In 2008, President Hu Jintao proposed a new policy in which he asked the state media to take an active role in shaping public opinion. Signaling a government commitment to harnessing the power of the internet, Hu made a point to “exercise supremacy over internet public opinion, master the technique of online ‘guidance’, and use new technology to amplify the effectiveness of ‘positive’ propaganda.”

Although this cyber police method began as an experiment in 2005, the censorship force behind it now employs thousands of Chinese mercenary commentators. Some sources even estimate that there are as many as 280,000 to 300,000 commentators. The Ministry of Culture of the People’s Republic of China even conducts training sessions in which participants are required to pass an exam before they receive job certification to become an official commentator.

Amateur censors come to this cyber police force from all walks of Chinese life. Some provinces have advertised the Fifty Cent Party with propaganda and catchy phrases such as “everyone can make fifty cents.” In a country with enormous income disparity, many citizens would take this opportunity to make quick money. However, other online commentators volunteer their time to the Chinese effort of censoring the web. Hu Yingying, a sophomore at Shanghai Normal University, volunteers several hours a week by assuming a false online identity and introducing politically correct discussions on her university’s online bulletins. She is proud and happy to be a contributor towards creating a “harmonious society.”

These opinion shapers are even speculated to work on foreign language websites. In attempts to sway discourse on foreign websites, commentators criticize Western notions of what is wrong with China and suggest considering the Chinese party line. The effects of the Fifty Cent Party have even reached popular U.S. websites – in 2010, an American blogger at the Huffington Post ascribed comments on her blog posts to members of the party. Not only have pro-state Chinese commentators made their presence felt far and wide, but they’ve also cultivated an extremely short pattern of response. After the riots in Guizhou province in June 2008, the Chinese Internet was inundated with posts that criticized party officials. However, the Fifty Cent Party quickly intervened, deleting posts within fifteen seconds of their publication.

Despite the Big Brother-like control that the Communist Party wields, the effectiveness of China’s policies is questionable. Many comments left by these hired cyber police are often blatantly propagandist messages that are dismissed by increasing cynical Chinese netizens. The infiltration of official views very often disgusts ordinary Chinese citizens, who are reported to mock the Fifty Cent Party. Even Han Han, a famous Chinese celebrity, has posted a satirical training manual for Fifty Cent Party members – which has circulated widely alongside trenchant, critical cartoons. Furthermore, an increasing number of Internet-savvy citizens are able to sneak past censorship mechanisms users by bypassing firewalls and refraining from the use of ‘trigger’ keywords known to set off mercenary cyber police.

Regardless of the long-term impact of the Fifty Cent Party, the entire strategy of mass censorship strives to deceive the Chinese citizens, instead of creating a much-needed open relationship. Given that the Chinese government already controls most media outlets and almost all news providers, the enlistment of anonymous commentators clearly displays the government’s fear of facing the truth. Although legions of amateur censors make it more difficult for Chinese citizens to express their opinions, this is a minor obstacle that Chinese citizens – internet-savvy, cynical, and determined – will waste no time in bypassing.

Despite a formal alliance between Pakistan and the United States, it has become increasingly clear that the interests of the two governments are often in perfect contradiction.  Pakistan’s spy agency, the ISI, has been accused by the eminently credible Mike Mullen of supporting the jihadist terror cell Haqqani in its October attack on the American embassy in Kabul.  Furthermore, Osama bin Laden managed to hide for an extended period of time in the medium-sized city of Abbottabad, mere blocks from a renowned Pakistani military academy.  Upon his death, the Pakistani military chose to focus solely on the perceived breach of sovereignty by the US, effectively brushing aside its own deficiencies and the impurities inherent in its clandestine system of unsavory partnerships.  In the words of Harvard Fellow Aqil Shah, Pakistan has pursued a “pick and choose approach to counterterrorism,” fighting the Pakistani Taliban, but providing a safe haven for the Afghan Taliban, and allowing other terror cells, such as Lashkar-e-Taiba, the group responsible for the 2008 Mumbai attacks, to exist openly within its borders.  Given the already murky allegiances of the Pakistani military, it’s no wonder that the decision by its leaders to scale back its antiterrorism cooperation with the United States led the US government to drastically cut military aid to Pakistan twice in 2011.

This move by the American government, however, may have been long overdue.  Several experts, including political scientist Seth G. Jones and Pakistan expert Parag Khanna, had already suggested cutting military aid to Pakistan while maintaining a line of support to the civilian government.  This hypothetical aid program was seen by some as a less harmful and more transparent way of assuring that drone strikes in Pakistan were tolerated, NATO supply routes were kept open, and, in general, that Pakistan remained complicit with American goals, even if to a limited extent.

Now, unfortunately, as the lines between Pakistan’s civilian government and military blur, the United States is quickly losing this option to fund one part of the Pakistani government over another.  While the military has shown to have less appetite for a coup than was originally suspected, there is much speculation that the civilian government is attempting to martyr itself for political gain.  Moreover, the Pakistani Supreme Court is effectively attacking Prime Minister Gilani, threatening him with contempt charges.  Even if the civilian government endures until the next election cycle, Imran Khan, the most popular opposition candidate for the prime minister position, is heavily tied to the interests of the Pakistani military.

