Evil of the controlled system

I saw the movie "Letter from Iwo Jima" yesterday. The movie was made by Clint Eastwood directly after directing preceding movie "Flags of our Fathers". It was about showing the people on the contra side of the war, who seems to be evil when we watch the movies from the regular side (well, the allied force's side). But the fact is, we have, in the end, human beings fighting against each other. Each have their own story. Then how come they can turn into beings who find their conviction reflected in the conviction of the evil ruler?

The movie was about second world war, so now we just go back 10-20 years before the war. US, UK, Germany, Japan, Russia, they all had diplomatic ties. Everything looked pretty much well-going. Why suddenly they found themselves in the dirt of war is the question for the historians, but in this blog my concern is how the well-built countries like Germany and Japan found the solace in evil acts, which were awarded wide public generosity in these nations. And the answer seems to be rather awkward. It wasn't the evil in the men, instead it was the evil of the controlled authoritarian regimes these countries were enjoying.

It is the power of the mass media, a creation of unfounded deliberate cause, the plight of the present working generation, which ignites the falsified patriotism among the population. Look in the history, whenever there was a authoritarian system, there were wars and conflicts. Freedom of speech gives the power in the hands of the people. It may create some kind of communal conflicts, but finally well-accepted affirmative solution is put forward. In the controlled system, the power lies in the hand of few, who, if fanatic, can cause disturbing relationship with its neighbours or even with their bad-time allies. Cultural exchanges can take place, like it took place between German and American universities or to some extent between Japanese and American army, but it doesn't act like a vaccine, when the controlled system is later to be infected with the evil-mind virus. Hence, from friends become enemies. The controlled system may look enigmatic and the best, e.g. creation of German industry from the ruins of the first world war and great infrastructural development thereafter. It made German life prosperous, but it never protected Germany from the infection of fascism.

In my opinion, each country should be wary of the controlled system. And the control of a nation can be given to the people only through freedom of speech, not just by thinking collectives of few intellectuals doing it so. Any system is a controlled system, as long as there is no room for the opposite opinion. And any preceding friendship gesture towards the people of the controlled system can be futile in a wake of the evil-mind virus in the controller of such system.

Nationalist Japan!?!

About 60 years after second world war, it looks silly to think that Germany and Japan can be global threat. I'd personally support to deviate somewhat from their pacifist constitution created under the shadow of post-war situation to make it more consent to the present situation. Germany is not facing any direct threat, but Japan does. The geopolitics in Asia is the complex as it can get. The endeavour of present japanese government to change pacifist japanese constitution, is not only debated internationally with famous western black-or-white perception, but also seen the same way in modern japanese generation. Essence of patriotism is lost in well-to-do generation of both countries, but it is still burning in the generations those of India and China, and other developing countries, which faced harsh realities of colonialism, as well those of USA, where passion for nationalism is kept alive, indulging the nation in continuous blasphemy with idea of nonsense war. Germany and Japan cannot afford to stay pair of shoes of the USA forever. Both are great nations and they have offered more to the world than holocaust and m(s)ad-imperialism. Japan should realign itself in present complex geopolitical equation. If the nation cannot unite for such change in constitution, I fear it may lead to schizophrenia of selective radical fascism which will haunt the society, economy, in fact, the whole state of affair. The news about japanese referendum can be found here.

Money tightening

Can money tightening is always the best solution to curb the inflation? In the latest Indian budget, more attention has been given to control the inflation. It seems some monetary action will be taken, too. But as the history shows, it hasn't worked always. Here is the quote from the article “Privatisation: How such sacrifice should poor make?”:

Social Slum Zone, socioeconomic viable solution?

The plight of the people who are forced to move out of their decade old living place, which is seen as opposite of modern way of life, can be seen in all developing countries. The scarcity of the space in megacities is forcing creation of new laws against almost 70% of the population to make life comfortable for richer people. It is government's responsibility and competency to frame better driven policies to accommodate all types of lives. Special Slum Zone wouldn't be better solution, since it would lead to alienation and ignorance towards the needs of the most needy in the city. I accept all the arguments of the author, but I disagree with this solution.

Read the article here:
Devil's advocate: Special Slum Zone

Child labour in India

Since almost 3 weeks there is officially a law banning child
labour in India. At first it sounds one of the most promising thing
done in a country with the population of 1 billion of which more than
half of them are under 25. But this ban doesn't solve the problem lying
beneath one of many series of such acts against children. Like most of
the human rights defined according to the standard of living in present
Europe weaving blind eye to the situation in the same geographical
place few years ago, which to some extent still persists in backyards
of India hidden behind the facades of glittering cities. This ban would
be simply snatching the bread from the mouth of not only the children,
but their parents and the whole family dependent on the wages of their
offsprings. Child labour is neither the problem of implementation of
law, general understanding towards young clads, nor pure social
economics, but rather it is very subtle social problem. Child labour
should not be understood at hatred of the parents towards their
children, rather it is dark necessity, which force them to send their
children to work. There are many innovative solutions, like the
provision of free food in the school and other socio-economic
initiatives, where both, the family and a child, benefits, although the
100% implementation of which is argumentative question, but these
schemes helps few of them, a usual problem of very huge country. In
this country, no proper digital record of any sort of work is kept, of
course, outside urban areas, which leads to many mischievous acts
against common worker, which is worst, when it comes to children. This
can be controlled through law, but the real problem of impoverishment
cannot be solved. Indians cannot belong to just one culture. It is like
pure indian spices, each having discreet taste and smell. The same is
true with the mentality of the people in different geographical
locations of rural India. All those innovative initiatives apart from
the pure universal law should be matched with different realities and
designed such way to solve the real social problem from within, if the
government is not able to create a cushion of job opportunities for
elder family members. If government and NGO can provide and, of course,
guarantee the education as well as employment to children, though the
children not having certain pleasure of urban kids, these children when
grown-up can make difference to their family and their own children in
the future as well. But my own pressing point would be the creation of
huge database of working population electronically, in fact,
prestigious indian IT industry is capable and willing to do that. What
remains to be seen is whether the cabinet is ready for it.

