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8/9/2019 JUST Commentary, Vol. 10 No. 4, April 2010
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Vol 10, No.4 April 2010
STATEMENT
IRAQ: NATIONAL UNITY GOVERNMENTOR RETURN TO SECTARIANISM?
ARTICLES
THEWORLDIN 2020 (PART 2)
CONDEMN BOMB BLASTS IN RUSSIA!...........The International Movement for a Just World
condemns the series of bomb blasts in Russia in the
last three days which have killed more than 50
people................................................................p.2
By Catherine Rottenberg & Neve Gordon ......... page 4
WAR CRIME TRIBUNAL IN BANGLADESH: A
MISCARRIAGEOF JUSTICE
continued next page
By Juan Cole
By Michael T. Klare ....................................... page 7
THE BASIC MORAL VALUESOFTHE KORAN
By ODT.org ................................................. page11
IS ETHICAL CAPITALISM POSSIBLE?By Kamran Mofid ........................ ...................page 5
Patrick Martin of the Toronto Globe
and Mail gets the diction right
when he says that Iyad Allawis list
won a thin plurality. The official results
of the March 7 Iraqi parliamentary
elections have been announced by the
Independent High Electoral Commission.Of 325 seats, 91 went to the National Iraqi
List (Iraqiya) of former interim prime
minister Iyad Allawi. The State of Law
grouping of incumbent Nuri al-Maliki
came in at 89. The Shiite fundamentalist
coalition, the Iraqi National Alliance,
which includes the followers of clerics
Ammar al-Hakim and Muqtada al-Sadr,
garnered 70 seats. The Kurdistan Alliance
won only 43 seats.
That leaves 33 seats in the hands ofsmaller parties, many of them wild cards.
Shortly before the results were
announced, two large bomb blasts in
Khalis, in Diyala Province northeast of
Baghdad, killed 53 persons. Diyala is still
the site of violent struggle between
Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds.
Most Sunni Arabs in Iraq have moved
on from the violence and fundamentalism
of groups such as the Islamic State ofIraq, and most voted for the Allawi list
as a way of reentering national politics.
Despite some breathless headlines, the
outcome of the elections is not very
different from previous elections. Allawi
put together a coalition of Sunni Arabs
and secular Shiites. In the December,2005, parliamentary elections, those two
groups received about 80 seats, only 11
less than Allawis just list won. If the two
major Shiite religious lists (State of Law
and Iraqi National Alliance) had run on
the same ticket, they would have nearly
a majority, about what they won in
December, 2005. The Kurdistan Alliance
only has 43 seats, down from 54 in the
last parliamentary election, but the overall
number of Kurdish Members of
Parliament is not so different from that inthe last polls.
In spring-summer of 2006, Prime Minister
Nuri al-Maliki put together a government
of national unity, with the help of the US
ambassador. It included Sadrists and
Allawis Iraqiya. But it gradually fell apart.
This election is an opportunity for al-
Maliki to attempt to repeat that feat.
Indeed, a national unity government may
be the first preference of the Iraqi
National Alliance, which has, accordingto al-Sharq al-Awsat, swung into action
to convince the other major lists that such
a path is the only right one for Iraq at this
juncture.
Although Allawis list won the most seats,
he is very unlikely to be the next prime
minister. Al-Malikis State of Law list isanti-Baathist and hasnt gotten on well
with Sunni Arabs, while ex-Baathists and
Sunnis are the backbone of Allawis
constituency. Likewise, the Shiite
religious party, made up of Sadrists and
members of the Islamic Supreme Council
of Iraq (ISCI), among others, are unlikely
to ally with secularist ex-Baathists. Allawi
says that he is dialoguing with the parties
led by Hakim and Sadr, as well as with the
Kurds. But Allawi rejects a role in politics
for Shiite clerics, which would make foran uneasy alliance with lists headed by
clerics. Without the two big Shiite blocs,
Allawi could only become prime minister
by attracting the Kurdistan Alliance and
all of the smaller parties and
independents. Keeping such a disparate
coalition together would be difficult in
the extreme. Allawi is supported by Sunni
Arabs who have sharp differences with
the Kurds over the future of the mixed
province of Kirkuk, which the Kurds
covet. Allawi may therefore have a
EDUCATING CHILDREN IN CONFLICT ZONES
ARTICLES
By Dr S.Serajul Islam and Dr M.Saidul Islam ... page 3
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE MEMBERSOFTHEINTERNATIONAL MOVEMENT ................ page 10
STATE OFTHE VILLAGE REPORT
By Yoginder Sikand ....................................... page 9
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WARCRIME TRIBUNALIN BANGLADESH: A MISCARRIAGEOF JUSTICE
While Bangladesh (formerly East
Pakistan) got its independence from
Pakistan in 1971 following a bloody war,
some issues of the past are still inflicting
the nation. Today, the ruling coalition led
by Bangladesh Awami League (BAL) has
formed a special war crime tribunal to try
the war criminals not of Pakistani forces
but of its own people who opposed the
idea of an independent Bangladesh and
fought for a united Pakistan. The tribunal
will not however try war crime rather
crime against humanity. This move of
the government is highly contested.
