My interest in democratization came when, in the course of my continuing research in Southeast Asia, the region was hit by the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis. In the maelstrom that followed, mass demonstrations both forced the resignation of General Suharto after 31 years in Indonesia, and provoked a political stand-off in Malaysia between the country’s long-serving Prime Minister Mahathir and his former deputy Anwar Ibrahim. Watching events unfold, my work slowly moved away from questions of economic management to analyze and explain why reform succeeded in one country but not in another.

Fast forward eight years. I had moved to the School of Oriental and African Studies where Suu Kyi herself had been studying for a PhD when she returned to Burma during the student uprising in 1988 that would see her assume the mantle of democracy activist. Within the space of the 12 months I was at SOAS, Southeast Asia was catapulted into the global media spotlight first by the coup in Thailand and then by the uprising in Burma led by the country’s Buddhist monks. Both events brought with them numerous opportunities for comment both on the TV news as well as radio for which I was lucky to be in the proverbial right place at the right time. By now, though my own work was firmly focused on questions of democratic transition and while I continued to primarily specialize on Malaysia, the media work I had done on Thailand and Burma meant that I was more cognizant of the historical backgrounds of both those countries. I had also become personally inspired by Aung San Suu Kyi’s story having read her Letters from Burma and Freedom from Fear as well as several of the biographies that have been written.

Less than a year after moving to the SOAS, I saw a job listing in The Chronicle of Higher Education for the Aung San Suu Kyi Endowed Chair in Asian Democracy at the University of Louisville and decided to apply for the post. The rest as they say is history. I can honestly say that at no point in my own personal journey did I ever expect that one day I would have the opportunity to meet ‘The Lady’ (as she is affectionately known in Burma) nor that Burma would have begun the dramatic changes we have seen in the past year and a half. It is rare, as an academic that in the cloistered halls of university campuses, that you actually witness the events and get to meet directly the people about whom you derive causal explanations for change. That I will is both an honor and a privilege.

AUTHOR: Dr. Jason Abbott
URL: http://profjabbott.blogspot.com
E-MAIL: jason.abbott [at] louisville.edu

I drove roughly two hours today seeking a tea stall where I can have a cup of sweet and hot tea, deshi style, to enjoy the drizzle and the much waited rains after a week of stifling heat of Kolkata April.

My city mates might be frowning by now. Driving two hours looking for a tea stall? Well, in Kolkata every block has two of them.

That’s right. But I was looking for a tea shop that does not employ a kid as labour. I am not saying there is no such stall in my city. But today, on an approximate detour of 35 kilometers on my route, every single shop offered me tea through hands those are less than fourteen years old.

‘You and your un-Indian sensibility!’ said my friend enjoying my plight.

Article 24 of the Indian constitution clearly states that, “No child below the age of fourteen years shall be employed to work in any factory or mine or employed in any hazardous employment.” The Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act of 1986 designates a child as a person who has not completed their 14th year of age. It aims to regulate the hours and the working conditions of child workers and to prohibit child workers in hazardous industries.

‘Tea shop is not a factory or mine, besides these kids support their families,’ said my friend. But shouldn’t they be in schools instead?

Although the Constitution of India guarantees free and compulsory education to children between the age of 6 to 14 and prohibits employment of children younger than 14 in 18 hazardous occupations and 65 hazardous processes, child labour is prevalent in almost all informal sectors of the Indian economy. Companies including Gap, Primark, Monsanto and others have been criticised for using child labour in either their operations in India or by their suppliers in India.

Ours is a strange society. In India the poor send their children to work in inhuman conditions, almost sell the kids for bonded labour whereas the affluent middle class or the rich babysit children till they revolt – they are not taught any life skills. Strange contradiction.

‘It’s better than begging.’ My friend said, concerned at my temporary loss of reality. No it’s not. I can wager my day’s wage that a begging kid earns a lot more than a child labour. And the truth of the fact is it is because we are kind hearted people and love to give alms (up to few bucks) and buy mental comfort sitting in a social curse.

Government is doing whatever it can. Many NGOs like CARE India, Child Rights and You, Global march against child labor etc. have been working to eradicate child labour in India. In 2005, Pratham, an Indian NGO was involved in one of the biggest rescue operations when around 500 child labourers were rescued from zari sweatshops in North East Delhi. Child labour in India is a human rights issue of the world.