As the gulf between Pakistan’s leadership circles closes, the US government must modify its foreign policy to reflect the Pakistani government’s shifting power dynamic.  Soon US policy may need to focus on appeasing primarily military leaders rather than civilian ones.  Given the level of corruption, complicity with terror, and general ineptitude that the Pakistani military and the ISI have displayed, aiding Pakistan in a feigned mission to fight the Afghan Taliban, Haqqani, and other terror networks which it has little interest in fighting, is a self-destructive extravagance.   Instead, the United States and Pakistan should, in the words of Jeffrey Goldberg, “ventilate differences rather than paper them over,” which will likely mean recognizing and focusing almost exclusively on the one area of mutual interest: destroying the Pakistani Taliban.  It is through fighting this specific faction of terror that both nations can find that ever-elusive set of aligned interests.  Incentivizing Pakistan to fight its de facto allies rather than their common enemies, after all, had been the root source of the Pakistani treachery that is currently tearing apart US-Pakistan relations.  Furthermore, involving Pakistan in fighting elements with which it has no true quarrel has often proved ineffective and at times counterproductive.

A specific focus of the US-Pakistan partnership on the destruction of the Pakistani Taliban, however, would avoid such a situation of misaligned interests. This program would further serve US goals by bolstering Pakistani state control over its territories, thus avoiding a situation where terror cells can exist in a governmental vacuum, or worse, a situation where insurgents are able to take control of pieces of Pakistan’s overdeveloped weapons arsenal.

Supplemental aid for Pakistani civilian projects may still be an option for the United States.  However, in a nation increasingly controlled by the military, such funds are likely to be misappropriated by the Pakistani government and, thus, as suggested by Parag Khanna, American funds must be allocated for certain, specified projects and be conditionalized on extreme transparency.  Otherwise, if we fail to correctly reallocate our support funds or to take steps to realign our relationship with a rapidly changing Pakistan, US monetary aid could once again fund the whims of the next Pakistani terror cell.

Photo credits: pakarmydefence.blogspot.com

Kim Jong Un, "Supreme Commander"

In his new year’s speech, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak claimed that the Korean peninsula was at a “turning point” and that there were “opportunities for change.” While he did not state this explicitly, he was clearly referring to the recent death of Kim Jong Il, the controversial despot of North Korea who ascended to power in 1994. Since Kim’s death last month, the whole world has turned its eyes to the politically isolated country of North Korea and held its breath in anticipation of the arrival of its next leader, Kim Jong Un.

Countless media outlets and diplomats, including former US envoy to North Korea Steven Bosworth, have become optimistic about a potential change in North Korea’s previously belligerent stance toward nuclear weapons and a revival of six party talks aimed at achieving denuclearization. However, such optimistism about a mysterious country with such unpredictable domestic politics is naive, particularly considering the role of communist party bureaucracy and the army. Although the death of Kim Jong Il and the ascension of a young, inexperienced Kim Jong Un has given the world hope for a less belligerent North Korea and a new era of East Asian politics, we should take a less optimistic outlook as the new regime’s stance on nuclear weapons and food aid is unlikely to change.

A Stagnant Government

To begin, three levels of North Korean society will refuse to change despite the succession of Kim Jong Un– the government, the army and the people. A similar wave of hope swept the world in 1994 when Kim Jong Il assumed power following the death of his father Kim Il Sung, who continues to rule North Korea from his grave as its “Great Leader” and “President”. But Kim Jong Il did not foster the expected collapse of North Korea. Instead, he oversaw the death of anywhere between 900,000 to 3.5 million people in a massive famine and played a dangerous multi-decade game of using nuclear weapons to blackmail the world. The transition of power in 1994 demonstrates one thing in particular – simply changing who holds power in North Korea will not radically alter the policies of the North Korean government, because the state bureaucracy is composed of more than just the dictator. Kim Kyong Hui, Kim Jong Il’s sister, Jang Song Taek, the former’s husband, and General Ri Yong Ho, have been selected as a troika of regents for the inexperienced Kim Jong Un. Given that all three of the most important decision makers in the current regime have been long-time confidants and allies of Kim Jong Il, it seems highly unlikely that North Korean policy with be altered in the near future.

A Powerful Military

This pattern also applies to the Korean People’s Army, which wields significant sway over government policy. A group of elite generals benefit significantly from cross-border profiteering, corruption, black markets, social inequality and the mammoth USD$6 billion per annum in funding. The army is notoriously bureaucratic and incredibly stagnant, with a standing army of approximately 1 million and a reserve force of approximately 7 million. Although North Korean officials met US envoys in Geneva with interest to re-start six party talks in November 2011, powerful generals who make up the upper levels of the state bureaucracy will be unwilling to agree to a policy of denuclearization and diversion of funding from the military to agriculture, a key concession demanded by both the US and South Korea. Marcus Noland, a North Korea specialist at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington, DC, states that North Korea’s policy is influenced much more by domestic political considerations rather than “punishments and rewards” from abroad. International interference has never succeeded in altering North Korean policy, as demonstrated by Kim Jong Il’s reneging on 1994’s “Agreed Framework” with the Clinton Administration, a proposal which stipulated that North Korea would eliminate its nuclear facilities in exchange for two light water reactors from the US. Kim Jong Il also pulled out of six party talks in 2008, and US sanctions have consistently failed in influencing his regime. While diplomats from China, Japan, South Korea, and America should continue to focus on coordinating their efforts on negotiating with North Korea on denuclearization in exchange for aid, past experience indicates that the military ultimately overrides international influence. North Korean generals have a vested interest in maintaining a huge state military without focusing on alleviating famine, a strategy which will preserve the status quo regardless of how diplomats try to tinker with the new regime.

