Horward, Annapolis, & Turkish Commonwealth
Three world news or events caught my attentions this week.
Firstly, John Howard lost election in Australia last Saturday. John Howard’ coalition lost to Kevin Rudd’s Labor Party, after ruling Australia and steering impressive economic growth for over 12 years period. John Howard, claimed to be a social conservative and economic liberal, has been the second longest serving PM in Australia’s history.It was, indeed, a crushing defeat for John Horward, a key US ally and strong supporter of Bush’s War in Iraq and Afghanistan, as not only his coalition lost the government, he himself was thrown out of parliament when he lost his seat in the Sydney suburb constituency. Kevin Rudd, whose main pledge during the campaign is to focus on global warming, also promised to end Australia’s 550-strong-troop service in Iraq, to retify Kyoto Protocol, and to stop supplying uranium to India because the later is not a signatory for the NPT.
The Australian voters had clearly gone beyond the presence and looked for future when they went to plling booths last Saturday. How could Australian voters prefer global warming issues as opposed to economic growth is not something we, Asians, could easily comprehend. It would take another millineum of Asian voters to reach that level of political conviction, I supposed.
Then, Annapolis Summit kicked on 27 Nov 2007. Last Friday, the Arab League had held their own mini Summit, deemed as Arab pre-council meeting to reach concensus among Arab states whether or not to attend the summit. The good news was, the reached concensus - a rather rare happening among Arab states. The bad one was, they decided to send ministers to Annapolis. Saudi and Syria were reluctant to attend, citing “lack of substance” as the reason, but the consensus reached by Arab League last Friday has somehow obliged them to participate. It was reported that the Arab League decided to attend for fear that Mahmud Abbas, without strong Arabs backing, would be pressured to concede too much at the expense of Palestinians and the Arabs world.
Already the negotiators on both sides, Palestinians and Israelis, had failed to draft common statements for the summit. This summit, Israel says, would not discuss the final status of the two-state-solution. If the final status would not be discussed, it simply means that Palestinians would come home empty handed. How could they concede something that they don’t even have at their hands. Mahmud Abbas is only in control of half a Palestine. The other half firmly belongs to Hamas. Even the “half of Palestine” that Mahmud Abbas is in control would be easily wrested by Hamas the moment Israeli troops withdraw from the West Bank. Logically, would Mahmud Abbas want Israelis to withdraw from West Bank?
On the Israeli side, Ehud Olmert’s coalition government is hanging on a single thread. The conservative parties within the coalition have categorically signalled they would break the coalition government should Olmert concede what they termed as “red lines”, among them are the right of returns, undivided Jerusalem as their state capital, and preserving Jewish settlements in West Bank. These “red lines” are, in fact, pillars of this conflict, in which the only way to get out of this conflict is to paint different color on these so called “red lines”.
Thus, the two leaders are really weak politically that they are in the position only to demand and not to concede anything. Both leaders don’t have anything on their hands to offer each others. Both come empty handed, and would surely return empty handed as well.
I personally believe that this summit has really none to be discussed and the Arab League should only send delegations representing Arab League, and not each member states, to the summit. The fact that Israeli delegations would sit in the same rooms with leaders of all Arabs nations, including Saudi Arabia, signify normalized relations Israel desperately seek with Arab neighbors all these while.
The Annapolis Summit is hastily arranged. The 50 invitees received only one week notice. This simply means to me that peace is not being sought seriously enough. Good luck Annapolis!
Finally, Turkish Commonwealth is in the making bringing six Turkic-speaking nation, consisting of Turkey, Azerbaijan, and large part of central Asian countries, to close cooperation. This part of the world is populated closed to 150 million people with USD500 trillion worth of natural resources such as oil, gas and uranium.
With Turkey’s entry to EU is imminent and the fact that Turkey is taking leadership to bring its “brother nations” to a new height in international arena, this country would have a lot to offer to the world. Already Turkey, after successfully embarked economic reforms since 2002, becomes the sixth and twelveth largest economy in Europe and the world, respectively.
The era of national politics is fast approaching its end. Good leader needs to start embracing regional politics, and this is exactly Erdogan now aggresively pursuing in bringing not only Turkey, but the whole region to its new height. If only Erdogan could be cloned and become one of Arab leaders, the long list of existing problems in the region would have been resolved.
Erdogan never graduated from any prestigious western school, as many Turkish elites do. In fact, he graduated from the more inferior and less respected type of education in Turkey. It is called Imam-Khatib religious school. His wife wears Islamic headscarve, as many other conservative Turkish women do. He is known as a pious and practising muslim in a predominantly secular Turkish society.
Yet, he is the man who pulled Turkey away from the brink of bankruptcy in 2002. He is the man who put up a brace face in front of the powerfull Turkey’s military high achelons and convinced them that the nation belongs to all Turkish, and not only to a group of pathetic secular elites.
The lesson from Turkey is simple. The more people are empowered, the more prosper the nation would become. The more people are surpressed, the loss to the nation is eventual.
In Malaysian context, empowerment must start with our media. Full subordination of our media to the ruling party would only bring more loss to our beloved nation in the long run.
In 15 years time, we would have exhausted our petroleum. Without better transparency and good governance watchdog, our nation is imminently heading towards economics chaos. Our media must deliver this responsibility by being more independent, investigative and fair in their coverage.
