Citesc zilnic, de o saptamana incoace, cotidianul thailandez de limba engleza The Bangkok Post. Este un ziar editat cu clasa si profesionalism. Pe o hartie de buna calitate, intr-o limba engleza aproape perfecta, cotidianul prezinta evenimentele politice, economice, culturale si sociale de interes pentru intreaga regiune a Asiei de sud-est. Nu sunt omise nici una din stirile importante ale lumii. Limbajul este alert, masurat, politicos si intelept.

Nici urma de cinism, umor superior sau dispret atotcunoscator, asa cum apar de multe ori in publicatiile de dincolo si de dincoace de Atlantic. Thailandezii au  inteles, desigur, importanta strategica a unui astfel de cotidian. Stiri din India, Japonia, Rusia, China, Singapore si Australia se imbina armonios cu relatari la zi, obiective si cu franchete, din Thailanda sau din vecinatate: Burma, Laos, Cambodgia si Malaiezia.

Marile teme ale zilei, precum politica interna si pozitionarea internationala a unor tari precum SUA, Franta sau Rusia sunt si ele tratate cu excelenta calitate, masura si precizie.

The Bangkok Post este genul de investitie vizionara, care ajuta stabilitatea si greutatea unei tari, un fel de instrument de soft power binefacator, atat pentru cel care l-a creat, cat si pentru ceilalti.

Am convingerea ca un astfel de cotidian si-ar gasi locul potrivit, la Bucuresti. Ar putea fi numit “The Bucharest Post” si ar putea fi creat pe acelasi calapod cu marile ziare ale lumii care poarta acelasi titlu. Stiri la zi din Romania, Serbia, Bulgaria, Polonia, Croatia, Slovenia, Moldova, dar si din Orientul Mijlociu sau din Caucazul de Sud, tratate cu profesionalism, stiinta si obiectivitate, ar deplasa orizontul romanesc ingust, care s-a mineralizat in jurul complexului dambovitean al obsesiei de sine.

Un astfel de ziar ar da incredere elitei romanesti in ea insasi, ar da Europei regiunilor incredere in Romania. Totodata, un astfel de cotidian, bine conceput si deservit, ar fi util Europei de sud-est si centrale, ca si continentului in intregul lui. Ar fi o contributie inspirata la crearea brand-ului de tara. Ar mai fi o dovada de forta de creatie, de inteligenta si de clarviziune.

Astazi, insa, voi face o exceptie. International Herald Tribune a publicat articolul dlui Roger Cohen, intitulat “Tinerii, forta motrice a miscarii lui Obama”. Nu doresc sa aduc, prin publicarea pe blog a articolului, nici o nota de partinire, nici in campul democrat al candidatilor la presedintia SUA, nici in cel republican. Pozitia in care ma aflu nu imi permite acest lucru.

Insa, ceea ce articolul subliniaza are o importanta mult mai mare decat candidatul la care se refera. Este ideea ca forta care proiecteaza personalitatea in prima linie a leadership-ului lumii de astazi nu mai este alternanta intre dreapta si stanga, intre negru si alb, intre bun si rau, intre regiuni, intre religii, intre tanar si batran sau intre femei si barbati. Ceea ce conteaza in alegerea libera de astazi este intre trecut si viitor. Si acest adevar ne atinge in mare masura si pe noi, romanii.

Articolul mai aduce in discutie speranta, ca energie absolut necesara progresului, despre vechi si nou, despre entuziasm si despre incredere. Este un text care merita citit cu ochii indreptati spre realitatea romaneasca din prezentul imediat.

Obama’s youth-driven movement
by Roger Cohen

International Herald Tribune, January 28, 2008

GREELEYVILLE, South Carolina: Something is going on in America. Even in this depressed corner of the country, a place where trains no longer stop and poor families get water from shallow wells, you feel it. A political campaign has become a movement with Barack Obama at its head.

Campaigns are planned, but movements are full of impromptu decisions like the one that delivered Bryant Jones, 25, to this backwater. A few days ago, Jones, who is white and has always leaned Republican, jumped in his car and drove seven hours from Washington to campaign for Obama, a black Democrat.

“It was his all-encompassing message that got to me,” Jones, a student at George Washington University said. “I feel uplifted by him.”

Obama swept to victory in South Carolina’s Democratic presidential primary, taking 55 percent of the vote, more than double Hillary Clinton’s score. He did so with over 80 percent of the black vote in a heavily African-American state with a charged racial history, and about a quarter of the white vote.

Those are the raw numbers. They are heartening to Obama, who has the wind at his back, but the Clinton campaign is looking to contests in states with different social make-ups. Did Clinton take a bullet in South Carolina in order to racialize her fight with Obama going into Super Tuesday on Feb. 5, when 22 states hold nominating contests?

Certainly, Bill Clinton lost no opportunity to inject race, alluding to Jesse Jackson’s victories here in the 1984 and 1988 Democratic primaries, as if to minimize the significance of Obama’s win and clothe him in Jackson’s marginal mantle. Candidates, he said earlier, were getting votes “because of their race or gender,” suggesting black-versus-white might be his wife’s undoing.

Obama, in victory, took a different tack. “The choice in this election is not between regions or religions or genders. It’s not about rich versus poor, young versus old, and it’s not about black versus white. This election is about the past versus the future.”

The lines reprised the unifying theme of Obama’s breakthrough speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention while adding a note that has been critical to his youth-driven momentum: ending a Clinton-symbolized status quo.

Certainly, the lure of a different future drew Jones, the young independent with Republican sympathies who is now wearing Obama buttons.

Jones is from Idaho. He made clear he’d voted for Bush at least once. But he’s now had it with “my-way-or-the-highway politics” and with the same old faces.

“I’m 25 and for my entire life a Bush or a Clinton has been in the executive office, either as vice-president or president” he said. “The United States is not about dynasties. That’s one reason we fought a revolutionary war.”

He’s drawn to Obama’s environmental proposals, his honesty, and what he called “the fact he symbolizes for me that we are at a point where we do not have to think about skin color.” Other Idaho Republican friends were also leaning toward Obama, Jones said.

