As most of the world tries to help those stricken by the tsunami disaster stave off starvation and disease, the most depressing news for me is that the Indonesian army is still fighting Acehnese rebels. If ever there was a good time for a unilateral ceasefire, this would surely be that time. I hope that the new Indonesian president will act firmly to put a halt to this, and more generally to bring the army under proper civilian control. I hope also that the rebels will realise that their energy would be better directed towards rebuilding Aceh than towards an almost certainly futile struggle for independence. Much the same could be said of Sri Lanka where the aid effort is being hampered by the long-running civil war there.
Month: January 2005
Arthur on Quigginism
Don Arthur, now firmly established at Troppo Armadillo has a characteristically erudite post on Quigginism: John Quiggin’s left wing conservatism As the title indicates, it starts off from my discussion of conservatism and the precautionary principle, but it doesn’t end there. Don has a series of updates on more eminent thinkers such as Oakeshott, Rorty and Giddens. It’s well worth reading, and I look forward to continuing the discussion during 2005.
The good news
Even though 2004 was a pretty awful year, there was at least some good news. At the global level, Europe has continued to give an example of a path towards spreading democracy that is not carried on the end of bayonets. The peaceful resolution of the crisis in the Ukraine and the election of a government committed to integration with Europe was one instance, as was the decision to open negotiations with Turkey, which has made great progress in the last few years towards providing a model of an Islamic democracy. As a couple of commentators have already pointed out, there are big challenges ahead and the whole enterprise may fail. Still such challenges have been overcome in the past as the admission of ten new members shows.
Russia’s decision to ratify the Kyoto protocol was another hopeful development. But we’re going to need more than Kyoto and it seems unlikely we’ll get it as long as Bush is in the White House.
At a local level, it’s worth remembering that the loss of life from even the worst disasters that have affected Australia is tiny by comparison with the continuing carnage from road crashes. In this respect, at least, we are making progress. New South Wales recorded its lowest toll in 55 years in 2004, and Victoria its second-lowest
Finally, there is some hope that the response to the tsunami disaster may go beyond the usual short-lived outpouring of sympathy and half-delivered promises of aid. Criticism of the stinginess of the initial response struck a chord, and focused attention on the weakness of the rich world’s aid effort, a weakness made more striking by the willingness to spend hundreds of billions on war. If we must have international rivalry, a race to see who can give most to help others seems like a good outcome.
Update An important piece of good news I forgot to mention was the signing of a peace settlement between the Sudanese government and the southern rebels. Assuming it holds, this will bring to an end a war that has lasted for decades and cost hundreds of thousands of lives. Unfortunately, the fighting in Darfur (in the western part of Sudan) which began more recently is still going on. The world’s attention to this problem has been fitful and inadequate, but perhaps we’ll see something better in 2005.
Goodbye to a miserable year
There have been worse years in recent history than 2004, but not many. The Bam earthquake came just before the beginning of the year, and the tsunami disaster at the end. But man-made catastrophes were probably equally devastating in terms of lives lost, and much worse in terms of the behavior they’ve involved. Just thinking of names like Abu Ghraib, Beslan, Darfur and Fallujah is a reminder of how terrible a year it was.
The standards supposedly upheld by the civilised world have been comprehensively betrayed at places like Abu Ghraib. And whatever evil has been done in our names, our terrorist enemies have shown, in Beslan and in the kidnappings and horrible beheadings that have now become routine, that they can and will do far worse. A few of those directly involved in these crimes have paid, a price, but the leaders who ordered them have not.
The news hasn’t all been bad, and I’ll try to do a post soon pointing to some more hopeful events. But not just now.
John Quiggin 