Showing posts with label history. Show all posts
Showing posts with label history. Show all posts

Sunday, January 17, 2021

Slavery, Democracy, and the Jesuits

Though JFK preceded him, Joseph Biden, Jr. is set to become a Catholic president in the United States during a time of unprecedented Catholic power. Remarkably, most Americans do not know the Catholic Church was banned in America's founding colonies, notably New York City:

For most of the colonial period Roman Catholic worship in New York City was clandestine or nonexistent, because the Protestant Dutch and then the English enforced laws prohibiting the organization and maintenance of Roman Catholic churches. (From Encyclopedia of New York City)
 

In 1816, Thomas Jefferson warned of the conflicts between Catholicism and republican governance: 

The first shade from this pure element, which, like that of pure vital air, cannot sustain life of itself, would be where the powers of the government, being divided, should be exercised each by representatives chosen either pro hac vice, or for such short terms as should render secure the duty of expressing the will of their constituents. This I should consider as the nearest approach to a pure republic, which is practicable on a large scale of country or population. And we have examples of it in some of our State constitutions, which, if not poisoned by priest-craft, would prove its excellence over all mixtures with other elements; and, with only equal doses of poison, would still be the best. [Emphasis mine] 

I must confess I did not know the "Republican" in Republican Party referred to republican governance, i.e., a republic, because my American teachers and professors glossed over Christian religious differences. Reading Jefferson's words, it is easier to understand a republic is the opposite of a monarchy, and America's founders discriminated against the Catholic Church because they were anti-monarchy (aka anti-papist). Unlike American students today, our founders would have had no problem connecting the structure of the Catholic Church and its doctrine of papal supremacy with European monarchs and Catholic collusion. Once Catholic, monarchs regularly expelled non-Catholics, eventually inducing Germany's Protestant Reformation. Discrimination begets discrimination, and the history of America can be best understood as a country founded on discrimination and its discontents. 

In the most recent Christian Science Monitor Weekly publication, I came across the following tidbit: 

Q: How did the Jesuits, a Roman Catholic religious order, become involved in slavery? 

They began to buy, sell, and hold slaves in South America. When they came to Maryland to start missions in the 17th century, they quickly became slaveholders. Other churches came to be slaveholders, too, but the Jesuits were among the largest slaveholders in Maryland during this period. (William G. Thomas III, author of A Question of Freedom, January 4 & 11, 2021)

Were Catholics and Protestants in America able to set aside their differences by shifting their discrimination towards African slaves rather than against each other? If unity is the goal, perhaps we ought to discuss whether America's chattel slavery and the racism that followed resulted from a transference of religious antipathy into a different-colored bucket. Such historical interpretation would align with our current political climate, where segregation is the norm and Catholics are considered Christians, even though all Christian offshoots, whether Christian Science or Seventh Day Adventist, exist because of splintering within the Protestant Church, which itself exists as a result of anti-Catholicism. 

Will President Biden assist his fellow citizens in reforming history lessons so more Americans can heal from four years of division? I doubt it. The only way American Catholicism could have succeeded so spectacularly is if Biden himself, along with most Christians, lack an understanding of both European and American history. Unfortunately for us, Europeans do not suffer similar educational handicaps, meaning Biden's presidency may come to represent not unity, but the ascension of the European Union. As of today, it appears we are continuing the pattern of modern American political negligence, where leaders focused on the Soviet Union only to see increased Middle Eastern threats, then focused on the Middle East only to see increased Asian threats, and are now focusing on Asia. History, it seems, may not repeat itself, but it often rhymes

© Matthew Mehdi Rafat (January 2021)

Tuesday, April 28, 2020

SE Asian History: a Chronological Primer

If "Europe in the first half of the 20th century was the killing fields of the world," Asia suffered the same ignominious status from 1949 to 1979. WWII may have ended in 1945, but the last two powers left standing jockeyed for influence while Europe's occupation forces lingered to maintain access to natural resources and strategic ports.

Below is a chronological overview of SE Asian history and related events in the second half of the 20th century. In just 30 minutes of reading, you will learn the basics of 30 years of Asian history, though astute readers will notice my limited knowledge of Thailand and the Philippines. Note that North American time is approximately 14 hours behind SE Asia, so some dates may differ by one day from USA-issued textbooks. 


1945: Terauchi Hisaichi, commander of the Japanese expeditionary forces in Southeast Asia, summons Sukarno and Mohammad Hatta to notify them of Japan's imminent surrender/departure and to tell them to prepare for Indonesia's immediate independence. 

1945: President Sukarno, previously imprisoned by Dutch colonial forces, delivers "The Birth of Pancasila," declaring five founding principles of a Free Indonesia: 1. Indonesian nationalism [the principle of one National state, i.e.,  the will to unite throughout the islands]; 2. Internationalism -- or humanism; 3. Consent, or democracy; 4. Social prosperity [eradication of poverty]; 5. Belief in God [and freedom to worship each Indonesian's particular God]. 