This young man represents something important. A new generation – for whom race is an issue overcome, and baby-boomers are old folk fighting arcane battles, and post-9/11 thinking must cede to post-post-9/11 creativity – is hungry for hope and willing to come even to places as hopeless as Greeleyville to demonstrate their longing.

Obama rightly mocks those who dismiss him as a naïve “hopemonger” and say he has to be “seasoned” in order to “boil all the hope out of him.” This war-stretched, recession-menaced country is confronted by “the fierce urgency of now,” as Martin Luther King once put it. An Idaho-raised, Republican-leaning white kid feels that urgency and makes a political leap; so do myriad others.

In a makeshift Obama campaign center in Greeleyville, I also stumbled on seven Harvard students who’d driven for 16 hours to get out the vote for their post-baby-boom candidate. “I’m here because I believe Obama has a chance at greatness,” said Kishore Kuchibhotla, 27, who’s studying for a biophysics doctorate.

Hannah Fried, 26, a law student, said: “Clinton is what our country has been. She’s not where we’re going, which is more diverse, more global, with fewer expectations about what it means to be black or white. Obama gets this from his upbringing, which meant he could never have a narrow perspective.”

When campaigns become movements, barriers dissolve. Crumbling Greeleyville has surely never before seen seven Harvard students being offered fried pig skins before going to canvass in African-American homes without running water.

This little town suggests Obama has indeed assembled “the most diverse coalition of Americans we’ve seen in a long, long time,” as he put it. If that coalition is beyond race, as I believe, rather than vulnerable to race, as Bill Clinton seems to have bet, South Carolina may prove no aberration.

Readers are invited to comment at my blog: www.iht.com/passages

DAVOS, Switzerland: With the American presidential campaign in full swing, the obvious way to change the world might seem to be through politics.

But growing numbers of young people are leaping into the fray and doing the job themselves. These are the social entrepreneurs, the 21st-century answer to the student protesters of the 1960s, and they are some of the most interesting people here at the World Economic Forum (not only because they’re half the age of everyone else).

Andrew Klaber, a 26-year-old playing hooky from Harvard Business School to come here (don’t tell his professors!), is an example of the social entrepreneur. He spent the summer after his sophomore year in college in Thailand and was aghast to see teenage girls being forced into prostitution after their parents had died of AIDS.

So he started Orphans Against AIDS (www.orphansagainstaids.org), which pays school-related expenses for hundreds of children who have been orphaned or otherwise affected by AIDS in poor countries. He and his friends volunteer their time and pay administrative costs out of their own pockets so that every penny goes to the children.

Klaber was able to expand the nonprofit organization in Africa through introductions made by Jennifer Staple, who was a year ahead of him when they were in college. When she was a sophomore, Staple founded an organization in her dorm room to collect old reading glasses in the United States and ship them to poor countries. That group, Unite for Sight, has ballooned, and last year it provided eye care to 200,000 people (www.uniteforsight.org).

In the ’60s, perhaps the most remarkable Americans were the civil rights workers and anti-war protesters who started movements that transformed the country. In the 1980s, the most fascinating people were entrepreneurs like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, who started companies and ended up revolutionizing the way we use technology.

Today the most remarkable young people are the social entrepreneurs, those who see a problem in society and roll up their sleeves to address it in new ways.

Bill Drayton, the chief executive of an organization called Ashoka that supports social entrepreneurs, likes to say that such people neither hand out fish nor teach people to fish; their aim is to revolutionize the fishing industry. If that sounds insanely ambitious, it is. John Elkington and Pamela Hartigan title their new book on social entrepreneurs “The Power of Unreasonable People.”

Universities are now offering classes in social entrepreneurship, and there are a growing number of role models. Wendy Kopp turned her thesis at Princeton into Teach for America and has had far more impact on schools than the average secretary of education.

One of the social entrepreneurs here is Soraya Salti, a 37-year-old Jordanian woman who is trying to transform the Arab world by teaching entrepreneurship in schools. Her organization, Injaz, is now training 100,000 Arab students each year to find a market niche, construct a business plan and then launch and nurture a business.

The program (www.injaz.org.jo) has spread to 12 Arab countries and is aiming to teach one million students a year. Salti argues that entrepreneurs can stimulate the economy, give young people a purpose and revitalize the Arab world. Girls in particular have flourished in the program, which has had excellent reviews and is getting support from the U.S. Agency for International Development. My hunch is that Salti will contribute more to stability and peace in the Middle East than any number of tanks in Iraq, UN resolutions or summit meetings.

“If you can capture the youth and change the way they think, then you can change the future,” she said.

Another young person on a mission is Ariel Zylbersztejn, a 27-year-old Mexican who founded and runs a company called Cinepop, which projects movies onto inflatable screens and shows them free in public parks. Zylbersztejn realized that 90 percent of Mexicans can’t afford to go to movies, so he started his own business model: He sells sponsorships to companies to advertise to the thousands of viewers who come to watch the free entertainment.

Zylbersztejn works with microcredit agencies and social welfare groups to engage the families that come to his movies and help them start businesses or try other strategies to overcome poverty. Cinepop is only three years old, but already 250,000 people a year watch movies on his screens – and his goal is to take the model to Brazil, India, China and other countries.

So as we follow the presidential campaign, let’s not forget that the winner isn’t the only one who will shape the world. Only one person can become president of the United States, but there’s no limit to the number of social entrepreneurs who can make this planet a better place.

By    Nigel Hamilton

International Herald Tribune Saturday-Sunday 26-27 January 2008

As a biographer of Bill Clinton, I find it fascinating to watch him battle Senator Barack Obama in South Carolina. Yes, he’s doing it on behalf of his wife, and yes, he’s sincere in thinking Hillary would make the better president. Still . . .

People underestimate what a competitive animal Bill Clinton is. It’s the blood that runs through his veins, the fire that ignites him. He grew up in a little town defending his mother against a trigger-happy, alcoholic stepfather; he was considered fat and nerdy, but grew tall and genial.

His energy and intelligence amazed everyone  -  so much, in fact, that his very paternity is still   questioned in his Arkansas hometown,  Hope.

This man is, like Lyndon Johnson before him, a one-man steamroller when he wants something. And now he wants his wife to be chief executive of America Inc.