What we, the common people, do to get rid of this curse?

My pre-publication reviews are handled by my 16 year old son. ‘Don’t put this up, dad’ he says, his young face indignant. I am ashamed too. Yet ‘I love the country but I can’t stand the scene,’ Leonard Cohen says.

No Government and no NGO can cure this disease. Strategy and Logic will not be enough. We need to look into those pleading young eyes honestly and let our hearts take over. For once.

Feature Image credit: Ahmed Bashu

AUTHOR: Pabitra Mukhopadhyay
URL: http://pabitraspeaks.com
E-MAIL: mukhopadhyay.pabitra [at] gmail.com

A Voter in a Suburb of Dakar

So, you’re Abdoulaye Wade, the President of Senegal, a country that many can point to and say “there is a reasonably stable African state.” But like so many of the continent’s leaders you decide that you and the country’s success are inextricably bound. Your second (and constitutionally-mandated last) term is set to expire. What do you do?

Well, the megalomaniac’s playbook is clear: Constitution (and previous promises) be damned! You run for a third term.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the re-coronation: Your country’s people (whom you believed to be your loyal subjects) went to the polls. They voted. And they did not give you enough votes to allow you to declare victory. And now you face a runoff that many predict you cannot win against former Prime Minister Macky Sall. I suppose you deserve some modicum of credit for admitting that the runoff is necessary rather than engage in some sort of chicanery though I suppose the chicanery card is still there to be played.

I fear that your people are about to relearn lessons they certainly already knew, lessons they gleaned from Kenya and Cote d’Ivoire and Zimbabwe and too many other places in recent years. Like so many incumbent presidents, you believe that you are the state and that the state is you. But you are not the state. And Senegal is so much more than you. Perhaps you will win the runoff. Perhaps you will lose. Perhaps there will be no violence either way. But such speculation never should have been necessary.

AUTHOR: Derek Charles Catsam
URL: http://africa.foreignpolicyblogs.com
E-MAIL: derekcatsam [at] hotmail.com

•  Karen Ande
•  Jiro Ose

Their slideshows are also presented at the right sidebar. Use options:
* SL: Slideshow
* FS: Full Screen

Earlier:
* NL-Aid welcomes new photographers (I)
* NL-Aid welcomes new photographers (II)
and…
* NL-Aid welcomes new photo’s from peacekeeping missions

Have fun, NL-Aid

AUTHOR: Ndumba Jonnah Kamwanyah
URL: http://foreignpolicyblogs.com/
E-MAIL: Ndumba.Kamwanyah [at] umb.edu

Flag of Vatican City

I had a few minutes trouble, some hesitation about that ‘and’ in the heading of my article. There was a confusion of mixed feelings about the use of it – may be an ‘or’ could be more appropriate. Appropriate because Environmentalism with its current central focus on Global Warming and Climate Change arguably draws its credibility from science; facts, data and interpretation – we say Global Warming and Climate Change are real not because we just feel that way in our hearts but because it is supported by a huge body of evidence and cold hard science to back it up. Religion is mostly faith, a deep sense of spirituality that is central to our psyche and removed from observation, measurement and proof. So Environmentalism is at loggerheads with Religion and an ‘or’ looks more appropriate, may be a question mark at the end, better.

But I kept the title the way it is. Why I did that is the subject matter of my article today.

For fairness’s sake, it will be necessary to clarify my position first. I write my blogs from a personal perspective and try to say things that I think is correct – not dogmatically though. I do not see myself as either an environmentalist or a religious person. But since no conscious human being can live outside of a chosen belief system, which is a body of our consciousness, I shall share my belief system with you.

A belief system can refer to one or all of the following in varying degree of permutation and combinations:

1.       Life Stance – a relation which I consider as of ultimate importance. I consider a happy, healthy, peaceful and prosperous life of me and all fellow beings as of ultimate importance. The degree of altruism is naturally in decreasing order which is family>neighborhood>country>world.

