Author: Mick Hartley

An interesting piece in the NYT (reg. required) on the Rape of Nanking, the way that successive Chinese and Japanese attitudes are determined by current political requirements, and….the good Nazi:

From the outside it does not look like much: the shell of a two-story brick building with scaffolding running up its sides and, on a drizzly winter day, a pair of construction workers kicking around in a courtyard littered with building materials.

But 69 years ago the courtyard was filled with hundreds of Chinese seeking refuge from Japanese troops who were rampaging through the city, then China’s capital. The invaders subjected Nanjing to a six-week reign of terror, killing large numbers of Chinese soldiers who had thrown down their weapons and murdering and raping thousands of civilians.

The property was the home of John Rabe, a Nazi Party member and employee of Siemens. In addition to sheltering people in his own compound, Mr. Rabe led a score of other foreigners in the city to form an international safety zone that shielded more than 200,000 Chinese from the Japanese.

Despite his heroism, Rabe was for decades all but forgotten here. Even the location of his house, today all but swallowed up by the sprawling campus of Nanjing University, was unknown.

But now, amid a political and intellectual cold war with Japan that revolves to a great extent around the history of China’s conquest by its neighbor, this country is seizing on the memory of a man often called “the Good Nazi,” and even China’s Oskar Schindler.

Since the publication of Mr. Rabe’s diary in 1997, his story has become a central theme in narratives of the Nanjing Massacre, much as the massacre story itself has become an important pillar in China’s emerging new nationalism.

After Oliver Kamm in the Guardian, here’s John Lloyd in the New Statesman:

The death of Slobodan Milosevic, and the occasion it affords to read again details of the malignity of his rule in Serbia – 200,000 casualties and two million people displaced in Bosnia; thousands of deaths and ethnic cleansing in Kosovo; murder, torture and imprisonment of his enemies in Serbia – bring home the cost of leaving mass murderers in power: a cost not borne, at least for now, by the rich and well-defended states of the west, but by those who have neither power nor defence and who find themselves under the dictator’s sway.

So it was with Saddam’s Iraq. The repeated invasions of contiguous states; the massacres of Kurds and southern Shia; the licence given to torturers, rapists and murderers wearing the uniforms of secret police; the complete arbitrariness of Saddam’s kleptocratic rule; the development of chemical and biological weapons and the attempt to develop a nuclear weapon – all of these made Iraq an internal hell and an external danger which, sooner or later, would have to be faced down.

The glad hosannas of those who see in the apologies of some who backed invasion a vindication of their own opposition to it are simply signs of self-delusion. Worse, they are yet another evasion of the central question, which George W Bush and Tony Blair did have the nerve to face: what is to be done about dangerous tyrants, beyond hand-wringing, ineffectual and decaying sanctions and ever-more hollow-sounding resolutions at various international levels? […]

Iraq’s murderous present is no reason for not getting rid of its genocidal past. The war has not yet been lost; there are freely elected parties; the substantial region of Kurdistan – as I saw on a trip there a year ago – is now creating both democratic institutions and economic development. Those who take satisfaction from Iraq’s travails because it bolsters their case against Bush, or Blair, should get out more. In the real world of oppression, fear and murder, they brought some relief.

A long article in Foreign Affairs presents some of the findings of the USJFCOM (U.S. Joint Forces Command) Iraqi Perspectives Project, a “comprehensive study of the inner workings and behavior of Saddam Hussein’s regime based on previously inaccessible primary sources”. It confirms the view that a culture of terror breeds a culture based on lies (via):

Members of the Military Industrial Commission were not the only liars. Bending the truth was particularly common among the most trusted members of Saddam’s inner circle — especially when negative news might reflect poorly on the teller’s abilities or reputation. According to one former high-ranking Baath Party official, “Saddam had an idea about Iraq’s conventional and potential unconventional capabilities, but never an accurate one because of the extensive lying occurring in that area. Many reports were falsified. The ministers attempted to convey a positive perspective with reports, which were forwarded to Saddam’s secretary, who in turn passed them up to Saddam.” In the years before Operation Iraqi Freedom, everyone around Saddam understood that his need to hear only good news was constantly growing and that it was in their best interest to feed that hunger.

A 1982 incident vividly illustrated the danger of telling Saddam what he did not want to hear. At one low point during the Iran-Iraq War, Saddam asked his ministers for candid advice. With some temerity, the minister of health, Riyadh Ibrahim, suggested that Saddam temporarily step down and resume the presidency after peace was established. Saddam had him carted away immediately. The next day, pieces of the minister’s chopped-up body were delivered to his wife. According to Abd al-Tawab Mullah Huwaysh, the head of the Military Industrial Commission and a relative of the murdered minister, “This powerfully concentrated the attention of the other ministers, who were unanimous in their insistence that Saddam remain in power.”