When Sukarno [more popularly written as Soekarno] was faced with the question whether Indonesia should be an Islamic country or a secular one, he denied both. As a compromise, he set forth the principle of belief in the "One and Only God" (Ketuhanan Yang Maha Esa). -- Shigeo Nishimura, "The Development of Pancasilia Moral Education in Indonesia." (1995) 

1946: Sarawak state within present-day Malaysia resists being ceded to Britain. Oil-rich Sarawak has functioned independently for almost a century under a deal made between a Bruneian sultan and the British Brooke family.

1947: USA President Truman declares the "Truman Doctrine," in which he pledges USA financial and economic aid to countries that resist Communist influence. 

At the present moment in world history nearly every nation must choose between alternative ways of life. The choice is too often not a free one... I believe that it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures. I believe that we must assist free peoples to work out their own destinies in their own way. I believe that our help should be primarily through economic and financial aid which is essential to economic stability and orderly political processes. The world is not static, and the status quo is not sacred. But we cannot allow changes in the status quo in violation of the Charter of the United Nations by such methods as coercion, or by such subterfuges as political infiltration. In helping free and independent nations to maintain their freedom, the United States will be giving effect to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations... The free peoples of the world look to us for support in maintaining their freedoms. If we falter in our leadership, we may endanger the peace of the world -- and we shall surely endanger the welfare of our own nation. -- President Harry Truman, March 12, 1947

1947: a two-state solution is borne. After almost two decades of nonviolent protests and negotiations (e.g., the Lahore Resolution) led by Mohandas Gandhi and Muhammad Ali Jinnah, a British Parliamentary act partitions British India into Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan. 

1948: a Hindu extremist assassinates Mohandas Gandhi on January 30, 1948. 


1948: the Malayan Communist Party, through the Malayan National Liberation Army, supports an armed insurgency against British occupiers. The British colonial government declares a state of emergency in Malaya, keeping large swaths of the population under lockdown. A state of emergency lasts from 1948 to 1960. 
Our brothers and sisters in Asia, who were colonized by the Europeans, our brothers and sisters in Africa, who were colonized by the Europeans, and in Latin America, the peasants, who were colonized by the Europeans, have been involved in a struggle since 1945 to get the colonialists, or the colonizing powers, the Europeans, off their land, out of their country. This is a real revolution. Revolution is always based on land. -- Malcolm X, "The Black Revolution," April 8, 1964

1949: after four years of civil war, in which millions die, the Communist Revolution in China succeeds. The People's Republic of China (PRC) is established after MAO Zedong of the Communist Party of China defeats Jiang Jieshi aka Chiang Kai-shek, who exiles himself to present-day Taiwan aka Chinese Taipei and receives protection from USA's Navy. MAO prevails in China by supporting peasants and farmers against landowners. 

The Chinese Revolution: they wanted land. They threw the British out, along with the Uncle Tom Chinese... I read an article in Life magazine showing a little Chinese girl, nine years old; her father was on his hands and knees and she was pulling the trigger because he was an Uncle Tom Chinaman. When they had the revolution over there, they took a whole generation of Uncle Toms and just wiped them out. And within ten years that little girl became a full-grown woman. No more Toms in China. And today it's one of the toughest, roughest, most feared countries on this earth by the white man. Because there are no Uncle Toms over there. -- Malcolm X, "Message to the Grassroots," November 10, 1963

1949: despite the Japanese surrender in 1945, the British and Dutch refuse to recognize Indonesian independence. On December 27, 1949, the Dutch finally leave Indonesia and recognize Indonesia's right to self-determination, but continue to control much of Indonesia's private sector, including its banking and oil industries. Indonesia does not gain control of a single Dutch-controlled bank (Javasche Bank) until 1953. 

At the time [1930s], there were two kinds of teacher's colleges: the so-called Native Teachers College to train native Indonesians to become teachers for native children; and the European Teacher's College to train teachers for Dutch children. I was enrolled after a very selective exam, but they barred me because a brown man standing as a teacher before a class of white Dutch children could create respect in the minds of Dutch children for the brown man. That was the reality of colonial society: it was full of discrimination and humiliation for us. -- Dr. H. Roeslan Abdulgani, one-time Indonesian ambassador to the United Nations 

1950: on February 9, 1950, USA Senator Joseph McCarthy gives a speech in which he claims the State Department, USA's agency of international relations and foreign policy, is harboring traitors and Communists. McCarthy, a devout Catholic, frames the conflict as between a "western Christian world and the atheistic Communist world." 

This is a time of "the cold war." This is a time when all the world is split into two vast, increasingly hostile armed camps--a time of a great armament race. -- Joseph McCarthy (1950) 

1950: beginning of Korean War from 1950 to 1953. 

1953: beginning of Cuban Revolution. 

1953: Operation Ajax aka TPAJAX. The United States overthrows democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh in Iran. Mossadegh, a nationalist, had planned to transfer ownership of foreign oil companies operating in Iran to the Iranian people or at least negotiate more equitable terms. 

The struggle against capitalism had to be nationalist, too, because capital in Indonesia [and other SE Asian countries] was predominantly foreign. The goal was unity between nationalism, Islam and socialism but it was the nationalist content of Islam and socialism that made unity possible. -- from Indonesia, the first 50 years, 1945-1995 (Archipelago Press)

1953: in October 1953, USA agrees to send France 385 million USD in military aid to continue disrupting Communist influence in Indochina (present-day Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia). 

