Peaceful Iran?

Iran War a non-starter?

Frrom The statesman

ND Batra

The rhetoric of war against Iran has become muted. The hawks are in disarray. US Vice-President Mr Dick Cheney has been boxed and shoved into a corner for now.

Democrat and Republican presidential candidates are scrambling to come up with new policy postures toward Iran, whom they continue to regard as an unfriendly country, albeit not an evil one, that could provoke World War III, as President George W Bush warned in October.Europeans who have been reluctantly cooperating with the USA are baffled by the revelations. Russia and China are hastening to go back to their cozy commercial relations with Iran. India says its stand that the Iran nuclear issue should be handled by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and not by the UN Security Council has been vindicated.

This is a rare example of how information put together as a well-constructed report free from political bias can change overnight the mindset of almost an entire nation. What happened to the Intelligence community’s earlier conclusions that Iran was in the advanced stages of highly enriched uranium for nuclear weapons? Perhaps, Intelligence became smarter and developed new insights.

The National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), a report based on the findings of the 16 agencies of the US Intelligence community, has concluded “with a high level of confidence” in its report released last week that Iran is not engaged in the development of nuclear weapons today. Teheran halted its nuclear weapons programme in 2003, though it continues pursuing nuclear energy development for civilian energy purposes. What a relief! But what happened? Several factors such as the US invasion of Iraq and the subsequent chaos and destruction of the country, Libya’s giving up of its nuclear weapons development programme under US and UK pressures, the dismantling of Pakistan’s clandestine nuclear bazaar operated by AQ Khan from which Iran had benefited, and the rising drumbeat of the Axis of Evil might have persuaded Iran to reconsider its options and so it decided to freeze its programme.

There is no doubt that Iran has the necessary scientific, technological and industrial base and knowledge to make nuclear bombs. Suspending the programme does not mean, however, that Iran has altogether given up its intention to build a nuclear arsenal in the pursuit of its strategic interests in the region. At least for the time being, it is not doing it.

The report says, “Our assessment that Iran halted the programme in 2003 primarily in response to international pressure indicates Teheran’s decisions are guided by a cost-benefit approach, rather than a rush to a weapon irrespective of the political, economic, and military costs.” Of course, the national interest calculus includes both short and long term cost-benefit analyses. And Iran taking into account the ruthless determination of the Bush administration that it displayed in the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq might have thought it to be unwise to continue with its nuclear weapons programme.

But the US Intelligence community did not know about Iran’s suspension of its nuclear programme; nor was it convinced about the regime’s protestations that it is pursuing nuclear development only for civilian uses.

That explains perhaps why the 2005 Intelligence estimate said: “Iran currently is determined to develop nuclear weapons despite its international obligations and international pressure.” The 2005 report gave the Bush administration the rationale for persuading its European allies as well as Russia and China to impose effective sanctions on Iran. The latest Intelligence report, which was commissioned by the Democrat-controlled Congress, is said to have used more rigorous methods of Intelligence gathering and analysis so that the previous Intelligence fiasco regarding Iraq’s development of weapons of mass destruction should not be repeated. Faulty Intelligence in the hands of a frightened nation, as the USA had become after 9/11, can have terrible global consequences.

In 2002, accurate and reliable Intelligence about Iraq might have persuaded the USA to adopt some other method of dealing with Saddam Hussein. The new Intelligence report, which contradicts the previous alarming findings about Iran’s intentions, buttresses the arguments of non-hawkish Americans, Republicans and Democrats, who believe that concerted international diplomacy would work.The report recommends that “some combination of threats of intensified international scrutiny and pressure, along with opportunities for Iran to achieve its security, prestige, and goals for regional influence in other ways, might ~ if perceived by Iran’s leaders as credible ~ prompt Teheran to extend the current halt to its nuclear weapons programme”.

According to the IAEA, Iran continues to operate 3,000 centrifuges to enrich uranium for civilian nuclear energy purposes, which could give it enough fissile material to produce nuclear weapons in less than a decade if its intentions change and it can get away with international scrutiny and pressure. With the long-range Ashoura and Shahab series, Iran has a well developed ballistic missile development programme.With its immense oil and natural gas resources and nuclear capabilities, Iran is a significant power in the region. But no single power should be allowed to dominate the Gulf region through which millions of barrels of oil flow every day.

Now that war is off the table, dealing with Iran’s geopolitical ambitions becomes a great diplomatic challenge not only for the next US administration but also for the international community. As French President Mr Nicolas Sarkozy said after the NIE report was released, “The threat exists”.

Engaging Iran at multiple levels will open up this ancient civilisation. The next US President should take the first step in this direction.

(ND Batra teaches communications and diplomacy at Norwich University, USA)

China censorship

Kathrin Hille of Financial Times says:

"Ang Lee has acknowledged that he edited his latest film for political reasons to allow it to be shown in China. The award-winning Taiwanese director said he changed the dialogue at the climax of Lust, Caution, which won the Golden Lion award at the Venice Film Festival this year, to accommodate Chinese censors’ requests that the female lead’s patriotic character should not be compromised."
Read more: FT.com / Asia-Pacific / China - Taiwan director bowed to China censors

Muslim Women in India Seek Secular Justice

Muslim Women in India Seek Secular Justice


Aditi Bhaduri says:
"After years of silence, Muslim women in India are loudly battling repressive religious laws. The case of one semi-literate woman, a survivor of rape, ignited their cause. Second in a series on the changing role of women in India."

The Merchant of Arabia

Uncle Sam and the merchant of Arabia

From The Statesman
ND Batra

With the rise of crude oil to $90-100 a barrel, the camel is overloaded with the greenback. And there is no better place for the Arab merchant to unload his petrodollars than to lend it Americans who juggle their daily lives between credit cards and debit cards, home equity loans and foreclosures. But it is not only the Joe Six-pack who is in trouble. His lenders too are sleepless.

Like other American financial institutions, Citigroup, the global financial giant, has been reeling under billions of dollars mortgage-and-subprime related losses. The Citigroup board, instead of responding to merger overtures from other financial institutions, went in search of Arab petrodollars and obtained $7.5 billion cash flow from the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, the government’s sovereign wealth fund, for a 4.9 per cent equity stake plus 11 per cent annual interest rate, making it one of the biggest investors in the bank.In this age of globalisation, you might say, so what?

Not everyone seems to be happy about the Citigroup deal with the Arab merchant. In an editorial titled “Citi of Arabia”, The Wall Street Journal wrote: “We hate to spoil the party, but it strikes us as unfortunate, if not a tragedy, that America’s largest bank had to go hat in hand to the Arab sheikhs because of bad management and blundering US monetary policy.” Many transnational corporations and international businesses try to develop an early awareness system, which picks up weak signals that might become a raging storm later. An early awareness system helps prepare a company to nip the evil in the bud. But American financial institutions did not foresee any sign of trouble.

Nobody understood what havoc subprime lending might create.Nor does anybody fully understand how the global wealth is shifting to other regions. Irwin Stelzer, director of economic policy studies at the Hudson Institute wrote in Times Online: “The world has changed. Wealth has moved into new hands. Morgan Stanley estimates that the world’s sovereign wealth funds hold some $2.5 trillion in assets, more than the global hedge-fund industry.And they are adding about $500 billion to their assets every year. One Goldman Sachs banker told me that until recently he had never been to West Asia; now he makes several trips each month.”

The widespread hostility against globalisation is unfortunately prevalent in the USA. In the Internet age, there is a tremendous mobility of factors from foreign direct investment to job outsourcing to state-controlled sovereign wealth funds equity investment. In this sense the world, instead of becoming flat as The New York Times columnist Tom Friedman believes, is rather developing peaks and valleys, dungeons and dragons. The fear of “MacDonaldisation” is being replaced by the fear of secretive Arab and Chinese sovereign wealth funds and state-controlled companies nibbling at American assets, which are becoming cheaper to acquire, thanks to the fall of the dollar.

The Arabs own 10 per cent of Citigroup and their voice will eventually be heard in the boardroom. Recently, Dubai and Abu Dhabi made significant investments in Advanced Micro Devices, a leading semiconductor company that handles many defence contracts. Globalisation is a dynamic process of creating interdependencies in economics, international trade and culture, and is likely to create instabilities. It is much more than bilateralism because a country has to be opened to the flow of influences from all around.Transnational corporations stride the world like a colossus. Their business depends upon their reputation, which makes them extremely vulnerable not only to the government of the host country but also to the news over which the government has no control, especially in a democratic society.

In authoritarian countries, where the news media is controlled by the government, transnational corporations have a much easier time doing business. That is one of the most important reasons transnational corporations find it easy to do business in China.They have to deal with one authority, that of the central government. They don’t have to deal with environmental degradation, oil spills and uprooting of people without compensation to build new buildings. The news media plays no part and international NGOs have no say. And for the same reason, when a state-controlled Chinese company or an Arab sovereign wealth fund buys American assets, Americans become paranoid because of the lack of transparency.