2.       Religion – If religion is a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of life and the universe, especially when considered as the creation of a supernatural (divine) agency, or human beings’ relation to that which they regard as holy, sacred, spiritual, or divine, I do not have a religion. This is in much contempt and frustration of my devout, traditional Hindu high caste Brahmin parents. That said, I do not subscribe to Richard Dawkins’s Militant Atheism; I hold that everyone is free to have his/her own spirituality as long as that is private to him/her. I am opposed to institutionalized religion, edicts, fatwas, politicizing of faith. In short, to me, religion is private – like sex.

3.       World View – a fundamental cognitive orientation of myself encompassing natural philosophy; fundamental existential and normative postulates; or themes, values, emotions, and ethics, the Weltanschauung is that the world is in a state of transition, where the core values of life, the paradigms of humanity are changing into a new one such that environment and our interaction with nature will be of supreme interest.

4.       Philosophy – I would say I believe in Humanistic Naturalism, i.e., I believe human beings are best able to understand and control the world through use of scientific methods in as much as that science is subject to falsification and there is scope of course correction in case of a mistake as opposed to infallibility of religion.

5.       Ideologies – If an ideology is a set of ideas that constitutes one’s goals, expectations, and actions, I am much inclined towards Gandhian Ideology which insists a simple, natural, sustainable way of life where every human being can live with dignity and hope.

Environmentalism (in absence of a unanimously accepted definition) holds environment or natural environment around us as of utmost importance in our lives. But like any belief system it has its own fundamentalists, in one extremity it alienates itself from human interests. Michael Crichton, the noted author and a contrarian once commented that Environmentalism is a religion, Nature is its God, we are sinners, sustainability is salvation and Al Gore is the savior.  This is interesting because Michael Crichton was both right and wrong.

He was right because Environmental belief can be very strongly based on faith, an infallible, unquestionable truth quite akin to religious faith and this runs the risk of moving towards  intolerance to its oppositions (coal burning pagans or diesel burning heathens) and the premise of an objective debate is lost. In recent past we have seen surge of movements to link Climate Change with Religion; Vatican listing pollution as ‘New Sin’, abuse of Nature as a ‘sin’ or Bishop of London saying that contribution to Climate Change is a ‘sin’. In Abuja, Nigeria a two day forum jointly organized by the British Council and First City Monument Bank Plc (FCMB) amassed 100 participants from Nigeria, UK and sub-Saharan countries including South Africa, about 60 of who had been faith leaders both from Christianity and Islam. It was resolved that in all religious teachings and holy scriptures taking care of Nature and human life was one of the main instruction of the Creator and human beings were declared guar…. Even Judiciary accepts the likeness between Environmentalism and faith, as in the famous Tim Nicholson case Judge Michael Burton ruled: “[A] belief in man-made climate change … is capable, if genuinely h…. Generally speaking, Environmentalism in some form cannot escape same foundation of belief like religion: there is one heaven (pristine unadulterated world of the past), one hell (the present polluting, destructive, greed driven growth), one God (Nature itself) and one Salvation (a sustainable life). While Abrahamic religions identify closely with Environmentalism, Hinduism bears the same closeness, though less known or vocal. In Hindu Religious Mythologies, the concept of ten Avatars, the ten incarnations of Vishnu are descent from heaven to save earth every time there is a crisis of the divine creation. Nine of the Avatars have already descended except the last one, namely Kalki. While you can do your own research about Kalki let me read from Wikipedia as to what this final and the greatest Avatar is supposed to be – “destroyer of foulness,” “destroyer of confusion,” “destroyer of darkness,” or “annihilator of ignorance.” He seems quite tailor made for Climate Change.

Michael Crichton was very wrong too. Religion being one of the belief systems, its similarity to any other belief system is very explicable. This makes his observation only trivial not a critical one. For example consider hypothetical comments like:

a)  Science is a religion; Empiricism, Predictability and Falsification are its Gods, subjectivity is scientist’s hell, objectivity is his heaven and Newton, Einstein and Stephen Hawking are its prophets (among many).

b) Economics is a religion; Demand, Supply and Market are its Gods, higher ISE Index is its heaven, lower ISE Index is its hell and Adam Smith is its prophet.

I hope you are getting my drift.

