the Gaza conflict to negate the Obama effect.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/07/opinion/07friedman.html?_r=1
Jonathan Freedland wrote in the Guardian, arguing that the Israel offensive is a lost cause simply because Hamas is too rooted and the power vacuum from the removal of Hamas may be worse. I agree with this like Lewis Coser who believes that your opponents should not be broken and asymmetry complexify negotiations. (Functions of Social Conflict)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jan/07/gaza-palestine-israel
An article from RealClearPolitics, that comments on the knee-jerk reaction of the Israeli political leaders and how this failure of a longer term vision will jeopardise the state of Israel.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/01/the_decline_of_israels_leaders.html
USA Today has one on the similar track, saying that tactical success will not bring lasting security from rocket fire.
http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2009/01/todays-debate-t.html#more
Last but not least, New York Post making a case of the perfidious acts of Hamas and how Israel will fall prey to it.
http://www.nypost.com/seven/01072009/postopinion/editorials/theyre_hamas_victims_148981.htm
I've also found many extreme posts, articles and blogs of both ends which I think is unnecessary here. I do not want to reinforce hatred but hopes to make a case of why Israel should go to the negotiating table rather than the battlefield and why Hamas need to back down from its dogma.
Again, this I point this tragedy to the lack of responsible and visionary leadership.
My personal favourite source is from RealClearPolitics. Here is the posts of the moment.
Thomas L. Friedman from the The New York Times speaking on the dangers of Iran leveraging on the Gaza conflict to negate the Obama effect.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/07/opinion/07friedman.html?_r=1
Jonathan Freedland wrote in the Guardian, arguing that the Israel offensive is a lost cause simply because Hamas is too rooted and the power vacuum from the removal of Hamas may be worse. I agree with this like Lewis Coser who believes that your opponents should not be broken and asymmetry complexify negotiations. (Functions of Social Conflict)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jan/07/gaza-palestine-israel
An article from RealClearPolitics, that comments on the knee-jerk reaction of the Israeli political leaders and how this failure of a longer term vision will jeopardise the state of Israel.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/01/the_decline_of_israels_leaders.html
USA Today has one on the similar track, saying that tactical success will not bring lasting security from rocket fire.
http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2009/01/todays-debate-t.html#more
Last but not least, New York Post making a case of the perfidious acts of Hamas and how Israel will fall prey to it.
http://www.nypost.com/seven/01072009/postopinion/editorials/theyre_hamas_victims_148981.htm
I've also found many extreme posts, articles and blogs of both ends which I think is unnecessary here. I do not want to reinforce hatred but hopes to make a case of why Israel should go to the negotiating table rather than the battlefield and why Hamas need to back down from its dogma.
Again, this I point this tragedy to the lack of responsible and visionary leadership.
China the Ascendant Dragon?
Presenting my term paper from my maritime history class on China and its maritime power.
China : Discovering the Ascendant Dragon and its Conquest of the Sea
In the past few decades, the world has been enthralled by the economic miracle of China. Deng Xiaopeng’s “Four Modernizations” plan has transformed the formerly communist-nation, crippled by a brutal Cultural Revolution, into an economic heavyweight.[1] By adopting Western pillars of success, it is believed that China, together with India, will embark on a march to modernity and herald a shift to a “new Asian hemisphere”.[2] There is, however, no guarantee for this future by sheer extrapolation alone, as history has proven that China’s continental focus and failure to embrace an oceanic perspective can derail its dominance. Like the mythological dragons in Chinese folklore that were the lords of the sea, the oceans have a symbiotic relationship with this ancient civilization.