The government’s impact upon economic activities is limited because in the global village there are so many actors, and the government cannot control all of them. Government has limited control over the mobility of capital. Key instruments of monetary and fiscal policy, exchange rates and import barriers are not totally under government control. Globalisation creates comparative choices and highlights inefficiencies both in the government and corporations. But just as governments are constrained by forces beyond their control, so are transnational corporations.

Microsoft had to face anti-trust regulations both in the USA and the European Union. Similar controls might have to be applied to secretive sovereign wealth funds if they seek to buy assets in the USA and other open societies. A case in point is the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), which explains why Americans are worried about the merchant of Arabia. In 1991, BCCI was found by regulators in the USA and the UK to have been involved in arms dealing, money laundering, bribery, support of terrorism, tax evasion, smuggling, illegal immigration and the sale of nuclear technologies. The Emir of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the father of the present ruler, controlled the bank, which was closed after the investigation.

In this environment, corporate diplomacy is imperative. International corporations and sovereign wealth funds must become culturally attractive to host country publics. Unless sovereign wealth funds from West Asia and state-controlled global companies from the Middle Kingdom become transparent and publicly accountable, they must be watched and scrutinised.

(ND Batra is professor of communications and diplomacy at Norwich University, Vermont.)

Best Practices of Global Innovators — HBS Working Knowledge

Best Practices of Global Innovators — HBS Working Knowledge

China: “Red Foreigner” Sings Red Songs Naked

China: “Red Foreigner” Sings Red Songs Naked

Global Voices Online » China: Report from Hong Kong on sweatshop

China: Report from Hong Kong on sweatshop

The Future is Biotech

The future is here

From The Statesman

The recent breakthrough in stem cell research carried out independently in Japan and the USA, by Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University and James A Thomson with his colleagues at the University of Wisconsin, shows another path to human rejuvenation, including a cure for many incurable diseases.

By reprogramming a human skin cell, the researchers have been able to bring it back to its original pure embryonic stage, a pluripotent stage from where the cell could be coaxed to become any of the 220 specialised human cells, for example, heart, lungs, brain, muscle cells, which could be used for customised therapeutic healing. A brain-injured person could live a full, healthy life again. That is the future, perhaps.

The awesome beauty of this discovery is that the process of reversion of a skin cell to its de novo embryonic stage does not involve the destruction of embryos, which many pro-life people from President George W Bush to the late Pope John Paul II condemned as immoral. President Bush has steadfastly denied the use of federal funds “to promote science that destroys life to save life,” despite the fact that most Americans have never been with him on this issue.

Dr Bill Frist, a heart-lung transplant surgeon by training, who was Senate majority leader (2003-2007), for example, spoke for most Americans, when he said: “I am pro-life, I believe human life begins at conception. I also believe that embryonic stem cell research should be encouraged and supported.” Former First Lady Nancy Reagan said: “Embryonic stem cell research has the potential to alleviate so much suffering. Surely, by working together we can harness its life-giving potential.” Her husband, President Ronald Reagan, spent the last years of his life in Alzheimer’s limbo.

President Bush, nonetheless, repeatedly said, "my way or the highway". You see the power of presidential leadership; and also its limitations because he could not stop the private funding of embryonic stem cell research by states, biotechnology companies, and private universities who have been pursuing the research regardless of the opposition. For example, in 2004 California voters approved a $3-billion bond to promote research in the state.

Since last year, the Harvard Stem Cell Institute has been doing research using the Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer process to create specific cell lines from cloned human embryos, which again raised hopes for millions of people suffering from incurable diseases. Harvard research is said to be diseases specific; for example, the nucleus of a skin cell of a diabetic patient is inserted into an unfertilised donor egg, from which the nucleus has been removed. The newly engineered composite egg is nurtured in a Petri dish to develop into an early embryo from which embryonic stem cell lines is developed and guided into becoming healthy insulin producing pancreatic islet cells to replace the diseased ones, for example, in a child suffering from juvenile diabetes.

It is painful to imagine how much a child with juvenile diabetes suffers; or how much the family members endure as they see the wasting away of their loved one with the knowledge that one day if the stem cell research continued there might be hope for a most emaciating human illness. Anytime an older person forgets the name of his own children, you wonder if this could be the beginning of a slow end. In the USA, people look to science and medicine for salvation. They know embryonic stem cells could be the beginning of a new life for persons suffering from fatal ailments. Stem cells that are derived from aborted and discarded embryos could be potentially directed to grow into any kind of specialised cells to repair damaged human parts and trigger a self-regenerative process in the human body. It is an example of how killing life can save lives.

Choosing life over potential life is practical ethics at its best, it has been argued.

Though many people favour embryonic stem cell research, pro-lifers argue that research in regenerative and therapeutic medicine and technology should not be left to the marketplace because somewhere in the process life begins. The late pope John Paul II urged that a “free and virtuous society, which the USA aspires to be, must reject practices that devalue and violate human life at any stage from conception until natural death.”

The Pope was afflicted with Parkinson’s, one of the millions of sufferers of the debilitating disease but he never wavered, and warned “how a tragic coarsening of consciences accompanies the assault on innocent human life in the womb, leading to accommodation and acquiescence in the face of other related evils such as euthanasia, infanticide…”

That’s why many Americans could not ignore the late Pope’s warning that the destruction of embryos to extract stem cells, even when the purpose is to fight diseases and reduce human suffering, would dehumanise us. Stem cell revolution is as momentous as was the smashing of an atom; therefore, it needs safeguards to harness its benefits without the coarsening of our conscience.

The recent development of reprogramming skin cells into embryonic stages offers scientists an equally fertile method of developing cell therapy, which will make destruction of embryos unnecessary. Science has solved its own ethical dilemmas. The discovery also illustrates the concept of “equifinality” in general systems theory, according to which a dynamic system, if challenged, could reach the same goal by other means. There is always an alternative.

And thereby hangs another question: Is human body nothing but an information system that could be reprogrammed cell by cell? We will talk about human soul some other time.

(ND Batra teaches communications and diplomacy at Norwich University. The author of Digital Freedom, he is working on a new book, This is the American Way.)

China-US Confrontation

Washington Post speculates that China's

Naval Rebuff Could Be Reply to Dalai Lama's Medal

Chinese Propaganda

Chinese propaganda reaches new heights

Peter Goodspeed in National Post

“Fifty years after the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the world's first man-made satellite, and just hours after the U.S. space shuttle Discovery thundered into orbit to work on the International Space Station, China took the next step in a new space race yesterday, sending aloft its first lunar orbiter.” READ MORE

“Seeking to reaffirm India's cultural commonalty with Asean is a good idea” says Sunanda K. Datta-Ray in Business Standard.
READ MORE

Don't Cry for Pakistan

A moment of meditation on Pakistan

From the Statesman
ND Batra

Pakistan is not a failed state but at present it is in a state of dynamic instability, which could spin out of control if the situation is not handled wisely by its neighbors, international allies, and all-weather friends.

And what makes Pakistan an intriguing story is that to insure its own survival it has successfully developed nuclear weapons and now has enough arsenals to cause nuclear havoc all around, if they fall into the hands of Islamic militants.

Thanks to the unsupervised autonomy given to its footloose nuclear scientists, AQ Khan and others, to develop nuclear weapons, it has also been a nuclear proliferator: Iran is said to have benefited from its nuclear technology. Having conceived and given birth to the Taliban movement, it is a breeding ground and hideout for Al Qaeda and Taliban militants and terrorists.

Added to its complexity is yet another remarkable layer: of a progressive, liberal and somewhat secular Pakistan that surfaced recently when Benazir Bhutto returned home after eight years of exile; and when lawyers, journalists, students and other open-minded moderate groups protested by the thousands against President Pervez Musharraf for his high-handedness in the dismissal of the Supreme Court justices.

Lest we hastily romanticize the bench, the Pakistan Supreme Court instead of being a neutral umpire and interpreter of the law had begun to give the impression of being a partisan group. The Court could have and should have played the role of a pacifier in an extremely violent environment.

Before you hastily dismiss Musharraf as a tin pot dictator, consider the initiatives he took to bring India and Pakistan closer for trade and commerce and resolve the Kashmir problem. Violence has abated in the valley. Between the peoples of India and Pakistan, there is a genuine feeling of goodwill and desire to live and work together. This is no small achievement, for which Musharraf deserves the most credit.

Since Musharraf assumed power eight years ago, Pakistan has registered remarkable economic growth, which has swelled and beefed up the Pakistani middle class. According to the World Bank, “After a decade of anemic economic growth, Pakistan’s economy has grown by more than 6.5 percent per year since 2003. While income inequality has increased somewhat, poverty has declined significantly….A wide-ranging program of economic reforms launched in 2000 – fiscal adjustment, privatization of energy, telecommunications, and production, banking sector reform and trade reform – have played a key role in the country’s economic recovery… Pakistan's economy has shown great resilience in the face of the devastating earthquake, and future growth prospects for the economy are good.”