It is evident in history, however, that war
crimes, alongside grievous oppression ofcivilians were committed in the 1971 war
by the Pakistani forces and some of their
local allies against Bengali civilians, and
by some Bengali freedom fighters against
Bihari Muslims. Following the
independence of Bangladesh, 195
Pakistani army officers were identified as
war criminals in the preliminary
investigation by the then Bangladesh
government. Following the Simla
Agreement signed on 2nd July 1972
between Indira Gandhi, Prime Minister ofIndia and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, President
of Pakistan, a number of agreements were
signed between India and Pakistan
regarding repatriation of the POWs. On
9th April 1974, an Agreement was signed
between Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan
in New Delhi in which, among other
issues, the question of the trial of the 195
POWs was raised and finally it was
decided that they would be repatriated
to Pakistan along with the other prisoners
without trial (The Daily Tribune,
Wisconsin, 10 April 1974). For a better
understanding, paragraph 15 of the 1974
Agreement is quoted here:
In the light of the foregoing and,
in particular, having regard to the
appeal of the Prime Minister of
Pakistan to the people of
Bangladesh to forgive and forget
the mistakes of the past, the
Foreign Minister of Bangladesh
stated that the Government of
Bangladesh had decided not to
proceed with the trials as an act ofclemency. It was agreed that the
195 prisoners of war may be
repatriated to Pakistan along
with the other prisoners of war now
in process of repatriation under the
Delhi Agreement.
On 24 January 1972, the government of
Bangladesh enacted another law,
Collaborators Act, 1972, to try those
who did not side with the liberation war,
or politically opposed the call of liberation
war, or willingly cooperated with the
Pakistan Army or committed criminal acts.
Among thousands arrested, 752 people
were found guilty and punished under
this law. Taking into account the overall
situation (of discontent) obtaining in the
country, in November 1973 the
Government of Bangladesh under the
leadership of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman,the father of the current Prime Minister
Sheikh Hasina, declared a general
amnesty. By virtue of the general
amnesty, those accused or convicted for
minor crimes under theActwere all set
free. But those accused of rape, murder,
arson or plunder were not pardoned. In
other words, the general amnesty kept
the scope of prosecution and trial of
those accused of such serious crimes
under the Act. On December 31, 1975, the
Collaborators Act was repealed by aPresidential Order. After the amnesty, the
Actremained in force for a little over two
years. In that period, no case was filed
for the said four serious offences.
Perhaps that was the logic behind repeal
of the law in 1975.
While the issue was resolved before both
nationally and internationally, the attempt
of the Bangladesh government for trials
of war crimes after 39 years is, however,
according to many, a politically motivated
act. A list of 36 war criminals has already
been announced even before the trial has
started, the majority of whom are from
Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islam (BJI), the
mainstream liberal Islamic party in
Bangladesh that formed a coalition
government with the Bangladesh
Nationalist Party (BNP) during 2001-2006.
A few of them in the list were between 4-
8 years old during the war in 1971 (Daily
Amar Desh, 28 March 2010). It is claimed
that while the issue of war crimes was
resolved internationally (through SimlaAgreement) and nationally (through
Collaboration Act), bringing it up again
shows that it is highly politically
motivated. Moreover, the Bangladesh
judiciary is now being subjugated by the
current regime and therefore a fair
judgment is absolutely unexpected from
this politically motivated trial (Daily
Amar Desh, 16 February 2010).
Analysts and legal scholars apprehend
that the trial will simply be a miscarriage
of justice. First, the International Bar
Association (IBA) found over a dozen
loopholes in The Crimes (Tribunal) Act,
1973, by which the accused would be
tried (bdnews24.com, Dhaka, 14 March
2010). Crimes against humanity
described in section 3(2)(a) of theActare
very easy to prove through producing
false witness-evidences in a domesticperspective. It is easy to manipulate a
witness for crime against humanity than
for war crime. Most importantly, the
Evidence Act [1872 (I of 1872)] and the
Criminal Procedure Code [1898 (V of
1898)] application have been excluded by
section 23 of the International Crimes
(Tribunal) Act, 1973. Therefore,
newspaper reports and hearsay evidence
will be accepted thus making the tribunal
a kangaroo court. Second, the tribunal
will neither try the actual war criminals,the 195 Pakistani army officers, nor
Bengali freedom fighters who were
responsible for ethnic cleansing of
Biharis, but try only some collaborators
belonging to an opposition party who
supported a united Pakistan but do not
have any proven record of war crimes,
such as killing, rape, arson etc. Third, it
is not clear whether the judges of this
court are either trained or neutral for this
specialized kind of trials. According to
various reports, most of the appointed
judges and prosecutors are former party
men of, and therefore loyal to, the ruling
coalition. Finally, many feel that the legal
apparatus is being manipulated and
therefore expectation of a fair and free
trial is a mere dream. Even as it is, there
have been rampant violations of human
rights without any justice, such as the
154 extra-judicial killings in 2009 in the
hands of law enforcement authorities
(Odhikar 2009 Report).
More importantly, if the trial is notconducted freely and fairly for all
criminals irrespective of any kind of
political affiliation, the nation may have
By S.Serajul Islam and M.Saidul Islam
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continued from page 3
to pay a severe price. In the first place,,
if it targets only the members of Islamic
parties, reconciliation with the Muslim
world will be very difficult. Since
Bangladesh needs to build strong
relations with the Muslim countries for
financial support and for supplyingmanpower to those countries, this will
have a negative impact. Second, having
no alternative, the BJI which is openly
involved in the democratic process of
politics may go underground due to the
unjust trial. If that happens, it will be
dangerous for the nation. Third, the
unfair trial will divide the whole nation
as BJI has millions of supporters which
is evident from last few elections. Finally,
if the regime fails to conduct the trial, it
will also backfire upon the party in power.
