To cheer or not to cheer

By Dr Hiramani Ghimire

N epal has been offered WTO memebership. When the Cancun ministerial conference endorsed the membership, Nepal became two of the first least-developed countries (Cambodia being the other) to accede to the WTO. Nepal needs, of course, to ratify it. Five precious years of accession negotiations have borne fruits, and a new ‘trade era’ has dawned. How should we view—or even celebrate—this event?

A recently released World Bank report (Global Economic Prospects 2004: Realising the Development Promise of the Doha Agenda) sees the Cancun meeting as an opportunity to lift as many as 144 million people out of poverty by 2015. According to the report, progress in Cancun could "spur confidence, boost income, and reduce poverty" around the world. In this sense, Nepal’s WTO membership is something to be happy about.

There are roadblocks ahead. The Doha round was launched in November 2001 with the basic objective of integrating developing and least-developed countries into the multilateral trading system. It was the first time that the interests of the developing country received serious attention in multilateral trade negotiations. However, the progress of the Doha round is faltering. Developed countries have failed to keep their promises made at Doha.

The most difficult issue on the agenda is agriculture. Negotiations during the Uruguay Round (UR) itself were dominated by agriculture. The post-UR years have seen an ever-intensifying debate on agriculture. In breach of the spirit of the WTO Agreement on Agriculture, some developed countries are reviving agricultural protectionism. At Doha, they agreed on liberalising farm trade, but reneged on it later. As a result, almost everyone is losing. Taxpayers in developed countries are losing more than $300 billion doled out annually on subsidy payments, especially to big farmhouses. On the other hand, import restrictions and high tariffs have kept food prices high for consumers. At the same time, farmers in poor countries are being stripped of livelihood opportunities as they are losing out on international markets. The paradox is clear: some 1.2 billion people in the developing world live on less than one dollar a day whereas a day’s subsidy for a European cow amounts to two dollars.

Nepal is also keenly watching how the debate on intellectual property rights covered by the TRIPs agreement moves ahead. The Doha declaration on this issue was very important in that it recognised the primacy of public health over TRIPs. Again here, the response was poor. After a long hiatus of missed deadlines, the United States and other developed countries have now agreed to allow import of some life-saving drugs by least-developed countries under ‘compulsory licensing’ (a legal tool that gives a company the right to manufacture patent drugs without the patent-holder’s consent). Nepal could benefit from this system. While this has been achieved in the run-up to the Cancun meeting, the administration of this system will be a challenging job. On another front, the TRIPs agreement is inconsistent with the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) to which Nepal is a party. While CBD promotes the concept of community rights, TRIPs advocates ‘company rights’. The farming community is thus a potential victim of TRIPs.

Nepal with a large base of unskilled and semi-skilled labour is also interested in promoting better opportunities for trade in services supplied by less skilled persons. LDCs as a group are working together on securing an understanding on this issue. According to some estimates, a temporary visa scheme allowing cross-border movements of service providers from LDCs up to three percent of the OECD labour force would result in economic benefits equivalent to US$150-200 billion (3-4 times the current level of global development aid) for both developed and developing countries. The WTO members have recently agreed to undertake commitments on enhancing such movements, "taking into account all categories of natural persons identified by LDCs." This would be done, of course, "to the extent possible". Such phraseology represents an in-built mechanism for developed countries to wriggle out of their commitments.

The WTO system has an explicit understanding that least-developed countries like Nepal would be able to enjoy special and differentiated treatment. The idea is related to positive discrimination. In other words, developed countries vow not to seek reciprocity from poorer countries in the South. But these ‘special favours’ are designed by adopting a technical approach to looking at the stage of a country’s development. By and large, they fail to reflect human and institutional capacities in any given country. On the other hand, promises on special treatments are hardly kept.

