World politics
Myanmar
While our media are focussed on Europe’s troubles, it’s easy to forget that there is still a bitter conflict in Myanmar following its military coup in February last year.
Human Rights Watch provides a short account of the Myanmar Army’s brutality over the last year, including an incident where 65 protesters were murdered – A year on, no justice for Myanmar massacre. It also calls for the EU to enforce sanctions against the junta. It documents instances where foreign energy companies have withdrawn from the country, but in doing so have essentially handed over their profitable enterprises to Junta-controlled local companies.
On the PBS Newshour there is a nine-minute clip Meet the new generation driving Myanmar’s resistance, with interviews of a human rights activist, a former army captain turned recruiter for the resistance, and an IT expert. The element that distinguishes the Myanmar resistance from traditional resistance movements is their use of IT. One aspect is their use of social media to verify the Myanmar Army’s brutality and to keep the world informed. The other aspect is the use of generally-available sites as sources of intelligence about movements by the Myanmar army.
Julian Assange: this is not the end of the road
So far there has been only a little news and even less comment on the judgement by Britain’s High Court to refuse to block Assange’s extradition to the US.
Rachel Weiner, a legal journalist for the Washington Post, has a short article – Julian Assange moves closer to extradition as U.K.’s top court refuses to hear appeal – in which she lays out the basic legal facts and avenues of appeal still open to Assange, should Priti Patel, Britain’s “home secretary”, allow his extradition to go ahead. He can appeal to the European Court of Human Rights, and he can revive claims denied in lower courts “that the prosecution is political, that it violates free-speech rights, that it comes too long after the alleged crime, and that American authorities acted unlawfully”.
(It is informative to glance at some of the 250 comments on Weiner’s article. They are highly polarised, and there is little that can be called considered opinion. And this is from the Washington Post readership!)
Korea’s presidential election
Korea’s presidential election on March 9 saw Yoon Suk-yeol from the conservative People Power Party (PPP) win office in a contest against Lee Jae-myung from the centre-left Democratic Party (DP). The outgoing president, Moon Jae-in, is from the Democratic Party, and under the country’s constitutional one-term rule was not permitted to re-nominate.
Turnout was 77 percent – very high for any country without compulsory voting. The first-past-the-post election was tight: Yoon Suk-yeol won 48.6 percent of the vote, Lee Jae-myung 47.8 percent, and the only other candidate to clear 1.0 percent was Sim Sang-jung from the centre-left Justice Party with 2.4 percent of the vote. (A runoff election or preferential voting would probably have delivered a different result.)
Some of the usual left-right divisions were present. Older people and people in rural regions voted strongly for Yoon. But contrary to general left-right patterns, he also did very well in Seoul and among younger voters. This probably reflects people’s discontent with unaffordable housing prices.
Andrew Yeo, of Brookings’ Center for East Asia Policy Studies, notes that there are significant ideological differences between the parties. Yoon’s PPP is strongly in favour of lower taxes, a market-oriented approach to economic growth and housing affordability, and a strong stance against North Korea: What to expect from the incoming South Korean president’s domestic and foreign policy agendas. Because of Yoon’s narrow win, and the PPP’s illiberal track record, Yeo sees a difficult time ahead for Korean politics.
The global arms trade
Europe started re-arming well before Russians started surrounding Ukraine. The most recent survey of the global arms trade, compiled by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) reveals that while the global arms trade has fallen a little, there has been a significant growth in Europe’s arms trade. “The severe deterioration in relations between most European states and Russia was an important driver of growth in European arms imports, especially for states that cannot meet all their requirements through their national arms industries.”
In our region – “Asia and Oceania” – arms imports are generally down, but SIPRI reports that “six states in the region were among the 10 largest importers globally: India, Australia, China, South Korea, Pakistan and Japan”. Between 2012-16 and 2017-21 there was a 62 percent increase in Australia’s arms imports.
What do we understand by “extremism”?
There is no shortage of people holding way-out views who vent their anger and sometimes act out their anger. These include anti-vaxxers, conspiracy theorists, QAnon followers, and white supremacists.
On the ABC’s Philosopher’s zone David Rutledge introduces us to Quassim Cassam, of the University of Warwick, who goes into the complexities of extremism. Rutledge asks if all people who hold views on the extreme ends of the political spectrum should be called “extremists”?
In a 28-minute interview with Laura D’Olimpio of the Philosopher’s Zone, Cassam presents three categories of extremism – methods extremism, ideological extremism and psychological extremism – and describes the way these categories interact. Most of the discussion is about psychological extremism, particularly mental preoccupations that dominate people’s thinking. For example, he describes a “purity preoccupation”: the extremist often supports the purest and most unadulterated version of whatever they are concerned with, and is hostile to any compromise.
Cassam and D’Olimpio enter into a rich discussion of conspiracy theories. Cassam posits the basic question “who benefits from the promulgation of conspiracy theories?”. Those who benefit from such theories have little incentive to squash them. (Think of the Morrison Government’s half-hearted efforts to put down vaccination conspiracy theories.) They also describe the way an imagined sense of persecution holds many groups together.
Cassam concludes with practical advice on quelling extremism, and is critical of certain “de-radicalization” programs. There are better ways. He is author of Extremism: a philosophical analysis.
Russia’s Z symbol – it’s about male bonding
Bellingcat describes the ultimate in male bonding – an extremist group founded in 2016 known as Male State: The Russian online hate group backing Putin’s war. They don’t specifically call themselves “Nazi”, but they adopt Nazi symbols, mannerisms and codes. Their own symbol is the letter “Z”, which has been painted on Russian tanks, armed personnel carriers and trucks in Ukraine.
Male State is officially banned in Russia, but it continues to operate through social media, and it boasts a growing number of subscribers – possibly as high as 80 000. The Russian authorities have done little to enforce the court’s ruling that banned their operations.
They have been enthusiastic supporters of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, and have helped Putin by spreading propaganda and lies about the invasion.
Why aren’t more bankers in jail?
A reader has sent a reference to an article Gordon Brown: We should have jailed the bankers in Britain’s Sunday Times. Unfortunately it is blocked by a rather thick paywall, but its message about Gordon Brown’s regret for not having been tougher on the banks when the GFC occurred on his watch, is summarized in an article on Insider.co.uk.
Brown’s regret about his government’s soft treatment of bankers is only part of the Sunday Times article. It is also about Brown’s formative years (he’s a Scot out of central casting) and about his present modest lifestyle: “He lives off his pension, takes no salary for roles with the United Nations and World Health Organisation and donates the proceeds of his book sales to charity” – a lifestyle that contrasts with that of his predecessor Tony Blair. The article is an insight into a social democrat whose politics are rooted in moral principles, rather than the arithmetic of winning elections.
The book to which the writer refers is Brown’s Seven ways to change the world: how to fix the most pressing problems we face.
Brown’s main current concerns are the re-emergence of nationalism, in its related manifestations ranging from Brexit to Putin’s attempt to reinstate the Russian empire. Nationalism is driven by people’s feeling that they have little personal or local control over decisions that affect their lives. It offers the false hope that it will give people the respect and agency for which they yearn but which is missing in their lives.