The whole move of the government so far
seems to be interpreted by the
international community as nothing but
an extreme political vendetta intended tosubdue the opposition party/parties. This
victors justice is always a questionable
justice. The regime has already started a
nation-and-worldwide campaign for this
trial and obstructed the free movement
and overseas travel of the BJI leaders. If
this highly disputed trial is conducted
unfairly, Bangladesh will certainly enter
into another dark chapter of political
chaos, uncertainties, and most likely, a
civil war. If the trial is held, the
government must ensure a free and fair
trial beyond any doubt. The best way is
to form an international tribunal under
the auspices of the United Nations. It will
not only provide credibility to the current
regime, but also remain a reference fortrying other war crimes committed
elsewhere.
2 April 2010
Dr S. Serajul Islam and Dr M. Saidul
Islam are both University Professors and
columnists. They can be reached at
[email protected] respectively.
Educating children in a conflict zone is
no simple matter. More often than not,
those responsible for the curricula
succumb to the masters of war and adopt
a pedagogical approach that exacerbates
rather than diffuses strife. Israel,
unfortunately, is no exception.
Consider the way Jewish and Palestinian
children are educated. Segregation in the
classroom is the rule so that Jewish and
Palestinian children only rarely mix. Thisstrict segregation exists despite the fact
that the Palestinians are citizens of Israel,
comprising 19.5 percent of Israels
populationaround 1.37 million
peopleand 25 percent of all school
children. Unlike the Palestinians in the
Occupied Territories, these Palestinians
vote and pay taxes like Jewish citizens.
Notwithstanding their incorporation into
the citizen body, Palestinian citizens do
not enjoy full equality. In comparison totheir Jewish counterparts, Arab schools
receive half the per capita budget. It is
therefore not very surprising that
Palestinian students have the highest
dropout rates and lowest achievement
levels in the country.
Equality in education is reserved to the
uniformity of the school curriculum,
particularly the texts dedicated to
teaching the history of the Israeli state.
The existing history textbooks adopt the
Zionist historical narrative, erasing alltrace of the Palestinian nakba (Arabic for
catastrophe, referring to the events of
1948, when approximately 750,000
Palestinians out of a population of
900,000 either fled or were expelled from
their homes). Furthermore, these
textbooks emphasise the significance of
the Land of Israel for Jews and attempt to
prove that the State of Israel could only
have been created in historical Palestine,
while simultaneously portraying the
connection between the Arabs and
Palestine as purely incidental. Along
similar lines, the study of literature in the
Arab schools is oriented toward Zionist
portrayals and is conspicuously lackingin any patriotic or nationalistic Palestinian
sentiments.
It is, no doubt, a truism that public schools
in modern liberal democracies inculcate
their students with the dominant national
worldview. In the US, for example, children
still recite the pledge of allegiance and in
France children sing La Marseillaise. But
while the public schools in these
democracies are today more willing to
provide students with a multiculturalcurriculum that includes the historical
narratives of those who have been
oppressed and marginalised over the
centuries, Israel is arguably becoming less
tolerant to any pedagogy that challenges
the dominant Zionist national narrative.
This increasing intolerance does not bode
well for the future of the Israeli-Palestinian
relationship. It has therefore become more
urgent than ever to consider alternative
educational models.
Since educating for tolerant thinking
within a conflict zone is no easy task, there
are very few such projects in Israel. The
bilingual Arab-Jewish Hagar School in
Beer-Sheba is the only one of its kind in
Israels southern regiona region that
is home to over half a million people, 25
percent of whom are Palestinian citizens.
While Hagar is a public school supported
by the Ministry of Education, it is also
the exception that proves the rule.
Hagars uniqueness stems from the fact
that it has created a venue in which Jewish
and Arab children not only mix (each
ethnic group makes up 50 percent of the
student body) but learn together in anatmosphere of mutual respect. Currently
67 children, nursery through first grade,
attend this bi-lingual school, whose
commitment to equality informs every
aspect of its educational agenda.
To ensure that Hebrew and Arabic are
awarded equal status, for example, two
teachers, one Jewish and the other Arab,
are present in every classroom. By
creating a bilingual space that
encourages direct contact with theheritage and customs of the different
cultures, Hagar promotes tolerance, while
being sensitive to nurture the personal
EDUCATING CHILDREN IN CONFLICT ZONESBy Catherine Rottenberg & Neve Gordon
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A R T I C L E Scontinued from page 4
continued next page
identity of each child and each tradition.
Thus, by the time the children are old
enough to learn that there are two
conflicting national narratives, both of
which will be taught, they already have
the necessary emotional and intellectual
tools to deal with conflict throughdialogue.
Hagar is an educational island that is
expanding against all odds. Indeed, the
schools achievements within the current
political contextespecially following
the assault on Gaza and the sporadic
missile attacks on Beer-Shebaare
astonishing. But ongoing local support
and international financial assistance arenecessary to guarantee the future
success of this educational spacea
We live in a time of transition, a time when
all is changing and being challenged
weather systems, ecosystems, our
interaction with nature, our
understanding of other beings. We now
understand that we are all interconnected
and interdependent. Somewhere along
the line, our actions as human beings
have created enormous instability to the
planet and the millions of species who
reside here.
Much of which is familiar to us and
deemed the norm is no longer working
and is being challenged. Sometimes
change brings with it destruction.
Sometimes destruction is beneficial. It
can alert us to practices that do not work.
With destruction also comes new birth,and new avenues open wide to be
explored. There are many choices as to
which route to take; the issue is which
route is the one that will provide life for
all. The golden opportunity presented by
the current ongoing crises is to make the
right choices that will affect the long term
future for us, our descendants and our
planet.