powered by performancing firefox

past-colonist taking over past-colonialist

There is lot of buzz about Mittal Steel’s attempt to take over Arcelor, in other words largest steel company taking over second largest steel company, which will make the company larger than next three competitors together. Amazing! Although it is truly european company taking over another european company, racism has been incensed by europeans, since the former one is possessed by Indian industrialist.

Technically and strategically it is one of the best move to organize commodity business of steel. All industrial analysis and practices support it, the fact that shares of these companies have gone higher after the declaration. But it is old protective mentality shown by french as well as luxemburger prime minister showing unnecessary nationalism. Mittal Steel, mostly owned by Mittal Family, the prime of the family Laxmi Mittal possess indian passport, lives in Central London and his company is registered in Rotterdam, having absolute international management team on his board. Whereas Arcelor came to being through merging of major european steel industries from Spain, French, Belgium and Luxembourg, where Luxemburg government hold largest share of 5.8% in the company. Mittal Steel is huge empire covering 5 continents, still it is truly european company. It is of benefit for Europe, which wants to survive in old industrial powers during the time of aging economies.

The demand for steel is going higher, as India and China are booming with growth-rate of 8%, i.e. the prices for steels r much too high. Steel industry is still more scattered, in the sense that if this deal fructifies, the combined company will still have share of 10%. But less players in the field means better consolidation to regulation of prices, which in end effect push economic growth. This is the simple logic I can put forward.

It has become the question of national pride, since this deal lauds racism on european side and in the forthcoming India-EU meet, this will take diplomatic mold. It is quite clear how european companies are readily taking over asian companies, then why not asian companies, in fact in this case asian industrialist with european company can take over european company. Commerce and Industry Minister of India Kamal Nath shot off a strongly worded letter to the EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson on Wednesday, raising doubts over EU’s commitments to World Trade Organisation. Nath warned Mandelson that ongoing trade talks in the WTO could be ‘adversely impacted’ if the principle of national treatment (that requires foreigners to be treated like locals in various matters of trade) was not applied to Mittal’s takeover bid.

“Anything that vitiates the principle of national treatment, could adversely impact the ongoing trade talks. This is one of the basic principles of the WTO multilateral trading system. It requires that equal treatment be extended to all cross-border investments,” official sources told Business Standard. In fact, The national treatment clause is an obligation on members and is enshrined in Article III of GATT 1994. It condemned discrimination between foreign and national investment, and products and services, the sources added. The forth-coming visit of french president Jacques Chirac will definitely heat up this discussion to upper level. It is interesting to see how it will affect the approach of european populist towards whole of Asia.

The Luxembourg prime minister Jean-Claude Juncker said, “The [Indian] government, although full of wise men, has just threatened the Grand Duchy with not ratifying a double-taxation agreement between India and Luxembourg”. But in my opinion the greater threat India can give to whole EU, if she says of rethinking of buying multi-billion dollar Airbus planes. In last Paris Aerospace Show, indian airliners had ordered more than 200 planes, mostly from Airbus. They have choice of choosing Boeing, which will definitely make whole EU to rethink of its attitude towards this bid and respecting India as a whole. Who knows, maybe this idea will be put on the paper during discussion with EU Commissioner on fair-trading issue.

There will be many such acquisitions in the future, and I’m ready to enjoy political battle between past-colonist and past-colonialist.

Future: Aristotelian or Confucian?

I came across nice article, discussing why eastern advertisements don't find their credit in western advertisements competitions. The author writes about the mindset of people in eastern and western parts of the world. But what I liked the most is his extract from the book “The Geography of Thoughts” by Richard Nisbett.

He quotes:

The Westerner, driven by Aristotle's thinking, believes the world “is a line”, is unchanging, so is controllable, and hence can be defined by rules and systems.

He believes in absolute truths -- blacks and whites -- in the power of the individual and his capacity to influence the environment. He is typically “object-focused”, thinks sequentially, and believes in the concept of debate because finally logic will prevail. By mindset, he is inclined to scientific theory and investigation. For the Westerner, “life is a problem to be solved”.

By contrast, the Easterner is influenced by Confucian thinking. He believes the world “is a circle”, is constantly changing, so is not controllable and hence the challenge is how to manage life within it. He believes there is no absolute truth and is constantly trying to find a path to the truth.

For him, the collective is more important than the individual and it's important to exercise self-control so as to minimise friction within the group to maintain harmony. He is typically “relationship-focused” rather than object-focused, thinks “circularly” and believes in the concept of discussion, from which emerges a harmonious solution acceptable to all. By mindset, he is more inclined to the arts. For the Easterner, “life is mystery to be unraveled”.

Full article can be found here.

[posted with ecto]

belated blogs

I have started blogging at http://www.nandan.name/wordpress. But some selected blogs I'd paste it here.

[posted with ecto]