The human ability to navigate across vast oceans was the historical turning point that marked the beginning of an evolutionary trend of economic globalization.[3] Movement of resources and finished goods over the seas remains the modus operandi and the most cost effective means of transportation. The ability to maintain access to the seas is therefore as important as the creativity and the quality expressed in the production of economic goods. The acquisition of naval assets to defend the sea lines of communication would quite naturally be a logical inference of gaining sea power. Although the might of the navy is crucial, I hesitate to adopt a Mahanian perspective on sea power but rather select a broader definition of modern sea power that includes the nation state’s capacity for international commerce and utilization of oceanic resources.[4] To determine and predict China’s future will involve a systematic study of her modern sea power, which can evolve as a result of the form of deliberate strategic decisions undertaken by the Chinese government or by non-deliberate externalities of international interactions and development.
The first element of Chinese modern sea power is cohesiveness of the ethnic identity that transcends international borders.[5] The seed of Chinese economic growth was the involuntary dispersion and creation of the Chinese Diaspora. These overseas Chinese scattered themselves by sea during the era of colonial expansion and civil strife in an attempt to seek out a better life. Many found themselves taking root in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore and in smaller pockets, would establish “Chinatowns” throughout the world. They lay in wait, establishing themselves in the open economy outside China, taking over the role of adopting an oceanic orientation even when the state failed to do so. Deng Xiaoping’s official visit to Singapore in 1979, marked a historical turning point that reaffirmed his decision to bringing forth economic liberalization to turn China around.[6] In the years that followed, Gomez and Xiao argued that it was the overseas Chinese that created a form of ethnic capital that served as the spark that assisted in kick-starting the Chinese enterprise.[7] Japan and the four “Little Dragons” of Asia therefore paved the way and nursed the growth and emergence of the Chinese Dragon. This is by far the strongest and most powerful expression of Chinese oceanic orientation and modern sea power.
A community of individuals that exists outside of the state however, remains as a catalyst and cannot compare to the role of nation state itself. Unless the state agency has the same unction to continue to use the sea as an avenue, there will be no process to catalyze. An analysis of whether the Chinese grand strategy embodies a saltwater perspective will be critical in the assessment of its rise. Zhang Yunling and Tang Shiping, capture the essence of China’s grand strategy as the need “to secure and shape a security, economic, and political environment that is conducive to China concentrating on its economic, social, and political development.”[8] Although this policy sounds extremely outward looking, China’s security concept since the Ming dynasty in the 1300s has always differed greatly from Europe’s international system that featured intensive-military competition and global expansion.[9] The Chinese tributary political system compared to the Western colonial model is wholly regional and preoccupied with the periphery. Coupled with a domestic focus, China seems to be trapped by a perennial continental outlook.
There is a silver lining within China’s articulated grand strategy that may influence and force the leadership to look beyond the regionalism. The pursuit of economic liberalization created an ideological vacuum by voiding communism. This political and ideological vacuum was quickly filled by pragmatic nationalism that was necessary for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to remain relevant and legitimate.[10] This forced the CCP to place continual economic growth and national prestige as priorities that would demand more than a regional orientation. Aggressive efforts to secure natural resources such as oil and gas and other factors of productions critical for economic growth necessitate global interactions. It is important to note that despite need to globalize, there is no change to the Chinese political model and principle of non-intervention that underscored by the Chinese concept of world governance.[11]
Apart from deciphering and making assumptions of Chinese strategic intent and other non-state forms of Chinese oceanic orientation, the real litmus test of Chinese maritime orientation would be the explicit manifestations of characteristics that typify successful maritime nations. We can draw from pertinent lessons of successful modern maritime nations like Japan, Korea and Singapore, and historical maritime states like Venice, the Dutch and the British.