There is no denying the fact that we are
in a serious state of crises, a crises of ourown making, all of us and not the bankers
alone. They responded to what we
wanted: cheap, available, unregulated
money and loads of it.
They in turn were responding to the neo-
liberal agenda of the so-called
Washington Consensus: Privatisation,
deregulation, market forces,
liberalisation, low taxation, free trade, and
one glove fits all policies and more. No
regards, no respect for different cultures,
civilisations, religions and history. Whatis good for America and the West, then,
must also be good for everybody else,
regardless of all other factors, we were
told again and again.
The tragedy is that we have now
discovered that what we were pushing
on others, which we thought was good
for us - the so-called market-forces driven
Anglo-Saxon model of capitalism - was
nothing but a huge cancerous cell which
at the end brought the house of cards
down. The emperor has no clothes, so to
say.
What to Do Now?
The current global economic crisis is
deeply complex and perplexing. Many
world politicians, business people,
academics, activists, and civil society
representatives, as well as religious and
spiritual leaders, have called for a new
kind of ethical capitalism - a moral,spiritual and virtuous economy. People
everywhere are calling for an international
framework of standards for an equitable
and sustainable global economy to
replace the current economic system of
unbridled growth and increasing
ecological degradation. While some look
for quick short-term solutions that would
perpetuate the current economic model,
others see the need for more fundamental
changes of the model itself. Our challenge
is great. In a time of continuing crisis andpolarizing viewpoints, can the world
agree on an ethical approach to the global
economy?
I propose a comprehensive examination
of the major attempts to integrate
economics with ethics and spirituality,
along with an exploration of the
theoretical underpinnings of these
activities. In considering the need for bold
economic initiatives, we must keep in
mind the deeper questions that rarely find
their way into political debate or publicdiscourse.
We should explore the emerging
economic issues as well matters that are
deeply ethical and spiritual:
* What is the source of true happiness
and well-being? What is the good life?
* What is the purpose of economic life?
What does it mean to be a human being
living on a spaceship with finite
resources?
* How can the global financial system
become more responsive and just?
* How can the world make the global
trade system more equitable and
sustainable?
* What paths can be recommended to
shift the current destructive globalpolitical-economic order from one of
unrestrained economic growth, profit
maximisation and cost minimisation, to
one that embraces material wealth
creation, yet also preserves and
enhances social and ecological well-
being and increases human happiness
and contentment?
* How can society overcome poverty and
scarcity with limited natural resources?
* How should we deal with individual
and institutionalized greed?
* What are the requirements of a virtuous
economy?
* What religious or spiritual variables
should be considered in economic/
business ethics and economic
behaviour?
* How are these components to be
integrated with economic theories anddecisions?
IS ETHICAL CAPITALISM POSSIBLE?By Kamran Mofid
space that is actively translating a
pedagogy of mutual respect into practice
within a conflict zone.
16 October, 2009
Catherine Rottenberg is a founding member
of Hagar School and sits on its pedagogic
committee. Neve Gordon is the author of
Israels Occupation.
Source: Common Groung News Service
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* What role should universities play in
building an integrity-based model of
business education?
* What should be the role of the youth?
* How might the training of youngexecutives be directed with the intention
of supplying insights into the nature of
globalisation from its economic,
technological and spiritual perspectives,
to build supporting relationships among
the participants that will lead toward
action for the common good within their
chosen careers?
* Indeed, is ethical, profitable, efficient
and sustainable capitalism possible?
These questions and more need to bereflected upon, debated, and ultimately,
answered and put into policy formation,
guiding us to a more humane
globalisation.
A concrete framework for understanding
what has gone wrong and possible
remedies, including both broad
perspectives on policies and specific
recommendations, must include not only
an economic perspective, but also a
spiritual, moral and ethical understanding.
Steps can be taken towards a sustainable
economy, to turn the current crisis of
casino capitalism into an opportunity for
a successful, sustainable and everlasting
change, where all people, wherever they
may be, can live fulfilling, healthy, and
yet more ecologically compatible lives.
Here are the steps I suggest:
1. Begin a Journey to Wisdom
Economics and business are all abouthuman well-being in society and cannot
be separated from moral, ethical and
spiritual considerations. The idea of an
economics which is value-free is totally
false. Nothing in life is morally neutral.
In the end, economics cannot be
separated from a vision of what it is to
be a human being in society.
In order to arrive at such understanding,
my first recommendation must surely be
for us to begin a journey to wisdom, byembodying the core values of the Golden
Rule (Ethic of Reciprocity): Do unto
others as you would have them to do to
you. This in turn will prompt us on a
journey of discovery, giving life to what
many consider to be the most consistent
moral teaching throughout history.
It should be noted that the Golden Rule
can be found in many religions, ethical
systems, spiritual traditions, indigenous
cultures and secular philosophies.
Applying this universal principle can
provide an enabling mechanism for the
dialogue and development essential to
resolving the challenges we face
globally, nationally, and locally.
2. Now is the Time for a Revolution in
Economic Thought
An economist who is only an economist
cannot be a good economist. Therefore,
the focus of economics should be on the
benefit and bounty that the economyproduces, how to let this bounty
increase, and how to share the benefits
justly among the people for the common
good.
Moreover, economic investigation
should be accompanied by research into
subjects such as anthropology,
philosophy, politics and most
importantly, theology, to give insight into
our own human mystery, as no economic
theory or no economist can say who weare, where have we come from or where
we are going to. Humankind must be
respected as the centre of creation and
not relegated to short-term economic
interests, as has been the case for the
past few centuries.