A Scared People

Finally, the new regime’s policies will remain unaltered due to lack of pressure from the people of North Korea. Immediately following the death of Kim Jong Il, North Korea’s KCNA News Agency released videos of distraught North Koreans weeping and moaning as the news of the death of their “dear leader” broke. Although it remains unclear how much of the mourning was orchestrated, visitors to the country report that a large degree of the reverence towards the Kim family is genuine. Kim Il Sung in particular still commands a large base of hero-worship given his role in freeing North Korea from the Japanese and from fighting back against the Americans during the Korean War. North Korean society has also undergone decades of indoctrination and have embraced the idea of “juche”, or North Korean autonomy. If anything, society is paralyzed by a fear of the regime given that one in twenty of the country’s 23 million people have passed through the country’s gulags. Even if North Koreans wanted change in the form of government reform, there are few tools that might enable them to mobilize. The population is too rural to allow people to coordinate themselves into organized groups, and a brutally effective state-wide system of repression courtesy of the state police and army is in place. The most outstanding piece of evidence for the above is simply that Kim Jong Il, a brutal and merciless tyrant, was allowed to die peacefully and of natural causes. Given the amount of misery he inflicted upon his people, it is obvious that in the case of North Korea, misery does not breed revolt.

Structural vs Voluntary Changes

If anything, Kim Jong Un may feel the need to do something radical and belligerent in order to assert himself as the new leader of North Korea. Despite having 14 years of preparation for his job under his own father, Kim Jong Il spent three years in seclusion after Kim Il Sung’s death in 1994 in order to consolidate his power. Kim Jong Un, on the other hand, has only been acknowledged by Kim Jong Il as the latter’s successor for less than two years, a very short span of time to develop ties to important players in domestic politics and establish his credibility as the next ruler of the country. Jong Un is also armed with something that Jong Il did not have in 1994 – an arsenal of nuclear weapons pointed at South Korea and Japan. Kim Jong Un also helped plan attacks on South Korean targets in 2010. He also issued his first threat of war on South Korea on December 30th, stating North Korea would “smash the stronghold of the puppet forces” in the South in retaliation for “hideous crimes” committed during the mourning period for Kim Jong Il—not very promising statements from a man who carries the weight of the world’s optimism on his shoulders.

This is not to say that the prospects of gradual change in North Korea are completely dismal. The country is more likely to change due to underlying structural factors stemming from Kim Jong Il’s reign rather than because of the role played by Kim Jong Un. Although many Koreans still revere Kim Il Sung, the younger generation of North Koreans did not live through World War II or the Korean War and thus do not share the sense of common struggle for independence and national sovereignty that their parents and grandparents do. In fact, this disconnect is commonly cited as a contributing factor to the collapse of the Soviet bloc, as younger citizens could not identify with the ideology responsible for brainwashing the older generation during WWII and the early Cold War. Moreover, a middle class is developing outside the state economy. Those with relatives in China and South Korea are responsible for introducing imported clothing, high-heeled shoes, DVDs of South Korean dramas and mobile phones with international dialing into the country. These connections are showing an increasing number of North Koreans that the state’s description of the outside world is not wholly accurate. Hundreds of black markets have sprung up across the country in response to the failure of the state-run food allocation system. But once again, more is needed that just a discontent population and a small group of middle class traders to overturn the gargantuan bureaucracy of North Korea.

On December 30, North Korea’s official KCNA news agency declared “on this occasion, we solemnly declare with confidence that foolish politicians around the world including the puppet forces in South Korea should not expect any changes from us.” They could not have put it any better. We should take international optimism springing from the end of Kim Jong Il’s reign with a bucket of salt and expect little change from his son.

]]> http://hpronline.org/world/a-pinch-of-salt-the-case-against-optimism-for-north-korea/feed/ 2 http://hpronline.org/world/china%e2%80%99s-ambitious-future-in-space/ http://hpronline.org/world/china%e2%80%99s-ambitious-future-in-space/#comments Mon, 09 Jan 2012 17:30:50 +0000 Thomas Gaudett http://hpronline.org/?p=17692

As China Announces Bold New Plans for its Space Program, the United States Considers the Possible Militarism of the Space Race

In contrast to a United States that continues to scale back its space program, China last week unveiled an ambitious plan to become a major extraterrestrial power.  This plan includes launching freighters and manned-vessels within the next half-decade, conducting major research on black holes, forecasting environmental disasters, and drafting up plans for future space operations.

This announcement is part of the “rising global power” narrative that the nation’s government is attempting to promote.  Indeed, the bold next steps of China’s space program are not unlike the other major initiatives that the government has already undertaken, such as its massive expenditures on infrastructure projects.  And, this latest announcement out of China has got America worried about the strengthening of China and the possible militarism of space in the future.

Is this a Surprise?

China’s potential ascendency as a major player in space should not come as a surprise given the nation’s booming economy and past accomplishments with regard to its space program.  China, after all, is only the third nation after the United States and Russia to have put a human in space.