The phenomenal modern day economic miracles of Japan, Korea and Singapore’s export economies can be narrowed to a few common denominators. The first is the availability of human capital that can be deployed and applied to production of goods for an export economy, enabling countries to tap a much larger market beyond what their own market can offer. Although China has a large population and territory, these merely convey the implied potential market that it can have because the majority of its population is still stricken with poverty. It therefore needed to export and attract foreign investments to raise subsistence levels and create a credible middle class. Although Chinese labor did not possess the discipline of the Japanese, nor the education and skill level of the Korean and Singaporeans,[12] what it lacked for quality, it more than made up for in quantity. These non-unionized rural workers flocked to Chinese coastal cities and industrial towns in search of economic freedom, creating an availability of cheap and hardworking labor that enabled late-stage “industrial revolution”, propelling China to become the factory of the world. This turned China into an export economy that saw the Chinese share of global trade grow ten-fold, surpassing Japan to become the world’s third largest trading economy in 2004, given that its economy was only two-fifths of the size of Japan’s.[13] The abandonment of the Maoist ideal of national self-sufficiency and participation in global trade enabled China to reap exponential growth.[14]
The second commonality that China has with the modern day maritime nations of Japan, Korea and Singapore, is the development of the shipbuilding industry and its affiliates. To power an export economy, a country needs a robust shipbuilding industry to create a merchant fleet to transport and carry shipments of raw materials and goods. The availability of raw material is also quintessential to the ship construction industry that demands large quantities of steels. Korea has POSCO, a large steel manufacturer to drives its shipbuilding industry, while the Chinese government does the same by creating several state-own equivalents. In 2004, just when Korea surpassed Japan as the largest shipbuilder, it already found China over its shoulder with an ambitious target to supersede Korean production by 2015.[15] This inherent shipbuilding capability also provides two other peripherals functions; the ability to rapidly conduct naval military expansion and the ability to produce vessels for offshore exploitation of natural resources. In any case, this expansion of China’s shipbuilding capability is a clear indication of Chinese maritime orientation.
The final attribute that China has in common with Japan, Korea and Singapore is their current geopolitical relevance. China found itself surrounded by the booming economies of Asia in the 1980s, and found itself to be a perfect fit in the production supply chain. As the Asian economies moved up the value chain to produce high tech products, China cornered the assembly market that was labor intensive, requiring a factor of production that it abundance and was relatively cheaper than the other Asian economies. It a perfect union in which the Asian economies are vertically integrated creating a “virtual” regional production line, with each nation specializing in its own niche areas that complement one another.
Apart from a securing a niche within the production chain, the next criterion for any successful enterprise is the availability of the markets to sell the finished products. Historically, the world has long been fascinated by what China has to offer. In the past, the Europeans travelled halfway around the world, buying valuable Chinese tea and silk by transporting them in sail ships. Today, the United States is the biggest export market and the largest consumer for what China has to offer and yet has a closer proximity and faster and greater load bearing ships that before. The ample ports cities of China accounted for 12 percent of global trade in 2005 when it was only 4 percent five years before.[16]
Maritime nations of the past like Venice, Dutch and British offer a different perspective on the utilization of the sea as an avenue and foundation of becoming a successful maritime state. Venetian maritime orientation had a profound effect on its political system creating a hybridization of a monarchy, aristocracy in the Senate, and democracy in the Major Council, that established a ‘classical’ republic. China with the opening of its borders to trade has also subjected itself to potential cultural and ideological influences from the outside world. Although it remains authoritarian via a one party rule, it has a form of participatory democracy at the local level,[17] a meritocratic promotion system within the party and a form of ‘inner-party democracy’[18] much like the modernized version of the imperial examination system. Rather than subjecting itself to the popular notions of governance for the period, Venice and China utilized their exposure to the world to customize a system that works best to drive the state forward, capturing the best elements of different methods of governance and working them to their advantage. Last but not least, the Chinese are believers in the utility and art of diplomacy that the Venetians pioneered. Chinese diplomacy is expressed in the Confucian and Mencian Paradigms, in which use of force is largely unnecessary[19], and at the same time is made prominent in the West’s preoccupation with Chinese ‘soft power.’[20]
The root of soft power is economic success and wealth. In this respect, the Chinese are extremely similar to the Dutch, whose success was based on their ability to delink economical objectives from the social and political objectives, amassing information and huge amounts of capital. A key factor of China’s rapid growth has been the high level of saving and investments[21], which is contrary to ailing growth trajectory in the United States which is based on consumerism that created a negative savings rate. The uncanny similarity of Dutch and Chinese mercantilist nature is also worthy of note. The Dutch were neither missionaries nor explorers and were purely profit-maximizing merchants; smilarly the Mammon worshipping Chinese are renowned as shrewd merchants who deal purely for profit without exporting ideology, abiding by a strict policy of non-intervention with other states. The Chinese military like the Dutch Fleet is subservient to the civilian realm and serves merely to protect its right and ability to trade and conduct business. It was the combination of their economic orientation and ability to use the seas that made both these nations great.
