Education must never be a political football

Australian writer Erin Stewart has posed the question: Why should young people bother going to university when the rewards for their hard work are increasingly problematical.

She cites surveys that show teenagers are being turned off further education with only 57 per cent planning to go onto university and other training after leaving school, down from 71 per cent in 2003.

Stewart notes a report from the Brotherhood of St Lawrence which claims a 50 per cent reduction in entry-level jobs over 12 years with 16 job seekers for every vacancy. The report states that youth unemployment in Australia is at 12.5 per cent and under-employment at 17 per cent.

She rightly says that education is not the problem; rather it is a national plan “to put people who understand Wittgenstein or who can solve partial differential equations behind cash registers.”

Education is never the problem. It enriches lives, broadens thought and creates people who seek and find solutions. Education, properly directed, has the ability to solve all obstacles facing us, from climate change, to poverty and homelessness.

The problem comes when education is mishandled for ideological ends. In Australia there is a relentless push of the so-called STEM subjects — science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

These subjects are important and there is an international need for more young people to follow them, but the sledgehammer tactics employed by the Australian and other governments is essentially relegating non-STEM subjects to the second rank, while bludgeoning young people into areas for which they are unsuited.

By all means groom and encourage those who have the potential to be new Einsteins or Hawkings, but let us not end up with unhappy and unmotivated maths teachers who might otherwise have shone as linguists or literary critics.

An even greater problem has been the recent rise of populism and with it anti-intellectualism, in which facts become fake news and expert opinion is derided simply because it is the opinion of experts.

This phenomenon was gathering pace before United States President Donald Trump came to the White House, but he has given it a tremendous kick-along and it is dangerously close to becoming mainstream thinking.

Populism purports to produce simple answers to complex problems and in doing so denigrates those who protest this can never be. It is eventually doomed, as past experiments in it have inevitably shown, but in the meantime it has the potential to do a great deal of damage.

So it is easy to see, as Stewart has shown, why young people are discouraged to the point of turning away from university and other forms of further study. Why work hard and get into debt in a world where your eventual qualification is not only undervalued but derided?

However, in taking this attitude they are falling into the trap of believing the current situation will remain, if not forever, for at least the foreseeable future. This was never the case and is less so today than at any time in history.

By the end of a three-year degree Trump may have gone, trade wars a bad memory, the essential flaw in the populist argument exposed, and saner courses charted. The figures Stewart quotes above will then be radically different.  

Students of history know it comes in cycles, and this one will surely end, probably sooner than later. Then we will need the bright young leaders — scientists and technicians certainly, but also artists and philosophers — both to clean up the mess populism created and to move on to the next stage.

Throwing Montenegro under the bus

So, how much do you know about Montenegro? Probably not a great deal if you are the average person in the street.

Most people would have difficulty finding it on the map.

Yet it could be the flashpoint that starts World War III. At least United States President Donald Trump seems to think so.

Or the break-up of the NATO alliance and the European Union and the spread of Russian hegemony over the European countries the old Soviet Union once dominated.

So it is worth knowing a bit more about this country of 640,000 people in south-eastern Europe, once part of the old Yugoslavia and a sovereign State for just 12 years.

Some analysists believe it will be the next staging ground in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s campaign to destabilise the Western alliance, a follow-up to his intervention in Georgia, annexation of Crimea, invasion of Ukraine’s eastern provinces and rescue of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad.

At first sight this seems strange. Montenegro shares no border with Russia, and to get at it forces would have to cross countries that are members of both NATO and the EU, but a traditional invasion is not what Moscow has in mind.

The Balkan country would be just the test for Western resolution that Putin would like to exploit. It is a member of NATO, but not yet of the EU, although its current President, Milo Djukanovic, leans towards the bloc.

Russia tried unsuccessfully to engineer a pro-Russian coup there to prevent it from joining NATO, and has learnt from that mistake.

In addition, Putin has been virtually given the green light by Trump who in an interview on the Fox News network accused the Montenegrins of being “a very aggressive people…they may get aggressive and congratulations you are in World War III”.

Trump essentially threw Montenegro under the bus as far as supporting any NATO action against Russian interference in that country.

Without the US would other members of NATO be prepared to take action in support of the alliance’s newest and weakest member? Would the EU risk confrontation for a country outside its jurisdiction?