Furthermore, China completed a successful space walk in 2008.  In October, China’s first space laboratory module Tiangong-1 was successfully launched.  A month later, in November, the Chinese unmanned spacecraft Shenzhou-8 successfully completed an automated docking and safe return to Earth.  It is believed that during this flurry of activity the seeds of a future Chinese space laboratory were planted.

What is the Danger?

Some have become quite concerned by China’s ambitious goals given that the nation’s space program is run by its military.  Yet, the Chinese military insists that the space program will be used only for peaceful purposes.  After it shot down one of its own dead satellites in 2007, concerns arose regarding possible intentions to militarize space.  While we can only speculate at this point,  recent Chinese military policies and actions have raised questions about whether or not China’s military leaders will attempt to utilize space innovations for military purposes.

China- The Leader or Playing Catch-Up?

Some lament China’s space aspirations, fearing the possibility of China surpassing the United States on this front.  Naturally, this ought to be an important concern for the US, and it would not be unreasonable to suggest that China will eventually  become the a powerful presence in space.

However, China, in a sense, is playing catch-up with the nations that started their space programs back in the 1960s.  And although funding for NASA is not as robust as many might hope for looking into the future, the American space program is already building on the solid foundation of decades of previous work.

What the Future Holds

In the long term, China is hoping to put a man on the moon.  Few doubt that such a feat would be possible for China, given its current economic rise.  However, because China does have a relatively long path to tread with respect to developing its space technology, the future situation in space will largely be a function of how effectively China can execute on its plans.

As China garners this more prominent position in space, it will be strategically important for the United States to bridge the gap in relations with China with respect to their space programs, much in the manner that Washington developed strong space relations with Moscow during the Cold War.  In any case, as China’s space program grows and develops, fostering these space relations between the two powers may be necessary to maintain the peace and security that has characterized space since the dawn of the Space Age.

Photos Credit: Commons.Wikimedia.org

]]> http://hpronline.org/world/china%e2%80%99s-ambitious-future-in-space/feed/ 0 http://hpronline.org/world/rebuttingrelativism/ http://hpronline.org/world/rebuttingrelativism/#comments Mon, 02 Jan 2012 11:53:55 +0000 Joshua Lipson http://hpronline.org/?p=17760

A fringe-sect family crosses the street in Beit Shemesh.

Marina opens a very compelling feminist take on civil unrest in a religious Israeli town by writing, “As a Jew, a liberal, and a lover of the State of Israel, it is with great sadness that I reflect on what has transpired over the last few days in Beit Shemesh, Israel.” As a friend, I know that Marina and I share very similar feelings about Jewish identity and State of Israel – and despite differences in degree and flavor, belong to the same general tradition of Enlightenment liberalism. However, her examination of the situation in Beit Shemesh hints at a stark difference in the priorities of our different liberalisms.

Beit Shemesh presents a classic paradox for good contemporary liberals the world over: the row between ultra-Orthodox and secular Israelis is a conflict between an illiberal minority group and a basically liberal majority. Like many present-day problems of religion in society, this case puts the liberal sympathy for minority cultural preservation at direct odds with universal liberal values like women’s rights, freedom of conscience, and creativity.

From her treatment of the subject, it seems as though Marina privileges the relativistic side of the Beit Shemesh issue quite a bit more than I would. I’m writing to tell you why – amidst her very important argument – she misses the point, by partially forgiving the people who would much sooner throw rocks at her than thank her for defending their perspective on femininity.

I don’t mean to wax Manichaean: most Haredim, like most people of any kind, think that they’re doing the right thing and are perfectly pleasant on an individual level. But I have nothing for their community’s intolerance but equally sharp intolerance in return. I’m of the Christopher Hitchens/Ayaan Hirsi Ali school of liberalism (not at all neatly conterminous with American political liberalism), which is unafraid to privilege liberalism and its practitioners over the atavistic illiberalism of religious and cultural fundamentalists. Remember, neither side of this exchange between my friend and me would be possible in Beit Shemesh, or in Mecca for that matter. Nor would this magazine’s publication. Point being, I’m not ashamed to say that our culture is superior to theirs.

If there’s one good thing about the degree of religious polarization in Israel’s Jewish population, it’s that most non-Orthodox Jews would probably agree with my assertions – at least in private. I implore them to go public, as some have begun to in the streets of Beit Shemesh and Jerusalem. More critical to Israel’s future as a Jewish and democratic state than conflict with Arabs beyond the Green Line or unequal birthrates within it is the threat posed by a Haredi minority growing in size (thanks to massive government welfare for large families), political influence, and disregard for civil behavior.

In a society where atheists constitute about a quarter of the total population, the Haredi political parties manage to wrest absurdly illiberal concessions from the government, like the closure of public transportation on the Sabbath, the removal of women’s images from billboards in the nation’s capital, and the toleration of de facto modesty laws for women in select neighborhoods. It’s no wonder that secular protestors have taken to chanting, “This is Israel, not Iran!”

And as their community leaders have repeated time and again, Haredim hope and expect to take over Israel within a few generations. Never mind wondering how the state would earn its keep (sympathetic right-wing Russian-Israeli oligarchs in gated Tel Aviv suburbs?) or maintain its massive defense infrastructure (African mercenaries?) – a Haredi Israel would become a place highly hostile to Arabs, women, gays, foreign laborers, and ordinary secular Jews like Marina and me. It’s hard to imagine either of us continuing to identify as ‘lovers of the State of Israel’ if the Jewish state were to join the ranks of Saudi Arabia and Iran.