A growing and self-confident Pakistani middle class is clamoring for more political breathing space; but in any case the country is not mimicking China— Pakistan’s all-weather friend. The Pakistani middle class’s aspirations are closer to that of India than any other country, in spite of it being an Islamic country. A self-confident and stable Pakistan is in India’s national interest, as I said earlier in this column. As Stephen P. Cohen, a South Asian expert at the Brookings Institute said, India by being India and leaving Pakistan alone can help Pakistan become a better Pakistan.

So don’t cry for Pakistan. Not yet.

Unlike most other Muslim countries, Pakistan is no stranger to freedom and democracy. It has a vibrant press; a free and bold, albeit erratic, judiciary; and an intellectual class that you find nowhere else in the Muslim world except perhaps in Turkey. Its scientific community, which developed nuclear weaponry with the help of China, cannot be brushed aside. Pakistan has brainpower waiting to be tapped. It is unfortunate that Pakistan is caught up between democratic aspirations at the top and religious obtuseness at the bottom.

Senator Joe Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee wrote in The Baltimore Sun that the United States “must move from a Musharraf policy to a Pakistan policy that gives the moderate majority a chance to succeed.” Instead of depending upon the questionable political strength and commitment of Musharraf alone for war against terrorism, the United States should be reaching out to a wide variety of constituencies in Pakistan including the media, universities, businesses, non-profit organizations, tribal leaders and intelligence communities. I agree. Not only that, the United States should open up its duty free portals to Pakistani manufacturers. A nation that trades cannot afford to hate others.

It is true that Musharraf has not been to make a total break from the forces that have supported him in his hold on power and hence his inability to wipe out terrorism totally. Musharraf’s deal with tribal leaders relinquishing sovereign authority over the tribal territory did not turn out to be a wise political move. Perhaps it was done out of helplessness. Pakistan has become a safe haven for Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

The question is: If Musharraf has not been able to exercise full control over the forces operating in the divided country, what can be done? Would a civilian government headed by Benazir Bhutto or anybody else, if it were possible to hold free elections, be able to control the raging militancy in Swat, Waziristan, and not least, in the hearts and minds of many Pakistanis? Bhutto can launch a thousand ships against Musharraf, but what will she do against the Taliban and Al Qaeda? Nonetheless, Benazir Bhutto symbolizes a future that must happen in Pakistan one day.

(ND Batra, who teaches communications and diplomacy at Norwich University, is the author of Digital Freedom and is working on a new book, This is the America Way)

Corporate Leadership

What makes a successful leader of a global corporation?

Heart and mind at the service of all stakeholders of society, said Narayana Murthy of Infosys at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Read More …

Watch Video

China Media Control

How China tries media control

China not only manipulates its own media but also tries to browbeat other Asian media outlets.
Read what Ming Dai says in Beijing hones media manipulation (Asia Times).

Digital natives collaborating

Digital natives collaborating

From The Statesman

ND Batra

The challenge for the academia lies in tapping and pooling the brainpower within academic units as well as outside and creating an environment of synergy and enthusiasm for collaboration. That is how you develop what is called “swarming intelligence.”

As it has been often said, the digital age is breaking walls and melding previously divergent communities, for example, of critics and practitioners; of message creators and audiences; of teachers and learners. The virtual and the physical are crisscrossing and becoming co-extensive parallel universes.

The Second Life, YouTube, MySpace, and Facebook generation is developing its sensibilities in virtual environments characterised by new assumptions based on heterarchy, interactivity, and intellectual engagement, what MIT’s Henry Jenkins describes as “a culture with relatively low barriers to artistic expression and civic engagement, strong support for creating and sharing one’s creations, and some type of informal mentorship whereby what is known by the most experienced is passed along to novices.”

This kind of heterarchical culture generates “opportunities for peer-to-peer learning, a changed attitude toward intellectual property, the diversification of cultural expression, the development of skills valued in the workplace, and a more empowered conception of citizenship.” The cyber generation that is descending upon campuses requires skills that enable it to be competitive in a global environment where collaborative teamwork, spread across time-zones and continents, is becoming a necessity.

Fortunately, thanks to computer and video games, many kids are already coming to colleges equipped with some of the skills suggested by Jenkins; for example: “the capacity to experiment with one’s surroundings as a form of problem-solving; the ability to adopt alternative identities for the purpose of improvisation and discovery; the ability to interpret and construct dynamic models of real-world processes; the ability to meaningfully sample and remix media content; the ability to scan one’s environment and shift focus as needed to salient details; the ability to interact meaningfully with tools that expand mental capacities; the ability to pool knowledge and compare notes with others toward a common goal; the ability to evaluate the reliability and credibility of different information sources; the ability to follow the flow of stories and information across multiple modalities; the ability to search for, synthesise, and disseminate information; the ability to travel across diverse communities, discerning and respecting multiple perspectives, and grasping and following alternative norms.”
And there is much more to come.
To educate the cyber generation, the campus grey eminence needs to develop tools for collaborative environment in which students and teachers can work as co-workers and performers. For a university an important step in building collaboration for innovation is to develop its own Wiki, where people can collaborate, build, edit, and correct each other. The idea of Wiki is based on the principle of redundancy and the system’s self-correcting behaviour, which makes it possible for knowledge and creativity to emerge through continuous emendation, additions and revisions. Andrew P McAffee calls it (Sloan Management Review) as “The Dawn of Emergent Collaboration.”

Convergence and emergence shape our lives today.

I believe that in an innovation and knowledge-driven world collaboration is imperative, though most of us are obsessed with lone geniuses like Albert Einstein transforming space-time dimensions into abstract mathematical equations; Ludwig van Beethoven composing and conducting the orchestra and chorus in the premiere of his Ninth Symphony that he could not hear; or John Milton, blind and old, dictating Paradise Lost to his daughter. It is not that the proverbial genius will ever vanish; rather the most important point in the age of social networking and collaborative code-making is that academically disparate people now have the means, for example, as mentioned earlier, a constantly evolving digital platform like Wiki, to work together and enhance the creation of knowledge and scholarship.

Consider the novel Click, which was collaboratively created under the editorial oversight of Arthur Levine by ten authors each contributing a chapter to a mystery surrounding “a camera, some photographs and box with seven shells.” The collaboration took place sequentially, each author’s contribution built upon the previous one, story upon story that has hung together as a wholesome plot. But the novel could have been created in Wiki also, probably with better results, tapping into the collective wisdom and interactivity of the group instead of each author waiting for his or her turn to write a chapter.

Collaboration in the arts and humanities is not something new. In televisions, as I mentioned in one of my earlier books, The Hour of Television, creativity is normally negotiated and bargained, where, in fact, the collective is the creator and programs emerge from a generative system rather than as an act of individual creation. Think of "Guiding Light", a programme that originated as a radio soap opera (25 January 1937) and was transferred to television (30 June 1952) and has been continuing since then - an example of generative collaborative creativity across two generations.

From Bollywood to Hollywood, collaboration is of the essence.

In the digital age, poor communication occurs because of structural and bureaucratic potholes and because people who have expertise in one field fail to appreciate new ideas in others and shut them out.

Sometime collaboration fails because it is limited to very few people in partnering academic centres, so if some key expert quits, the network withers away. Redundancy, the basis of decentralised networking, is not only essential for continuous creativity but also acts as an antidote to the arrogance of expert power.
In the digital age, chain of commands is an anathema.
The challenge is how to integrate creative activities and unique knowledge as effectively as global supply chains integrate labour, raw materials, finance, and marketing. In the world of globalised business, creative work flows in loops across people, building on shared brainpower, each knowledge hub validating and adding value to the work done by the other, thus, hastening testing, and shaping up and perfecting the final project that might have begun in Kolkata but ends up in Silicon Valley.

In cyberspace, disciplinary zones need not become impenetrable barriers but in order to turn them into an asset it is necessary to develop a user-friendly IT system that provides reliable and uniform services, which can be adapted to ever increasing complex environment across academic disciplines, divisions, and schools.

The task henceforth is to create a system that is capable of accessing available sources of knowledge and mining all modes of human expression, whether audio, video, pictorial, or textual - a protocol that transcends cultural and disciplinary barriers. IT system should be capable of customizing knowledge as per individual or group needs.
For example, consider Dragon Naturally Speaking, which I have been using to dictate my weekly column for The Statesman and update my blog, CorporatePower. In the beginning, the programme would ask me to read the given text passages over and over again, and as I did, the system began to learn my speech rhythm, cadence and accent (Indian-American), and eventually it adapted itself to my needs. The more I use it, the more it learns and more intelligent it becomes. Dragon Naturally Speaking was not created for people like me but for busy corporate executives. The important point is that systems can be created that listen to us and evolve to meet our scholarly, scientific, humanistic, and artistic needs.