In debates like this, an interesting aspect of Environmentalism is often overlooked. In all the belief systems including religion the interrelationship remained either between one human to other or between one human to God, who is the Creator. Environment brings in a third kind of interrelatedness, one between human and Nature. Despite the apparent superficial similarity, this third relationship makes Environmentalism very different from religion. Human mind has evolved over a long enough period of time handling interrelatedness between one human to other. This acted behind formation of groups, sects, societies and culture. This interrelatedness was explicit, its value and importance long understood and used as a tool of societal and cultural evolution of man. Similarly, human mind also evolved over a substantial period of time dealing with events in its experience beyond its rational explanation and this culminated into imagination of a supernatural force controlling the events which slowly shaped into the concept of divinity and a divine creator of everything. This interrelatedness was also explicit, its value and importance understood and used as a tool of creating a moral and ethical standard and a code of conduct and answerability to a supreme creator, a final judgment. The third interrelatedness, the one with Nature was different from the first two in only as much as it remained implicit and its sub-conscious flow apparent only in folklores, personification of natural bodies like rivers, mountains and seas in fables and mythologies. The huge body of such literature suggest that Nature was always revered, thought as a benefactor and an element of sustenance. Nature came to stand next to God in our mind, vastly magnificent to be perturbed by puny actions of man.

When science and facts established that nature and humanity had co-evoluted and both could and did affect and modify each other, it is only normal that the inertia of human mind would continue with belief systems that fostered the first two interrelatedness.  While modern Environmentalism is founded more on science than culturally evoluted traits, many still view nature as benign almost motherly and green enthusiasts often point us to a calling to go back to nature.

Going back to nature? I find such stand utterly incredible. We just cannot go back to natural elements anymore. In fact Nature is relentlessly cold, unfeeling, harsh and unforgiving from a survival point of view. We had enough science to know that it permits no excess, no luxury and no free lunch. Its bounty and vast multitude are the results of a cold, dumb evolutionary process based on selfish reasons of survival. We can at best come to live with it intelligently, tap its resources carefully and manipulate our interactions with it smartly. End of story.

A true Environmentalist will acknowledge this as fact. Therefore, Environmentalism will stand very different from religion, where submission without a question is the last word. Climate Change is no retribution of Nature, no wrath of Gods – it’s simply a vastly intricate physical system gone wrong due to mistaken dealings of man in one part. Pollution had never been a sin, it was a mistake.

So it will remain Environmentalism and Religion. I do not think we can discount religion or ignore its tremendous capacity to move people any time soon, despite steady increase of non-believers/atheists. I do not think Environmentalism should be allowed to be politicized like religion either. Environmentalism and religion need not necessarily synthesize into an environmental theology. Institutionalized efforts to do so, is a huge waste of time and energy and not in the best interest of Climate Change movement. Rather world can benefit, in the wake of Climate Crisis, by coming together retaining each belief system’s power to influence people to regulate and moderate their views towards life just by honest persuasion. Something in that direction has, in fact, taken place in USA. A group was spearheaded by leaders of Harvard University’s Center for Health and the Global Environment in Boston, Massachusetts, and the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), an umbrella group that encompasses 45,000 churches, and represents 40% of the Republican Party’s supporters. “It doesn’t matter if we are liberals or conservatives, Darwinists or Creationists, we are all under the same atmosphere and drink the same water and will do everything we can to work together to solve these problems,” said Eric Chivian, Director of Harvard’s Center for Health and the Global Environment. I would acknowledge Mr. Eric Chivian as a true Environmentalist.

AUTHOR: Pabitra Mukhopadhyay
URL: http://pabitraspeaks.com
E-MAIL: mukhopadhyay.pabitra [at] gmail.com

Nigeria

The unnecessary anxiety raised before the April election by the international community has turned to become a blessing in disguise for Nigeria. At the moment, it appears as if the whole West is heading down here with the visit of German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, British Prime Minister, David Cameron and some officials from Canada and other countries. And from what I heard through diplomatic grapevine, many of them are still coming this way.

Maybe we can stand aloof, behave like an overshadowed beautiful bride flattered by many suitors and wait for our knight with a glamorous amour to appear or accept everybody as friends.

It seems to me that what we need at this point in time is nothing but a heuristic strategy and good enough, the Federal Executive Council (FEC) ended a meeting last week and stated that attracting investment is the core principle of Nigeria’s foreign policy now.

For me, this pronouncement was not necessary because the investors seem ready to come despite security issues posed by Boko Haram or Niger Delta militants at home probably because businessmen are risk takers.