Marina is right to note that the West is far from blameless in its routine objectification of women as sex objects. But let’s not rush to draw equivalencies: in Israel, as in all Western countries, women are expected to govern their own affairs, make their own decisions about sexuality and family, and dress however they damned well please. This rarely comes without a small dose of paternalistic flak, but the notional equality of women finds support in every corner of liberal Western society.

I don’t for a second buy the Haredi rationalization (or other religious conservatives’ rationalizations) of protecting modesty as a means to liberate women from Western objectification – it’s a cheap ex post facto argument crafted for the ears of gullible liberal relativists. A matter of anthropological fact: from time immemorial, fathers have been shutting their daughters up in towers, draping them in veils, suffocating them with corsets, and cauterizing their genitalia in order to signal possession, chastity, and restriction of movement. The invocation of the Abrahamic god in the matter changes nothing. Because conservative religions create an air of forbidden sexual mystique around femininity, women walking the streets of north Jerusalem and Cairo in modest clothes face notoriously worse harassment than women walking the streets of Stockholm and Sydney in ‘immodest’ clothes.

For the sake of women, Israel, and the forward march of human progress, we must not fall into the trap of relativism – which privileges group norms over individual opportunity. This is not an easy commandment: to be sure, it’s against the basic nature of liberals to be uncompromising. But let’s be proud to admit that an open, liberal society is the best kind of society – lest we be outbred by people who think otherwise.

]]> http://hpronline.org/world/rebuttingrelativism/feed/ 2 http://hpronline.org/world/beit-shemesh-misogyny-and-building-a-jewish-democracy/ http://hpronline.org/world/beit-shemesh-misogyny-and-building-a-jewish-democracy/#comments Thu, 29 Dec 2011 17:33:55 +0000 Marina Bolotnikova http://hpronline.org/?p=17644 As a Jew, a liberal, and a lover of the State of Israel, it is with great sadness that I reflect on what has transpired over the last few days in Beit Shemesh, Israel.

On Monday, Haaretz reported an escalation of gender-based violence in the city of Beit Shemesh. Beit Shemesh is home to a large community of Haredim, or ultra-Orthodox Jews, some of whom have taken to spitting on, insulting, and throwing rocks at women who appear in public “immodestly.” Particularly divisive has been the story of Naama Margolese, an eight-year-old girl who has been harassed, spit on, and called a “prostitute” by Haredim on her way to school. Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu rightfully condemned the misogynistic attacks in Beit Shemesh, and on Tuesday, thousands of Israelis protested gender segregation in the city, asserting that the Haredim were “turning Israel into Iran.”

I am saddened and offended by the violence and humiliation that non-Haredi women have experienced in Beit Shemesh. Yet I am equally saddened by the culture war that has surfaced in its wake. The Israeli news segment that sparked much of the recent unrest began as a feature on Naama Margolese but quickly devolved into an appraisal of gender divisions in the Haredi community. Reporters were so dismissive of the Haredi perspective that it comes as no surprise to me that the Haredi are dismissive of that of mainstream Israel. What stood out to me in particular is that Haredim, both male and female, insisted again and again that “by the Haredi, the woman is respected.”  One Haredi man said that “by the irreligious, the woman is practically a sex symbol,” and a Haredi woman echoed his view: “women are treated very poorly in western society,” she said, insisting that the objectification of women on billboards “made her feel sick.”

Reporters also cited the Haredi community’s separation of men and women on buses and signs that instructed women not to loiter in the streets as evidence of its misogyny, yet one Haredi man said that women are prohibited from loitering for the same reason that Binyamin Netanyahu is protected by guards when he walks down the street: as a display of honor, not of contempt.

The Haredi understanding of gender was unjustly and intentionally ignored amid the fervor of Tuesday’s protest. Admittedly, I have a bone to pick with the rigid gender roles (not to mention the infantilization of women) that I perceive in the Haredi tradition, but I also have a bone to pick with the very real and very destructive objectification of women that the Haredim perceive in the West. In any case, though the question of misogyny in the Haredi community is a very legitimate one, it is not one that can be appropriately addressed by a polemical anti-Haredi protest.

Ultimately, the struggle in Beit Shemesh is about much more than gender. The destiny of Israel, a Jewish liberal democracy, remains unclear and extremely contentious. To what degree should the Haredim, a Jewish community in the Jewish state of Israel, be extended self-determination? Clearly, Haredim do not have the right to harass or attack non-Haredim. But should they have the right to segregate public spaces by gender? What if they insist that it is religious duty to do so? Should the Israeli government force Haredi schools, which almost exclusively teach the Torah, to introduce standard subjects?

Beit Shemesh has left us with many more questions than answers.

Photo credit: ynetnews.com

]]> http://hpronline.org/world/beit-shemesh-misogyny-and-building-a-jewish-democracy/feed/ 2 http://hpronline.org/world/after-kim-jong-il-the-chinese-take/ http://hpronline.org/world/after-kim-jong-il-the-chinese-take/#comments Wed, 28 Dec 2011 23:30:07 +0000 Jimmy Meixiong http://hpronline.org/?p=17553 By this point, most have probably heard the news that Kim Jong-il is dead, and seen the countless videos of mourning citizens in hysterics. In the wake of the North Korean leader’s death, pundits and governments have been scrambling to reassess their strategy toward the hermit country. Most fundamentally, international observers are concerned with questions of the North Korean government’s future stability and the continuities and changes over which Kim Jong-un will preside.