Human Rights First have set up a campaign to get the UN to appoint a special peace envoy in Darfur (via Sudan Watch):

Join Human Rights First in the HOPE for Darfur Campaign to appoint a prominent envoy to reenergize the diplomatic process in the Darfur region of Sudan. The appointment of a high-level envoy will be a visible symbol of renewed political and diplomatic will to resolve the Darfur crisis. Read HRF’s Case for an Envoy.

There is an urgent need to bring an end to the human rights emergency in Darfur. In the last two months the security situation has deteriorated dramatically. United Nations personnel have withdrawn from parts of the region because of increased violence, the humanitarian relief work of international nongovernmental organizations has been greatly restricted, and the civilian toll is again climbing.

A prominent envoy appointed with the support of the United Nations, in cooperation with the United States and other key countries, is crucial to bringing peace to the region.

All this may seem hopelessly naive in the face of the UN’s ineffectual efforts in Darfur to date, and its poor record in Rwanda, Bosnia, Iraq, and just about anywhere else you care to mention, but really, when it comes down to the matter of ending the genocide, at the moment it’s the only game in town. Plus, campaigns of this sort help to spread awareness of what’s happening right now, in Western Sudan and over the border in Chad, with the active involvement of the regime in Khartoum. It needs to be stopped; no one else is going to do it; and this may – just may – make a difference. No one else seems to have any better ideas.

There’s a short movie here, plus a petition to sign.

iaofeng and the “milk pigs” by media reporter Yuan Lei, famous amongst Chinese bloggers — suddenly became blank pages with only one line shown, “Due to irresistible reason known to all, this blog site is temporarily closed.”

What is referred to as “reason known to all” is in fact “International Women’s Day on March 8th”; the two male bloggers wanted to use this special means of closing down their blog sites to “celebrate” this special occasion.

What a surprise when a Reuters reporter “tightly” linked up this rather humorous incident and the “Two Conferences” being held in earnest currently in China. After learning of the blog incident, this reporter announced to the whole world the following: Two of China’s most daring bloggers’ websites, “massaged breasts” and “milk pigs”, have been shut down on government orders. This represents one of a series of actions in China to tightly control and censor the internet, especially during the period of the two key conferences.

Thereafter, various major Western media, such as BBC and Voice of America, all followed up with similar reporting like a hive of bees.

Not long after, these two media persons’ blog sites returned to normalcy and both apologized online to netizens and explained that they, not the Chinese government, closed down their own blog sites.

Verifying news, sometimes from multiple sources, is the necessary means of making sure what is reported is factual and true and is the basic code of conduct for any media worker. But in this matter, certain Western media, due to their “pride and prejudice” towards China, jumped to conclusions based on personal projections and skipped the fact checking part.

It was a joke! Boy, did they make Western journalists look stupid! As though censorship was any kind of a problem in China….

(Via EastSouthWestNorth, who point out that Yuan Lei is in fact a woman.)

See also this report in the WSJ:

Some well-known bloggers in China used an unlikely tool last week to make a point that Western news media and politicians misunderstand Chinese censorship. They shut themselves down.

Notices posted on the Chinese-language blogs Massage Milk and Milk Pig announced that “Due to unavoidable reasons with which everyone is familiar, this blog is temporarily closed.”

Within hours, English-language bloggers and Western news media spread the word that the Chinese government had closed the sites. The BBC news service reported that Massage Milk was “closed down by the authorities,” adding that the act had coincided with the annual session of the Chinese legislature. Picking up on that report and others from news services, French free-press group Reporters Without Borders issued a statement condemning the closure of the blogs.

China has recently stepped up its censorship of dissent and monitoring of the Internet, late last year asking Microsoft Corp. to take down the blog of journalist Michael Anti, among other acts. After the topic hit the front pages of U.S. newspapers and magazines, Congress held hearings in February about the ways in which U.S. Internet companies cooperate with Chinese censorship.

But in this case, it appears the Chinese government wasn’t involved. By Thursday, a day after the shut-downs, the blogs were back up and running.

In an interview, Beijing-based journalist Wang Xiaofeng of Massage Milk says he shut his blog down to make a point about freedom of speech — just one directed at the West instead of at Beijing. He calls the Western press “irresponsible” and says that the hoax was designed “to give foreign media a lesson that Chinese affairs are not always the way you think.”

You say, example of rich Chinese sense of humour: I say, wankers.