3. Dont Repair the Economy, Change It
The current financial meltdown is the
result of under-regulated markets built
on an ideology of free market capitalism
and unlimited economic growth. The
fundamental problem is that the
underlying assumptions of this ideology
are not consistent with what we now
know about the real state of the world.
The financial world is, in essence, a set
of markers for goods, services, and risks
in the real world and when those markers
are allowed to deviate too far from reality,
adjustments must ultimately follow
and crisis and panic can ensue.
To solve this and future financial crisesrequires that we reconnect the markers
with reality. What are our real assets and
how valuable are they? To undertake this
readjustment requires both a new vision
of what the economy is and what it is for,
proper and comprehensive accounting of
real assets, and new institutions that use
the market in its proper role as servant
rather than master. We have to first
remember that the goal of the economy
is to sustainably improve human well-
being and quality of life, not the
promotion of materialism, consumerism
and shop till you drop values -
especially when they are done with
borrowed money!
Ultimately we have to create a new model
of the economy and development that
acknowledges this holistic context and
vision. This new model of development
would be based clearly on the goal of
sustainable human well-being. It would
use measures of progress that clearly
acknowledge this goal. It wouldacknowledge the importance of
ecological sustainability, social fairness
and real economic efficiency.
Ecological sustainability implies
recognising that natural and social capital
are not infinitely substitutable for built
and human capital, and that real
biophysical limits exist to the expansion
of the market economy.
Social fairness implies recognising thatthe distribution of wealth is an important
determinant of social capital and quality
of life. The conventional model has
bought into the assumption that the best
way to improve welfare is through
growth in marketed consumption as
measured by GDP. This focus on growth
has not improved overall societal welfare,
which is why explicit attention to
distribution issues is sorely needed.
4. Recognise That the Economy Is Part
of the Biosphere
A comprehensive economic plan must be
based on the scientific fact that the global
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economy is a subsidiary of the natural
order. Economic policies should be
attuned to the limited capacity of Earths
biosphere to provide for humans and
other life and to assimilate their waste.
Photosynthesis and sunlight are as
essential to the framework for economicbudgets and expenditures as the laws of
supply and demand.
5. Acknowledge That We Need New
Institutions
An economic renewal tailored to the 21st
century would establish institutions
committed to fitting the human economy
to Earths limited life-support capacity.
We need something like the central
reserve banks which will look after sharesof the Earths ecological capacity, not just
interest rates and the money supply.
Money should be recognised as a social
licence for using part of Earths life-
support capacity. Some functions of
governance will have to operate at a
global level through a federation modelled
perhaps on the European Union, with
enforceable laws designed to assure that
individual nations dont overrun Earths
limits. The rules for the developed
countries that are responsible for the
current ecological crisis should bedifferent from those of developing ones.
6. Fairness Matters
A right human-Earth relationship
would recognise humans as part of an
interdependent web of life on a finite
planet. The economy must recognise the
rights of the human poor and of millions
of other species to their place in the sun.
In a world awash in money, addressing
poverty only with growth reflects a tragic
lack of moral imagination. Indeed, in
pushing for more free trade as it is
currently understood, we would entrench
an ongoing addiction to consumption,
pursued in a manner that often ravages
the bio-productivity of developing
countries.
7. Expand the Discussion
The new knowledge that will forever
mark this period in human history is the
overwhelming scientific evidence that
we are over-consuming the planet and
accelerating toward ecological
catastrophe. The short-term approaches
of most ministers of finance and
professional economists dont account
for how the planet works, or even thatthe economy exists on a finite planet.
Scientists morally committed to
protecting the global commons and
researching ecological limits to the
global economy need more funding and
influence in policy-making.
8. Look beyond Neoliberal Education and
Short-Term Fixes
We must begin a serious debate on the
role of education and what education is
all about. We must greatly increaseinvestment in educational and civic
institutions that teach that we are not
consumers, but citizens of the Earth
and guardians of lifes prospects on a
small, beautiful and finite planet. In
todays largely decadent, money-driven
world, the teaching of virtue and building
of character is no longer part of the
curriculum at many of our universities
around the world. The pursuit of virtue
has been replaced by moral neutrality -
the idea that anything goes. For centuries
it had been considered that universities
were responsible for the moral and social
development of students and for bringing
together diverse groups for the common
good.
Given the above, it is clear that we need anew economic model, enabling us to deal
with new challenges, rather that rescuing
and bailing out a discredited and
bankrupt model, philosophy and theory.
The long-term solution to the financial
crisis is therefore to move beyond the
growth at all costs economic model to
a model that recognises the real costs and
benefits of growth. We can break our
addiction to fossil fuels, over-
consumption, and the current economicmodel and create a more sustainable and
desirable future that focuses on quality
of life rather than merely quantity of
consumption.
It will not be easy; it will require a new
vision, new measures, and new
institutions. It will require a redesign of
our entire society. But it is not a sacrifice
of quality of life to break this addiction.
Quite the contrary, it is a sacrifice not to.
15 March 2010
This article is an abridged version of a
presentation delivered at the Biltmore Hotel,
Santa Clara/Silicon Valley, California, on 1st
December 2009.