Now let us assume that we lose Indochina. If Indochina goes, several things happen right away. The Malayan peninsula, the last little bit of the end hanging on down there, would be scarcely defensible--and tin and tungsten that we so greatly value from that area would cease coming... So, when the United States votes $400 million to help that war, we are not voting for a giveaway program. We are voting for the cheapest way that we can to prevent the occurrence of something that would be of the most terrible significance for the United States of America--our security, our power and ability to get certain things we need from the riches of the Indonesian territory, and from southeast Asia. -- USA President Eisenhower, August 4, 1953 

1954: led by the United States, the Manila Pact is signed, creating SEATO, a NATO for SE Asia. SEATO is unsuccessful and is eventually dissolved in 1977. 

1954: the United States, with the active support and lobbying of the Catholic Church, installs Catholic Ngô Dinh Diem in South Vietnam. Diem and his Roman Catholic Archbishop brother, Ngô Đình Thục, call upon Catholics in the north to move south and openly discriminate against local majority Buddhists. 



1954: from April to June 1954, USA Senator Joseph McCarthy holds anti-Communist hearings in Congress, where he accuses the U.S. Army of Communist infiltration. 

I will tell you about the situation in Saigon. When you did not appease certain groups, they called you a Communist. Who was it in the United States that practiced that tactic? Joe McCarthy? We had the same people in Vietnam. Anyone you disagree with, just call him a Communist. -- General Nguyen Khanh, interview, June 2009 

1954: in November 1954, the USA government gives Ngô over 28 million USD in foreign aid and begins taking over security responsibilities from France. 

1955: Jawaharlal Nehru-led Bandung Conference takes place in Indonesia, focusing on anti-colonialism. Internal Chinese communications indicate Taiwanese plot to assassinate Chinese delegate to conference. Indonesian President Sukarno delivers historic speech capturing optimism and pessimism of the times and correctly predicting war. 

Great chasms yawn between nations and groups of nations. Our unhappy world is torn and tortured, and the peoples of all countries walk in fear lest, through no fault of theirs, the dogs of war are unchained once again... The political skill of man has been far outstripped by technical skill, and what he has made he cannot be sure of controlling. The result of this is fear. And man gasps for safety and morality. -- first Indonesian President Sukarno, Bandung opening address at the Bandung Conference, April 18, 1955
  

1956 to 1962: over ten countries on the African continent declare independence from colonial Europe. [See Ebere Nwaubani's The United States and Decolonization in West Africa, 1950-1960 (2001); and "The United States and the Liquidation of European Colonial Rule in Tropical Africa, 1941-1963" (2003)] 

1957: on August 31, 1957, Tunku Abdul Rahman issues the Malayan Declaration of Independence proclaiming independence from Britain. 
However, the proclamation is mostly ceremonial due to two factors: 1) British troops are still enforcing a state of emergency against Communist insurgents within Malaysia; and 2) Britain appears to be using Rahman to deflect accusations of colonialism by the Communists, who are now technically fighting against an independent country led by a Malay leader. 
The 14 stripes on Malaysia's flag represent its 13 different states, plus one Federal Territory, Kuala Lumpur.
1957: in December, Indonesia's President Sukarno begins nationalizing Dutch-owned businesses and expels between 40,000 and 50,000 Dutch nationals

In many countries, anti-colonial fighters and heroes would win independence and assume power, but then fail at nation-building, because the challenges of bringing a society together, growing an economy, [and] patiently improving people's lives are very different from fighting for independence. -- Singaporean PM LEE Hsien Loong (2015)

1959: beginning of the Laotian Civil War from 1959 to 1975.

1959: in May 1959, USA-backed President Ngô of the Republic of Vietnam passes Law 10/59, authorizing courts to issue death sentences on the spot against any political opponents "endangering national security." 

1959: Britain grants Singapore autonomy except in matters of defense and foreign policy, pushing Singapore towards self-determination. By 1964, Britain's budget was straining under obligations of empire and post-WWII debts, leading the Labour government to announce a phased withdrawal of British troops in Singapore by 1971

1962: on November 1, 1962, a referendum is held in Singapore to determine whether Singaporeans desire a merger with the Federated States of Malaya (present-day Malaysia). An overwhelming majority of Singaporeans vote to join Malaysia, but Barisan Sosialis, Singapore's anti-colonial party formed by left-wing members of the PAP, questions the referendum's legitimacy because blank votes are counted as pro-merger when in fact they represent opposition. 

1963: in April 1963, Indonesia's President Sukarno attacks still-British Borneo in present-day Malaysia, refusing to allow a de facto British-formed state on Indonesia's doorstep ("Konfrontasi"). By pressuring British influence in Malaysia, Indonesia paves the way for eventual Singaporean as well as Malaysian independence. Britain in the 1960s has no stomach for war. It is mired in domestic economic problems due to record unemployment as well as civil unrest in Hong Kong, Aden (Yemen), and Southern Rhodesia. Even so, despite an 800 million pounds deficit in 1964, Britain believes it has a stabilizing role to play "East of Suez." 

