Interesting times – but who’s listening?

I think it was Bobby Kennedy who evoked the Chinese curse about living in interesting times during a speech to a reform movement in Cape Town more than 50 years ago.

Kennedy was speaking at a time of institutionalised apartheid in South Africa, the Cold War, and the growing quagmire of the United States’ involvement in Vietnam — enough for him to describe it as an “era of danger and uncertainty”.

He would have blanched at the state of the world today.

A journalist is murdered and his body dismembered on a routine visit to his own country’s consulate; thousands of refugees, representatives of millions of displaced people around the world are being threatened with military force as they approach the US border, where a President notorious for his abusive and vulgar utterances is attacking the media for a lack of civility.

In China there may be as many as a million people in ‘re-education camps’ because the State objects to their religious beliefs; pipe bombs delivered through the mail cause chaos in American cities; billions of dollars are being wiped off the value of stocks and shares as markets around the world slump, and the Middle East is once again at melting point in Israel’s seemingly endless dispute with the Palestinians. 

Stories that would have struck horror a decade ago get just a scant reference: Famine in Africa and bombings in Yemen forced onto the back-burner by trade wars and the posturing of potentates.

When did things start to go rotten? I guess we all have different answers, but for me it was the 2016 vote for Britain to leave the European Union.

In a globalising world, beset with problems that can only be addressed by increasingly close international cooperation, that plunge back into 19^th century nationalism was incomprehensible. Voting to stay in the EU was a no-brainer.

Throughout the campaign, the Remain camp put out reasoned and responsible arguments about the advantages of EU membership and the dangers inherent in leaving. In the end not enough people could be bothered to listen.

Instead it was the glib, essentially meaningless slogans like “give us our nation back”; a hard border in Northern Ireland – oh that will never happen, and glittering fibs, such as the huge financial benefits leaving would bring, that won the day.

Then along came Donald Trump in the same populist tradition, giving simple answers to complex questions which in the end were no answers at all, but still good enough for a lazy, disengaged electorate.        

My greatest fear is that just when it is so important to look outward, mankind is doing the reverse, switching off from the important questions of the day and giving free reign to whoever says “leave it to me, I can manage it for you”.

So Trump, or Xi, or Putin, or the burgeoning numbers of petty dictators ready to demonise someone else for the ills they have no way of curing are getting a free rein.

History shows there is nothing new here. It is what a lot of decent, humane Germans must have done as the Nazi atrocities began to mount in the 1930s.

Unfortunately history is long and the human attention span is short.  

Death highlights Ganges failure

The death of Indian environmental activist G.D. Agarwal should act as a wake-up call for the Government in New Delhi which faces a General Election next year.

Agarwal starved himself to death in a 15-week hunger strike in protest at a lack of action in cleaning up the Ganges, India’s largest river system and sacred to Hindus.

The desperate action of the 86-year-old should be especially significant to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) swept to power in 2014 on a pledge to clean up the 2,500 kilometre river, choked with industrial and domestic waste which in places is little more than an open sewer.

While past efforts at reducing pollution in the waterway have always resulted in miserable failure, Modi projected a ‘can-do’ image based on his achievements as Chief Minister for Gujarat State, and many of his followers believed that this time it would be different.

Few doubt that the Government has made genuine efforts to tackle the problem, but an ambitious clean-up plan launched in 2015 has so far failed to even make a dent in the amount of pollution discharged into the river.

Complicated planning rules, disputes with land-owners over where to build the much-needed sewage treatment plants and arguments with industries that send their raw waste straight into the river have left the project idling on the launch pad.

Less than a quarter of the funds allocated to the program have been spent.

In an attempt to make some progress before the election deadline, bureaucrats have resorted to exotic measures, such as seeding the waters with pollution-gobbling microbes.  

Agarwal’s death was met by an outpouring of grief from his supporters, but also anger that despite his sacrifice and all the promises from New Delhi, the Ganges is still a health hazard for the faithful who seek to bathe in its waters in order to wash away their sins.

Modi took to Twitter to say he was saddened by Agarwal’s death. “His passion towards learning, education, saving the environment, particularly Ganga cleaning, will always be remembered,” the Prime Minister said.

There is no doubt these sentiments were sincere, but for increasing numbers of Indians it is actions, not fine words or visions, that are needed to do justice to the sacred Ganges and her historic role as a symbol of the nation’s ancient culture and civilisation.