Clinton lost four major times in his political life: in 1970 when seeking election to  Congress at age 28; in 1980 after his first term as governor of Arkansas, at age 34; in 1992 in the New Hampshire Democratic primary, at age 45; and in 1994, when     Republicans swept to victory in the great midterm meltdown election that gave them a majority in both chambers of Congress for the first time in 40 years.

In each case, Clinton suffered severe depression,  but then bounced back with renewed energy and determination to win.

Each defeat made him wiser, more savvy in dealing with the tactics of his opponent.

In 1974, the would-be congressman omitted to monitor ballot-counting in Fort Smith, Arkansas, and lost by barely 3,000 votes.

“He was literally on the floor,” a female friend recalled, “lying there moaning and groaning and counting the noses of everyone who didn’t vote for him.”

In 1980, having unwisely raised state motor vehicle taxes, the youngest-ever elected governor of Arkansas lost to a happy-go-lucky creationist more in tune with local Southern sentiment. “When the news came in he was really very upset, in tears,” recalled his friend Jim Blair.

A babysitter coming to the governor’s mansion found Clinton  on the floor, kicking, screaming and bawling like a baby.

“After he lost the election he didn’t want to take all that responsibility for it. He wanted to blame it on Jimmy Carter,” Blair remembered.

As for Clinton’s refusal to consider switching careers to gain experience outside of politics, Blair said, “He looked me in the eyes, and he said, ‘There’s nothing else I want to do.’ I thought, Man! You’re a sick butt!”

But the butt persevered  -  and won back the governor’s mansion in 1982, to hold it five times.

Similarly in New Hampshire, when draft-avoidance and the Gennifer Flowers scandal seemed to doom his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination, he responded with renewed determination,  combining inspirational rhetoric with tough political tactics in destroying rivals, by whatever means he could  -  including  negative advertising.

“He wasn’t a nice man  -   but nice men don’t win wars,” was said of  the World War II British field marshal, Bernard Montgomery,  and it  could well have been said of Clinton’s maturation as political leader.

Faced with the Newt Gingrich-led Republican avalanche in Congress, Clinton didn’t despair as president; he summoned a Republican, Dick Morris, to X-ray Republican intentions and weaknesses and proceeded to give a masterly demonstration of presidential firmness, bringing the civil war in Bosnia to a close while simultaneously defeating Gingrich’s shutdown of the U.S. government.

The lesson? Here is a man, a born politician, who can never admit to himself or the public that he is wrong, but equally who never lets up,  and never stops crafting his next step, his next battle, his next victory by learning from defeat.

Want to know how Hillary reversed her loss in Iowa? Want to watch Hillary make her way to the Democratic convention in Denver?

Watch Bill Clinton.

For Obama, it must be galling to have to fight not just a woman who wants to be the first female president, but a man who was the Muhammad Ali of his time  -   and still is in many ways. But studying Bill Clinton’s rise to power    wouldn’t  do the senator from Illinois any harm, either.

Nigel Hamilton, a biographer of Bill Clinton and John F. Kennedy, is a fellow at the McCormack Graduate School of Policy Studies at University of Massachusetts Boston. This article first appeared in The Boston Globe.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/01/25/opinion/ednigel.php

Life and death under Putin

Two murdered critics of the Russian leader paint similar pictures of life in modern Russia

LUKE DUNSTAN

Russian President Vladimir Putin is Time magazine’s person of the year for 2007. The magazine points out that the title is not an honour (Putin’s predecessor Stalin was named in 1939 and 1942) but a “clear-eyed recognition of the world as it is” and “ultimately about leadership – bold, Earth-changing leadership”. Putin, says Time’s managing editor Richard Stengel, “has put his country back on the map – he is not a democrat, he is not a paragon of free speech. He stands, above all, for stability – stability before freedom, stability before choice, stability in a country that has hardly seen it for 100 years.”

Putin’s pursuit of “stability” is the driving force behind many of the events detailed in two recently published books. It is likely that his agenda, and those who carry it out, is also responsible for the two prominent murders the books are associated with.

Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya was shot dead in the lift of her apartment building on October 7, 2006. A Russian Diary is the book she was preparing for publication shortly before she was killed. Alexander Litvinenko was an ex-KGB and -FSB (successor to the KGB) agent and a critic of the Putin regime. He was poisoned on November 1, 2006 in an attack which, by the time of his death on November 23, had become an international news sensation. The Litvinenko File: The True Story of a Death Foretold by Alexander Sixsmith is an account of Litvinenko’s life and death and an attempt to identify who killed him.

The two books have numerous crossover points and commonalities. Litvinenko and Politkovskaya knew each other through Politkovskaya’s meetings with London-based enemies of Putin, a group unofficially headed by Litvinenko’s former boss, exiled oligarch Boris Berezovsky. In September 2004, while flying to Beslan to cover the infamous school siege, Politkovskaya was poisoned and almost died. (Litvinenko subsequently implored Politkovskaya to leave Russia. After her death, and before he was poisoned, Litvinenko claimed Putin had personally sanctioned Politkovskaya’s assassination.)

Following each of their murders, the Kremlin denied involvement by separately describing both Politkovskaya and Litvinenko as “not worth killing”.

Covering similar ground, and touching on some of the same events, the two books present a similar picture of modern Russia with the only real difference being the scale of the image offered. As it ultimately has a single-issue focus, that is, examining who killed Litvinenko, The Litvinenko File extracts only enough current and background material to offer possible answers to this question. This turns out to be a lot of information on contemporary Russia, very little of which is positive. Compared to the sweeping reportage of A Russian Diary, however, The Litvinenko File offers just a snapshot, albeit a well-focused one, of Russia under Putin. Sixsmith’s backdrop is but a soil sample from the field of muck Politkovskaya tramps knee-deep in.

The breadth of Politkovskaya’s reportage is almost overwhelming, not factually – where her astute and confident tone guides naturally – but emotionally, in the scope, detail and holistic presentation of perpetually worsening injustice.

But appreciation of scale is not to detract from the quality piece of investigative journalism that is The Litvinenko File. Complex but consistently accessible, Sixsmith has written a compelling account that deftly negotiates a myriad of possibilities and claims surrounding Litvinenko’s murder. The book’s title is a reference to this complexity; the actual Litvinenko file is the information MI5 had on the Russian exile that apparently left Deputy Assistant Commissioner Peter Clarke, who headed Scotland Yard’s investigation, “flabbergasted” at the range of Litvinenko’s activities that could have provided a motive for murder.

