Book Review: Political Economies and Neoliberalism in Asia

The Political Economy of South East Asia; Conflicts, Crises, and Change (Second Edition) edited by Garry Rodan, Kevin Hewison, and Richard Robison

Empire and Neoliberalism in Asia edited by Vedi R. Hadi

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The Political Economy of South East Asia, published by Oxford University Press, dissects the phenomenon of the 97 Asian financial crisis using mainly three established models, namely the neoclassical political economy; historical instituitionalism; and social conflict theory. The latter forms the backbone of this book as the writers seek to explain using the thesis to explain the crises. They also touch on the commonly held fallacies of modernisation and dependency theories in how they fail to completely explain the situation.

By bringing us through the history of the individual countries and charting the rise and fall of their economies, the book draws parallels in the south east asian nation. Yet, differences are highlighted by explaining how different governments are forced to react due to their political realities.

The chapter on Economic Crisis and the Political Economy of Economic Liberalism in South-East Asia, is perhaps most insightful. It is a summary of how post financial crisis reforms are affected by the nationalistic sentiments, political climate and governmental will. The following chapter about labor, which describes the rise of unionism and subsequent clampdown in certain nations, counts as essential reading since labor is often relegated to a minority role in study of political economics. The last chapter by Mark on Japan, seeks to explain how the revered east asian economic leader, has not tried extending its political hegemon in the region.

Required reading for people who are interested in the political realities and economies of the south east asian region post 1997 financial crisis.

On the other hand, Vedi’s more recent book, post 9/11 and Iraqi Invasion, paints a less pretty picture of US imperialism efforts in the region . Some of the writers in the book, prefers to call it US hegemony instead. The essays in this collection, while uneven in quality, contains essays, worth trawling.

The chapter by Elmar Altvater which touches on fossil energy regimes explains why current global economic growth, driven by fossil fuel and financial markets is unsustainable while the rise of the necons, charted by Mark Beeson, explains the tradition of American exceptionalism and how it has always influenced American foreign policy. History lessons much needed.

Garry Rodan and Kevin Hewison’s chapter on Singapore and Thailand details the creeping authoritarianism due to the advent of Bush’s war on terror. The writers explain how Bush’s preemptive doctrine has strengthened both governments and gave them ammunition to clamp down on legitimate human rights criticisms. Vedi’s article on Indonesia provides an insight on the “fragility of Indonesia’s democracy” due to the war on terror. The world’s largest Muslim nation, not only has to contend with rising anti-US sentiments, but also increasing threats of a “back to Suharto” military rule. On the other hand, Taiwan’s move towards democracy, prompted by the growing interdependent relationship between China and the US, faces another set of strategic issues. China’s policy on Taiwan has also affected the latter’s politics as Presidential leaders play on the external China threat to their advantage.

To have an understanding of contemporary Asian and South East Asian politics and their economies, both books are a good start.

Human Rights Defender: Emadeddin Baghi

In a recent AP report, Emadeddin Baghi, who was arrested on 15th October by the Iranian authorities for violating national security, had fainted while taking a shower in prison. They believed that his current condition is due to a nervous breakdown.

In 2000, he had been sentenced to a three-year jail term for writings “against the regime”. He served a two year sentence then for his works on the series of murders involving Iranian intellectuals, and was detained again this October, for another year (from his last sentence) for continuing his activities, which were spreading, “propaganda against the system” and “publishing secret government documents” .

State repression has manifested itself in various forms and extended to include his family.

After being released in 2003, he has been summoned to court 23 times. His wife, Fatemeh Kamali Ahmad Sarahi and daughter, Maryam Baghi, were given three-year suspended prison sentences and five years of probation for participating in human rights workshops in Dubai in 2004.

The man is also an active campaigner for the past few years, against the death penalty, especially of those languishing in Iranian prison. He formed the Society for the Defense of Prisoners’ Rights, in 2003 and the Society of Right to Life Guardians in 2005 to tackle these issues. On the death penalty, he wrote to the authorities in 2006, including ex president, Mohammad Khatami, on the increased number of executions. By October 2007, Iran is officially reported to have carried out no less than 207 executions this year alone, a figure higher than 2006. Baghi has also voiced criticisms against “stoning” as a form of punishment for adultery in Iran.