What they often desire is stable government and not a country jumping from civil into military rule or peace into crisis, a situation which often make them to lose all they have invested.

Now, on the strategy I stated earlier, it may be good to make possible investors shoulder some social responsibilities like helping in our rail transportation system which has been difficult to tackle for years. They can also help in building roads in areas where they’re located since their products must be transported through such routes.

But the most important strategy would be to make investors spend on areas that would increase our terms of trade and create employment or on the other hands help us develop such through their expertise.
However, this issue could be tackled better by our readiness to produce what they need and export such to the countries.

I confronted a certain top diplomat whose country is eager to invest in ours with the question of balance of trade and coincidentally he had called me on phone earlier requesting for phone number or contact of a company that produces palm oil.

He told me his reason for seeking for this contact was because the people of his country wanted to import palm oil from Nigeria but could not find any company which exports such.

Fired by the zeal to deliver, I chased after a top producer of the product only to be told that it cannot satisfy the internal market and have no capacity to export. And this is a vital area where the government or rather banks have to come in and finance certain companies.

The company told me that it would be ready to work with the country if there’re investors willing to come in and set up palm-produce companies.

Of course, this tells a lot about our lack of readiness to balance trade because other countries, while chasing after foreign investors, also engage in aggressive trade promotion through their chambers of commerce.

All told, my profession is not economics but common sense tells me that if we encourage many companies to produce what the intending suitors nay investors wish to import, it could be a win-win situation if we negotiate with them on the terms that they must import our products outside crude before we allow them in.

Let’s take heed of an early statement which appeared in Discourse of the Common Weal of this Realm of England, 1549: “We must always take heed that we buy no more from strangers than we sell them, for so should we impoverish ourselves and enrich them.”

An observer was telling me the other day that we should tell the leaders heading to Nigeria no to promise aids for fight against malaria or HIV/AIDS but to bring our concrete proposals for the economic advancement of the continent. Of course, the visitors already know what they want and have since refocused. Therefore we should also refocus and make the best use of this opportunity.

Inasmuch as we may need them to see us as partners in progress rather than aid seekers, we must also act in that line because whether the present circumstances make us to believe it or not, Nigeria nay Africa is a continent of the future because the resources here are enormous even though we’re still exploring.

AUTHOR: Paul Ohia
URL: www.paulohia.blog.com and www.paulohia.blogspot.com
E-MAIL: paulohia [at] yahoo.co.uk

I would just like to ask the editors these questions where are we moving? Is this journalism that you guys want to pass on to the coming generation? Are moving on the right track? Manipulation, media power play, Corruption and cheap popularity stunts is this morally acceptable…………… I believe with great power, comes great responsibilities which is being missed by Mr. Luitel. I doubt his credibility and I challenge his skepticism of his definition in regards to journalism. I say this is yellow journalism not press freedom to write against a social movement that too on the basis of rumors with no proofs is a question of integrity. I believe being a writer/ reporter from a prestigious publication and writing something on a social issue that too without any research based on rumors and slashing an image of a movement created and dedicated for the people is a question that points fingers his and your integrity not ours. I would just like to ask the editorial team how could they have approve such a personal opinionated piece that slashes public sentiment. The facebook movement has not only been an eyes opener to thousands of Nepali facebook users but it has brought into light the true spirit of patriotism. Just think where wore we moving a year back. Young people use to say, I hate politics, politics is shit and its nonsense. From this movement at least we have got the feeling of My Country my responsibility, Young people are at least talking and showing their interest that’s credibility sir. We know we might bring not bring an instant change but we know we are satisfied at least we are changing the mentality of youth. We are very sure that It’s our country, and we made it garbage and we are trying to clean it so please do join in to know the reality. 

“Kantipur Publication specially the Kantipur use to be one of the best news publication in Nepal but its credibility is degrading not due to competition but due to its weak editorial Team who don’t even cross verify its reporters stories. I guess the Writers and Reporters are more important than the quality of news & its impact ….”MY COUNTRY MY RESPONSIBILITY, MY NEPAL MY PRIDE

AUTHOR: Shreedeep Rayamajhi
@: http://www.shreedeeprayamajhi.blogspot.com
E-MAIL: weaker41 [at] gmail.com

In a short post, Zach Beauchamp accuses me of “playing word games” in calling Putin a liberal.  He writes:

Liberals believe broadly in three things: political democracy, individual rights, and capitalism.  If “Russian liberalism” accepts the latter and reject the former two, isn’t it really just “authoritarian capitalism” with good branding?