Kim Jong-un remains an elusive figure since his sudden emergence in the international spotlight last year as Kim Jong-il’s named successor. The unknowns surrounding his personality as well as the stability of the transition of power are issues that plague any attempts to analyze the future of the Korean peninsula.

The new "Great Leader" and other high-ranking military officers

One variable that can be taken into account is the enormous sway that China wields over North Korea, regardless of what happens internally in the hermit state. Although the exact figures of how much aid China provides to North Korea are difficult to determine, we do know that the figure is likely in the hundreds of millions of dollars and that China accounts for 80% of North Korean trade. China has a vested interest in North Korea due to its strategic location and the domestic destabilizing effect that a regime collapse on the peninsula would cause in China. Because of these considerations, Beijing is unwilling to allow the regime to fend for itself.

Professor Malcolm Cook, the Dean of the School of International Studies at Flinders University in Australia, believes that Kim Jong-un’s youth and political inexperience is set to cast North Korea into a new era of geopolitical instability. What he means by this is that North Korea will continue to aggressively pursue its nuclear program, while keeping up its aggressive stance toward the South. The younger Kim, he argues, lacks the political capital to change course from his father’s hard-line policies.

This instability-focused scenario underestimates the importance of China’s influence in North Korea. China’s rationale for its North Korean policy stems from two ideas – first, that China is opposed to the prospect of a united Korea with healthy ties to both Japan and U.S., and second, that China wants a politically stable North Korean state. This second concern would hold China to be as eager as any other nation to prevent North Korea from gaining a nuclear warhead, as evidenced by its recent push for the resumption of six party talks. Beijing has also continuously pressured North Korea to enact economic reforms in the direction of reforms enacted in the Deng years of the early 1980s. Both of these actions show that North Korea’s most important ally will do all that it can to prevent tensions in the peninsula, while keeping in place an agenda of gradual economic change. Considering the fact that Beijing essentially bankrolls the current regime, it will likely get its way in these regards.

China has already shown how the influence it has over North Korea can be used to promote policy change. In an perceived effort to get North Korea to return to six party talks this past September, China completely cut off oil exports to North Korea (dependent on China for up to 90% of its oil), effectively shutting down the country. However, North Korea has also been shown to be capable and willing to openly defy Chinese wishes by testing ballistic missiles this past July despite stern Chinese warnings.

Although Kim Jong-un might not have the political clout to greatly deviate from his father’s ‘military first‘  policies, he also cannot effectively rule without maintaining good relations with China due to that country’s economic stranglehold over the smaller nation. In the absence of Kim Jong-il’s strong leadership, the pendulum will now likely swing towards economic reform and the embrace of a Chinese economic model that has been demonstrated effective. With North Korean leadership no longer politically cohesive enough to openly defy China, the Korean peninsula is due to become more stable under Beijing’s heightened influence.

]]> http://hpronline.org/world/after-kim-jong-il-the-chinese-take/feed/ 0 http://hpronline.org/world/2011-five-things-i-learned-this-year/ http://hpronline.org/world/2011-five-things-i-learned-this-year/#comments Wed, 28 Dec 2011 21:41:09 +0000 Joshua Lipson http://hpronline.org/?p=17591 It is no longer fashionable merely to call 2011 a watershed year in modern history – so much was already clear within a few weeks of Mohammed Bouazizi’s fateful self-immolation before the year even began. Well-mannered people are much more likely to go for comparisons: with its revolutionary movements, economic foibles, and political realignments, is 2011 most like 1989, 1968, or 1848? Elaborating on a recent tradition, Google produced a short video of the year’s most popular searches, folding scenes of the Jasmine Revolution and bin Laden press conference into three minutes of operatic schmaltz.

I have nothing special to contribute in the way of grand unifying theories of 2011 or all-encompassing year-in-reviews. For that, I refer you to Time and Foreign Policy’s signature annual features. Instead, I’ll speak as a humble world editor and share five things (I could be cute and come up with eleven) that I learned about the world in 2011, ranging from common fallacies about the Arab Spring to the shape of the human evolutionary family tree.

‘Arab Spring’ is a dangerous catch-all.

In the year’s most dramatic development in international politics and civil society, civil unrest brought down the monarchical republican leaders of Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya – with odds all but certain that Yemen’s and Syria’s are soon to follow. For reasons historical, chronological, and sentimental, it has become universally normal to group these genuinely moving developments together as the ‘Arab Spring’.

Culturally significant as it might be, this generalized label whitewashes the structural differences among the authoritarian regimes that fell, the movements that brought them down, and the reconstruction efforts that will have to be undertaken. As the heat-of-the-moment Wilsonians of a few months ago have come to realize, Tunisia’s history of socially progressive reform, Egypt’s bustling but double-edged civil society, and Libya’s tribal factionalism all present different prospects for stable adjustment and democratization. American, European, and Israeli policymakers will have to tread carefully between their inner Wilson and Kissinger – and must steer clear of the perils of generalizing.