And that is a blessing of the digital age, which digital natives are exploring as they build collaborative platforms across cultures from Bangalore to Boston, from IIT to MIT.

(ND Batra teaches communications and diplomacy at Norwich University. The author of Digital Freedom, he is now working on a new book, This is the American Way.)

Creating trust in a diverse multicultural environment

Question of the day

How can a business leader create trust in a diverse multicultural environment?

Anthony Giddens writes in Perspective:

"Three years ago, the editor of Prospect, David Goodhart, published an article arguing that the increasing diversity, individualism and mobility found in present-day societies may pose a threat to the welfare state. Ethnic diversity produced by immigration adds to this mix. Goodhart stirred up a hornet's nest of criticism, even though he was by no means the first to raise the possibility, and indeed he raised it only as a possibility. The welfare state, he pointed out, is based upon sharing; yet sharing might be in conflict with diversity. People feel stronger obligations to others when these others are like themselves."

Read more..

Beyond the Red Wall

How China censors global media

CBC cancels Beyond the Red Wall

"The upcoming 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing and recent regulations about the distribution of news from foreign wire services are drawing international attention to censorship tactics in China."

Council on Foreign Relations

Corporate Leadership

What are some of the contributions of charismatic and transformational
leaders to organization, with special reference to Lee Iacocca (CEO,
Chrysler 1980s) and Sir Howard Stringer
(Chairman & Chief Executive Officer, Sony Corporation)?

Oh-My-God

Maybe God Lives in Black Holes

 

"An international team of scientists said Thursday that they have tracked down the origin of the mysterious "Oh-My-God" particle -- a cosmic ray bearing energies millions of times larger than the most powerful particle accelerator can produce on Earth."

LA Times

Sweatshop Free

GAP in consumer awareness

From The Statesman

I gaped in amusement a few days ago when I received Diwali greetings from a telecom company. Someone wanted to help me to save my money only if I would switch over from my present long-distance carrier to them.

Lightheartedly I said I was more interested in saving time and wanted to be left alone. That was the end of the conversation but the beginning of a serious concern, which many Americans have today that they are being profiled, clustered and targeted for data-base marketing. The company knew who I was: an Indian Hindu, one most likely to respond to the Diwali message, especially when no child labour was involved. This paradigm shift in marketing communication, individually designed messages, is seen even at the shop-floor level, where most of the sales are finally clinched.

Recently I went to the Home Depot, a cavernous store which sells everything you need to build, repair or decorate your home. The young salesman not only helped me in selecting the four-by-ones but also cut them to the size, and assured me that the material was so good that he had bought the same stuff for his father. The store, he said, has a no-question-asked return policy. The aggressive marketing was so kid-gloved that the Home Depot indeed felt homey.

A specialist in marketing communication explained to me that American businesses are embracing a new concept, integrated marketing communication (IMC), heralding the end of mass marketing era. One size fits all may still be true but the message should be custom-designed for different people. Now you understand why the telephone company sent me the Diwali greetings.

The technology to segment masses into clusters of tastes and special interests is available. It gives advertising and marketing experts the tools to reach the customer as if he were very special. People may drive the same model car, wear the same designer clothes and eat the same food in a restaurant, but they feel special about their choices because they receive individualised messages.

For many of us, personal freedom means to make our own choices, although some time too many choices puzzle us. Remember how our grandmothers made us feel so special when we were kids. Of course she did the same with all our siblings and made them feel equally special. That’s why we love our grannies. Something similar is being done by today’s marketing communication experts. Like a child, every customer is special.

Companies are moving away from the traditional Four P’s of marketing - price, product, packaging and promotion - a formula that worked well in the era of mass-produced culture, when consumers were struggling with their basic needs. No longer in the United States can a manufacturer simply make a product and price it to sell by packaging and promotion through the mass media. Consumers do not tolerate being treated as undifferentiated mindless dolts; they resent manipulative and condescending messages.

No wonder the Wal-Mart salesman, I observed lately, was so apologetic to the housewife because the GPS that she had used for more than a year did not work very well, and he gladly returned her money. He took the blame for her choice. This is salesmanship in a new key.

Consumers have rising expectations because of the variety of sources from which products and services are available, and they prefer to buy things which enhance the quality of life, especially in regard to environment, human rights and child labour. Experts say that consumers today not only buy a product; they buy the company which produces them. The entire matrix of marketing communication, that’s, advertising, public relations, sales promotion and even employee communication should appear to the consumer as a stream of information from one single source that establishes a distinct identity for the company. Call it raising a brand. Brand creates public trust. It reveals core values and business philosophy.

GAP, of course, is good: but who makes the product? Children, who should be in school rather than in a sweatshop? Today buyers of imported rugs want assurance that no child labour is involved in their manufacture, and they look for label such as Kaleen, promoted by the Government of India and the carpet industry; and RugMark, an international non-profit organisation which guarantees to customers that they have gone thorough inspection.

The recently published undercover story in the Observer, a British newspaper, has persuaded GAP to work with the Global March Against Child Labour to develop a plan for putting a label on its products: “Child Labour Sweatshop Free”. The other day when I was browsing through Macy’s domestic section, I overheard a customer asking the salesman whether she could buy chinaware not-made-in China.

The salesman apologetically said that everyone was asking the same question. Millions of toys and other made-in-China products have been recalled by US companies because of the hazardous materials including lead that had been used. It is not going to be easy for a company to be able to sell made-in-China products in the United States unless it certifies product safety. In fact, some companies in the United States have begun to put a label: China Free.

Conscience of the consumer is awake. Children should go to school, not work in sweatshops. Clothes and toys should be made for children but not by children. Above all, children should be safe when they use products made for children. All factories in China and India should be open to international inspection.

(ND Batra teaches communications and diplomacy at Norwich University. A googled edition of his new book, Digital Freedom is available, and it is free: Click here

Virtual Faithfullness

Question of the Day

Does a person have to be digitally faithful, let's say in Second Life,
to be deemed as faithful in real life? If an avatar has an affair with
another avatar, is that a form of infidelity and legitimate reason for
divorce?

Tagore as historian

Tagore the Historian

Thou Hast Made Me Endless- Part VIII

RAJAT DAS GUPTA

[Translator's note: Historians have recorded, interpreted and analyzed
the historical events/developments. Tagore, through a number of his
poems, has extracted and presented us hot the human emotions, ego,
uprightness, virtuosity, malice, evil etc. which had propelled our
history. Our students have to cram their history lessons upon
compulsion. Could Tagore's poems anyway supplement their lessons to
enable them to understand the humans of the yore beyond their mere
historical silhouettes? They may find at least some of the chapters of
Indian history e.g. those on the struggles of the Sikhs, Marathas and
Rajputs, the Buddhist period etc. animated by virtue of a good number
of inspiring poems of Tagore based on historical facts and legends
related to these periods, inter alia. Our teachers may give this
proposal a thought. Following are a few examples.]

Poem: Bandi Bir (The Captive Hero} of the book Katha (Legends) written in 1899.

[Notes: This poem is based on the anthology of the British historian
Todd. The facts narrated by Todd have not been distorted in this poem.
However, this is one of the poems where Tagore upholds that the
seeming defeat of the Sikhs was a victory in the test of history. It
was the victory of their spirituality over the brutal force they had
to encounter. That is why Sikh ideal survives as a dynamic force, one
of the noble heritages that will propel the Indian nation forward. And
what happened to the omnipotent rulers (Mughols) who had let the hell
loose on this beautiful earth, cultivated cruelty and inhumanity at
its highest and appeared invincible? In the words of the Poet –
"With blood stained sword in hand, with their bloody look,
They hide face in the children's lesson book……………"]

On the banks of the five rivers,
Up rise the Sikhs spontaneous;
With hair coiled above their head
Inspired by the Mantra their Guru spread
Fearless and unyielding…..
"Glory to Guruji" – thousands of them
Resound the horizon;
At the rising sun of the dawn
The Sikhs stare with deep emotion
With new awakening.

"Alakha Niranjan!" (means 'Holy Spotless'= God)
The war cry of the rebellion;
Let loose their chilvalry;
On their ribs clank swords luminary;
In wild joy was Punjab's insurrection
"Alakha Niranjan!"

There came a day,
Thousands of hearts were on their way
Without any binding or fear,
Life and death at their feet slaves mere;
There on the banks of those rivers
The tale of that day still shivers.

At the tower of the Delhi palace,
Where the Sikhs are apace –
The Badshajada' s (*) drowsy spell (*= Emperor)
Time and again they quell;
Whose voices there, the dark sky tear?
Whose torches set the horizon afire?

On the banks of the rivers five,
For supreme sacrifice was their dive,
Unleashed there was the flood
Of the devotee's blood.
From thousands of hearts torn apart
For destination divine in their lark –
The heroes putting their sacred blood mark
On the forehead of their motherland
There around the five rivers so dear and grand.