Kamran Mofid is the Founder of the
Globalisation for the Common Good Initiative(Oxford, 2002), Co- founder/Editor of Journal
of Globalisation for the Common Good and a
member of the International Coordinating
Committee of the World Public Forum,Dialogue of Civilisations
Source: Share The Worlds Resources
.
continued next page
The Rising South
The second decade of the century will
also witness the growing importance of
the global South: the formerly-colonized,
still-developing areas of Africa, Asia, and
Latin America. Once playing a relatively
marginal role in world affairs, they wereconsidered open territory, there to be
invaded, plundered, and dominated by
the major powers of Europe, North
America, and (for a time) Japan. To some
degree, the global South, a.k.a. the
Third World, still plays a marginal role,
but that is changing.
Once a member in good standing of the
global South, China is now an economic
superpower and India is well on its wayto earning this status. Second-tier states
of the South, including Brazil, Indonesia,
South Africa, and Turkey, are on the rise
economically, and even the smallest and
least well-off nations of the South have
begun to attract international attention
as providers of crucial raw materials or as
sites of intractable problems including
endemic terrorism and crime syndicates.
To some degree, this is a product ofnumbers growing populations and
growing wealth. In 2000, the population
of the global South stood at an estimated
THE WORLDIN 2020
Part 2
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4.9 billion people; by 2020, that number
is expected to hit 6.4 billion. Many of
these new inhabitants of planet Earth will
be poor and disenfranchised, but most
will be workers (in either the formal or
informal economy), many will participate
in the political process in some way, andsome will be entrepreneurs, labor leaders,
teachers, criminals, or militants.
Whatever the case, they will make their
presence felt.
The nations of the South will also play a
growing economic role as sources of raw
materials in an era of increasing scarcity
and founts of entrepreneurial vitality. By
one estimate, the combined GDP of the
global South (excluding China) will jump
from $7.8 trillion in 2005 to $15.8 trillion in
2020, an increase of more than 100%. In
particular, many of the prime deposits of
oil, natural gas, and the key minerals
needed in the global North to keep the
industrial system going are facing
wholesale depletion after decades of
hyper-intensive extraction, leaving only
the deposits in the South to be exploited.
Take oil: In 1990, 43% of world daily oil
output was supplied by members of the
Organization of Petroleum Exporting
Countries (the major Persian Gulfproducers plus Algeria, Angola, Ecuador,
Libya, Nigeria, and Venezuela), other
African and Latin American producers,
and the Caspian Sea countries; by 2020,
their share will rise to 58%. A similar shift
in the center of gravity of world mineral
production will take place, with
unexpected countries like Afghanistan,
Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Niger (a major
uranium supplier), and the Democratic
Republic of Congo taking on potentially
crucial roles.
Inevitably, the global South will also play
a conspicuous role in a series of
potentially devastating developments.
Combine persistent deep poverty,
economic desperation, population
growth, and intensifying climate
degradation and you have a recipe for
political unrest, insurgency, religious
extremism, increased criminality, mass
migrations, and the spread of disease.
The global North will seek to immunize
itself from these disorders by buildingfences of every sort, but through sheer
numbers alone, the inhabitants of the
South will make their presence felt, one
way or another.
The Planet Strikes Back
All of this might represent nothing more
than the normal changing of the imperial
guard on planet Earth, if that planet itself
werent undergoing far more profound
changes than any individual power or set
of powers, no matter how strong. The
ever more intrusive realities of global
warming, resource scarcity, and food
insufficiency will, by the end of this
centurys second decade, be undeniable
and, if not by 2020, then in the decades
to come, have the capacity to put normal
military and economic power, no matter
how impressive, in the shade.
There is little doubt about the main
trends, Professor Ole Danbolt Mjs,
Chairman of the Norwegian Nobel
Committee, said in awarding the PeacePrize to the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC) and Al Gore in
December 2007: More and more
scientists have reached ever closer
agreement concerning the increasingly
dramatic consequences that will follow
from global warming. Likewise, a
growing body of energy experts has
concluded that the global production of
conventional oil will soon reach a peak
(if it hasnt already) and decline,
producing a worldwide energy shortage.Meanwhile, fears of future food
emergencies, prompted in part by global
warming and high energy prices, are
becoming more widespread.
All of this was apparent when world
leaders met in Copenhagen and failed to
establish an effective international regime
for reducing the emission of climate-
altering greenhouse gases (GHGs). Even
though they did agree to keep talking and
comply with a non-binding, aspirational
scheme to cut back on GHGs, observers
believe that such efforts are unlikely to
lead to meaningful progress in controlling
global warming in the near future. What
few doubt is that the pace of climate
change will accelerate destructively in
the second decade of this century, that
conventional (liquid) petroleum and other
key resources will become scarcer and
more difficult to extract, and that food
supplies will diminish in many poor,
environmentally vulnerable areas.
Scientists do not agree on the precise
nature, timing, and geographical impact
of climate-change effects, but they do
generally agree that, as we move deeper
into the century, we will be seeing an
exponential increase in the density of the
heat-trapping greenhouse-gas layer in
the atmosphere as the consumption of
fossil fuels grows and past smokestack
emissions migrate to the outer
atmosphere. DoE data indicates, for
example, that between 1990 and 2005,
world carbon dioxide emissions grew by
32%, from 21.5 to 31.0 billion metric tons.
It can take as much as 50 years for GHGs
to reach the greenhouse layer, which
means that their effect will increase even
if as appears unlikely the nations
of the world soon begin to reduce their
future emissions.
In other words, the early manifestations
of global warming in the first decade of
this century intensifying hurricanes
and typhoons, torrential rains followedby severe flooding in some areas and
prolonged, even record-breaking
droughts in others, melting ice-caps and
glaciers, and rising sea levels will all
become more pronounced in the second.
