WTF headline of the day

Comes from the Daily Mirror :

West responsible for cyclone in Burma.

How fitting it was a direct quote by Champika Ranwaka. Do check out the comments section, this is confirming my increasing cynicism of democracy, I mean forget an informed electorate, doesn't democracy at least require a not-retarded one?

Meanwhile in other news, BBC reports that, Great tits respond well to warming. Hallelujah

[links sent by NM and via IU respectively]

On Pakistan

William Dalrymple, the historian and popular author has an insightful piece on the recent elections in Pakistan. He's quite optimistic about the country's future. Here's a relevant excerpt:

widespread publicity given to the [recent] crisis obscured the important changes that had quietly taken place in Pakistani society during Musharraf's eight years in power. Pakistan's economy is currently in difficulty, with fast-rising inflation and shortages of electricity and flour; but between 2002 and 2006 it had grown almost as strongly as India's. Until the beginning of 2007, Pakistan had a construction and consumer boom, with growth approaching 8 percent; for several years its stock market was the fastest-rising in Asia.

As you travel around Pakistan today you can see the effects of the boom everywhere: in vast new shopping malls and smart roadside filling stations, in the cranes of the building sites and the smokestacks of factories, in the expensive new cars jamming the roads and in the ubiquitous cell-phone stores. In 2003 the country had fewer than three million cell phones; today apparently there are 50 million, while car ownership has been increasing at roughly 40 percent a year since 2001. At the same time foreign direct investment has risen from $322 million in 2002 to $3.5 billion in 2006.

Pakistan's cities, in particular, are fast changing beyond recognition. As in India, there is a burgeoning Pakistani fashion scene full of ambitious gay designers and amazingly beautiful models. [link]

The trouble with International Media is that, it only reports the most compelling stories about places like Pakistan. The trouble with that is, the compelling stories are chaotic - a bomb, a shooting or something of the sort. So people develop this perception that Pakistan = chaos + Jihad+ bombs + kill. Which is not true for, well, much of the country.

Being Sri Lankan - another country which reminds people of all things Pakistan (minus jihad) - I kept getting ask by my non-Sri Lankan friends about the dreadful situation in the country. Now, the situation is dreadful and there are bombs, but I'm not exactly ducking bullets. I mean, when there is a bomb and you are not dead as a result of it, you kind of avoid that route and get on with life. That's kind of what Pakistan is. Dalrymple relates the story by analyzing the election results where most secular-democratic forces have secured victory over the mullah's and feudal leaders. Read the whole thing.

[link via Ajay Shah]

on Musharraf

I sort of like the guy. I've read his biography, and I think I can see where he's coming from. I mean so what' if he's a dictator, that's better than a dictator pretending to be a democrat (thats democrat as in democracy not democract as in party).

Supporters of President Musharraf say that he has brought the country rapid economic growth (this much is true), relative political stability (prior to recent incidents) and in some even argue a some form of democracy. As a Pakistani friend of mine once told me "we want development, not democracy".

My friend is not alone, In fact I think most people wouldn't outrightly reject the idea of a dictatorship. If somebody has a political agenda which he/she thinks would benefit everyone, and that someone can find a dictator to follow that course, then theoretically this should be a good thing. Of course some of us are more idealistic and thinks it would not be proper force someone what we think is "right". But for most people this would be a desirable outcome, and President Musharraf (and i know this personally) has his share of genuine supporters. However, What makes dictatorships a bad system is the fact that it's success depends good persons and this is where Musharraf has faltered in recent times, he's not been able to be good enough even for his adherent supporters.

This was triggered off by a rather funny post from on Musharraf at the Acron.

Authoritarianism 2.0

Ajay Shah has an interesting post on Authoritarian Capitalism :

... a series of countries have now embarked on what I term `Authoritarianism 2.0' : a blend of free markets with authoritarian politics. This aims to produce good resource allocation and high growth rates through sound economic policy, while retaining one-party (or one-person) rule, denying the rule of law, and supressing the rights of individuals. Rowan Callick has written an article titled The China Model which reviews this style of design of the State, where individuals are seen as consumers but not citizens; where individuals have some economic flexibility but weak political rights. This model is being attempted in Russia, China, Vietnam, UAE, etc. In some ways, Singapore also exhibits some of these features. These countries do not see their political systems as illegitimate way stations on the road to democracy. The effort is to make Authoritarianism 2.0 work; liberal democracy is not even the long-term goal.

The question we really face is about the soundness of the `Capitalism and Freedom' hypothesis. Does the growth of a free market economy inevitably generate pressures to modernise the political system? Or is it possible to combine 21st century economic policy with pre-enlightenment politics? [link : Authoritarianism 2.0]

From recently i have been inquiring into the inadequacies of democracy, but i think i still hold economic freedom would yield greater political freedom, now that political freedom might not necessarily produce a functioning democracy, but it would certainly make authority less coercive thus delivering more political freedom.

In the case of china, they've not brought in market reforms in where its politically disadvantages to the Communist Party i.e. media, telecom, the internet - all avenues which market decentralization would have made censorship difficult and contributed to greater political freedom.

The question is of course whether it is sustainable ? I can only speculate. The reason for its partial success is, to my mind, that people attach a greater value to economic freedom than political freedom because they are more affected by it. You may support Gay/Lesbian Rights, but if you're not gay, it doesn't really affect you. But if you have to queue in the morning to get bread, which you might or might not get, you're bound to be more pissed.

For an irrelevant Democracy

‘Democracy’ and ‘Crisis’ are words we have come to associate them in the same sentence.

In this site and elsewhere, many people have lamented over the conduct of the present administration; Its blatant disregard for anything remotely ‘democratic’ – be it in a lack of accountability in public finances, due process of parliament or a total disregard of the freedom of the press, the Rajapakse administration have both directly and indirectly communicated that such democratic nuisances are too much of an inconvenience, especially ‘when fighting terrorism’.

One can, being good citizens of what is still, at least a quasi-democracy; place the blame squarely on the President, his brothers, the hundred-something ministers and hope the blame game would lead to some sort of a balancing effect. This could well be the case. But could it be that the conduct of the Rajapakse regime is just a manifestation of a very old problem which keeps on repeating itself? Could it be that the problem is in not just the conduct of the ruler, but of democracy itself?

Read the rest of the post in Groundviews.