I hope they would, but I fear they would not.

The traditional thinking is that Putin’s next meddling will be in the Baltic republics of Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia, which after all share a border with Russia, but the trio are more firmly established in the Western sphere, members of both NATO and the EU.

Putin knows any perceived Russian interference there would almost certainly provoke a response from both institutions, with or without US support. He is not ready for that.

Montenegro is a different case.

I do not believe, as Jeffrey Stacey wrote in a recent article in Foreign Policy magazine, that Putin would risk a military invasion using his air and sea power.

Far more likely is a program of continual destabilisation, using Moscow’s proven methods of hybrid warfare — pressure diplomacy, fake news and electoral intervention — building up to the right conditions for another coup, allowing the White House to dismiss it as an internal affair in a little country far away.

Haven’t we heard something like that before?

Australia’s new land of opportunity

Last week Australia was treated to yet another finger-wagging exercise from China — they are coming thick and fast these days.

This time it was the former Chief Economist of the World Bank, who not so subtly told Canberra to get into line or risk missing out on the fruits of China’s inevitable rise.

Justin Yifu Lin, now an academic at a Beijing university and firmly parroting his Government’s line, said Australia’s resources sector could “pay the price” for its recent unfriendly actions.

He was referring to attempts to counter China’s diplomatic courting of South Pacific nations and rising concerns over the amount of land and real estate that Chinese investors now own in Australia.

References to the alliance with the United States not being in Australia’s  best interests in the projected New World Order, and even a suggestion that it should sign up for China’s much vaunted Belt and Road project were all put, more or less subtly, during the media interview at the Australian National University’s China Update forum.

These and other criticisms are clear indications of the pressure Beijing feels it can apply now that Australia’s economic prosperity is so dependent on the China trade.

China is by far Australia’s largest trading partner, with around 30 per cent of all exports heading there, more than double that of the next largest destination, Japan.

As I have written before, this has been a dangerous development and marks an inborn laziness in many of the country’s largest exporters, especially in the resources sector.

As long as China is taking so much of what Australia produces there has been no need to put effort into market diversification, even though so much dependence on a nation that is not an ally, whose political and social systems are alien, and who is beginning to flex its military muscle, carries clear warnings.

Canberra is belatedly seeing the threat of an over-reliance on China with the publication of an excellent report by the Former Secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs, Peter Varghese, outlining a strategy for boosting trade links with India over the next two decades.

Varghese rightly found that over this period no single market would offer Australia more trading opportunities than India.

“India’s scale alone encourages ambition, but it is the complementarities between our two economies that will determine our success,” Varghese writes.

“The foundations for an enhanced economic partnership with India are strong, underpinned by people-to-people ties and shared values.”

The room for growth there is massive — India accounts for a miserable 4.3 per cent of Australia’s exports, and while the United Kingdom will try to leverage its historic links with the sub-continent after it leaves the European Union, Prime Minister Theresa May’s hectoring comments on Indian over-stayers in the UK still rankles in New Delhi. 

The opportunities for Australia are there for the taking, and there is no reason why it should not become a true and significant partner with the world’s largest democracy. 

Hatred driving Trump’s presidency

Any doubt that the United States is hell-bent on provoking a confrontation with Iran has vanished with confirmation that Washington will bludgeon Western allies into following its lead on re-imposing sanctions on the Islamic Republic.

An appeal from Britain, France and Germany  to grant broad exemptions to European companies continuing to do business with Iran was rejected out of hand by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin who stated their determination to exert unprecedented economic pressure on the Government in Teheran.  

Defiance of Washington would almost certainly result in sanctions against individual companies, shutting them out of the much bigger US market. In effect this means the Iran nuclear deal, in which that country agreed to give up its pursuit of nuclear weapons in exchange for a roll back of sanctions, is dead in the water.

The development will further widen the split between Europe and the United States, something which US President Donald Trump seems to want to foster, with his continual criticism of the European Union and support for hard line Brexit elements in the United Kingdom.

Trump has called the Iran deal the worst the US has ever signed, but his criticism has nothing to do with its effectiveness — all the other partners thought it was working well — rather, it was because it was instituted by his despised predecessor, Barack Obama.

For those seeking some consistency in the president’s actions, there is one constant — a determination to erase Obama’s legacy from history.