Shedding blood for press freedom

It has been a terrible week for journalism — or maybe it is just one in a series of awful weeks, different only because the sheer horror of what has taken place has forced its way into the world’s headlines.

Should the details of the disappearance of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi prove to be true — and the evidence seems to be stacking up that it is — then we have reached new depths of officially-sanctioned depravity in a world where previously unthinkable acts are becoming commonplace.

It does appear that what should have been a routine visit to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to collect papers confirming his divorce ended in Khashoggi being detained, murdered, his body dismembered and the parts spirited away.

The journalist, living in exile, had been a critic of the Saudi regime, and its new strongman, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who Khashoggi said had gathered too much power into his own hands.

It seems that even this relatively mild criticism incurred the wrath of the Crown Prince. The Saudi Government has issued a ‘categorical denial’ it had anything to do with Khashoggi’s disappearance, but will have to live with the fact increasing numbers of people are no longer giving any value to such official statements.

At the same time investigations are continuing into the rape and murder of Bulgarian television reporter Viktoria Marinova in the northern town of Ruse.

An investigative journalist, she was the host of a recent television program discussing alleged fraud involving European Union funds, prominent businesspeople and government officials.

Authorities have been quick to say they believe the murder was unrelated to Marinova’s work, rather the act of a common criminal in a chance encounter while she was out jogging. They said a key suspect had left the country for Germany on the following day and were seeking his extradition.

However, corruption is a significant problem in Bulgaria – the worst in the European Union – and Marinova’s murder has touched off debate about the freedom of the media in that country, with journalists on the ground saying they are frequently harassed for writing criticisms of the government.

It is appalling that this should be happening in an EU country, even worse that it is the third such incident involving journalists within the borders of the EU in the past year. It seems that Brussels, beset with problems involving refugees and Brexit, is giving insufficient attention to this escalating war against the media. 

The two high profile cases discussed here are but the tip of the iceberg. The Committee to Protect Journalists has recorded 1322 deaths between 1992 and 2018 many simply because the news gatherers were in the wrong place at the wrong time while on dangerous assignments.

However, the committee has found that 170 were deliberately murdered at the hands of government officials in countries ranging from the Philippines to Russia.

Add to this the thousands who have been harassed, beaten and jailed, and it is clear that it is not just journalism and journalists under attack, but the very structures essential to free and just societies.  

American Founding Father Thomas Jefferson once wrote: “Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.”

Gangsters and thugs, many parading in high office, are doing their best to limit press freedom today. We should all take note.   

What hope for the Fourth Estate?

When Irish statesman and philosopher Edmund Burke coined the term Fourth Estate as a title for the news media, he was acknowledging the importance it had achieved in his 18^th century Britain.

He was placing it alongside the three historic estates of the realm — the nobility, the clergy and the commoners — without which the nation could not properly function.

Today, the Fourth Estate’s role as one of the pillars of a democratic society is under attack — from technological challenges and its failure to properly adjust to society in the throes of widespread change. 

The last few decades have exposed its inherent weakness — despite being an essential element in creating and shaping public opinion, in keeping governments, organisations and powerful individuals accountable to the masses, it is largely run by private interests and held hostage to the profit motives of its owners and shareholders.

Traditional media no longer has a monopoly on the generation of news and is experiencing widespread trauma as advertising content falls and companies make cutbacks in a desperate search for lost revenues.

In the United Kingdom newspapers are closing at the rate of one a week; a switch to online operations has been mismanaged and in many cases is simply too late.

The situation was highlighted in recent days by a call from the UK National Union of Journalists (NUJ) for a reporting scheme run by the State financed British Broadcasting Corporation to be expanded to include coverage of the thousands of criminal and civil courts.

In a statement supporting its call the NUJ said local newspapers no longer had the resources to cover all that goes on in the country’s courts.

“Traditionally, local newspapers always covered their local Magistrate, Sheriff and Crown Court trials,” the statement said.

“Now hardly any local papers cover trials or courts in detail. If people do not know what goes on in the courts, are not aware of what offences are prosecuted or what punishments are meted out, then they remain uninformed and justice is not seen to be done.”

The same can be said for councils, tribunals, police, planning authorities and a host of other organisations that were once regularly investigated and reported on by experienced local journalists.

Those that remain say they are so overworked they are anchored to their computers filling space with whatever comes to hand, usually media releases and advertorials.

The situation is exacerbated by the way the internet has become a platform for anyone with a smartphone to sound off on social media, leading to a public distrust of news gathering in general and support for politicians who label anything they dislike as ‘fake news’.