1963: on May 8, 1963, South Vietnamese security forces fire into a crowd of Buddhist religious marchers celebrating the Buddha's 2,527th birthday. From NSA Archive: "The rationale for the breakup of this march was no more serious than that the Buddhists had ignored a government edict against flying flags other than the South Vietnamese state flag. Another of [Ngô] Diem's brothers, the Roman Catholic archbishop for this same area of South Vietnam[,] had flown flags with impunity just weeks before when celebrating his own promotion within the Church." 
USA troops kneeling before Catholic priest
(Photo taken in War Remnants Museum in Vietnam)
1963: on June 11, 1963, a bonze--an ordained Buddhist monk--publicly sets himself on fire to protest Ngô's discriminatory actions. 

1963: on July 9, 1963, Britain negotiates terms creating a common financial market between Singapore and Malaysia that allows substantial British banking and insurance influence in SE Asia (as well as Hong Kong). The agreement is signed in London. 
1963: on August 28, 1963, North Borneo (aka Sabah), Sarawak, and Singapore sign an agreement to create a new, British-backed Malaysia effective August 31, 1963 (Merdeka Day aka Freedom Day). 

1963: on November 1 and 2, 1963, USA-sponsored Ngô and one of his brothers are captured and killed. French-trained General Duong Van Minh takes over leadership in South Vietnam. 

1963: on November 22, 1963, USA President JFK is assassinated. 

1964: on January 30, 1964, General Minh is unable to form a viable government in South Vietnam and is overthrown in a bloodless coup led by French-trained General Nguyen Khanh. Subsequent coups and counter-coups occur in Saigon. 

1964: Singapore experiences racial riots between majority-Chinese and minority-Malay residents. A teenaged Kishore Mahbubani, whose father arrived in Singapore orphaned and alone at the age of 13, sees his neighbors beaten and killed. (Mahbubani later becomes Singapore’s Ambassador to the United Nations.) The following year, Malaysia's PM Rahman will cite these riots and the 1,000+ residents arrested as one reason Malaysia separated from Singapore. 

1964: USA President Johnson signs Gulf of Tonkin resolution on August 10, 1964, escalating USA aggression in SE Asia on the basis of two reported attacks: the first one involving zero USA casualties, and the second one falsified.

1965: after Indonesia's attack against British Borneo (now Sabah) and related pressure, the British focus on developing Singapore, especially its port, and forgo a united Federation of Malaya-Sarawak-Brunei-North Borneo-Singapore under British influence. Consequently, on August 7, 1965, Singapore and Malaysia agree to separate, giving Singapore its independence, though some say the predominantly Chinese Singaporeans were "kicked out of Malaysia" as part of a two-state solution giving Muslim Malays political power in Malaysia and non-Muslim Chinese the same statistical dominance in Singapore. In a televised interview, Singaporean founder Lee Kuan Yew (of Peranakan descent) begins crying when discussing separation, saying, "The whole of my adult life, I have believed in merger and the unity of these two territories." 

We are going to have a multi-racial nation in Singapore. We will set the example. This is not a Malay nation. This is not a Chinese nation. This is not an Indian nation. Everybody will have his place. Equal. Language, culture, religion. -- Lee Kuan Yew, 1965
1965: Indonesia withdraws from the United Nations in protest of Malaysia's admittance. As a result of Indonesia's withdrawal from the U.N., it loses access to foreign aid/loans from the World Bank and IMF. 

1965: USA President Johnson opens major ground war in Vietnam, escalating conflict. 

1965: on October 1, 1965, several high-ranking members of the Indonesian military are murdered in an alleged coup d'état but President Sukarno is safe, and the coup fails. By evening, General Soeharto--who now has fewer opponents within the military hierarchy--takes control of Jakarta and places all media under strict military control. The Indonesian military publicly blames the Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI) for the alleged coup and does nothing to stop indiscriminate anti-Communist violence. Hundreds of thousands and perhaps millions of Indonesians are murdered. The PKI, which at one point had been the second largest Communist political party in the world, is no more.

The rate of increase of consumer prices [inflation] rose from 27% in 1961 to over 1000% in 1966 [in Indonesia]. -- Mary Sutton, Indonesia 1966-70: Economic Management and the Role of the IMF, Overseas Development Institute (April 1982)

1966: on March 12, Sukarno transfers power to Soeharto, Sultan Hamengkubuwono IX (the Sultan of Yogyakarta), and Adam Malik. Western powers tell Soeharto that abandoning Konfrontasi would stabilize Indonesia's economy, meaning the IMF and the United States Agency for International Development would provide substantial foreign aid/loans for Indonesian development and also re-schedule existing debt. Soeharto, eager to make Indonesia the example to emulate in the East, accepts foreign aid and investment that assume, among other projections, annual electrical load growth of 15 to 20%. Over the next two decades, armed with tens of billions of dollars of loans and oil, Soeharto begins modernizing Indonesia's infrastructure, leading a building spree that creates state-of-the-art international airports, railway stations, mosques, art centers, hotels, shopping malls, and other projects, mostly in Jakarta/Djakarta.

I also realized that my college professors had not understood the true nature of macroeconomics: that in many cases helping an economy grow only makes those few people who sit atop the pyramid even richer, while it does nothing for those at the bottom except to push them even lower. -- John Perkins, Confessions of an Economic Hitman (2004)

1966: facing increasing living costs and an uncertain economic future, Hong Kong residents riot in 1966 and 1967 against British policies. Britain devalues the pound sterling in 1967. 