The Iran nuclear deal, continuing efforts to undermine the Affordable Healthcare Act, withdrawal from the Paris Climate Change Agreement — all have the same anti-Obama theme.

Obama supported the European Union and urged the United Kingdom not to exit; Trump seeks to undermine the EU and numbers leading Brixiteers Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson among his “close friends”.

Even Trump’s latest disastrous attempt to cosy up to Russian President Vladimir Putin stems from the fact it was under Obama’s watch that sanctions were imposed against Russia after its annexation of Crimea from Ukraine.

His fury has been increased because, to quote from Oprah Winfrey’s cameo role in The Handmaid’s Tale, Obama is “still there”, gaining plaudits on the international stage, addressing adoring crowds while giving the Nelson Mandela Annual Lecture in Johannesburg.  

Obama will never run for office again, and for many months of the Trump presidency obeyed the accepted dictum that a former president should not interfere, or criticise his successor, but it is clear, in the company of many leaders internationally and domestically, that he has lost patience with the antics of the White House incumbent.  

Trump’s tactics may play well in some corporate boardrooms, or on reality television shows, but they simply cannot endure in the wider world of diplomacy and international relations.

Trump has severely weakened his nation on the world stage. His bluster and constant references to the US’s military might have all the hallmarks of an intellectually challenged playground bully who, unable to win a civilised argument, resorts to his fists.

His one-time allies, who until now had been hoping that experience in office, or the ability of competent advisers to rein him in, have had enough.

The world can be a lonely place – even for the leader of an international superpower   

A party divided against itself…

The resignations of David Davis and Boris Johnson from the United Kingdom Government front bench leave the ruling Conservative Party split into three warring factions over its projected exit from the European Union.

Dominant for the moment are the pragmatists, led by Prime Minister Theresa May, who will push ahead with the exit talks, but seek to negotiate a future relationship with the EU that will involve a free trade area and a “facilitated customs arrangement” removing the need for checks at the Irish border – the so called Soft Brexit solution.

Left licking their wounds are the Hard Brexit supporters who want a total break from the EU, nominally led by Johnson but increasingly dominated by the shadowy back bencher Jacob Rees-Mogg, who may number as many as 80 within the Parliamentary Party.

Finally, leaderless for the moment, are around 30 backbenchers who think Brexit is a crazy idea, the result of a flawed referendum, and would support a ‘people’s vote’ on the final terms of the deal if they thought there was a chance of it being agreed by Parliament.

During a crisis meeting to hammer out a final negotiating position with the EU, a majority of the Cabinet got in behind May, no doubt influenced by a litany of dire warnings from industrial leaders over their feared consequences of a Hard Brexit.

In the days before the fateful split carmaker Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) joined a list of United Kingdom based companies warning that its position may not be viable if the country does not get a good Brexit deal.

Indian-owned JLR has joined Airbus, BMW and Siemens in warning they will have to reassess their UK futures unless the Brexit outcome allows trade to flow freely with Europe, much as it does now.

Jaguar’s Chief Executive, Ralf Speth, was essentially speaking for the others when he warned of an unpredictable future if the Brexit negotiations do not “maintain free and frictionless trade with the EU and unrestricted access to the single market”.

JLR alone has 40,000 British employees; at stake could be many thousands more jobs and billions of dollars in investment.

Yet apart from a “f****** business”, comment, Johnson seemed totally unperturbed, vowing to fight what he called a “bog roll Brexit…soft, yielding and seemingly infinitely long”.

Continuing his scatological references he apparently called Soft Brexit “polishing a turd” at the Cabinet meeting before announcing his resignation from the Government.  

His apparent willingness to lead the country into the abyss unnerved many of his colleagues and has introduced more uncertainty now that he and Davis are free to drum up support for their cause on the back benches.  

So far May’s stress on her two main Brexit positives — an end to the free movement of people to and from Europe and the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice — have received a lukewarm response from the hardliners.

Should they decide their ideology is more important than party loyalty, May will need the support of the Labour Opposition, where there is strong pro-EU sentiment, to force through whatever deal she achieves.

In the 19^th and early 20^th centuries the Liberal Party tore itself apart over the issue of home rule for Ireland and within a few decades had passed into irrelevance. Students of history see the Conservatives on the same track in its seemingly impossible task to find a consensus position on relations with Europe.