Firstly, John Howard lost election in Australia last Saturday. John Howard’ coalition lost to Kevin Rudd’s Labor Party, after ruling Australia and steering impressive economic growth for over 12 years period. John Howard, claimed to be a social conservative and economic liberal, has been the second longest serving PM in Australia’s history.It was, indeed, a crushing defeat for John Horward, a key US ally and strong supporter of Bush’s War in Iraq and Afghanistan, as not only his coalition lost the government, he himself was thrown out of parliament when he lost his seat in the Sydney suburb constituency. Kevin Rudd, whose main pledge during the campaign is to focus on global warming, also promised to end Australia’s 550-strong-troop service in Iraq, to retify Kyoto Protocol, and to stop supplying uranium to India because the later is not a signatory for the NPT.
The Australian voters had clearly gone beyond the presence and looked for future when they went to plling booths last Saturday. How could Australian voters prefer global warming issues as opposed to economic growth is not something we, Asians, could easily comprehend. It would take another millineum of Asian voters to reach that level of political conviction, I supposed.
Then, Annapolis Summit kicked on 27 Nov 2007. Last Friday, the Arab League had held their own mini Summit, deemed as Arab pre-council meeting to reach concensus among Arab states whether or not to attend the summit. The good news was, the reached concensus - a rather rare happening among Arab states. The bad one was, they decided to send ministers to Annapolis. Saudi and Syria were reluctant to attend, citing “lack of substance” as the reason, but the consensus reached by Arab League last Friday has somehow obliged them to participate. It was reported that the Arab League decided to attend for fear that Mahmud Abbas, without strong Arabs backing, would be pressured to concede too much at the expense of Palestinians and the Arabs world.
Already the negotiators on both sides, Palestinians and Israelis, had failed to draft common statements for the summit. This summit, Israel says, would not discuss the final status of the two-state-solution. If the final status would not be discussed, it simply means that Palestinians would come home empty handed. How could they concede something that they don’t even have at their hands. Mahmud Abbas is only in control of half a Palestine. The other half firmly belongs to Hamas. Even the “half of Palestine” that Mahmud Abbas is in control would be easily wrested by Hamas the moment Israeli troops withdraw from the West Bank. Logically, would Mahmud Abbas want Israelis to withdraw from West Bank?
On the Israeli side, Ehud Olmert’s coalition government is hanging on a single thread. The conservative parties within the coalition have categorically signalled they would break the coalition government should Olmert concede what they termed as “red lines”, among them are the right of returns, undivided Jerusalem as their state capital, and preserving Jewish settlements in West Bank. These “red lines” are, in fact, pillars of this conflict, in which the only way to get out of this conflict is to paint different color on these so called “red lines”.
Thus, the two leaders are really weak politically that they are in the position only to demand and not to concede anything. Both leaders don’t have anything on their hands to offer each others. Both come empty handed, and would surely return empty handed as well.
I personally believe that this summit has really none to be discussed and the Arab League should only send delegations representing Arab League, and not each member states, to the summit. The fact that Israeli delegations would sit in the same rooms with leaders of all Arabs nations, including Saudi Arabia, signify normalized relations Israel desperately seek with Arab neighbors all these while.
The Annapolis Summit is hastily arranged. The 50 invitees received only one week notice. This simply means to me that peace is not being sought seriously enough. Good luck Annapolis!
Finally, Turkish Commonwealth is in the making bringing six Turkic-speaking nation, consisting of Turkey, Azerbaijan, and large part of central Asian countries, to close cooperation. This part of the world is populated closed to 150 million people with USD500 trillion worth of natural resources such as oil, gas and uranium.
With Turkey’s entry to EU is imminent and the fact that Turkey is taking leadership to bring its “brother nations” to a new height in international arena, this country would have a lot to offer to the world. Already Turkey, after successfully embarked economic reforms since 2002, becomes the sixth and twelveth largest economy in Europe and the world, respectively.
The era of national politics is fast approaching its end. Good leader needs to start embracing regional politics, and this is exactly Erdogan now aggresively pursuing in bringing not only Turkey, but the whole region to its new height. If only Erdogan could be cloned and become one of Arab leaders, the long list of existing problems in the region would have been resolved.
Erdogan never graduated from any prestigious western school, as many Turkish elites do. In fact, he graduated from the more inferior and less respected type of education in Turkey. It is called Imam-Khatib religious school. His wife wears Islamic headscarve, as many other conservative Turkish women do. He is known as a pious and practising muslim in a predominantly secular Turkish society.
Yet, he is the man who pulled Turkey away from the brink of bankruptcy in 2002. He is the man who put up a brace face in front of the powerfull Turkey’s military high achelons and convinced them that the nation belongs to all Turkish, and not only to a group of pathetic secular elites.
The lesson from Turkey is simple. The more people are empowered, the more prosper the nation would become. The more people are surpressed, the loss to the nation is eventual.
In Malaysian context, empowerment must start with our media. Full subordination of our media to the ruling party would only bring more loss to our beloved nation in the long run.
In 15 years time, we would have exhausted our petroleum. Without better transparency and good governance watchdog, our nation is imminently heading towards economics chaos. Our media must deliver this responsibility by being more independent, investigative and fair in their coverage.
posted by Jamna at
6:55 PM
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