In the 1600s, the consolidation of the monarchical powers of the Tudors in the English Court, spurred Britain’s pelagic orientation. The fiscal efficiency of the Tudor court together with their ability to mimic the Dutch, mirrored the one party power of the Chinese government and their ability to adapted best practices from other successful nations. Just as a romantic Navalism replaced Catholicism after the British fleet’s victory over the Spanish Armada in 1588, the Chinese use the triumphant narratives of Zheng He’s expeditions to coincide with China’s coming of age into world stage, replacing the fallen ideology of communism.
Despite many indications that demonstrate China’s realignment to become a pelagic state, there are however many impediments that shackle the ascendant dragon. Some of these factors are within Chinese control, while others are the response of nations that may fear its growing power and influence. Ironically, a China that looks to the sea finds that the ocean is the source of its strength and yet it is also its bane, since it triggers irrational fear of it impending might and creates a potential band of dragon slayers. There is good reason therefore to avoid the most obvious forms of acquiring modern sea power.
Internally within China, corruption and the “to get rich is glorious” mantra is the kryptonite that will weaken and potentially destroy this rising superpower. A Chinese official estimate for corruption-related losses of state revenue is at about 4 percent of GDP annually while corruption capital flight is 2 percent of GDP[22] . This figure may potentially be higher which could mean that capital flight far exceeds the capital inflows that China can attract. In addition, unscrupulous businessmen sometimes seek money saving-shortcuts when producing Chinese goods, resulting in hazardous products and numerous food scares. These are the side effects from the “to get rich is glorious” mantra that will potentially stall China’s economic liberalization and destroy China’s “branding”. Like every maritime nation that once had a glorious past, negligence and lack of prudence can quickly lead to irreversible decline.
Perhaps the most controversial aspect of China’s possible orientation to a maritime power is the question of naval power. Frequently, China experts and analysts will use any sign of Beijing’s plans for naval expansion as an early indicator of Chinese maritime orientation. This is contentious due to the multi-faceted nature of modern sea power as defined in this paper. An open and expressed desire to conduct naval expansion would be perceived as a challenge and contest for naval supremacy with the incumbent naval power, the United States. This would be an extremely foolhardy move to challenge the status quo and to provoke a more cautionary and hostile reaction from the U.S. upon whom China is still reliant. In my assessment, the more pragmatic approach that the Chinese leadership choose to undertake would be to employ a similar strategy that was used by the Japanese, aligning in no specific terms with United States, gaining protection from their security umbrella and focusing all of its efforts on building prosperity.[23] At this juncture, Chinese naval forces are ample and sufficient for its regional interests and more than adequate for China to deal with any regional threats.
Political observers who use China’s naval expansion as the sole determinant of its increasing maritime power would miss the mark. China’s adoption of a saltwater perspective consists of aspects beyond the obvious sources of strength. The methodology adopted by naval historians in analysing maritime nations of the past will therefore prove to be more successful. The ultimate strategic purpose of the sea is to obtain resources, facilitate access and grow beyond the territorial confines of a nation’s borders. In addition, fiscal prudence and a steady, incremental approach to laying a strong national foundation while maintaining a delicate balance with external powers are the keys to a successful maritime nation. Chinese core political concepts such as “bu yao tang tou” (不要当头- do not seek leadership) articulated by Deng[24] and maintained by his successors, are not indicative of a inward looking China but rather a pragmatic and emerging sea power trying to prevent imperial overstretch. This is a form of diplomatic prudence is to create room for China to continue its non-military maritime expansion and to build a strong economic base. Only when we have an understanding of this pragmatic and alternative notion of modern maritime sea power, will we be truly able to understand the ascendant dragon.