Talking of which, what kind of a site is this “massaged breasts” anyway?

From an article in the NYT (reg. required) on how science doesn’t necessarily provide the answers we want:

I’d like to believe that like Galileo, I would have the courage to see the world clearly, in all its cruelty and beauty, “without hope or fear,” as the Greek writer Nikos Kazantzakis put it. Take free will. Everything I know about physics and neuroscience tells me it’s a myth. But I need that illusion to get out of bed in the morning.

No you don’t. You’d get out of bed anyway. Your body takes care of that when it’s good and ready, and then you kid yourself that you decided to get out of bed. It’s just an illusion that you need that illusion…

Well OK, English translations in Chinese restaurants are an easy laugh, but this has to be one of the best (via).

Economic journalist Tim Harford recalls a recent visit to Douala, “the armpit of Africa” (via):

As our car slowly bumped and lurched through the crowds, I tried to make sense of it all by asking Sam, the driver, about the country.

“Sam, how long was it since the roads were last fixed?”

“The roads, they have not been fixed for 19 years.”

President Paul Biya came to power in November 1982 and had been in office for 19 years by the time I visited Cameroon. Four years later, he is still in power. He recently described his opponents as “political amateurs”; they are certainly out of practice.

“Don’t people complain about the roads?”

“They complain, but nothing is done. The government tells us there is no money. But there is plenty of money coming from the World Bank and from France and Britain and America—but they put it in their pockets. They do not spend it on the roads. ”

“Are there elections in Cameroon?”

“Yes! There are elections. President Biya is always re-elected with a 90 percent majority. ”

“Do 90 percent of people vote for President Biya?”

“No, they do not. He is very unpopular. But still there is a 90 percent majority. ”

His conclusion?

The rot starts with government, but it afflicts the entire society. There’s no point investing in a business because the government will not protect you against thieves. (So you might as well become a thief yourself.) There’s no point in paying your phone bill because no court can make you pay. (So there’s no point being a phone company.) There’s no point setting up an import business because the customs officers will be the ones to benefit. (So the customs office is underfunded and looks even harder for bribes.) There’s no point getting an education because jobs are not handed out on merit. (And in any case, you can’t borrow money for school fees because the bank can’t collect on the loan.)

It is not news that corruption and perverse incentives matter. But perhaps it is news that the problem of twisted rules and institutions explains not just a little bit of the gap between Cameroon and rich countries but almost all of the gap. Countries like Cameroon fall far below their potential even considering their poor infrastructure, low investment, and minimal education. Worse, the web of corruption foils every effort to improve the infrastructure, attract investment, and raise educational standards.

We still don’t have a good word to describe what is missing in Cameroon and in poor countries across the world. But we are starting to understand what it is. Some people call it “social capital,” or maybe “trust.” Others call it “the rule of law,” or “institutions.” But these are just labels. The problem is that Cameroon, like other poor countries, is a topsy-turvy place where it’s in most people’s interest to take actions that directly or indirectly damage everyone else.

ome understanding, if not actual support, from its Gulf neighbors plus Russia and China. But they, too, are unlikely to be pleased by the increasing revelation that the Islamic republic has been lying to them, and to everyone else, all the time.

Last but not least, the domestic popular support that was undoubtedly there over the nuclear issue until recently, is fast evaporating. The reason is that the Iranian people feel that they have not been told the truth — at least not the whole truth.

e, greedy for Sudanese oil. The Africans don’t have the will or the means. The US has described the situation as genocide, and Condoleezza Rice has expressed the hope that “we can stop the violence and the genocide in Darfur,” but these are just words. There’s no way the US is going to go it alone in Sudan, with troops bogged down in Iraq, the threat of Iran to worry about, the memory of Somalia, the knowledge that they’d further antagonise the Muslim world (which seems quite unconcerned about Muslims being killed by the hundred thousand as long as it’s other Muslims doing the killing and no one’s being offensive about the Prophet, pbuh), and the certainty that they’d be accused of imperialism and general neo-conservative all-round gung-ho nastiness. So – that’s it, really.

The UK? One of the major architects of the genocide, Salah Abdullah Gosh, has just been in London for medical treatment, plus a meeting with senior British officials, despite a Security Council resolution that would ban Gosh and others from international travel. And the Archbishop of Canterbury, the head of the Church of England and a man who presumably would like to think of himself as the moral conscience of the nation, has just returned from a visit to Sudan, and couldn’t bring himself to utter one word in condemnation of what’s happening in Darfur. He’s normally only too happy to express his disapproval, whether it’s Abu Ghraib, or Israel. Not this time though. Wouldn’t want to cause any offence now, would we?