Through his own investigation into what that file would’ve contained, Sixsmith also finds himself “amazed at the life he [Litvinenko] led, the risks he took and the enemies he made with such ease and apparent insouciance”.

“I ended my research more surprised he lasted as long as he did than that he eventually fell victim to the assassins who sought him out in London,” he writes.

Dedicated, loyal and probably not corrupt, at least by Russian standards, Litvinenko began making enemies through his effectiveness as a KGB and later an FSB agent, tracking illegal weapons sales. In this role and especially his next posting in Chechyna, it is most likely that Litvinenko’s work involved bloodying his hands. His dedication saw him promoted to a specialist FSB division fighting organised crime, which essentially turned out to be a hit squad. Disenchanted not by the work itself but by the corruption endemic in his unit, Litvinenko finally broke rank when ordered to kill Berezovsky, who at the time was the richest and probably the most powerful man in Russia. Berezovsky held sway with President Yeltsin, so when Litvinenko and a few other FSB agents told him of the plot on his life he had the FSB restructured and a new head installed, a young up-and-comer named Vladimir Putin.

Following what turned out to be a disastrous attempt to call Putin to heel (Berezovsky had Litvinenko go public on FSB corruption, the single act mostly likely to have sealed his fate), Putin’s star rose while Berezovsky’s waned. In line for the presidency, Putin began to move against his former benefactor and friend. Litvinenko, after being jailed and threatened, fled to London with Berezovsky’s help in late 2000. Berezovsky soon followed, leading (and by most estimates, losing) a “bitter propaganda campaign” against Putin ever since.

Over 65 concise chapters, Sixsmith evaluates the potential suspects raised in Litvinenko’s murder including Putin, the FSB, business associates – real or alleged – of Litvinenko and the Kremlin’s favourite suspect: The anti-Putin e’migre’s, headed by Berezovsky. Whenever the list starts to feel overpopulated, Sixsmith returns to step-by-step coverage of the UK police investigation where names are gradually struck off. As anyone who followed the case will know, its most exotic element, the use of the radioactive isotope polonium-210 as a poison, became the police’s strongest lead, since polonium leaves a radioactive trail wherever it goes. This trail leaves little doubt as to who murdered Litvinenko. On whose orders they did it Sixsmith makes an informed evaluation taking into account FSB/KGB culture, the sycophantic and permissive mood of Russia’s security agencies under Putin and a law passed by the Duma on July 14, 2006, permitting the assassination, in Russia or abroad, of “extremists”, which 13 days later was expanded to include anyone “libellously critical of the Russian authorities”.

From the viewpoint of Russian officialdom this description would fit Politkovskaya. The late journalist was intensely critical of the Putin regime as well as the FSB and military and their adjuncts, especially in her reporting from Chechnya and the Caucasus region.

In A Russian Diary, which is made up of reportage and notes written between December 2003 and August 2005, Politkovskaya catalogues a litany of rights abuses, democratic rollbacks and examples of both state and public indifference that she ultimately describes as the “re-Stalinisation” of Russia. Though her reports cover bureaucratic and political cronyism, the subjugation of the judiciary, the removal or corruption of democratic systems and many murders, disappearances and instances of torture carried out by the armed forces, one constant is total fearlessness on the part of the state. The authorities know that their victims are without recourse, but what Politkovskaya laments more than the impunity handed them under Putin is the acquiescence afforded by the general population, those who aren’t victims.

“Anyone who hasn’t been hit in the pocket has nothing to say,” she writes.

Politkovskaya’s tone of incensed desperation with the scale of both the state’s offences and the public’s indifference would be draining were it not for her big-picture analysis. As she details the poverty of pensioners and war veterans, the stonewalling of victims of (non-state) terror or the wholesale destruction of Chechyan society, A Russian Diary can seem as a book of dispatches from Dystopia. While it far from lightens the mood, Politkovskaya’s contextualising of each report as part of an increasingly dismal state of state affairs in Russia gives some meaning to the loss and pain she records.

What rings clearest from A Russian Diary, and is also made clear in The Litvinenko File, is that Putin’s legacy should not be headed “stability”. While he has brought order to Russia, induced economic growth and is liked by the majority of Russians, it is nonetheless the type of stability and what he has done to achieve it that he should be judged by. And while his leadership may be “bold” and “Earth-changing”, his legacy, as detailed in these two books, should really be that of a despot who has sanctioned widespread violence and terror and fostered a fascist culture.

Principesa si cu mine am fost intristati la aflarea vestii disparitiei premature a actorului australian Heath Ledger, o mare speranta a cinematografiei mondiale. La numai 28 de ani, facuse proba unui talent solid, oferind o paleta surprinzatoare de calitati, in diverse roluri si registre. A fost exceptional in filmul “Brokeback Mountain”, una dintre cele mai miscatoare si emotionante, pline de inspiratie si adevar pelicule ale ultimilor ani.

Parintii lui, ca si intreaga familie au dat dovada de decenta si eleganta. Felul in care tatal si-a descris, succint, fiul, ramane una dintre cele mai frumoase si demne luari de pozitie publica pe care ni le-a oferit prezentul. Heath Ledger avea in fata atat de multi ani si atat de mult viitor profesional! Ce pierdere pentru cultura lumii!

Funky Business

Scrisa de doi autori suedezi, Jonas Ridderstrale si Kjell Nordstrom, ambii profesori de economie si specialisti in leadership la institutii de prestigiu din Stockholm, cartea este un bestseller mondial. Sunt bucuros ca ea a fost atat de prompt tradusa in romaneste. Este o lectura admirabila si fermecatoare. In capitole scurte si concentrate, scrise cu umor si usor de inteles, autorii vorbesc cu competenta si originalitate despre “batalia creierelor”, inovatia organizationala, management si leadership, statul national, partidele politice, familie, despre piata, despre reinventarea strategiei, despre liderii lenesi si despre “polarizare, tribalizare si individualizare”.