In the Mughol and Sikh battle
Their embrace to each other throttle
Like the fight between the eagle and snake,
Deep bruise one to the other did make.

In the fierce fight of that day –
In blood craze "Din Din" the Mughols bay,
"Glory to Guruji" – was the Sikh's commotion
In their divine devotion.

At Gurudaspur castle
When Banda was captured amidst all bustle
In the hands of the Turani troop,
As if a lion fettered with his group;
To capital Delhi they were taken,
Alas, at Gurudaspur Banda was beaten!

The Mughol soldiers march ahead,
Kicking up the road dust in sneer,
Hoisting the Sikh's chopped head
At the blade of their spear.
Follow them Sikhs seven hundred,
Tinkles their chain,
Throng people on the road widespread,
Windows open – a glimpse they fain,
"Glory to Guruji", the Sikhs roar,
For fear of life none is sore,
Sikhs with the Mughols to-day,
Stormed the Delhi road all in gay.

Started the scurry,
For lead in the carnage was their hurry;
They line up at the dawn
Defiant till their execution.
"Glory to Guruji" was their slogan
Until they were done.

Thus over a week,
The arena turned bleak;
With seven hundred lives gone –
Upon the martyrs' immortalization.
On the last round of cruelty
Banda was ordered by the Kazi
To kill his own son,
At ease to be done.

In mere teen was the boy,
With hands tied thrown as a toy
Into the lap of Banda and without a word
He drew him close to his heart.
For a while he put his hand on his head,
Just once kissed his turban red.
He then draws his dagger,
Whispers in the child's ear –
"Glory be to Guruji – fear not my son"
A virile in the boy's face did burn –
In his juvenile voice the court did ring
"Glory to Guruji" as he did sing.
With his left hand Banda held the boy,
With right struck the dagger in his ploy,
"Glory be to Guruji", was all he did implore
As he took to the floor.

Silence fell in the court,
Guruji's inspiration still not abort.
Then with tong red hot
Banda's body was pieced apart;
A word of moan he uttered not
And all in calm did he depart.
As stopped his heart throb
Witnesses closed eyes – silence choked pin drop.

• * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Poem Prarthanatit Dan (Gift Beyond that Begged) of the book Katha
(Legends) written in 1899.

[Translator's note: So far I have read Sikh history, Taru Singh was
taken a prisoner by the Mughols on the charge of treason for helping
the fugitive Sikhs in the jungles in various ways and eventually had
to face death sentence in the cruelest way, with his head forcefully
shaven, for refusing to take to Islam. So, if this poem will raise
eyebrows of the hardcore historians and pundits as to the authenticity
of the Poet's presentation of Taru as a prisoner of war, a scholarly
debate may indeed follow. But we, humbler people, will be least
interested in that and remain happy with the poem so touchingly
flashing the uprightness and holding on to one's faith and
convictions, the highest of human virtues for which the Sikhs stood
during the severest crisis in their history.]

When the Pathans brought them chained
All in calm they remained
The captive Sikhs – though at Sahidgunj town
With their comrades' blood the soil was brown.

Says the Nawab, "Look Taru Singh –
I want to forgive you without misgiving."
Says Taru, "Why for me so much slight?"
Nawab says, "A great warrior you are
That you proved in your fight;
So, to you I bear no anger;
Only I beg of you the gift of your Beni (*)
And you will be spared harm any."
Taru replied, "I owe you as your mercy's nominee;
So offer a bit more, my head with my Beni (*)

(*) Note by Tagore: "To shave off Beni is as good as forsaking
religion for a Sikh".
"Beni" in Bengali means the coiled hair the Sikhs keep.

• * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Poem:: Nakalgarh Poem (False Fort)- of the book KATHA (Legends) written in 1899.
[This poem touchingly reflects the heroic character of the Rajputs and
yet their various factional ego which was the cause of their downfall
at the hands of the Muslim invaders.]

"I'll touch not water"
Thus did the Chitore Rana (*) swear
"Till the Bundi fort
Standing there I can't abort".
"Alas! What an oath;
Impregnable it is" – the ministers quoth;
"You can venture it
But for ignoble defeat".
The Rana says, "If so,
My oath will go".

Chitore and Bundi fort are asunder
But only six miles from one to the other.
The Harabansi tribe there
Dare devil as tigers they are.
Random is their king Hamu's raid
Of any hazard he is not afraid;
All these the Rana heard about –
Evidences now leave him no more doubt.
And it is only six miles away,
So the Rana will no more sway.

Calls all his subservient the minister –
Thus all of them confer –
"Let's build a false fort to-night
That like Bundi will sight;
Let the Rana with his hands own
Hit the fort and see it blown.
Else, just his words to abide
He is heading for suicide!"
So the minister with his aides
The false fort near Chitore lays.

Kumbha a Harabansi, Rana's vassal
Yet with his bravery tribal
On return from his stag hunt
Shoulders with archery load stunt
Smells foul in the hearsay
Early in the day –
Cries aloud, "Who's there!
With a false fort dare
Abase the Harabansi Rajput –
I'll guard the fake castle astute."

Comes Rana amidst bustle
To smash the clay castle –
"Keep afar Your Highness" –
Uproarious Kumbha says,
" A fake Bundi for a fake fight
Never I'll endure this slight;
To defend that clay mound
To-day I'm duty bound".
So does Kumbha thunder –
"Your Highness, keep afar!"

On the ground sets his knees
Shoots arrows in whiz;
Kumbha alone wards off
Their sly plot to scoff
The Harabansi glory
In full fury.

Rana's troop slay his head
All round surrounded
Near the gateway
Of the fort for play.
He drops dead,
His blood crimson red
Sanctifies the castle clean
In ablution of all vicious sin.

Note: "Rana" was the title of the King of Rajputana (now Rajasthan)
whose capital Chitore was once upon a time
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * **

Thou Hast Made Me Endless- Part VIII

Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941 AD) the Nobel Laureate of 1913 was
introduced to the West primarily through the collection of English
translation of some of his poems/songs captioned as 'Gitanjali'
(=Offering of Songs).
More translations of his works followed by the poet himself and others
after he had won the Nobel, including poems/songs, dramas, short
stories etc. However, such efforts were sporadic and sluggish, mostly
on individual initiative, which still remain so.
As a result, a vast volume of the poet's works remains un-translated
while, it appears, it is an impossible proposition to translate even a
substantial part of the poet's total works to permit those, not
privileged by the knowledge of Bengali language, a reasonably broad
view of his myriad creations where unfathomable perceptional depth of
top grade aesthetics runs through, literally true to his song "Thou
hast made me endless / Such is Thy pleasure".
Notwithstanding this, an upsurge of Tagore translation took place in
the last decade of the twentieth century by virtue of a good number of
eminent poets/translators e.g.
William Radice, Joe Winter, Ketaki Kushari Dyson, to name a few, all
of whom left their valuable contribution to this oeuvre and my book
THE ECLIPSED SUN , published in 2002, is a modest addition to this. I
have put stress on a few aspects of the poet's works, particularly
those in his twilight years, which seemed to me quite inadequately
covered so far. The followings are presented mostly based on this
book.

RAJAT DAS GUPTA: Calcutta: e-mail: rajatdasgupta53@yahoo.com

rajarch@cal3.vsnl.net.in

Corporate Leasdership

What are some of the contributions of charismatic and transformational
leaders to organization, with special reference to Lee Iacocca (CEO,
Chrysler 1980s) and Sir Howard Stringer
(Chairman & Chief Executive Officer, Sony Corporation)?

Pull down the digital walls

In cyberspace, disciplinary zones need not become impenetrable
barriers. But in order to turn them into an asset, it is necessary to
develop
a user-friendly IT system that provides reliable and uniform services,
which can be adapted to ever increasing complex environment across
academic disciplines, divisions, and schools.

Do you know Oliver Goodenough?

From Filter
Q & A with new Berkman fellow Oliver Goodenough

Q. In your latest paper on why good people steal intellectual property,
what is the key message? Do you view intellectual property infringement
as an ethical issue or a technical one?

The technical and the ethical are inextricably linked. In a world of
difficult copying, a legal standard could be enforced without the
necessity of deeply held ethical buy-in from the general population.
Once copying becomes trivial, then the standard needs that kind of
buy-in, which hasn't occurred.

Q. How do you view intellectual property rights on a cyber platform? How
would you advise entrepreneurs who wish to utilize this online platform
for their business?

Intellectual property rights has a place in the cyber world - not all
things make sense in an open source configuration (of course the reverse
is true as well - IP isn't appropriate in all cases either - that is
what makes the debate so interesting). In advising cyber platform
entrepreneurs, I would urge them to decide on their goals - both as to
society and as to their individual financial return. They should also
make distinctions between those areas where propertization will actually
work - and those where it won't - and plan accordingly. Radiohead's
experiment with distributing their new album through request for
voluntary payment is a very interesting approach to a new idea where the
old property approach wasn't working.