Attempts to fill the gap are being made by a proliferation of ‘hyperlocals’ , often run by one or two retrenched journalists, operating out of homes or garages, providing saturation coverage of small areas and gaining revenue from the advertisements and sponsorship of local businesses, societies and clubs.

With its members often managing to survive on shoestring budgets, the movement has made a robust beginning, but whether it is the future of news gathering remains debateable, the quality and content being dependent on highly limited resources and personnel prepared to face uncertain futures.

This adds up to a problematic future for Edmund Burke’s Fourth Estate. Free societies demand it survives, but in what form is as yet, impossible to tell.

Vatican surrender threatens Chinese faithful

Military strategist Sun Tzu once said the supreme art of war is to subdue your enemy without fighting.

The warrior would have approved of the tactics used by Beijing in its decades-long confrontation with the Vatican over the appointment of Christian bishops in China.

No actual conflict was involved but victory has been gained and the spoils of war are being reaped from the thousands of Christian churches across the country.

Pope Francis essentially hoisted the white flag when he agreed to accept Government approved bishops he had no role in appointing.

In a statement, the Vatican said the accord was “not political but pastoral” and hoped it would lead to the full communion of all Chinese Catholics.

Instead, the atheist Chinese leadership has launched a crackdown against its Christian community, burning crosses, withdrawing bibles from sale, banning children from churches and demanding images of President Xi Jinping and former Community Party Chairman Mao Zedong join those of Christ on or near altars.

Many genuine Christian leaders in China feel they have been betrayed.

The founder of the Christian human rights organisation, ChinaAid, Bob Fu, said millions of persecuted Christians in China had been let down by their Pope, while Cardinal Joseph Zen of Hong Kong said the deal only empowered the authorities in Beijing.

“The Government can tell Catholics: ‘Obey us. We are in agreement with your Pope’,” the Cardinal said.

Much was hoped of Francis when he succeeded to the papacy in 2013 with a reformist agenda aimed at bringing the clergy in closer touch with their flocks.

However, in recent times his reign has been dogged by a seemingly endless round of sex abuse scandals and cover-ups that reach into the highest levels of the Vatican. Francis himself has been widely criticised for not doing enough to make amends.

Faced with a crisis of confidence in the Church and his own waning popularity, Francis might have decided that rapprochement with China would remove one other troubling problem from his plate.

Initial outcomes suggest this may have been the biggest miscalculation of his papacy.   

Other faiths have already suffered under the Xi regime. Islamic crescents and domes have been stripped from mosques and many thousands of China’s Uighur Muslim community are reported to be in‘re-education’ camps.

Similar crackdowns have been launched against Buddhist temples in Tibet.

The size of the underground Christian community, and the support for it voiced by powerful interests in the West, has given Beijing pause in the past. Now it could easily become open season.

In an amazing admission, Francis said his deal will cause suffering among orthodox Christians in China.

“It’s true, they will suffer. There is always suffering in an agreement,” he said.

For the sake of those Christians his agreement has placed in the firing line, it is to be hoped the suffering will not be severe.

Cynicism draining democracy’s lifeblood

When former United States President Barack Obama spoke to students at the University of Illinois a few days ago, the last third of his hour-long address was devoted to a single message – vote.

“Don’t tell me your vote doesn’t matter,” he said at one point in his address. “Don’t boo, vote.”

“Vote not just for Senators and Representative, but for Mayors and Sheriffs and State Legislators.”

“You’ve got to vote”, repeated over and over.

Australians, with a compulsory voting system that goes back for almost a century, have to remind themselves that in most other countries of the world, not voting is an option that large chunks of the electorates regularly take.

Those who choose to sit on their hands on election day can have just as much effect on the result — and be just as responsible for it — as those who perform their democratic responsibilities.

In countries that hold voluntary elections (leaving aside the rigged polls of various authoritarian states) a good turnout is 80 per cent. In the United States it can slip to around 50 per cent.

Elections for the European Parliament in Strasbourg are notorious for low turnouts — less than 30 per cent in some constituencies.

In his speech Obama listed two dangers to democracy — indifference and cynicism.

Indifference is well known and to a great extent understandable. People have other priorities: Looking after the family, worrying about mortgage payments, saving up for that first overseas holiday.

They get so bound up in these issues they forget it is the activities of government that so often affect them, but celebrity gossip and televised sport are easier on the mind than politics and politicians.

Cynicism is different.