1966: on June 1, 1966, Indonesia and Malaysia begin negotiations in Bangkok. Konfrontasi officially ends August 12, 1966

1967: beginning of Cambodian Civil War and genocide from 1967 to 1975. 

1967: ASEAN is created. 

1967: on September 7, 1967, Indonesia and Singapore establish formal diplomatic relations. 

1968: My Lai massacre in Vietnam

1968: the Soviet Union publishes the "Brezhnev Doctrine," in which the Soviet Union, in order to protect workers' rights worldwide, reserves the right to interfere in countries considering capitalism or non-approved foreign influence.

There is no doubt that the peoples of the socialist countries and the Communist parties have and must have freedom to determine their country’s path of development. However, any decision of theirs must damage neither socialism in their own country, nor the fundamental interests of the other socialist countries, nor the worldwide workers’ movement, which is waging a struggle for socialism. This means that every Communist party is responsible not only to its own people but also to all the socialist countries and to the entire Communist movement. -- Sergei Kovalev, "The International Obligations of Socialist Countries," September 25, 1968 

1969: on May 13, 1969, tensions surrounding Malaysia's general election result in racial riots in Kuala Lumpur, which later spill over into Singapore. Between 100 to 900 people, mostly ethnic Chinese Malays, are killed. Chinese Malays, dissatisfied with the government's plans to promote opportunities for ethnic Malays ("Bumiputera"), shift votes to extremist political parties to send a message to the Malay political establishment. Around this time, eleven Chinese men are found guilty of treason against the Malaysian government. 
From A Doctor in the House, The Memoirs of Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad
1969: USA President Nixon expounds the "Nixon Doctrine," whereby the United States pledges financial aid and weapons rather than ground troops for allies facing military threats, thus reversing President Johnson's ground war in Vietnam

American expansion was primarily the outgrowth of financial and economic imperialism. In principle, the United States did not annex, it made an economic conquest. -- from Indonesia, the first 50 years, 1945-1995 (Archipelago Press) 

1973: OPEC initiates an oil embargo against Western nations in protest of Western interference in the Middle East. 

1974: oil and gas fields are discovered in East Timor.

1974: "If the decade must be summarized, it could be said that the youth of America, who had so recently studied it in civics classes, tested the system--and it flunked." -- USA journalist Warren Hinckle, author of If You Have a Lemon, Make Lemonade (1974) 

1975: on April 30, 1975, Communist-backed northern Vietnamese forces re-capture occupied south Vietnam, ending Vietnam War.

1975: in December 1975, after meeting with USA President Ford and Henry Kissinger, General Soeharto invades East Timor (aka Timor-Leste), driving out Portuguese colonizers. Soeharto is covertly backed by the United States, which is keen to prevent Chinese political influence in East Timor. The U.N., seeing East Timor torn between competing interests of several stronger powers, demands Soeharto leave East Timor. Defying world opinion, Indonesia--convinced of its stature as a superpower in the making--maintains troops in East Timor during Soeharto's entire tenure, and East Timor does not gain right to self-determination until 1999-2002. 

The UN estimates nearly half the population [of East Timor] lives below the extreme poverty line of US$1.90 a day and half of the children under 5 suffer moderate to severe physical and mental stunting as a result of malnutrition. -- from UNDP, 2018 article

1978: the Communist Vietnamese military invades Cambodia to remove the genocidal Khmer Rouge. The world is split between condemning the unilateral violation of another nation's sovereignty and applauding the removal of the destructive Khmer Rouge.


1978: the Saur Revolution. Soviet-backed forces murder sitting Afghan President Khan. Taraki, a member of the revolution/coup, is named president in 1978. Taraki is murdered in 1979 by Hafizullah Amin, who in turn is allegedly murdered on orders from the Soviet Union because of his role in Taraki's death. 

1979: Iranian Islamic Revolution. After a year of protests and martial law, the Shah is exiled from Iran and student protestors overrun the U.S. embassy in Tehran, taking 52 American hostages. 

1979: Nicaraguan Revolution. "The United States supported the brutal Somoza dictatorship in Nicaragua for over 40 years. The Nicaraguan people, led by the Sandinistas, overthrew this regime in 1979, a breathtaking popular revolution." (Harold Pinter, 2005)

1979: beginning of Soviet-Afghan War from 1979 to 1989, in which 500,000 to 2,000,000 civilians are murdered, causing millions of Afghans to flee to Pakistan and Iran, where they become refugees. The United States actively supports Afghan rebels aka mujahideen, the Taliban's precursor, against the Soviet Union. 

1990-1991: the Soviet Union collapses. 

1997: in 1997 and 1998, East Asia suffered a serious financial crisis that wiped out decades of progress. Unemployment and poverty increased substantially in countries such as Indonesia and the Philippines. The political leaders of Indonesia [including Soeharto], South Korea, and Thailand lost their mandates and were replaced. (From The Tommy Koh Reader, reproduced from February 23, 2009)  

A rapid outflow of foreign capital contributed to the sharp contraction in investment during the Asian crisis. Between 1997 and 1999, net foreign direct investment in Indonesia shifted from an inflow of 2.2% of GDP to an outflow of 1.3%, while the volume of investment fell by 45%. -- Stephen Elias and Clare Noone, The Growth and Development of the Indonesian Economy (December 2011)

In December 1997, ASEAN--originally intended to help smaller and developing Asian countries negotiate better terms with more developed countries--becomes ASEAN Plus Three (APT: ASEAN + China, Japan, South Korea), deepening Asian economic, political, and social cooperation. 