As an intellectual, he has written 20 books, of which six has been banned in the country. The first book, “A Study About the Clerics” which called for a more open Islam that should be subjected to individual, rather than clerical interpretation was banned. “Realities and Judgments” which described the violent suppression of opposition in Iran, was published illegally and anonymously in 1991, and extensively destroyed by the government upon release. He is also a journalist, writing on mostly social and political issues for various newspapers and magazines since 1983.

As a recipient of the 2004 Civil Courage Prize, awarded by the Train Foundation, he was prevented from leaving the country to receive the award. The next year, he was given the French Human Rights Prize for his work against the death penalty. Human rights organisations, Reporters Without Borders; Human Rights Watch; and Amnesty International have all condemned his imprisonment as being politically motivated and measures to curb freedom of speech in Iran.

Emadeddin Baghi, considered one of Iran’s leading dissident, has also voiced criticisms against the US for funding “democracy promotion” activities in Iran, as it gives the government a cover to clamp down on human rights activism in the country.

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References:

1. Jailed Iran rights activist in hospital, AP, 27 December 2007

2. Emadeddin Baghi, Wikipedia, extracted on 28 December 2007

3. Iran: Release Leading Defender of Prisoners’ Rights; Emadeddin Baghi Jailed Under Politically Motivated Charges, Human Rights Watch, 16 October, 2007

4. Prisoners’ Rights Activist Arrested and Detained, WorldPress.org, Niusha Boghrati, 16 October, 2007

5. Prominent Iranian Human Rights Defender Emaddedin Baghi Detained, Amnesty International USA, extracted on 28 December 2007

His writings:

1. Iran’s new era: nine lessons for reformers, OpenDemocracy, Emadeddin Baghi, 2 August 2005

2. Hope for Democracy in Iran, Washington Post, 25 October 25, 2004

3. More of his writings in English can also be found at Emadbaghi.com

Silencing Dennis Kucinich - The Dirt on the American Presidential Campaign

Are the American Presidential Elections free and fair?

How else does one explain the exclusion of Ohio Congressman and Democratic Presidential candidate, Dennis Kucinich from the Des Moines register- sponsored Presidential debate? The lame reason given by the organisers: his Iowa field director operates from a home office rather than a rented storefront. In addition, Kucinich’s Iowa Field Director and State Coordinator Marcos Rubinstein is not a paid full time staff. This is despite Kucinich, being polled the top candidate conducted by Democracy for America (DFA), Progressive Democrats of America (PDA), and the Nation magazine.

Gore Vidal was so angry, he accused the right-wingers, including AIPAC, Mr. Wolf Blitzer, The Des Moines Register and CNN of shunning Dennis Kucinich, whom he considered, belonging to the “great tradition of the original People’s Party of the 1880s… the tradition of George Washington and of Thomas Jefferson”

Another online critic pointed out the hypocrisy of the other Democratic candidates.

Says Michael O’McCarthy, “Not a peep (referring to the other Dems) from any of them: this served their interests… It was yet another time when they didn’t need to sit silently by as TV anchor after TV anchor avoided including Kucinich in the debate… These polls represent that very worst of the Democratic Party Machine that wants power for itself and its clients: the corporate controllers of the United States government. And the cowards they are, they will easily consent to anything that will limit the chance that Kucinich might be “electable” too if his message is heard. And its not just shame on them. Because these parasites have no shame.” He also reserved his venom towards the Kucinich campaigners for not “taking it to the streets”.

This is not the first time that Corporate America and the Democrats have been accused of creating an uneven playing field, executing smear campaigns, or using under-handed methods to prevent other candidates from contesting or campaigning.

Ralph Nader, who wanted to run for the Greens in 2004 has sued the Democratic Party “for conspiring to prevent him from running for president in 2004.” The lawsuit was filed on behalf of him, his vice presidential running mate Peter Miguel Camejo and supporters from several states who accused the Kerry-Edwards campaign, the Service Employees International Union, private law firms, and organizations like the Ballot Project and America Coming Together, promoting on behalf of the Democrats. The lawsuit said the defendants had used “groundless and abusive litigation” to bankrupt Ralph Nader’s campaign and to force him off the ballot in 18 states.