Bibliography
Bergsten, C. F. China: The Balance Sheet: what the World Needs to Know Now about the Emerging Superpower. PublicAffairs, 2006.
Brooke, James. “Korea reigns in shipbuilding, for now.” The International Herald Tribune. http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/01/05/business/ships.php.
Cohen, W. I. East Asia at the Center: Four Thousand Years of Engagement with the World. Columbia University Press, 2001.
Goh, Kong Yong. “Is China Predisposed to Using Force? Confucian-Mencian and Sunzi Paradigms in Chinese Strategic Culture.” Pointer - Journal of Singapore Armed Forces 25, no. 4 (1999). http://www.mindef.gov.sg/safti/pointer/back/journals/1999/Vol25_4/16.htm.
Gomez, E. T., and X. Xiao. Chinese Enterprise, Transnationalism, and Identity. Routledge, 2004.
Hawkins, W. R. How China Plans to Dominate the Shipbuilding Industry. August, 2001.
Kang, D. C. “Hierarchy in Asian International Relations: 1300-1900.” Asian Security 1, no. 1 (2005): 53-79.
Kurlantzick, J. Charm Offensive: How China's Soft Power Is Transforming the World. Yale University Press, 2007.
Mahbubani, K. The New Asian Hemisphere: The Irresistible Shift of Global Power to the East. PublicAffairs, 2008.
Shambaugh, D. L. Power Shift: China and Asia's New Dynamics. University of California Press, 2005.
Sun, Y. “Corruption, Growth, and Reform: The Chinese Enigma.” CURRENT HISTORY-NEW YORK THEN PHILADELPHIA- 104, no. 683 (2005): 257.
Tangredi, S. J. Globalization and Maritime Power. Natl Defense Univ Pr, 2002.
Zhao, S. “China's Pragmatic Nationalism: Is it Manageable?.” Washington Quarterly 29, no. 1 (2006): 131-144.
Zhao, T. “Rethinking Empire from a Chinese Concept ‘All-under-Heaven’(Tian-xia,).” Social Identities 12, no. 1 (2006): 29-41.
[1] Cohen, East Asia at the Center.
[2] Mahbubani, The New Asian Hemisphere.
[3] Tangredi, Globalization and Maritime Power.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Gomez and Xiao, Chinese Enterprise, Transnationalism, and Identity
[6] Mahbubani, The New Asian Hemisphere.
[7] Gomez and Xiao, Chinese Enterprise, Transnationalism, and Identity.
[8] Shambaugh, Power Shift, chap. 2.
[9] Kang, “Hierarchy in Asian International Relations.”
[10] Zhao, “China's Pragmatic Nationalism.”
[11] Zhao, “Rethinking Empire from a Chinese Concept ‘All-under-Heaven’(Tian-xia,).”
[12] Cohen, East Asia at the Center.
[13] Bergsten, China, chap. 4.
[14] Ibid.
[15] Hawkins, How China Plans to Dominate the Shipbuilding Industry; Brooke, “Korea reigns in shipbuilding, for now.”
[16] Bergsten, China, chap. 4.
[17] Ibid., 56.
[18] Ibid., 57.
[19] Goh, “Is China Predisposed to Using Force? Confucian-Mencian and Sunzi Paradigms in Chinese Strategic Culture.”
[20] Kurlantzick, Charm Offensive.
[21] Bergsten, China, chap. 1.
[22] Sun, “Corruption, Growth, and Reform.”
[23] Cohen, East Asia at the Center, chap. 13.
[24] Shambaugh, Power Shift, chap. 2.
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