It is the drain down which idealism pours. It destroys hope and belief that things can be changed. It is the cancer of those who think about and passionately want things to be different.

As Obama so clearly put it:

“The more cynical people are about government and the angrier and more dispirited they are about the prospects for change, the more likely the powerful are able to maintain their power.

“The biggest threat to our democracy is cynicism — a cynicism that's led too many people to turn away from politics and stay home on election day.”

Ironically, idealism can be the fertile ground in which cynicism grows because  devotion to a leader, or a system, often disappoints when that leader falls short, or the system fails to provide exactly what the idealist wanted.

The hardest thing to accept is that history is long; human life is short and the best that any one of us can hope for is to move a few steps along the road towards our ideals before handing on for someone else to take the next few steps, and so on.

It is so natural to want it all, to grow impatient with individuals and governments that don’t quite match up, and so switch off. 

But as Obama says, that is surrendering to those who have no ideals, except self- interest. It plays into the hands of populists with their simple answers to complex questions, which in the end always prove to be no answers at all.

So vote — for men and women who don’t claim to have all the answers, but who promise to do their best to find them.

It is a vote that will never be wasted.

Asia’s new elite — wealth without wisdom

Forbes has noted that Asia is now home to the world’s highest number of billionaires, with two new ones being created in China every week.

In addition, Chinese billionaires tend to be younger (average age 55 years while their American equivalents are firmly in their 60s) and are overwhelmingly first generation, rather than obtaining their wealth though inheritance.

The information is not new, and the changes have been under way for some time, but the effects are now filtering through to the collective consciousness of the West and are contributing to the wave of populist sentiment infecting many countries there.

The rich, like the poor, have always been with us. From the earliest times they based their wealth on land and the number of labourers or slaves that could be coerced into producing wealth from it.

Every society in recorded history had its ruling elite, who mostly savagely exploited those below them in order to stay on the top of the heap.

Changes began to happen in the late middle ages with the introduction of the printing press and got a great kick-along in the 19^th century as literacy spread though the labouring classes.

For the first time in history people who did not have much money could learn the details about the activities of those who appeared to have a surfeit of it — and began to question why this was so.

Philosophers, social reformers and agitators pointed out that it was the toiling workers who produced the means by which the wealthy could live in comfort, and questioned why there should not be a more even distribution of wealth.  

After the spread of communism and the savagery of the Russian revolution, the response of many of the elite was to keep their heads down — to separate themselves from the toiling masses as far as possible.

They retreated to their country estates and their city clubs, mixing only with their own kind, mentioned fleetingly in the social pages of newspapers and often seeking to link this publicity with some act of philanthropy – a hospital wing endowed here, a series of scholarships there.

Even so their numbers gradually decreased as heavy taxation forced many back into the middle classes, which were also being fuelled from below as increased education and opportunity allowed the industrious to rise.

It was this unwritten and informal social contract that allowed the two groups to tolerate each other and, according to some utopian thinking, would eventually result in a single large class living together in harmony.

It was never going to happen, but for several generations, the possibility that it could — to you if not the guy next door — kept social pressures at a manageable level.

The remarkable rise to wealth of elites in Asia, and especially China, and the ubiquity of social media have changed this comfortable equation.

A new class of fabulously wealthy Chinese (in a country that is still generally poor) have the means to show off to the world without the restraint that long acquaintance with the responsibilities of money might provide.

Suddenly the internet is laden with their pictures sporting designer clothing and accessories, riding in luxury cars and sipping the most expensive (though not necessarily the best) French Champaign.

Realising the dangers this presented, the Chinese Government has sought to curb their excesses, so far with little effect.

Authorities in Beijing rightly fear that this brazen flaunting of wealth will stir up trouble among the less fortunate in China, but this new look glitterati’s jet-setting lifestyle is also sparking resentment around the world as they parade themselves at the best hotels, buy up luxury apartments and swamp high-end resorts.

With countries in the West still struggling with the after-effects of the global financial crisis and austerity still the norm in many of them, coupled with constant media references to the ‘Asian Century’ and the ‘Rise of China’ is bringing about a growing resentment among their populations that they are being left behind.

While terrorism and refugee movements are still front of mind among most Westerners, there is also a realisation of growing inequality and a feeling that their own leaders have failed them.

Asia’s ultra-wealthy are a tiny fraction of the continent’s overall population, but their addiction to flaunting their wildly extravagant lifestyle is storing up trouble, both for them at home, and the countries they visit.