“Funky business” este o carte care ar trebui sa fie citita de cat mai multi tineri romani. Ei se vor regasi in ea mult mai mult decat s-ar putea regasi in paginile de ziare sau in imaginile multora dintre televiziuni.

Jocurile sportive ale celor cu handicap fizic

Astazi s-a incheiat o competitie inter-continentala, reunind tineri sportivi cu handicap fizic din Asia, numita “The 4th Asean Para Games”. Atleti din 11 tari au atins glorioase rezultate, intr-o competitie organizata in orasul Nakhon Ratchasima, din nord-estul Thailandei.

Jocurile au durat o saptamana si au reunit participanti in jurul a 14 sporturi diferite. Evenimentul nu aduce doar competitie in plan sportiv, ci si intelegere si prietenie intre oameni, sentimentul ca cei de langa noi care nu sunt intregi, din punct de vedere fizic, au dreptul de a fi egali cu cei din comunitatea lor.

Oameni tineri fara un picior sau orbi, fara o mana sau condamnati la a umbla intr-un carucior rulant, au dat un exemplu de curaj si demnitate. Saifon Kaewsri este un inotator de 34 de ani, care nu are brate si care are doar un singur picior. El spune ca se simte intreg spiritual si mental si ca antrenamentul lor, al celor cu invaliditate fizica, cere de o suta de ori mai mult efort si mai multa rabdare.

Aceasta este o adevarata competitie, nu numai intre oameni, ci si a omului cu el insusi. Din astfel de competitii are de castigat toata lumea, fiindca ele sunt o dovada de altruism, de iubire, de curaj si de spirit de raspundere. In contrast total cu usuratatea de zi cu zi a vietii noastre publice. Acesti oameni ar trebui, macar din cand in cand, sa faca prima pagina a ziarelor, inlocuind spectacolul tragi-comic cotidian.

Dinastia Chakri, din care regele Bhumibol se trage, a inceput sa domneasca in Siam (denumirea veche a regatului Thailandei) in anul 1782. Atunci, intemeietorul familiei si al dinastiei, regele Rama I, viteaza capetenie de osti, a inlocuit pe regele anterior, Taksin. Rama I este cel care, din motive de ordin strategic militar, a adus capitala intr-un orasel cu port fluvial, numit Bangkok. Dupa patru generatii, stranepotul sau, Rama IV sau regele Mongkut, a fost unul dintre cei mai luminati si clarvazatori lideri thailandezi din toate timpurile. Regele Mogkut a domnit din 1851 pana in 1868 si a negociat tratate de importanta cruciala cu puterile europene, a introdus stiintele moderne si reforme care au ferit tara de colonizare sau de intrarea sub dominatia vecinilor. I-a urmat Rama V sau regele Chulalongkhorn, probabil cel mai mare monarh al thailandezilor din toate timpurile. A domnit din 1868 pana in 1910, aproximativ in aceeasi perioada cu regele Carol I si a insemnat pentru thailandezi exact ceea ce regele Carol a insemnat pentru noi. El a abolit sclavia, a reorganizat sistemul guvernamental si, precum Carol I, a construit in Siam primele cai ferate.

Actualul monarh al thailandezilor a intrat in prima linie a vietii politice a regatului Siam la 9 iunie 1946, cand a succedat la tron in urma mortii fratelui sau de numai 21 de ani, regele Ananda sau Rama al VIII-lea. Regele Bhumibol Adulyadej, in varsta de 18 ani, devine Rama al IX-lea, suveranul regatului Siam. Incoronarea sa oficiala a avut loc in 1950.

Principele Bhumibol Adulyadej s-a nascut in SUA, in orasul Cambridge din Massachusetts, unde tatal lui era student la Universitatea Harvard. Impreuna cu fratele si sora lui mai mare, el a fost crescut in SUA, apoi in Elvetia.

Cei saizeci de ani de domnie ai regelui Bhumibol sunt un model exceptional de leadership. Este, mai inainte de toate, regele cu cea mai indelungata domnie din lume. In conditiile unei monarhii constitutionale care i-a impus limitari similare cu cele care se aplica in Marea Britanie, de exemplu, regele a reusit sa dobandeasca o autoritate morala care l-a facut deopotriva venerat si util prezentului tarii lui.

In anii 60 si 70, pericolul comunist a fost imens si acut in Thailanda. Insurgentii comunisti, sprijiniti de URSS si de China, aveau o destul de mare putere de convingere si mijloace si echipamente militare. In plus, in primele trei decenii, regele s-a confruntat cu o multime de interventii militare interne, unele care au reusit, altele nu. Exista martori oculari care atesta ca regele Bhumibol, asemenea regelui Mihai care repara masinile romanilor ce veneau sa-l viziteze la Versoix, demonta, in anii insurgentei comuniste, mitralierele si pustile stricate, pe care le trimitea, mai pe urma, reparate, pe front.

Nu este singura asemanare dintre regele Mihai si regele Bhumibol. Ambii sunt parte a aceleiasi generatii de tineri care au luat parte la cel de-al doilea razboi mondial si care s-au opus comunismului. Regii Mihai si Bhumibol sunt amandoi longevivi si reprezinta un reper identitar al tarii lor, o institutie cu rol definitoriu pentru prezentul si viitorul natiunii pe care o reprezinta. Amandoi au vocatie si viziune pe termen lung si si-au castigat respectul si veneratia conationalilor lor. In viata de toate zilele, regele Mihai impartaseste aceleasi hobby-uri cu regele Bhumibol: ii place sa repare masini, este un fotograf pasionat, ii place muzica si are o afectiune speciala pentru animale. Si, nu in ultimul rand, acesti doi regi al secolului XXI mai au un punct comun: au supravietuit dusmanilor lor.

Cei 60 de ani de domnie ai regelui Bhumibol nu au insemnat numai lovituri organizate de militari si pericolul instalarii comunismului. Thailanda a cunoscut in aceste decenii un important progres social si o dezvoltare economica considerabila si constanta. Dupa ce pericolul insurgentilor comunisti a disparut, Thailanda a inceput sa-si imbunatateasca relatiile cu tarile vecine, Laos, Burma, Cambodgia si Malaiezia. De asemenea, institutiile democratice au inceput sa primeasca din ce in ce mai mult sprijin si incredere din partea oamenilor. Perioada dintre anii 1979 si 1988, ca si cea de dupa 1992, au adus o consolidare economica si un progres remarcabile.