Q. Do you believe that intellectual property and corporate laws that
apply to 3D virtual environments should be governed by a new set of
international laws since that space is free of physical boundaries?

The idea has merit, but there is a chicken and egg problem. There really
isn't an international law-making body at this point - it may need a
wide-spread adoption of 3D virtual environments to create such a body.
See Linden Dollars.

Q. How do you view the phenomena of the rising demand of real-life
lawyers to deal with virtual problems?

As a law professor, it sounds good to me. But they will need training
that is a bit different from the current standard, involving
understanding the general approaches to cooperation, security, property,
etc., and not just a particular legal standard.

Q. Do you know of the game Second Life? If so, could Second Life be used
as a tool in which to practice game theory in relation to law or
business problems?

I do know of Second Life (see the first question), and believe it does
have potential for the kind of "practice" you describe - indeed,
although my direct experience is quite limited, it looks to me as if
variations are in full swing as a natural outgrowth of social
interaction through the web.

Q. Is the hybrid game theory + institutional economics cooperative model
part of what you consider is cultural evolution?

It certainly has application in cultural evolution - the emergence of
cooperative structures can - and often does - occur through cultural
means - see the law. The possibility of making such structures available
through institutions like the law is a major advance in human
productivity. Means of electronic interaction both expand the reach of
these institutions and create new challenges for them.

Q. What is your latest project at the Berkman Center?

I have two projects going - the first is using the insights of cognitive
neuroscience to better understand the limits of intellectual property
approaches to allocating rights in creative and technical innovation;
the second is the exploration of digital institutions - both at the
theoretical level and at the level of legal and societal application.

Q. How does the Berkman Center support your studies? What kind of
improvements/changes do you want to see?

Berkman gives me an intellectual "room of my own" within which to work
and, slightly paradoxically, a vibrant community and network with whom
to work. Both are great assets. Improvements and changes? A less cramped
fellows office.

Q. Do you find it difficult (or necessary) to juggle multiple projects?
How do you keep up with so many issues?

It is a bit difficult - and also necessary. First of all, I used to
practice entertainment law, and the model of my producer clients was
that you had to have 10 projects cooking to get a couple brought to
fruition. Secondly, many of the really interesting problems have to be
solved using a number of different tools and knowledge basis sets - so
my multiple projects are in fact really just different aspects of one or
two central projects, each with a lot of somewhat diverse sub-tasks.
Finally, my experience of Berkman is that most players there are taking
a similar approach.

_________________________________________________________________

Global Civic Engagement

Global civic engagement through technology

From The Statesman
ND Batra

As the ravaging fires in California burnt hundreds of homes and killed several people, a small public radio satiation KBPS-FM San Diego, which was knocked off the air, used its ingenuity and decided to serve the public by publishing on its website maps of places where fires raged, evacuations were ordered, roads were closed, and the places to go for shelter and the best way to reach there.

Using Google’s My Map, its online managing editor Leng Caloh created a virtual map of Southern California, which was continuously updated and has been visited by more than 1.25 million people, giving up-to-date information about the developing situation. KBPS also used the social networking web service Twitter for text updates for cell phones. Twitter is a micro-blogger that allows short text messages to be sent to its site and it is mostly used by people who just want to exchange brief tit-bits, say, what the heck are you doing now? But KBPS used it to update the information on the status of the howling firestorm. Google Maps Website allows users to overlay information about weather, photos and places to go; but the company couldn’t have imagined that its service My Map will be ingeniously used for planning for public safety.

The use of technology for a purpose different from its original intent is called bricolage. It is the practice of tinkering and using the available material to create something new or solve a problem in a unique way. Americans are not the only bricoleurs, though they are most fertile and creative.

The Wall Street Journal carried an interesting story about a Hong Kong newspaper publisher Jimmy Lai who stealthily sent his reporters to Myanmar to report about the brutality of the military regime against the anti-government protesters, including thousands of Buddhist monks.

The use of cell phone cameras by Lai’s newspaper Apple Daily reporters made it possible for the world to see the bloody carnage in the otherwise closed country and prompted First Lady Laura Bush to write an op-ed piece about Myanmar in the Wall Street Journal. President George W Bush took a stand and imposed sanctions, which seem to be working. You see: the generals are talking.

A few weeks later in October, President Bush and the Dalai Lama met in advance of the ceremony to award the monk the Congressional Gold Medal, a unique honour for a homeless man. Although China huffed and puffed loudly like a helpless dragon warning that these events would be bad for US-Chinese relations, the television images of a man of compassion sent a powerful message of American support for Tibet’s autonomy that China has never honoured.

In many ways we see ourselves and know the physical world through our narratives and descriptions. Our nervous system and our personal and historical memories limit our abilities, our sense and sensibility, to describe and capture reality. But communications technology enhances our natural abilities and enables us to see other dimensions of reality.

Millions of words, for instance, have been written about Mahatma Gandhi whose birthday was celebrated on 2 October and yet it’s doubtful if the truth about this complex man has been completely captured.

If somehow we could know a way of tuning up and enhancing the nervous system to a higher level, the reality would change. Think of the time when zero was discovered and the subsequent development of decimal system; and how that might have changed the perception of reality by subjecting physical phenomena to measurement.

Measurement is actuality, which can be enhanced by technology. When Galileo’s telescope was embedded into the human nervous system, the view of the universe changed and the earth ceased to be a stationary planet.

Or consider some modern political events. Had satellite pictures not revealed the existence of the Soviet’s missiles in Cuba in the 1960s, Americans wouldn’t have perceived the threat to the country.

If the remote-sensing technology could pick up sights and sounds of human sufferings, it would become possible to know how the Chinese have been brutalising the Tibetans and their culture. The Tibetan cultural pogrom will find full description. Description either leads to action or generates guilt. Guilt demands action and atonement. That’s how human consciousness has been evolving, perhaps. Through communications technology, the human nervous system extends itself and gives a better or a fuller account of reality, and a feeling of liberation from the constraints of earlier description of reality.

New reality demands new laws, ethics, and social relations; and it creates new lifestyles, as one can see happening in the burgeoning economy of Kolkata, where the communist party is a dead man walking albeit still ruling. Communications technology — satellites, radio, television, cell phones and the Internet — which made free flow of information possible, has castrated communism.

History teaches a lesson that it is through the control of narratives that the powerful, the ruling classes, exercise their hegemony. I have always wondered how Britain ruled so successfully over India for about two hundred years. The British succeeded to a great extent by supplanting the native stories and narratives with their own literature and legends, so that knowing the legend of King Arthur was deemed more civilised than knowing the legend of King Asoka.

China has begun to transplant its own stories and historical descriptions upon the young Tibetans, and by the time they grow up into adulthood, their reality will clash with the truth held by their parents — unless modern communications technology, including wireless Internet, shortwave radio and miniature antenna dishes, keeps them alive as Tibetans. By denying the Tibetans access to their language and culture and access to communications technology, China is doing unto Tibetans what Americas have done unto Native Americans.

Don’t you agree that there is something remarkable about the Jewish people, in the sense that from the Old Testament through Steven Spielberg, they have been natural born story-tellers? Because of the anecdotal and photographic accounts of the concentration camps and documentaries like Shoah and docudramas like Schindler’s List, it is impossible to deny the truth of the Holocaust, in spite what Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmedinijad and other nay-sayers might say.
Most of us feel guilty for not having stopped it.
The Tibetans have no great film-makers, no story-tellers, and no access to communications technology. They might perish in the unheard silences of the Himalayas unless world leaders keep raising their voices, as President Bush and German Chancellor Angela Merkel did recently. It is time for global civic engagement through all available means of diplomacy and technology.

(ND Batra, the author of Digital Freedom, teaches communications and diplomacy at Norwich University and is working on a new book, This is the American Way. He blogs at http://corporatepower.blogspot.com )

PAKISTAN HAS A FUTURE, YES

What can India do for Pakistan?

From The Statesman

ND Batra

Benazir Bhutto represents a future that must happen: a progressive, liberal and secular Pakistan that should become a model for rest of the Islamic world. That is in India’s national interest. Weak and unstable neighbours cannot make India strong. Pakistan’s problems are India’s problems too because the patterns of behaviour of the two people are not dissimilar.

“The attack was not on me. The attack was on what I represent. It was an attack on democracy and it was an attack on the very unity and integrity of Pakistan,” Bhutto told the global news media after the dastardly bombings that turned her triumphant return into an unmitigated tragedy. “We believe democracy alone can save Pakistan from disintegration and a militant takeover,” she said with firm conviction even when others were wondering, “whodunit”?

Pakistan is undergoing political and cultural turmoil that has of course not gone unnoticed by rest of the world. People opposing the authoritarianism of President Pervez Musharraf have been lawyers, journalists and other open-minded moderate groups trying to bring Pakistan under the rule of secular law. But the situation is much more complex; religious extremists’ attempt at keeping the country under siege, for example, is certainly not without the support of some strata of the all pervasive military.