Indeed, liberals do believe this things. However, since the 1970s it has been harder and harder to reconcile them in practice.  If anything, capitalism has proved to be the sacred mantra that the other two must kowtow.  So in response to whether Russia is really just “authoritarian capitalism” with good branding, I would say that the only thing liberalism has left is good branding. Because when the veneer is rubbed away, neoliberalism is making a mockery of democracy and individual rights on a global scale.

That said, Beauchamp left one very important tenet of liberalism out: the sovereignty of the law. It is upon the sovereignty of law that democracy, individual rights, and capitalism ideally rests. I say ideally because, again, the sanctity of the law, like the other principles, has come under increasing threat as it has become another weapon in neoliberal capitalist accumulation.

But on to liberalism, Putin and Russia. I don’t know how much Beauchamp knows about Russia. (I assume the Rainbow Stalin video (which, I admit, is hilarious) accompanying his post is supposed to suggest that Putin is merely Stalin with good branding.  If so, then I venture that Beauchamp knows little about Russia, and even less about Stalin and Putin.) But one common mistake Beauchamp makes is evaluating Russia’s political traditions according to how they do or don’t mirror the (imagined) West. Russia has its own history, and while ideologies like liberalism were originally imported from abroad, their Russian practitioners adapted them to their nation’s particular conditions.  Liberalism means many things in Russia as its Russian wikipedia page suggests. And if the Russians consider Mikhail Speransky and the Reforms of Alexander II part of the Russian liberal tradition, then by god, so is Putin.

I have no doubt in my mind that Putin also believes broadly in political democracy, individual rights, capitalism and the sovereignty of the law. The extent he practices what he preaches is another thing entirely. But for Putin the sovereignty of law is fundamental, in concert with the Russian tradition, he also views a strong centralized state as vital to its security. In Putin’s Russia this has meant elevating the state to its own raison d’état. The belief, rightly or wrongly, is that without a strong state, instituting the rule of law is merely a pipe dream. This is at least the lesson Putin and his people took from the 1990s.

Still one must be careful by what one means by the sovereignty of law in the Russian context.  In Russia, as I said in my post, this means a Rechsttaat or legal state. The concept of the legal state has a long history, beginning with Catherine II, to Speransky, and to its transformation into a political program by the Russian liberal V. A. Maklakov. It also has conservative and radical variants. Conservatives want legality to facilitate state power. Radicals want the state’s interests to be subordinated to the rule of law. After a 70 year communist interlude, the conservative variant (which has always been the dominant one) has reemerged to define what the President of the Russia Constitutional Court Valery Zorkin called in 2003 the “ultimate goal.” He wrote:

Becoming a legal state has long been our ultimate goal, and we have certainly made serious progress in this direction over the past several years. However, no one can say now that we have reached this destination. Such a legal state simply cannot exist without a lawful and just society. Here, as in no other sphere of our life, the state reflects the level of maturity reached by society.

I believe that for Putin and his ilk, there is a sincere and wholly naive belief that a legal state will ultimately bequeath a Russia that respects democracy and individual rights. It is this belief that for me places Putin squarely in the Russian liberal tradition, albeit on the conservative end.  In a way, one might think of Putin’s relationship to liberalism the same way Russian communists regarded communism.  The CPSU never declared Soviet Russia communist; communism was always in becoming.  Granted, Putin doesn’t call himself a liberal, but this is because liberalism is a dirty word in Russian politics.  But when you look at what Putin (and Medvedev) ultimately aspire to it is a liberal Russia. They regard it as a historical necessity. They are just going to manage its development. This is why Putin, and Medvedev for that matter, speak of Russia’s modernization as a process. This is not to excuse all the truly horrible and disturbing things that happen in Russia in regard to human rights, etc. An honest engagement with these problems will only supplement Russia’s positive development.  I’m sure most will see Putin and Medvedev as cynical. While a dose of cynicism is healthy, I would also urge that their rhetoric should nevertheless be taken seriously if we really want to understand what is going on there.