Tara are astazi 65 de milioane de locuitori, dintre care 9 milioane locuiesc la Bangkok. Thailandezii au un ritm de dezvoltare economica de aproximativ 5% pe an, si un PIB pe cap de locuitor de 9,200 $. In Thailanda exista astazi 7 milioane de telefoane fixe si 40 de milioane de telefoane mobile. Tara are 111 statii de televiziune, 106 aeroporturi, dintre care 8 cu pista de peste 3000 de metri. Tara are o industrie remarcabila si un turism, alaturi de o retea de servicii, care se situeaza printre cele mai bune din lume.

Regele Bhumibol s-a impus in tara sa printr-o exceptionala munca de initiere a unor programe de dezvoltare rurala. Toata viata sa, regele, acompaniat de regina si de ceilalti membri ai familiei au fost prezenti, saptamana de saptamana, in sate, in orasele, in ferme, in scoli, in casele taranilor, indemnandu-i sa-si orienteze munca agricola in directii moderne, prin aplicarea metodelor stiintifice si ecologice de cultivare a cerealelor. Este o initiativa care a necesitat rabdare colosala, timp, viziune, credinta si abnegatie. Regele a mers din sat in sat, in triburile din nord, indemnand oamenii sa inceteze cultivarea opiumului si sa il inlocuiasca cu seminte de cereale, legume sau fructe. De asemenea, a creat si sustinut programe de imbunatatire a resursei de apa.

Filosofia regelui Bhumibol legata de economia suficientei, “Sufficiency Economy Philosophy”, a fost inscrisa de curand in publicatiile ONU. Contributia teoretica si practica a regelui se afla intr-o legatura intrinseca si directa cu “Noua teorie a agriculturii privitoare la securitatea alimentara si reducerea saraciei”, elaborata de ONU, “UN New Theory of Agriculture with food security and poverty reduction”.

Respectul castigat in acest tip si legatura directa cu populatia i-au dat regelui puterea de a actiona ca mediator decisiv in vremuri de violenta urbana, cum a fost revolta studentilor din 1973 sau teribilele confruntari politice din 1992, cand a fost nevoit sa faca o aparitie fara precedent la televiziune, dar care a avut drept efect intelegerea dintre cele doua tabere opozante.

Ultimii ani nu l-au ferit pe regele Bhumibol de situatii grele. De fiecare data, insa, institutia regala s-a dovedit de neinlocuit in mentinerea echilibrului, a sensului de mers, in protejarea confortului identitar, a mandriei, a credintei si a increderii in destinul natiunii. Privind la istoria Asiei din ultima suta de ani, rememorand tragediile si dezastrele politice, sociale, umane sau naturale care s-au produs, ratacirea si cruzimea pe care unele popoare le-au trait, se poate spune ca Thailanda a avut sansa unica de a-l avea pe acest om. Nu este, de aceea, nici o exagerare in a-l venera si a-l respecta; nici din partea thailandezilor, nici din partea noastra, a celorlalti locuitori ai planetei.

In toata desfasurarea de culori si sunete a vietii noastre publice, plina de oameni ai zilei care nu au facut nimic, ar putea sa se gaseasca undeva un coltisor de recunostinta pentru acest mare lider contemporan.

By John Vinocur
International Herald Tribune
Monday, January 21, 2008

Exactly a year from now, the United States will be swearing in its 44th president. He or she will shoulder the weight of the world. It comes with the territory.

Very much less certainly, but just possibly, Europe may have its first president in January 2009. He  -  there is no she on the list of  likely candidates  -  would be a man who at least in theory embodies the best shot anyone since Charlemagne has had at representing European unity.

Tony Blair, who’s a political Formula One racing team, but not  consensual, gets mentioned a lot. At a considerably lower horsepower rating, so does Jean-Claude Juncker, the workaday prime minister of Luxembourg, who may not turn out as consensual as some people think. Other hopefuls lounge or skulk in the wings.

The selection process runs parallel with the American presidential race during the second half of the year (and probably into 2009). But its stage is the closed conference halls of the European Union, whose successes and inadequacies have always reflected its reflexes for deals and ambiguity.

The choice of the European president is true to the EU’s historical character. Rather than a popular vote, the selection process will belong to the council of chiefs of state and government created by the Lisbon Treaty, whose ratification must be complete before their choice is made.

And here we fall back into the gray slush of European politics:

No one is sure who wants how much weight placed on the new president’s shoulders or how broad they should be.

A big guy to look the new Yank in the eye, or Vladimir  Putin, regardless of his title?  Or a smaller fellow, both fluent in Eurospeak, the language of petty tradeoffs among the 27 members,  and congenial and submissive enough never to challenge the sovereign international roles of France, Britain or Germany?

What escapes vagueness is the fact that the president will come to office burdened with a list of didn’ts and doesn’ts:

He did not get chosen by a combined Europe-wide vote but through a largely confidential arrangement; he does not command troops or virtually anyone else; does not, in strict terms, propose or initiate policy, two activities in the hands of the EU Commission; and doesn’t have his own budget, which is also under the Commission’s control.

On top of that, Europe’s eternal who’s-in-charge-here mystery won’t  evaporate with the president’s selection. Since future votes in the European Council to be steered by the president require unanimity for passage, a single member can always block his route.

Still, it’s a groundbreaking job whose definition (and Europe’s too) can have much to do with who holds the first two-and-a-half-year term.

Denis MacShane, a former British minister for Europe under Blair, speaking from London, described a future president’s biggest asset as “a bully pulpit.”

“If he can catch a wave, in other words make an issue his own, or get onto one early, and surf it, then he can impose his mark,” MacShane said.

Nicolas Sarkozy and France, who know something about imposing their will, get to put their mark first on this issue in July as holders of the rotating EU presidency (a system to be abandoned when the full-time president comes in).

Unmistakably, Sarkozy wants to be kingmaker. Although the rules on treaty ratification may push off an actual decision until 2009, Sarkozy is expected to use his six months setting the EU’s agenda to move the choice of president in a direction he favors.

In the last weeks, Sarkozy has signaled that Blair is his man for now.