The “pattern of ad-hoc deal-making between the Pakistan government and pro-Taliban militants along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border,” according to Dawn’s publisher Haroon Hameed, the CEO of the Dawn Group of newspapers, has been destroying the internal security of Pakistan. The solution to the problems does not lie in the imposition of emergency or martial law, but rather reviving the moribund democratic processes.

Unlike most other Muslim countries, Pakistan is no stranger to democracy. It has a vibrant Press, free and bold judiciary, and an intellectual class that is envy of the Muslim world. It is unfortunate that Pakistan is caught up between democratic aspirations at the top and religious obtuseness at the bottom. Instead of depending upon the questionable political strength and commitment of Musharraf alone for war against terrorism, the United States has been reaching out to a wide variety of constituencies in Pakistan including the media, universities, businesses, non-profit organisations, tribal leaders and intelligence communities.

Bringing Bhutto and Musharraf together to share power in a democratic framework has been so far the Bush Administration’s great diplomatic achievement. The democratic initiative will succeed if Bhutto and Musharraf accept each other as co-equals and co-dependents and realise that the enemy of Pakistan is embedded within the country and must be eliminated whatever it takes.

On a visit to Pakistan sometime ago, Vice-President Dick Cheney urged Musharraf to do a lot more to curb the growing influence of Al-Qaida and Taliban and prevent them from rebuilding and strengthening the infrastructure of terrorism in the safety of tribal areas from where they have been operating to carry out terrorist attacks against Afghan and NATO troops. As the recent Karachi bombings show, Al-Qaida-Taliban groups have spread their tentacles more pervasively in the country.

It is tragic that Pakistan has turned itself into a country warring against the very elements, Islamic extremism and militancy, that its super intelligence agency, Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), nurtured as tools of foreign policy. Musharraf has not been able to make a total break from the forces that have supported him in his hold on power and hence the reluctant approach for fighting terrorism.

Since Musharraf cut the deal with tribal leaders relinquishing sovereign authority over the tribal territory, Pakistan has become a safe haven for Al-Qaida and the Taliban. John D Negroponte, Deputy US Secretary of State, observed before a Congress committee in February that Al-Qaida was “cultivating stronger operational connections and relationships that radiate outward from their leaders’ secure hide-out in Pakistan to affiliates throughout the Middle East, North Africa and Europe.”

Since Musharraf is not in full control of the forces operating in the divided country, what can be done? First of all, the United States forces should cross into the tribal territories in pursuit of the Taliban and Al-Qaida. Bhutto, once she assumes political power, may be open to this idea since these forces threaten the integrity of Pakistan.

Bhutto-Musharraf must break the nexus between the ISI and Taliban and other sectarian extremist groups. The ISI works like a powerful state within a weak state and it is necessary for the United States intelligence to penetrate its hierarchy with the ultimate goal of subduing this monster that terrorises the country.

India should join hands with the United States and do a well-planned public and business diplomacy in Pakistan to reach out to the intelligentsia and middle classes, who have the same global aspirations as other countries with growing economies. The prospects of rapid economic growth and rising prosperity would present Pakistanis with an alternative future that is founded on science and technology and globalisation, the future that Benazir Bhutto has come to symbolise.

(ND Batra who teaches communications and diplomacy at Norwich University is the author of Digital Freedom and is working on a new book, This is the America Way)

China and America

Behold the power and glory that is China!

From The Statesman

ND Batra

Earlier the salesman pitch used to be: “You cannot afford not to be in China.” But now corporate CEOs are so eager to apologise to China for its own egregious behaviour. Last month Mattel’s executive vice-president Thomas A Debrowski delivered a well-structured diplomatic apology: “Mattel takes full responsibility for these recalls and apologises to you, the Chinese people, and all our customers who received the toys.” It is just like a rape victim apologising to the rapist: Pardon me for tempting you, sir.

Cleverly staged mass media propaganda and lobbying by people in high places, including some of the top CEOs of major US corporations and university professors, has helped the Chinese authorities in blurring facts with fiction, creating the perception of China’s relentless and inevitable rise as a global superpower. China fascinates corporate America with its myth of bountifulness but more so with its ruling party’s collective mind that controls the obedient masses that produce cheap goods for American markets and whose 1.3 billion worker-consumers would one day buy every branded product made in the United States.

You have heard the drumbeat, repeated ad nauseam, which China has come to believe that since Americans cannot do without its cheap goods, so why to worry about intellectual property thefts, currency manipulation to fuel exports, humongous trade surplus, defective toys, and tainted food products.

Consider, for example, 2008 Olympics, which the Wall Street Journal childishly put it as an event “to refashion the Olympics from a sports and merchandising extravaganza to an engine of political and social change.” That’s expecting too much from an organisation like the IOC that has been paying little attention to its own widespread problems, bribery scandals and drugs, for example.

If human rights were the deciding factor in determining the choice of the host city for the Games, Moscow under the Soviet Union and Berlin under the Nazis would not have been selected to host the Olympics.

China will be showcasing the Games in spite of its abominable record of suppression of human rights of the people of Tibet, the followers of the banned spiritual movement Falun Gong, political dissidents and scholars rotting in its jails without recourse to a fair trial.

In an Op-Ed piece in The New York Times, Slavoj Zizek wrote last week that in Tibet, the Chinese authorities “in addition to military coercion, they increasingly rely on ethnic and economic colonisation. Lhasa is transforming into a Chinese version of the capitalist Wild West, with karaoke bars and Disney-like Buddhist theme parks... in a decade or two, Tibetans will be reduced to the status of the Native Americans in the United States.” He forgot to mention gambling casinos, drugs, booze, and obesity.

Doing business with China is more important than human rights, though Americans along with rest of the world go on paying lip service to the problem. Trade and the Olympics had no civilising effect upon the Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union; therefore, to expect a miracle to happen in China because of the Olympics in 2008 or increasing international trade is puerile and silly. Rising prosperity would not force China’s Communist Party to give up its monopoly over power and become democratic. Since Deng Xiaoping took the road to capitalism, replacing communist brutality with capitalist brutality, about three decades ago, China’s economy has been opening up and growing rapidly with its gross national product (GNP) rising to more than two trillion dollars. The rate of annual economic growth has remained above 9-10 per cent.

Made-in-China goods, apple juice, toys, shoes, electronics, and even golf clubs and handguns are found in every shopping mall of the world. Huge economic benefits are expected from the 2008 Games because it has necessitated an investment of billions in infrastructure and information technology to modernise and showcase Beijing for the events. Millions of tourists who would pour into China, perhaps take a train to Lhasa and visit the Three Gorges super-dam, nonetheless, are expected to remain silent observers.

The Deng Xiaoping market economy revolution unleashed China’s vicious capitalist energies, but not without the help from the outside world, especially the United States, which magnanimously opened its markets to China.

Today China is a healthier, better-fed and better-educated nation than most other developing countries but it remains a closed society ensconced in pollution.

Who needs freedom? That’s why George W Bush never preaches freedom to China though he repeatedly asks that it should let its currency rise. China feels that it can compete with the best, but can it tolerate the noise and chaos of an open society like the multicultural and multiracial United States, where the people demand accountability from their political leaders? Beijing with the help of Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft, and Cisco has been trying to expand its control into the digital domain and expects to have the same control over cyberspace as it has over Tibet. The Internet might bring about tremendous political upheavals in China, so be warned: Don’t move my cheese. Large centralised political systems break down due to internal pressures triggered by communications technology, unless they have built-in capabilities for adjustment, which China does not have at present. And so it is difficult to say what might happen in China in the age of the Internet, satellites, cell phones and hosts of other wireless, digital, and interconnected sensing devices that are becoming available. China wants to control the uncontrollable, the digital generation swapping billions of text messages on cell phones, the generation that could self-organise itself into a smart mob. Look at Myanmar’s recent Buddhist monk uprising, which must be giving the Chinese rulers sleepless nights.

The authoritarian regime is getting ready to open its doors, skies, and cyberspace to a worldwide audience during the 2008 Olympics. But will it be able to close the skydome once the crowd is gone? Yes, of course, with the help form corporate America, which one day might become a dancing bear for China, if others follow Mattel’s obsequious behaviour?

(Dr ND Batra is working on a new book, This is the American Way)

Hey Bangalore! Are You Listening?

When our daily lives become hyper-personal

From The Statesmsn

ND Batra
Google knows whether a person is a dirty trickster, an older man trying to seduce a younger woman; a gender-swapping woman playing with big boys in a cave in Second Life; or a teenager posing as a medical expert.