Cowboy culture and the rule of the gun

Authorities have been quick to dismiss terrorism as the reason for an attack on a local newspaper in the American State of Maryland in which five journalists were shot dead.

The alleged shooter was a man with a grudge against the newspaper after losing a defamation case against it several years before.

“It is a local incident and not one involving terrorism,” a law enforcement official was quoted as saying.

But this is missing the point.

Over the years millions of people have been offended by something that is written about them in the media, sometimes with good reason.

Mistakes are made, reports are misinterpreted, apologies and retractions are offered. Some cases go all the way to tribunals or courts. This is the way such disputes are resolved in civilised democracies.

Until now.

What decided the accused that he could settle things with the Capital Gazette by taking a shotgun, blasting into the newsroom and blowing away as many of its staff as he could before the police arrived?

The answer can be seen in the reversion to a cowboy culture that has been on the rise in the United States and elsewhere over the past decade, where those with opposite views are scorned, humiliated and threatened, often with overt violence.

It was a culture that got a massive boost with the election of Donald Trump to the White House, and which the president promotes in almost every vitriol-laden tweet.  

Trump has adopted a position where anger and ridicule replaces reason and debate. Unlike past presidents, who have at least made passing attempts to unite the nation under them after elections, he has unashamedly upheld his partisans and mocked those who opposed him, reminding them again and again that they are “losers”.

Often that loser tag was attached to journalists whose job it is to examine, criticise and question. In the US today, the media is either an unquestioning disciple of Trumpism, or its target.  

Only a few days before the shooting right wing commentator Milo Yiannopoulos was reported as saying he could not wait for vigilante squads to start gunning down journalists. He later protested angrily that he was joking.

Just as you no longer make jokes about carrying bombs when you board an aeroplane, in the current febrile atmosphere of the US, and with the country’s laughable gun laws, it is criminal for anyone with influence to make jokes about shooting people, certainly not those who have been made a target by the Commander in Chief.

It is Jarrod Ramos who will eventually stand in the dock charged with those terrible murders, but the guilt does not rest with him alone.

BJP activists denting Modi’s image

For the first time since he swept to power in a landslide in 2014, some commentators are beginning to openly debate whether Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi can win a second term.

While Modi himself remains popular, it is the antics of some members of his ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its more fanatical grassroots activists that are beginning to turn off many educated, cosmopolitan Indians.

This was reflected in some recent parliamentary by-election results in which the Indian National Congress and other Opposition parties took seats off the BJP, hailed by Congress as a “shift in the people’s mood” ahead of the General Election next year.

While Opposition celebrations would be premature, cracks are appearing in the BJP’s edifice of invincibility — something that is certain to be exploited in the months ahead.

Some BJP supporters are doing their party no favours with incidents such as threats made against journalists in the volatile border region of Jammu and Kashmir after reports on a former BJP Minister’s support of the accused in the rape and murder of an eight-year-old Muslim girl.

More recently, Minister for External Affairs, Sushma Swaraj came under a virulent storm of Twitter abuse after she ordered the transfer of a passport officer for allegedly harassing a Hindu woman and her Muslim husband.

The officer is denying the allegations against him, which include telling the husband to convert to Hinduism.

However, it is the beliefs of Uttar Pradesh’s Deputy Chief Minister that made headlines around the country, leaving many Indians, including members of the BJP, squirming with embarrassment.

In a live television appearance, Dinesh Sharma referred to episodes in the epics of ancient India, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, saying he believed that as Sita, the wife of the Hindu god Ram, was born in an earthen pot, she was actually the world’s first test tube baby.

Sharma is not alone in these strange views. The Chief Minister of the remote north-eastern State of Tripura, Biplab Deb claimed the internet and satellite technology existed at the time of the Mahabharata, responding to social media ridicule by saying his critics "lacked nationalism".

Deb is also on record as saying only civil engineers should join the Civil Service; that the 1997 Miss World, Diana Hayden “was not Indian enough” and that the youth of Tripura should “open shops and milk cows” rather than looking for Government jobs. 

Modi has repeatedly said that a second term is needed to firmly establish his nation on the road to becoming a 21^st century superpower. To be sure of this he needs to reign in some of the BJP’s loose cannons with their thinking still firmly rooted in the India of myth and magic.