Why would Sarkozy embrace such a heavy hitter? There are two appropriately devious guesses at an answer in Brussels:

One says that in the short term, pushing Blair divides further Sarkozy’s Socialist opponents before French municipal elections. The other insists Sarkozy ultimately considers the future president’s role not much of an obstacle to his drive for leadership in Europe.

So nothing in the selection process suggests it will be clear, simple or uplifting.

The Blair-for-president move has found quick opposition from those who think Europe can’t be headed by a politician whose country remains in doubt about its role in the EU and positioned outside its common currency.

They recall what was, patently, Blair’s failure to rally the organization in 2005 when, after negative referendum votes in France and the Netherlands on a draft constitution, the pro-European Briton was briefly hailed as a potential EU savior.

More, a good slice of Blair’s opponents refuse the idea of accepting as first European president the prime minister who brought Britain into the Iraq war.

For Europe, that’s a fairly ironic disqualifier considering that as many European NATO member countries sent troops to Iraq as those refusing to, and that in America the Iraq issue no longer tops the concerns of presidential voters.

In fact, when it comes to the EU finding a president, the Iraq issue cuts two disabling ways.

Juncker, considered the primary, self-effacing alternative to Blair, was Luxembourg’s footman to Jacques Chirac and Gerhard Schroder in their 2003 attempt to set up their own European military operations center  -  all the while insisting it wasn’t in opposition to NATO.

A year later, Britain, to the satisfaction of NATO and America, shot back. It derailed  the nomination to the presidency of the EU Commission of Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt of Belgium, the only other European leader, besides Juncker, to endorse the Chirac/Schroder autonomous headquarters.

Now, according to one of official Brussels’ authoritative voices, Juncker, whose reputation is also that of a European federalist or  super-state advocate, would be “impossible” for Britain to support.

That’s a swath of complicated, vindictive stuff, all contradicting the EU’s unfulfilled promise to bring its politics closer to its people.

Unlike America’s presidential primary elections, the start of Europe’s presidential selection process foretells very little to do with revivifying democracy.

At this pace, the man Europe’s government leaders finally call president would take office less a representative of new European unity than the EU’s let’s-make-a-deal past.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/01/21/europe/politicus.php

Exista, însa, mai presus de toate acestea, un motiv pentru care vreau sa amintesc astazi toate detaliile care urmeaza: faptul ca, desi au trecut peste o suta de ani de atunci, Romania are înca nevoie de acelasi tip de modele, de de initiative, de aceeasi inspiratie si viziune.

Expozitia Nationala din Bucuresti (sau Expozitia Generala Romana) a fost organizata în Parcul Carol în anul 1906, cu scopul de a prezenta realizarile Romaniei în domeniile politicii interne, ale politicii externe, ca si ale culturii: literaturii, muzicii, picturii, teatrului, arhitecturii, etc. Regele Carol a inaugurat expozitia în ziua de 6 iunie.

În anul Expozitiei Nationale, Romania a mai aniversat 1800 de ani de cand în tinuturile noastre se stabilisera primii colonisti romani (106 d.H.) si cucerirea Daciei de catre Traian, 40 de ani de domnie ai regelui Carol I si 25 de ani de cand Principatele Romane devenisera regat.

Expozitia a fost organizata pe baza unei legi, votata de Parlamentul Romaniei (Adunarea Deputatilor si Senatul) în luna mai 1905. Lucrarile expozitiei au început cu o luna mai tarziu si au fost executate de arhitectul I.D. Berindey (1871-1928), cel care urma sa desavarseasca, în anul 1925, Palatul Administrativ din Iasi. Planurile expozitiei fusesera create în anul 1900 de arhitectul peisagist francez Edouard Redont (1862-1942). Locul ales pentru expozitie se afla la sudul orasului Bucuresti, care numara la acea data 300.000 de locuitori. Parcul astfel creat a devenit un loc atractiv, vizitat de turisti din toata Europa. Astazi, Parcul Carol I pastreaza o parte din arhitectura lui de acum un secol, dar are un potential turistic si cultural de departe mai generos decat orizontul utilizarii lui actuale.

Proiectul a fost inspirat de Expozitia Universala de la Paris, din anul 1900 si a mai cuprins pavilioane dedicate industriei, comertului, agriculturii, silviculturii si minelor. Sculptorii Dimitrie Paciurea (1873-1932) si Frederic Stork (1878-1942) au creat cu aceasta ocazie doua statui de mari dimensiuni, plasate la intrarea în Expozitie. Disparitia lor lasa astazi parcul cu mult mai sarac. Distrugerea identitatii orasului, pe toate planurile, este bine simbolizata de povestea Parcului Carol, din ultima suta de ani. Iar lipsa de interes pentru acest loc al culturii, economiei si ecologiei arata limpede gradul de pierdere a instinctului consolidarii de sine a societatii romanesti, dupa patruzeci de ani de comunism si înca doua decenii de post-comunism.

Expozitia Nationala Romana – 1906 din Parcul Carol, în cifre: Suprafata totala a expozitiei: 40.000 m2; drumuri si sosele – 30.000 m2; alei si poteci – 71.000 m2; suprafata lacului din interiorul parcului – 20.000 m2; 4200 de arbori mari si 8400 flori; plantatiile, pajistile si aranjamentele florale – 186.000 m2; conductele pentru iluminat – 34.000 m; electricitate produsa de doua motoare de cate 680 de cai/putere; iluminatul – 5.400 lampi incandescente.

Regele Carol I nu si-a concentrat atentia numai asupra agriculturii romanesti, ci si asupra activitatilor care deriva din ea. Au aparut, dupa cum povesteste Paul Lindenberg in cartea sa biografica despre regele Carol I, „institutii model, în primul rand pe taramul agriculturii, în scopul folosirii cat mai rationale a pamantului, apoi si pe taramul industriei, încurajand aparitia de fabrici si de intreprinderi menite sa valorifice avantajos pentru populatie produsele speciale ale anumitor mosii“.

Domeniile Coroanei au produs, asadar, teracote excelente, articole din lana, produse din lemn, mobila, trasuri, ustensile de bucatarie, lazi, cutii de rezonanta pentru piane. In cartea sa, Lindenberg continua descrierea Domeniilor Coroanei cu: „(…) broderii si tesaturi, (…) împletituri de cosuri si franghii si asa mai departe, avandu-se tot timpul în vedere utilitatea acestora pentru straturile nevoiase ale populatiei“.