The incentives for Israeli-Palestinian peace are fading fast.

In 2011, the Israeli-Palestinian peace process went nowhere, as most analysts on all sides of the issue had expected. It was not, of course, for lack of rhetorical effort – Obama’s May 19^th State Department address reaffirmed official American sympathy for a mainstream solution, Netanyahu continued to call for a resumption of negotiations without preconditions, and Abbas took matters into his own hands with a unilateral push for UN recognition of a Palestinian state.

Unfortunately, these all came as hollow advances – interpreted more often as insults to the process than as constructive steps toward peace. This says less about the personal motives of the American, Israeli, and Palestinian executives than about the political incentives they face which make seeking peace downright impossible.

As congressional Republicans lurch farther into messianic fantasies about Israel and misguided attempts to lure Jewish voters with an “Israel, right or wrong” platform, the Obama administration risks being painted as weak, anti-Israel, or anti-Semitic at signs of willingness to honestly broker Israeli-Palestinian peace. Emboldened by developments in the United States, Binyamin Netanyahu’s far-right coalition partners have declared the peace process anathema, threatening the politically-conscious prime minister with abandonment and abdication if he doesn’t toe the line. And fearful of his West Bank electorate, whose democratic welcome he has overstayed by half a decade, Mahmoud Abbas has decided to rabble-rouse at the UN rather than take the ‘weakling’ route of Salam Fayyad, who has quietly built the infrastructure of Palestinian statehood and pushed for economic cooperation with Israel from his non-aligned, unelected position.

Republicans really don’t like Mitt Romney.

As it stands on December 28^th, Mitt Romney seems to be on track to the Republican nomination – in line with the Republican tradition of nominating well-behaved runners-up from previous contests. This fate, however, would be no small achievement for the former Massachusetts governor, a steely political pragmatist who nobody seems to like all that much.

In a year of conservative posturing, Romney has had to overcome fair charges that he only recently jettisoned his liberal positions on such issues as same-sex civil unions, abortion, global warming (whatever it means to be liberal on yes/no questions of empirical science), and immigration. Given the deep unpopularity of the individual mandate component Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, it’s a genuine wonder that Romney has been able to live down the fact that he spearheaded nearly the same program during his tenure as Massachusetts governor.

As a result, the Republican electorate has spent all of 2011 in a Hegelian struggle against an ever-steady, gaffe-proof Mitt Romney. Thesis: Romney, antithesis: Bachmann/Perry/Cain/Gingrich. The synthesis, Democrats hope and Republicans fear: a fractured, unenthusiastic Republican base.

‘Brotherhood of man’ just got a lot more complicated.

Once upon a time, there was ‘Out of Africa’, a theory that allowed religious adherents ideas like the ‘Y-chromosomal Adam’ and the ‘mitochondrial Eve’, gave humanists evidence of the common, equal descent of all races, and furnished National Geographic with a new opportunity to make sexy maps that everyone would identify with. However, the idea that all people can trace their lineage back 50,000 years to one group of East African wanderers was anything but romantic and universalistic – that is to say, it assumed that in our species’ explosion onto the Eurasian scene, our ancestors had to spend much of their time clearing the way of pesky, sub-human Neanderthals and Homo erectus sub-branches.

In all likelihood, 2011 will be remembered by anthropologists and evolutionary biologists as the year that a strict, recent version of ‘Out of Africa’ went out the window for good. High-resolution sequencing technology, ingenious DNA extraction methods, and the crowdsourcing of modern population genetics made it possible to conclude that all Europeans and Asians derived one to three percent of their total genetic material (and much more for certain selected traits) from Neanderthals – who, brutes or not, now must be counted as part of the family tree. Melanesians and Australian aborigines seem to also be partially descended from Denisovans, a newly-discovered hominid population in Siberia – and certain African populations demonstrate population structure effects that would suggest the absorption of non-sapiens groups in their prehistory.

This needn’t mean anything for politics or policy, but there’s no doubt that people will draw broader conclusions, as they have been known to do with past genetic discoveries. What it should invite is a deeper, more cosmopolitan evaluation of what it means to be human – a complex we could once tie only to direct descent from prehistoric Homo sapiens.

And in the interest of full disclosure, 23andMe’s Neanderthal calculator estimates this writer to be 2.9% Neanderthal – well above the Eurasian average.

Harvard is much more conservative than you thought.

This one is predicated to a large degree on anecdotal evidence, but no year was better than 2011 to demonstrate that Harvard is not the bastion of radical leftism that second-rate social commentators describe. Like those of most elite universities, Harvard’s administration and student body fall squarely into the mainstream of American liberalism. But in this sense, that places Harvard closer to moderate conservatives than to radical leftists – a phenomenon demonstrated in the innumerable editorial meetings of The Crimson that pit conservatives and liberals alike against two or three socialists and sympathizers.

Unlike Occupy Berkeley or Occupy Davis, Occupy Harvard was essentially a dud. For most of its duration, the nonviolent, mildly radical encampment contained somewhere around two dozen tents. Most of Harvard’s 6,600 undergraduates, it so happens, cared very little about the movement’s aims – reacting strongly only when a lockdown of the Yard incrementally increased commute times. By the beginning of this month, an independent survey concluded that Occupy Harvard’s campus approval rating was about 2.84 out of 10, with self-described liberals reporting a not-even-lukewarm rating of 3.83 out of 10.