According to Carl Meyer, who was part of the legal team in filing the lawsuit, the defendants, led by a legal coalition of Toby Moffett and Elizabeth Holtzman, and the Ballot Project, around 527 organizations, “systematically went around the country and filed lawsuit after lawsuit, twenty-four in all, plus five FEC complaints, to try to completely remove the Nader campaign from the ballot and to, in effect, bankrupt the campaign, which they succeeded in doing.” One of the defendants, Reed Smith, a large corporate law firm in Pittsburgh, is now gunning for Ralph Nader’s personal bank account to make him pay for some of litigation cost.

While Nader has been sidelined for being “an outsider, of neither parties”, how does one explain the shoddy treatment towards Kucinich, who is campaigning under the Democratic banner? The answer lies in his credentials, plans and actions which puts him as the one of the foremost and most progressive Presidential candidate for 2008, a man who has not shied away from the hard issues.

This is the Democrat who is against the Iraqi invasion before it even started and went on to lead 125 of his Democrats contemporaries to vote against the decision. He has spoken out against George Bush’s war-mongering rhetoric against Iran, of which none of the Democrats has bothered to voice any concerns. He called for the impeachment of Dick Cheney, the vice President. A call which the other Democratic candidates choose to remain silent. On health care, he is the only candidate to push for a national, not-for-profit, single-payer health insurance system that will cover all Americans.

The Democrats are reluctant to campaign for these issues, as they do not want to destroy the “two party- dictatorship” which Ralph Nader has termed, perhaps not inappropriately. Impeaching Cheney and Bush for their decision to go to war is a dangerous slippery slope because the Democrats know that they, themselves, could become its next victims if they were to start a war with Iran or North Korea.

Seen from this perspective, one can easily understand why Kucinich will not stand a chance against the heavy-weights of Obamas and Clintons.

As John Walsh notes in his review of “An Unreasonable Man,” a recently aired documentary on Ralph Nader, he quotes from an insider, someone who has worked with the establishment, Lawrence O’Donnell, the director and writer of TV’s West Wing; the Democratic Chief of Staff of the United States Senate Committee on Finance from 1993 to 1995; and the Chief of Staff of the United States Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works in 1992:

“If you want to pull the party–the major party that is closest to the way you’re thinking–to what you’re thinking, YOU MUST, YOU MUST show them that you’re capable of not voting for them. If you don’t show them you’re capable of not voting for them, they don’t have to listen to you. I promise you that. I worked within the Democratic Party. I didn’t listen, or have to listen, to anything on the left while I was working in the Democratic Party, because the left had nowhere to go.” (Caps represent O’Donnell’s emphasis, where he raised his voice.)

Kucinich’s progressive stance is also a significant threat to the corporations who lobby and are behind the other major Presidential candidates. His health care reform plans will affect for-profit insurance companies who would lose federal subsidies and a huge consumer market. His plans for ending the war, troops withdrawal and reducing military expenditure will cause corporations such as Haliburton and Lockheed Martin to shut down their lucrative operations in Iraq and reduce profitable businesses with the Pentagon. His plans to repeal the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 will restore robust, effective collective bargaining, which means huge corporations face thorny negotiations in labour disputes. These are just some of the impending and ripple effects on the mega corporate sector if Kucinich becomes President.

The shunning and silencing of Dennis Kucinich is a deliberate measure. As a candidate who represents a potential threat to the behind-the-scenes Corporate America, the latter cannot stomach Kucinich, whose initiatives will cut off their bottom (life)line…

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References:

1. Kucinich, top-rated Democrat, excluded from Des Moines Register Debate

2. Democracy for America, 2008 Pulse Poll

3. Progressive Democrats of America, Presidential Straw Polls Results

4. Kucinich First, Edwards Second in PDA Straw Poll, Progressive Democrats of America, 5 December 2007

5. Gore Vidal on the Democratic Debate Debacle, Truthdig.com, Gore Vidal, 18 December, 2007

6. The Death of Democracy - Silence the Opposition!, Los Angeles Free Press.com, Michael O’McCarthy

7. Ralph Nader Files Lawsuit Accusing Democratic Party of Conspiring to Block Presidential Run, Democracy Now!, 31 October, 2007

8. Gitlin, Alterman and the Anti-Nader Democrats; Two Unreasonable Men, Counterpunch.com, John Walsh, 26 December, 2007

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