As suggested by the IPCC in its 2007
report, uninhabitable dust bowls are likely
to emerge in large areas of Central and
Northeast Asia, Mexico and the American
Southwest, and the Mediterranean basin.
Significant parts of Africa are likely to be
devastated by rising temperatures anddiminished rainfall. More cities are likely
to undergo the sort of flooding and
destruction experienced by New Orleans
after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. And
blistering summers, as well as infrequent
or negligible rainfall, will limit crop
production in key food-producing
regions.
Progress will be evident in the
development of renewable energy
systems, such as wind, solar, and
biofuels. Despite the vast sums now
being devoted to their development,
however, they will still provide only a
relatively small share of world energy in
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continued from page 8
2020. According to DoE projections,
renewables will take care of only 10.5%
of world energy needs in 2020, while oil
and other petroleum liquids will still make
up 32.6% of global supplies; coal, 27.1%;
and natural gas, 23.8%. In other words,
greenhouse gas production will rage on and, ironically, should it not, thanks
to expected shortfalls in the supply of
oil, that in itself will likely prove another
kind of disaster, pushing up the prices of
all energy sources and endangering
economic stability. Most industry experts,
including those at the International
Energy Agency (IEA) in Paris, believe
that it will be nearly impossible to
continue increasing the output of
conventional and unconventional
petroleum (including tough to harvest
Arctic oil, Canadian tar sands, and shale
oil) without increasingly implausible
fresh investments of trillions of dollars,
much of which would have to go into
war-torn, unstable areas like Iraq or
corrupt, unreliable states like Russia.
In the latest hit movie Avatar, the lush,
mineral-rich moon Pandora is underassault by human intruders seeking to
extract a fabulously valuable mineral
called unobtainium. Opposing them
are not only a humanoid race called the
Navi, loosely modeled on Native
Americans and Amazonian jungle
dwellers, but also the semi-sentient flora
and fauna of Pandora itself. While our
own planet may not possess such
extraordinary capabilities, it is clear that
the environmental damage caused by
humans since the onset of the Industrial
Revolution is producing a natural
blowback effect which will become
increasingly visible in the coming decade.
These, then, are the four trends most likely
to dominate the second decade of this
century. Perhaps others will eventually
prove more significant, or some set of
catastrophic events will further alter theglobal landscape, but for now expect the
dragon ascendant, the eagle descending,
the South rising, and the planet possibly
trumping all of these.
6 Janauary 2010
Michael T. Klareis a professor of peace and
world security studies at Hampshire College
A documentary film version of his book, Blood
and Oil, is available from the Media Education
Foundation at Bloodandoilmovie.com.
Source: http://www.countercurrents.org/
klare060110.htm
Chandra Muzaffar is one of Malaysias
best-known human rights activists and
public intellectuals. While being critical
of western global hegemony, he says
Muslims have to fundamentally re-
evaluate their understanding of Islam and
its traditions.
Author of numerous books, Muzaffar isa prolific writer, having published widely
in Malaysia and abroad. One of his
principal concerns, in his writings and
activist involvement, is to promote an
Islamic ethic of inter-religious dialogue.
Such dialogue, he believes, is an Islamic
imperative, besides being indispensable
in todays multi-ethnic and multi-religious
Malaysia.
But it is also crucial at the global level, he
stresses, particularly since manyconflicts across the globe, while rooted
in economic and political factors, are
sought to be projected and legitimised
as religious conflicts between Islam and
other faiths and ideologies.
Muslim, Dialogue and Terror is
Muzaffars principal work on Islam and
inter-faith dialogue, in which he seeks to
articulate an inter-faith ethic rooted in an
expansive understanding of Islam.
Like many other contemporary socially-engaged Muslim scholars, Muzaffar
seeks to directly approach the Koran in
order to understand and interpret his
faith, largely by-passing the corpus of
traditional fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence),
and making only passing reference to
the corpus of Hadith. This is hardly
surprising since the latter two sources
contain numerous prescriptions that are
plainly inimical, to put it mildly, to
harmonious relations between Muslims
and others.
Stressing ethical values
Muzaffar describes the Koran as in
essence, a Book whose fundamental aim
is to raise the spiritual and moral
consciousness of the human being.
This understanding of the Koran leads
him to stress what he sees as the
underlying spirit or ethical values of the
text over its letter. Some of the
fundamental values that he discerns inthe Koran are freedom, accountability,
justice, kindness, mercy, love, equality,
honesty, compassion, fairness, and
devotion to the cause of the poor and
the oppressed. These values he regards
as universal, not limited in their
applicability to fellow Muslims alone.
In this way, Muzaffar is able to articulate
an Islamic ethic of inter-faith dialogue
that is Koranic, that prioritizes the spirit
over the letter of the text, that is based
on what he regards as the fundamentaland universal values of the text, and one
that is also contextually-relevant.
Muzaffar describes this way of relating
to the Koran as a values-based
approach. He contrasts this with the
traditional fiqh-based approach, which
prioritises the letter of the Koran over its
spirit, draws heavily on the cumulative fiqh
tradition, and stresses, to the point of
obsession, forms, externalities, symbols,
rituals, laws, regulations and narrowly-construed understandings of Muslim
identity.
The former is universal, flexible, open, and
inclusive, while the latter is particularistic,
rigid, closed and exclusive. The former
stresses justice, freedom, love,
compassion and equality, the latter
authoritarianism, control, harshness and
hierarchy. The former is open to non-
Muslims, actively embraces them as fellow
human beings and appreciates thecommon values that their religions share
with Islam. The latter is stridently hostile
to people of other faiths, or only
grudgingly tolerates them at best.