2001: on December 11, 2001, China joins the World Trade Organization. 

© Matthew Mehdi Rafat (April 2020) 

Dedicated to Ms. Dunham, my blue-eyed, straight-haired Social Studies teacher at Castro Middle School (San Jose, CA), who told me "You're not that important." Now that I'm older, I am pleased to say I never let my schooling interfere with my education. 


Monday, September 23, 2019

Hope Arrives in Country 51

Like many of you, I still feel caught in a morass of confusion and disgust since the 2016 election. I saw the storm coming and left the United States from April 2016 to September 2016, returning to vote for a third party candidate. I had put my hope--too much of it, it turned out--on a third party candidate securing at least 5% of the vote, allowing greater political diversity. 

Billionaires are not new in American politics--Texas's Ross Perot provided a worthy and effective challenge to the Establishment in 1996, and New York's Michael Bloomberg has been a steady presence--but the level and clarity of discourse have changed. One could sense increasing media crassness when cheaper-to-produce reality television like MTV's Real World became popular, replacing coherent plot lines with selectively edited footage, but politics remained mostly above the fray. 

I cannot tell you exactly when politics became yet another reality television show, but the techniques are the same: selective editing, lack of context, and 24/7 coverage. With its vast arsenal of manipulative techniques, "reality" television makes a mockery of everything real, reminding me of Chris Hedges' sobering quote: 

We now live in a nation where doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, governments destroy freedom, the press destroys information, religion destroys morals, and our banks destroy the economy. 

It appears all modern permutations of ancestral inventions have become unmoored from their original intent, sending truth into an abyss. And still, the more I travel, the more I experience hope, because I've realized humanity has yet to break free from post-WWII systems, and the debt the existing system requires is unsustainable. Call it the Law of Sustainability: something new will appear on the horizon because something new must arrive, or we shall perish. 

After visiting 51 countries, losing at least 100,000 USD on the stock market in one year, and trying to find a new homeland, I've finally gained enough context to see the past, present, and future in a single continuum. I continue to write because I feel compelled to do so, and yet, with every letter I type, I want to stop, to divorce myself from the struggle for greater understanding and to "let be be finale of seem." In reality, "seem" never has a finale, it being impossible to gain full context because historical records are incomplete or biased and one's own research time finite, not to mention the need to live life forward. Furthermore, the very act of living forward contains danger. Cultures that lack the ability to reach backwards and touch the past soon find themselves struggling with escalating suicide rates and declining birthrates. In a sense, everything we do is so we can live life forward, and if we are successful, we move forward without forgetting the past, for if we forget the past, we lose the answer to the most important question of all: "Why?" 

Why have we failed in increasing justice when all of us want more of it? Why are we less understanding of each other despite more opportunities to interact together? Why have politicians become unwitting participants in a reality show that threatens to destroy the truth as well as our ability to reach into the past and achieve a continuum containing context? Why have we not chosen our leaders more carefully when leaders can destroy a path to understanding that may never appear again? In the end, Star Trek's creator Gene Roddenberry was right: the trial never ends, though perhaps some countries are convicted from time to time, freeing space for new frontiers and fresh ideas. 

© Matthew Mehdi Rafat (2019)

Monday, June 24, 2019

Modern History: Ports, Finance, Power, and Free Trade (1919-2019)

I've discussed modern history before, but I see no harm in trying again. Summarizing any time period is bound to exclude important events and people, and assigning exact percentages of influence is impossible. (For example, Elon Musk is better known than Martin Eberhard, but the latter founded Tesla Inc., and Eberhard surely benefited from GM's EV1 research in the 1990s.) With these two caveats in mind, let's continue. 
"Europeans... are the conflicted inheritors of a long military tradition." -- Justin Vaïsse
In 1919, WWI's devastation forced Germany (aka the Weimar Republic) to accept the Treaty of Versailles' onerous terms, which did not contemplate re-establishing Germany as an equal member among world nations. In 1920, the League of Nations, the precursor to the modern United Nations, was convened, but its difficulty enforcing terms contrary to Britain and France's wishes meant true diplomacy was limited from the start. Indeed, in 1922, after Germany claimed it couldn't make its scheduled reparations payment, France and Belgium invaded the Ruhr in 1923 and occupied Germany until 1925 to ensure deliveries of coal, iron, steel, and timber. 

Inflation, high unemployment, and Germany's lack of a stable currency made it hard to administer the German economy in mutually beneficial ways. In 1924, the Dawes Plan, for which Charles G. Dawes and Austen Chamberlain received the Nobel Peace Prize, injected American capital into Germany, shifting much of the burden of German reparations onto American bondholders, creating a more probable repayment scenario and convincing French and Belgian occupiers to leave the following year. 