Whatever the plan is for Russia’s modernization, Zorkin’s statement contains an inner contradiction that has made the “ultimate goal” elusive for 300 years. As Zorkin rightly states, “a legal state simply cannot exist without a lawful and just society.” However, a society can’t be lawful and just without a legal state already in place. The problem is that in Russia sovereignty rests in two contradictory, and often arbitrarily interchangeable and sometimes overlapping places: the individual sovereign–a Tsar, general secretary, and now a president–and the law. Given that Russians believe, for a number of historical and cultural reasons, that the law is violable, the person of the sovereign has had to serve as the chief guarantor of a lawful and just society.  Guarantor because only he has power to curb the arbitrariness and feudalism of what Alexander Radishchev called the “hundred headed monster,” i.e. the bureaucracy. However, being the sole guarantor of the law easily slips into also becoming its chief violator. Because the sovereign can’t rely on anyone to follow the rule of law, he often has exercise his personal power and influence in order to run the damn country. This inevitably undermines the very legal procedure he desires. Moreover, the more the sovereign centralizes the state as a means to control it, he neuters any nascent local legal and independent political structures that would facilitate liberal development.

Every Russian ruler has been a victim to this conundrum, even if they play a key role in their own victimization. Hell, regional secretaries even thumbed their nose at Stalin. Given this, does anyone honestly think that it wouldn’t happen to Putin?  Despite all of Putin’s supposed godlike power, regional bureaucrats still flout his orders. So what does Putin do in response? Exactly what his forefathers did: reaffirm the vertical power of the state, squash independent political initiative, and manage reform from above.

Like it or not, such a reality turns even the most sincere liberal into an autocrat.

AUTHOR: Sean Guillory
URL: http://seansrussiablog.org and http://newbooksinrussianstudies.com
E-MAIL: sguillory1 [at] niu.edu

‘Our country is smaller, so we have fewer of them. The biggest is called Karzai. He is the god of corruption. Then we have gods for terrorism, they are called Mullah Omar and Hekmatyar. Dostam is another god who mainly does mass-killings….’

He cut me, and said: ‘But they are all bad gods. Is there any good god in Afghanistan?’
I thought for a minute but could not think of any.
…….
A Pashto newspaper in Peshawar had published a report of Reporters without Borders. ‘Without borders’ is translated ‘be sarhada’ in Pashto. But because of some typing mistakes or machine problems it was printed ‘be sara’ (without heads).
………
Above the front gate of a Karachi, Pakistan, girls school I saw this written, in 2002: ‘THE PENIS IS MIGHTIER THAN THE SWORD.’
………
From a Dubai hotel to the airport, I found that the taxi driver was a Pashtun, from Swat. At that time the Pakistan army had launched an operation against the Mullah Fazlullah militants and thousands of people were displaced. People were getting killed and schools were burned down every day. I said: ‘I hope your family is safe.’

‘Yes, our village is completely safe. That is the only village in Swat where there is no fighting and no killings.’
‘That sounds good but strange. Do you have a village lashkar (army) or something else for security?’
‘No. Actually there is no mosque and no mullahs in our village,’ the taxi driver said.
………
Ramazan Bashardost was one of the candidates during the August 2009 presidential elections in Afghanistan. His name is written the same as the month of Ramadan in Dari and Pashto (also in Arabic and Urdu). The election results were not out yet but there were posters everywhere in Kabul with ‘Ramazan Mobarak’ (Happy Ramadan: the word ‘Mobarak’ is also used to say ‘congratulations in Pashto) to welcome the holy month of fasting. A British journalist, who could read some Dari and Pashto words, had written to his newspaper office that the election results were not out yet but it looked that Ramazan Bashardost had won the election because ‘there are posters on every wall of Kabul congratulating him.’
……….
A friend of mine wanted to create a yahoo ID in Peshawar. His name was Abdul Salam. But there was already an ID with that name. He tried abdulsalamafghan, afghanabdulsalam, abdulsalam2010, and some others, but all were ‘not available.’ Finally he entered ‘son of donkey.’ The immediate response was: ‘Congratulations! Your ID is created.’

AUTHOR: Hadi Hairan
URL: http://www.hadihairan.com
E-MAIL: ahhairan [at] gmail.com