Au aparut fabrici de cherestea, s-au îmbunatatit caile navigabile si drumurile. S-a acordat atentie fondului cinegetic si piscicol. Populatia era instruita sa îngrijeasca pamantul, erau distribuite seminte pentru gradini si legumicultura. Cladirile de pe domenii respectau traditia arhitecturala a locului si erau construite cel mai adesea din lemn. Ordinea si curatenia erau elementele de care se tinea seama permanent. Se acorda importanta atat activitatilor de asistenta sociala si medicala, cat si învatamantului public, construindu-se numeroase scoli-model, plus biblioteci cu fond de carte variat. Îndeplinirea acelorasi obiective a constituit baza elaborarii „Proiectului regal Savarsin“. Toate aceste activitati temerare si avansate, initiate de domnitorul si mai tarziu regele Carol, sunt astazi continuate de urmasii lui.

01-15-2008

NON-WESTERN MODERNIZATION CHALLENGES DAVOS MAN

Nathan Gardels is the editor-in-chief of NPQ and Global Services of Tribune Media Services. His forthcoming book with Mike Medavoy is entitled “The Global Battle for Hearts and Minds: Hollywood, Public Diplomacy and America’s Image.”

By Nathan Gardels

DAVOS, Switzerland — As the global elite gather here to ponder how “Collaborative Innovation” — this year’s theme — might bring the world closer together, there are a set of deep and broad challenges that suggest the trend is moving in a very different, if not opposite, direction.

First, we are witnessing the end of “the end of history” as a distinct pattern of “non-Western modernization” is beginning to take shape. Second, two decades after the defrosting of the Cold War order, the world is once again dividing into democratic and non-democratic camps. Third, it is increasingly clear that export-oriented emerging markets such as China and Brazil are achieving a sufficient level of domestic consumption that they can “decouple” from the rich economies, continuing to grow even as the U.S. teeters toward recession.

The most prominent chronicler of non-Western modernization is Kishore Mahbubani, the irascible former envoy of Singapore to the U.N. and now dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. In his just-published book, “The New Asian Hemisphere: The Irresistible Shift of Global Power to the East,” Mahbubani writes, “Many in the West want to believe that this current bout of anti-Americanism is just a passing phase caused by the harsh and insensitive policies of one administration. When Bush leaves, all will change and the world will go back to loving America. The West will be revered again. All will be well. This is a mirage.”

Where once the Chinese, the Muslims and the Indians “happily borrowed Western lenses and Western cultural perspectives” to see the world, now “with growing cultural self-confidence their perceptions are growing further and further apart.”

As evidence of this shift, Mahbubani not only marshals the well-known economic statistics about growth in India and China, but also cites the increasing quality and number of world-class Asian universities and the credible rise of the “Chinese dream” as a model for the developing world. He notes as well the eclipse of the once-ubiquitous American “I Love Lucy” or “Dallas”-type entertainment by Qing dynasty dramas, wildly popular modern-day Korean soaps or Bollywood epics, which are attractive in the Muslim world because of “the spirit of inclusiveness and tolerance” that pervades the Indian mindset.

While the West sees the world in black and white, “evil empire and axis of evil” terms, writes Mahbubani, “the Indian mind is able to see the world in many different colors,” making Easterners more properly “the custodians of human civilization” than Westerners.

The road to this new East may well have been through the West, but now that the East has arrived at its destination, the future will be built on its own terms. In one of his most insightful passages, Mahbubani writes, “The great paradox about failed Western attempts to export democracy to other societies is that, in the broadest sense of the term, the West has actually succeeded in democratizing the world.” For this Singaporean diplomat, even China, which the West considers undemocratic, has empowered its citizens and made them “masters of their own destiny” thanks to new economic liberties. Yet, instead of celebrating this “democratization of the human spirit,” the West berates them “for imperfect voting practices” because it fears the inevitable: Real democracy on a global scale would topple the West from its reigning perch.

Obviously, much turns here on the differences between liberal and illiberal democracy, but Mahbubani is certainly right on the broader historical shift taking place.

Closely related to the new cultural self-assertion of the East is what former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright sees as “the hardening of the cement between democratic and non-democratic worlds.”

“The phony democracies or autocracies of Putin and Chavez,” she lamented in a recent conversation, “may point the way to the future rather than the likes of a Walesa, Havel or Mandela, who were harbingers of democracy in their time.” For now, oil is the ingredient that is hardening the cement, but one wonders, as the futurist Alvin Toffler did a few weeks ago on a visit to Moscow, how Russia can advance through centralizing the state and restoring the nomenklatura in an information age where distributed power and decentralization are the keys to success.

In any case, Albright’s answer to stemming this new global rift is to reinvigorate U.S.-European alliances in promoting democracy “because we have the most in common.” For Russia and China, the whole point of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which now ties them together, is to stand firm against such initiatives by the fading hegemon and its formerly colonialist allies trying to hold on as power moves east.

Finally, anyone crying over his sorry portfolio returns from U.S. versus international markets can’t but note the growing differential between slowdown and takeoff. The World Bank forecasts that growth in the high-income countries in 2008 will be 2.2 percent. Developing countries will grow by 7.1 percent, south Asia by 7.9 percent, east Asia by 9.7 percent and China by 10.8 percent.

Based on this data, several Hong Kong investment analysts argue that China has passed a critical threshold where it can “decouple” its economic fate from the West’s financial tribulations, sustaining its pace of growth and investment despite a looming recession in the United States. Some go further, believing the emerging economies, China in particular, can become the “locomotive” of the global economy the United States once was. This new reality describes yet another tectonic plate shift as the 21st century unfolds.

None of this means globalization is coming apart at the seams, though the seams are becoming ever more apparent culturally and politically as well as economically. Certainly common action on global warming, which affects everyone, would not be precluded. But the world order we see emerging is a lot different than the one Davos Man, as Harvard’s Sam Huntington famously labeled the globalizing elite who attend the World Economic Forum each year, has been used to envisioning.

© Global Viewpoint
DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC. (1/15/08)