The United States's credibility in international relations derived in part from its large post-WWI gold reserves, some of which were housed at Fort Knox (built in 1918). Although the U.S. dollar ceased to be backed by gold reserves in 1919, Britain in 1925 returned to a gold bullion standard, likely causing potential investments to leave European neighbors and the United States and enter Britain--around the same time American bondholders had taken risks in stabilizing Europe. Britain's action assisted it in repaying its own debt to the United States as well as signaling an answer to declining wages and inflation across Europe, but had the unintentional effect of France devaluing its own currency to undermine Britain's desired status as superior trade exporter. In choosing the gold standard, Winston Churchill wanted Britain to be both a financial and trading center during a time when America was reeling from the Teapot Dome scandal and President Calvin Coolidge was preoccupied with Latin American affairs: 

I believe that the establishment of this great area of common arrangement [aka the gold standard] will facilitate the revival of international trade and of inter-Imperial trade. Such a revival and such a foundation is important to all countries and to no country is it more important than to this island, whose population is larger than its agriculture or its industry can sustain which is the centre of a wide Empire, and which, in spite of all its burdens, has still retained, if not the primacy, at any rate the central position, in the financial systems of the world. (Churchill, 1925, to Britain's House of Commons)

Although the initial effects of a strong pound/sterling attracted investment, Britain was unable to stimulate demand, leading to sustained unemployment. Meanwhile, in America, taxes were slashed, consumer credit extended, and wartime manufacturing capacity transitioned into peacetime production. Such success led to increased borrowing generally and speculation in America's stock market. 

By 1929, greater complexity in currency obligations, international trade, and wage stability prompted the creation of the Young Plan (promoted by America's J.P. Morgan, Jr. and finalized on August 31, 1929) to supplant the Dawes Plan in 1930, but it was too late. In Germany, the National Socialists (aka Nazis) sought a "Liberty Law" (aka Law against the Enslavement of the German People) to disavow all reparations, which was overwhelmingly voted down on October 16, 1929. Even so, on October 24, 1929, America's stock market crashed, perhaps anticipating global instability and large losses in its German-linked bonds. The German government's rejection of the "Liberty Law" increased Adolf Hitler's and the National Socialists' visibility when they took the proposal directly to the German people on December 22, 1929. On January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany. In 1938, Hitler invaded Austria, setting in motion WWII from 1939 to 1945. 

Britain would abandon the gold standard in September 1931, about two years after America's October 1929 stock market crash. By 1933, almost two-thirds of world trade had vanished. That same year, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt banned private ownership of gold bullion, gold certificates, and gold coins, intending to remove impediments to the devaluation of the U.S. dollar in 1934. 

(Bonus: Germany did not pay off the interest owed on its reparations debt until 2010. As of June 2019, Germany has the strongest economy in Europe, and one of its banks has loaned billions of dollars to the current president of the United States, a man sometimes compared to a former German Chancellor. With "Brexit," Britain continues to vacillate between maintaining preferential American relations or becoming a full member of a new Europe, where it will compete with non-English-speaking France, non-EU Norway, and Germany.) 

In July 1944, forty-four Allied countries attended the Bretton Woods Conference in New Hampshire, where they, anticipating Germany's defeat, looked ahead to a new international paradigm led by the United States. In 1945, Congress ratified the Bretton Woods agreement, establishing a new gold exchange standard promoting currency convertibility, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the World Bank. The USSR (aka the Soviet Union), one of the primary reasons for Germany's defeat in WWII, did not ratify the Bretton Woods agreement and did not join the IMF or the World Bank. With respect to the gold standard, America, anticipating greater spending and involvement in the Vietnam War, once again forbade private ownership of gold in 1961, then de-linked the dollar with gold in 1971, four years before its defeat in Vietnam. 

(Bonus: from Allison J. Truitt's Dreaming of Money in Ho Chi Minh City (2013): "The United States' massive military expenditures in Southeast Asia led to the collapse of its ability to maintain the dollar's fixed value relative to gold. When the US government put an end to the dollar's convertibility in 1971, it ushered in a new era of more flexible and more volatile exchange rates.")

After 1945, naval power plus nuclear and satellite-related technology plus natural resources (e.g., oil) determined which countries would set the rules of the world. America could set many of these rules because its two neighboring oceans had afforded it the protection to enter WWII late, minimizing its human and materiel losses. Having the advantage of only needing to rebuild a single state (Hawaii) rather than numerous cities, America was willing to assist other players through a mutually beneficial system in which it distributed power--and favor--through ports, loans, and trade agreements. 

Countering America's power were the Soviet Union--equally determined to spread its economic system--as well as a China comfortable in being isolationist in the short term. The task of rebuilding infrastructure required not just the possession and transport of raw materials but implicit assurances of reliability. Hence, shipbuilding, ship repairing, refueling stations, and port efficiency became prized skills, and strategically-located countries like Singapore, Hong Kong, and Taiwan (aka Chinese Taipei) became valuable allies. 