Historical necessity
Appealing for this fundamental
transformation in Islamic thought based
on the values-based approach to the
Koran, Muzaffar argues:
It is only too apparent that a non-dogmatic approach to Islam, which
recognises the primacy of eternal,
THE BASIC MORAL VALUESOFTHE KORANBy Yoginder Sikand
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continued from page 9
universal spiritual and moral values while
acknowledging the importance of rituals,
symbols and practices, is the most sane
and sensible way of living the religion in
todays world. The values approach to
Islam the antithesis of the rituals and
symbols approach is not only legitimatefrom the perspective of the religion but
also necessary at this juncture in history.
Making a broad survey of relations
between Muslims and others in various
countries, and at the global level as a
whole, Muzaffar argues that a host of
factors have contributed to increased
polarization between them in recent years,
particular after 9/11. Much of the
responsibility for this rests on the
Muslims themselves, he says, but he alsoregards what he calls the politics of
global hegemony emanating from
Washingtons imperial ambitions as a
major factor.
This latter point leads him to argue, as he
does in many of his other books, that inter-
religious and inter-communal solidarity
for peace and justice must necessarily
also require a forceful challenging of the
structures of power at the global level,
most importantly Western, and, in
particular, American, political, economic
and cultural hegemony, because this is
one of the major causes for conflict
between Muslims and others.
Human beings as brothers and sisters
This task, Muzaffar insists, must go hand-
in-hand with a willingness on the part of
Muslims themselves to introspect, and
to cease blaming others for all their ills.
In turn, this requires a fundamental re-
evaluation of the way Muslims
understand their religion, identity and
tradition. In particular, it requires,Muzaffar says, breaking through the
hardened crust of exclusive, dogmatic
thinking, and embracing an inclusive,
universal approach.
Seeking to pre-empt critics who would
regard this as compromising on Islamic
teachings, he insists that it is perfectly in
consonance with Islam, which regards
all human beings as brothers and sisters,
imperilled by the same human condition.
The pathetic state of most contemporary
Muslim societies and states, including
the increasingly strained relations
between Muslims and others, have much
to do, he says, with a dogmatic
understanding of Islam that negates the
fundamental Koranic values that he
distils from the text.
The basis of shared beliefs and values
For this new approach to Islam and
Islamic morality to emerge as a dominant
paradigm would require Muslims to re-
orientate their thinking on Islam,
focusing particularly on what Muzaffar
regards as the basic moral values of the
Koran. From this would emerge
understandings of Islamic theology and
jurisprudence that are rooted in these
values values that are universal, not
limited just to Islam alone.
Aware of the growing influence of
conservative as well as radical groups
that are vehemently opposed to inter-faithdialogue and interpret Islam accordingly
in a narrow, exclusivist fashion, Muzaffar
insists that Islam calls upon Muslims to
dialogue with others. He points out, for
instance, that the Koran exhorts Muslims,
Jews and Christians to come together on
the basis of certain shared beliefs and
values.
He also regards the Pact of Medina,
between the Muslims, led by the Prophet,
and the Jews and pagans of the town,and the Pact of Najran between the
Prophet and Christians, as the Prophets
practical expression of the Koranic call
for inter-faith dialogue and solidarity and
the imperative of coming to terms with
the other.
10 December 2009
Yoginder Sikand is a writer-academic and
the author of several books on Islam-
related issues in India. He is the editor
and primary writer of Qalandar, a monthly
electronic publication covering relations
between Muslims and followers of other
religions.
Source: http://www.qantara.de/webcom/
show_article.php/_c-478/_nr-978/i.html
TREASURER,
Mr K Haridas
PRESIDENT, VICE PRESIDENT,
Dr Chandra Muzaffar Dr Abdullah Al-Ahsan
SECRETARY-GENERAL, ASSISTANTSECRETARY-GENERAL,
Mr Anas Zubedy Tengku Ahmad Hazri
At the International Movement for a Just World Triennial General Meeting held on
20 March 2010, the following were elected to the Executive Committee:-
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE MEMBERSOFTHE INTERNATIONAL MOVEMENTFORA JUSTWORLD 2010-2013
1. Dr Arujunan Narayanan
2. Dr Asma Abdullah
3. Dr Chin Yoong Kheong
4. Mr Gan Teik Chee
5. Mr Jahaberdeen Mohamed Yunoos
6. Ms Evelyn Khoo Lyn Yin
7. Tengku Iskandar
COMMITTEEMEMBERS
8. Dr Michael Allan
9. Dr Muddathir Abdel-Rahim
10. Dr Nooraini Mohd Ismail
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ODT's version of the "State of the Village Report" has been updated and revised to 2005 statistics and is the most current versionavailable. Research for the first twenty facts for the updated version was done by Donella H. Meadows' think tank: the SustainabilityInstitute. The rest came from a variety of sources including David Smith's children's book: If the World Were a Village. The author ofsome things "to ponder..." is unknown. This conclusion to the piece was also adapted and revised by ODT, with support from Bette
Abrams-Esche. ODT distributes their updated version with every copy of their Population Map. In the same spirit of Donella Meadows'initial work, ODT has made the material available copyright-free, as long as the source is acknowledged in any reproductions. More info
at www.odt.org/pop.htm. It can be viewed as a Flash film at luccaco.com/miniatureearth. Donella Meadows' original "State of theVillage Report" may be found at: vn338villageed
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