As I’ve discussed with several friends, conventional people – liberal and conservative alike – are strongly self-selected in Harvard’s student body. Whether too reputation-concerned to report or too risk-averse to try, only 37% of Harvard students claim on exit to have ever smoked marijuana – a figure that would be starkly out of place if Harvard were truly a holdout of sixties-style leftism.

]]> http://hpronline.org/world/2011-five-things-i-learned-this-year/feed/ 2 http://hpronline.org/world/kim-jong-ils-death/ http://hpronline.org/world/kim-jong-ils-death/#comments Mon, 19 Dec 2011 05:57:11 +0000 Sandra Korn http://hpronline.org/?p=17392 North Korean state television announced tonight that Kim Jong-Il has died mid-train ride – according to the announcer, of fatigue resulting from “physical and mental overwork“. Indeed, Kim Jong-Il was rather old, and strained under the burden of a stroke which he probably suffered in 2008.

Fatigue is about the most natural cause of death I can think of. Nonetheless, in the past few hours, Kim Jong-Il’s death has repeatedly been compared to the recent politicized deaths of other anti-American global leaders. For example, a Facebook status: “Kim Jong-Il added to the list of terrorists dead this year.” Another: “This has been a busy year for killing dictators.” And a tweet, shown below. (Hilarious.)

I can’t claim to understand the circumstances behind Kim’s death, or the political consequences that will follow. No matter what, it will undoubtedly spark some amount of political upset and instability in North Korea and the surrounding region. Either way, Kim Jong-Il’s death marks yet another change in a global political scene undergoing rapid transformation, generally for the better.

However, celebrating “death from fatigue” as a victory for America and our war on terrorism is nonsensical. Moreover, Kim Jong-Il is not the same as Muammar Qaddafi, not the same as Saddam Hussein, and certainly not the same as Osama bin Laden. Grouping these men together problematically conflates non-governmental terrorist groups with totalitarian regimes. It conflates America’s military actions with the actions of independent political movements. And worst of all, it glorifies the death of individuals as a politically significant and commendable task for a government to engage in.

As of now, there have been no nation-wide rallies in the streets to celebrate this latest death of an “American public enemy.” However, videos and photographs mocking North Korea’s former leader have quickly gone viral online, ranging from the North Korea Party Rock Anthem to a tumblr of photos of Kim Jong-Il looking at things. In the wake of his death, Kim has become a meme for the American teenagers to giggle at while procrastinating on their final papers. He was a brutal dictator who caused immense loss of life and livelihood for millions of people, many of whom apparently did and presumably still idolize him. I could be convinced otherwise, but the memeification of a recently-dead dictator doesn’t seem quite right to me.

Please, let’s denounce human rights abuses. Let’s call for an end to unnecessary poverty and economic exploitation, for the downfall of totalitarianism and dictatorship and militarization, for the dethroning of super-powerful and scary political leaders. But again, let’s not celebrate death, or mock it. And most of all, let’s not conflate Kim Jong-Il’s death with the armed assassinations carried out by the United States military or rebel groups.

Photo credit The Telegraph.

]]> http://hpronline.org/world/kim-jong-ils-death/feed/ 5 http://hpronline.org/world/the-canadian-cop-out/ http://hpronline.org/world/the-canadian-cop-out/#comments Tue, 13 Dec 2011 22:35:17 +0000 Zeenia Framroze http://hpronline.org/?p=17269

The Tar Sands are controversial not only because of their potentially disastrous environmental impact, but also because of how they have fueled tensions between the government and the First Peoples of Canada.

What’s wrong with Canada these days? I remember the good old days, when Canadians championed human rights reforms, pushed for the protection of freshwater, and engaged in all those pleasant international good deeds. In light of this history, Canada’s withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol is startling. Since the Conservatives took power in 2006, they have made it explicitly clear that they planned to use their legal right to withdraw, but it wasn’t until their formal notice on December 13^ththat the reality set in.

The Canadian government cited several reasons for their environmental cop-out: First, that the sheer cost of keeping up with Kyoto made their involvement impractical. At a whopping $13.6 billion, perhaps the Canadians have a point. Second, they argue that since the United States and China (the world’s two largest emitters of greenhouse gas) are not members of Kyoto, participation in the Protocol becomes futile and frustrating. Finally, however, what I have contention with is the Environment Minister, Peter Kent’s statement, “’Kyoto is not the path forward for a global solution for climate change.” Then what is the path forward for Canada? The Oil Sands in Alberta? A 50% increase in greenhouse gas emissions in Ontario?

I lived in Toronto for three years, sorted my garbage into all the right bins, and watched my high school adopt an Environmental Sustainability Action Plan and work towards LEED Silver certification. It’s difficult for me to believe that such an environmentally conscious society has so few qualms about the Kyoto dropout. Perhaps it’s the apathy generated by the political switch from the loudly green Liberals to the conservative Harper government. Maybe Canadians just don’t know – after all, most articles in the Globe and Mail or The National Post extol only the benefits that the Alberta Oil Sands hold in store. The Kyoto Protocol is, of course, an ambitious document; but regardless, Canada’s decision to withdraw shouldn’t be viewed as some sort of regrettable reality, it’s just a cop-out of convenience.

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