To diminish the West's military strategy of choosing a small country along a strategic shipping (e.g., Singapore, Eritrea, Falkland Islands) or geographical (e.g., Poland) point, then shepherding that country into an alliance at the expense of its relations with its neighbors, the East attempted to use the same strategy with Cuba and other countries, primarily Vietnam and Mongolia. The East's mimicking of the West in this regard failed, in large part because its comparatively underdeveloped banking, legal, and insurance sectors could not generate similar investment returns, leading to slower income growth (though less inequality) and personal dissatisfaction in Eastern countries. By the 1980s, the resource-rich Soviet Union was borrowing money from Western banks because its ruble was not freely convertible to other currencies, foreshadowing its 1991 dissolution. 

While both the Soviet Union and China pursued a strategy of self-sufficiency, America demurred, using its naval power and satellite countries (Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Israel, South Africa, United Kingdom) to increase its share of worldwide foreign trade. By 1962, America's Trade Expansion Act allowed President Kennedy to reduce tariffs by up to 80%, increasing foreign trade and therefore the influence and strength of the U.S. dollar. 

The Soviet Union's failure to create multinational banks--resulting from the assumption its vast natural resources and military strength were enough to maintain empire--meant its economy and ability to project power depended wholly on oil prices. The Soviet Union's lack of economic diversification also exacerbated competition, most pitched during WWII, between the East and West for control of oil supplies. 
Such competition had the effect of requiring large military expenditures to deter others from seeking similar control, rendering empire and power contingent on military and industrial cooperation. As oil, naval efficiency, and multinational banks became more important to an increasingly globalized and interdependent economy, military spending began driving economic growth. To protect investments and jobs, large financial outlays were channeled through an increasingly smaller elite, often associated with banks, insurers, and military on national levels; educators, natural resource producers, and unions on state levels; and real estate development and police on local levels. All aforementioned players would have access to financial terms and conditions unavailable to most people outside their spheres, allowing debt to inflate their influence at the expense of perhaps more innovative competitors. Most troubling, the projection of external power backed by foreign currency into a developing nation disfavored minorities and dissidents within such nations, sometimes with violently tragic consequences. 

As the West's international influence grew through debt and trade agreements, so did domestic vested interests, making substantive change increasingly difficult. For example, though the 2007-2009 financial crisis was caused by excessive debt and lax financial regulation, by 2019, overall debt had increased beyond its 2007 threshold. Such debt was deemed necessary to project influence or gain access to lucrative markets, though wise politicians found a balance between foreign trade and domestic infrastructure spending. As competition increased between major powers--designated by access to the most advanced nuclear, AI, cyber-warfare, surveillance, and satellite technology--risks continued to multiply in the interlinked worldwide economy. A rising EU, China, and Russia meant post-WWII alliances such as U.S.-led NATO no longer yielded the same positive economic or humanitarian results. [From UNHCR (2019): "the number of people who are forcibly displaced globally is indeed at an all-time high since the end of World War Two."] 

With technological advances outpacing cultural understanding (e.g., seamless and accurate language translations), negotiation and cooperation within the same geographical spheres became unwieldy and ROI uncertain, causing politicians to use tariffs and other measures to favor their own technological platforms, currency, and media content. In addition, the desire for consistent debt repayments made monopolies more acceptable and free trade's premise of fair competition less benign. 

Part of the problem was that overlapping and trans-continental trade agreements were based, at their root, on economist David Ricardo's ideas of tangible trade between just two nations: Portuguese wine for English cloth. In short, the global trading system assumed a paradigm of clear laws, finite trading partners, mutually beneficial cooperation, and tangible products. In reality, countries favoring fair play had to contend with greater unpredictability in consumer demand, tax revenues, informal economic actors, and domestic resource needs, making them more dependent on debt. As such, "free trade," especially within the context of intellectual property rights, favored developed over developing nations, and corporations over individuals, with developing nations often pledging fealty to one particular developed country over another to gain access to capital. 

Despite perennially low (and sometimes even negative) interest rates, the economic stability promised through open markets and respect for domestic producers had not come to fruition, reducing esteem for moderate Western politicians and existing practices. Smaller or less developed countries began to better utilize trade associations such as ASEAN or to develop new ones like the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA), realizing their local consumer populations were sufficient to improve living conditions without excessive interference by developed countries. The more developing countries began to wean themselves from post-WWII economic rules, the more the future of capital and labor became unpredictable, causing a rise in extremism. As governments, mostly in the West, realized they had sanctioned a technologically-driven economy without any firsthand technological expertise, they enacted flaccid countermeasures which further damaged their credibility. In 2019, tech corporations, often run by executives not subject to removal due to supermajority voting shares, began exploring plans to issue their own currencies

[W]e believe that the right to coin money and issue money is a function of government... We believe it is a part of sovereignty and can no more with safety be delegated to private individuals than can the power to make penal statutes or levy laws for taxation... I [say] that the issue of money is a function of the government and the banks should go out of the governing business. 

-- William Jennings Bryan, American, anti-imperialist politician, in 1896 

By summer of 2019, the first stanza of W.B Yeats' 1919 poem, "The Second Coming," written after WWI, seemed tailor-made for the present: 

"Turning and turning in the widening gyre 
The falcon cannot hear the falconer; 
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; 
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, 
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere 
The ceremony of innocence is drowned; 
The best lack all conviction, while the worst 
Are full of passionate intensity."

So it goes

© Matthew Mehdi Rafat (2019)