Google is becoming the keeper of surfers’ personal history, well, at least for 18 months after which it makes it anonymous, or so it promises. The idea behind surf & search record-keeping is to create patterns that anticipate the searcher’s behaviour and provide the information quickly next time he looks for an item. More than that, based on searching patterns, Google, according to CEO Eric Schmidt, could answer hypothetical questions, for example: Where should I invest my bonus, in mutual funds or a savings certificate? Freedom in cyberspace is becoming “curiouser and curiouser,” as Alice in Wonderland would have cried. The more you have it, the more you lose it.
The Internet has created a new media environment that not only enables people to communicate, discuss and exchange information, give and receive feedback, but it also provides an interactive collaborative experience, doing things together, when words become deeds and speech becomes action. Networked computers, the building blocks of the Internet, are much more than mere productivity tools and informatics systems. Unlike the traditional media, they are capable of creating cyber-environment that can be designed to be persuasive, and can motivate people to disclose personal information and change their social behaviours. Social engineers, especially those who serve authoritarian governments, know the potential of the Internet for creating an illusion of boundless freedom only to entice people in digital chains.

The next challenge for software programmers whether they work for Google, Yahoo or some authoritarian regime is to build a network architecture that enables the designing of virtual environment to motivate people, for example, to buy, sell, invest; obey the supreme leader; or even induce good social and personal habits such as not to drink and drive, not to have unhealthy sexual behaviours. Computer codes have the potential force of law, according to Stanford Law professor Lawrence Lessing, and programmers could bypass the government and, in a manner of speaking, take law into their own hands. Or the government could also use programmers to stifle dissent. Give the monks of Myanmar computers and free access to the Internet. They may not come out of cyberspace to protest in the streets. But the rhetoric of software design, the persuasive code that entices, builds relationships, arouses and fulfills desires and keeps the users coming back, has not been fully explored in areas other than cybersex and virtual reality Internet games. There is a great fortune in developing codes that persuade the user to change his attitude, behaviour and actions.

Hey Bangalore! Are you listening?

The strength of the Internet is its interactive immersion, its ability to respond and give instant feedback and gratification. Feedback not only regulates the flow of communication but also gives some of the control back to the receiver of the message, in fact an illusion of freedom. Two persons in conversation establish a dynamic relationship to create shared meanings, of which a Web portal might keep a record. Human communication is essentially a transaction that takes place effectively if people have or can create a common field of experience. Internet communication can transcend face-to-face communication, can be very enticing, and in certain circumstances is even more desirable as many patients and therapists are finding. Lack of face-to-face cues, physical appearance and vocal inflections, which might arouse skepticism are absent in Internet communication, especially when it is time delayed (asynchronous) such as in e-mail or question-answer Websites.

Selective self-presentation makes it possible for people to open themselves up to others, which they would hesitate to do in face-to-face conversation for fear of contradiction and lack of control. But Google, Yahoo and the ilk keep digital footprints of what is going on in your hearts and mind. Even in chat rooms and instant messaging, communication can become what JB Walther, a professor at Michigan State University, calls as “hyper-personal,” that’s, socially more desirable than we are likely to experience face-to-face. It allows the play of fantasy partly to compensate for the absence of aural and visual information that gestures and voice create in interpersonal encounters. Fantasy lowers our guards and makes cyberspace so seductively persuasive ~ and dangerous. So many teenagers go astray in cyberspace because it lets them assume fake identities and gives them freedom to pretend what they fancy themselves to be. Some of them become victims of con-men and predators, who too assume identities desirable for their teenage victims.
An Avatar can be very deceptive.
The playfulness of virtual environment, an environment of “Be what you want to be,” creates a pleasurable experience, a sensuous flow, in which we feel in control of our environment that real life might deny us. Those who spend too much time in Second Life might forget what real life is. In search of a fake identity, we are in danger of losing our real identity.

(ND Batra, the author of Digital Freedom is professor of communications and diplomacy at Norwich University. He is working on a new book, This is the American Way: An Intellectual Travelogue)

A supply-chain of knowledge?

Building a global supply-chain of knowledge

From The Statesman
The challenge for information technology guys from Bangalore, Silicon Valley, and other knowledge hubs is to create a system that is capable of aggregating and accessing available sources of knowledge and mining all modes of information, whether audio, video, pictorial, textual or in the form of a spreadsheet. The system should create a protocol, much like TCP/IP protocol, that transcends cultural, semantic and computer language/format barriers. And finally, as Gupta suggested, the IT system should be capable of customizing knowledge as per individual or group needs. For example, the IT system should be capable of automatically converting a report about Mynamar protests into various formats, such as newspaper, radio, television, and mobile devices such as cell phones to which editorial value could be added subsequently.
The world of collaborative knowledge seeking and innovation has just begun.

Digital Natives

Facing the YouTube generation

From The Statesman
August 1, 2007

By ND Batra

Hardly has the conspiratorial expression “Let’s Google him” settled in as a sizzling hot potato on the American tongue-in-cheek civic discourse when there is another linguistic gatecrasher “YouTubing” into American culture and consciousness, as last week’s Democratic debate showed. The YouTube questioning began with a street expletive, “Wassup?”

It was a remarkable event technologically speaking since this is certainly the beginning of a new era when television and the Internet have begun to converge into a seamless medium used by the Internet hoi polloi and potential voters who asked all kinds of questions ranging from gun control and global warming to healthcare, sex education for children, gay marriages, Darfur (Sudan), and Iraq war.

Experts could not have asked better questions of the candidates, and as author James Surowiecki might have said, it was a sample of the wisdom of the crowd made visible by YouTube. Therefore, to say that it was nothing more than another digital town hall meeting is to miss the point: the challenge of the emerging new media to traditional media gatekeepers and professional pundits. It was a surge from the earth gone flat; and there will be more to come.

The questioners it seemed had already “Googled” the Democratic presidential candidates’ past track records on various issues and using their home videos equipment they personalised controversial issues and uploaded them to YouTube for the debate, which was in actuality candidates’ reactions to questions rather than they debating among themselves.

But there were faces, ethnically heterogeneous, the Democrats could not ignore. Nor will the Republicans when they confront the YouTube generation on 17 September at St. Petersburg, Florida, though one of them, Mitt Romney, former Governor of Massachusetts, said in an interview: “I think the presidency ought to be held at a higher level than having to answer questions from a snowman.” But Republicans cannot escape the tech savvy YouTube generation or they will be left behind. Out of 3,000 questions ranging from the serious to the absurd, CNN, the all news cable network, selected 39 for hosting to Democratic presidential hopefuls, who had gathered on the campus of the military college, Citadel, South Carolina, deep in the Bible belt.

An animated video clip of Snowman with his snowball kid created a stir when it asked a question about global warming, which even former Vice-President Al Gore’s documentary An Inconvenient Truth could not have done better. Then there was a gun-toting wise guy who held an automatic guerrilla-style gun and calling it “my baby” asked whether it would be taken away if a Democrat were to occupy the White House. “He needs help. I don’t know if he’s mentally qualified to own that gun,” said Senator Joe Biden of Delaware, one of the eight candidates on the stage. After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the issue of gun control receded into the lower depths of American consciousness, though gun violence has not abated. But Senator Biden missed the irony: The assault weapon guy was mocking the Second Amendment, the American people’s right to bear arms like “my baby.” Regarding questions about Iraq war and withdrawal of US troops, Democrats as expected were united in condemning President George W Bush in misleading the country and mismanaging the post-war operations.

Moreover, they were equally united about how soon to withdraw, soon enough but in a phased and gradual manner in order to protect the troops and not leave a hellhole behind, which Iraq has already become. Some set tentative dates while others were judiciously ambiguous, which showed once again how deeply confused and divided Americans are about Iraq. In response to a question whether he or she would meet with the leaders of Syria, Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, and North Korea in his or her first year as President in order to promote diplomacy, Democratic candidates took this as another opportunity to hit at the Bush administration’s reluctance to use diplomatic tools for advancing national interest.

Senator Barack Obama, a leading candidate among Democrats and the biggest challenge to Senator Hillary Clinton’s ambition to go to the White House, sharply rebuked the Bush administration saying that it’s nothing short of ridiculous to believe that not talking to countries is a kind of punishment to them. He said he would readily talk to them as John F Kennedy and Ronald Reagan continuously did with the Soviet Union.

Senator Clinton’s thoughtful and measured response to the question made her look and sound presidential. She said that she would not rush to meet with them in her first year without knowing what their intentions were and certainly she would not like to give them a chance to use the meeting for propaganda purposes. The President of the United States cannot behave like a used car salesman ready to talk to anyone. The reason why some Republican candidates are reluctant to face the YouTube debate format is that they are not sure what kinds of questions might get into the YouTube pool and what questions CNN might select. To minimise the CNN effect, questions could be randomly selected. Politicians are control freaks and do not want to lose control over their professionally designed, customised and controlled messages, which they can drumbeat through television commercials and for which they have to raise millions of dollars. In this sense, the Internet is a very different medium because it empowers people. In the future instead of holding a Press conference, politicians might be asked to hold a YouTube conference.

(Dr ND Batra teaches communications and diplomacy at Norwich University and is the author of Digital Freedom)