The WTO has been encouraging the participation of LDCs in its activities. Without this, the legitimacy of the WTO would be questionable. Such an image crisis needs to be avoided. Accordingly, the WTO is working on it. This is an advantage for us. The WTO is often seen as a model of democracy among international institutions. For example, the Global Accountability Report, 2003 prepared by a UK charity has given high marks to the WTO, ranking it third on access to online information, eighth on member control, and fourth overall among 18 inter-governmental organizations, transnational corporations, and international NGOs. The WTO has no ‘security council.’ All agreements in it are reached by a consensus of its members on a ‘one member, one vote’ principle. In other words, every country has a veto. Besides, an arbitration mechanism is available to those who want to use it against foul play.

However, the reality is much different from this democratic ideal. The notion of consensus-based decision-making nullifies the ‘one member, one vote’ principle. Even in the WTO, some members are more equal than others. Members, not actively opposing a position, are deemed to be supporting it. This is so even when they are not present at a particular meeting. In this way, the much-hyped consensus turns out to be ‘passive consensus’ in practice. This allows powerful countries to use a variety of ‘silencing tactics’ against weaker nations in order to manufacture consensus. The use of ‘green rooms’ (which are restricted to the rich and powerful) in negotiations is but one example. More subtle forms include aid diplomacy, trade preferences, and political maneuvering.

The WTO system is particularly about reducing barriers to trade. This is, however, not a sufficient condition for realising the development promise made, for example, at Doha. Trade promotion also involves creating infrastructure, enhancing the quality of public services such as health and education, streamlining policy processes, and improving governance accountability. Our experts in the policy circle are euphoric about the WTO’s potential contribution to good governance through its rules-based system. This could be misleading. Experience tells us that externally induced policies hardly work miracles. What we need is spontaneity and responsiveness. Both are not forthcoming.

Given these opportunities and challenges for Nepal in the WTO, one is not quite sure about how to respond to the newly acquired membership. In other words, to cheer or not to cheer (it) is the question!

When we leave Iraq

By MARC KAUFMAN

Well-equipped foreign troops were under daily fire from determined if ragtag guerrillas, and casualties steadily mounted. Much of the world was opposed to the military action, and opposition was especially strong in Muslim countries. Islamic holy warriors were eventually drawn to the fight, bringing funds and increasingly extreme tactics. The occupying forces sought to modernise a traditional Muslim society and do it quickly. They never lost a battle, yet the war wouldn’t end.

If this sounds like a description of the challenge facing U.S. forces in post-war Iraq, you’re right. But it could just as well describe another war in the same region—the Soviet invasion and occupation of Afghanistan during the 1980s.

As the American death count rises in Iraq and efforts to improve life for Iraqis remain limited by the lack of security, the Bush administration is working hard to convince us that we are merely witnessing the untidy death throes of Saddam Hussein’s regime. National security adviser Condoleezza Rice and others have held up post-World War II Germany and Japan as models for the U.S. occupation in Iraq. The administration’s detractors respond by raising the spectre of Vietnam or the aborted U.S. military missions in Lebanon and Somalia.

And yet the Soviet experience in Afghanistan—where a superpower moved in a bold and aggressive way outside its clear sphere of influence into a fractured Muslim nation—is a more useful model, however different the occupiers’ motivations and however different the outcome ultimately may be. And because the Soviets’ Afghan occupation ended in disaster for both the occupier and the occupied, it offers lessons that U.S. officials would do well to remember.

I was in Afghanistan as the last Russians left in 1988, departing from their heavily guarded garrisons and quite fearful of being attacked on the way out. By then, the Soviets had managed to do just about everything wrong, having killed more than a million Afghans and turned millions more into refugees. The Soviets had become the enemies of Islam. That they spent billions to modernise Afghanistan and win over Afghans—soldiers were still tossing candy to kids as they pulled out of Kabul—meant nothing in the end.

The United States starts its occupation in a much stronger position. The Soviets, after all, were supporting a widely disliked communist Afghan government, while the Americans are offering democracy and reconstruction, which many Iraqis say they want. But both began their occupations convinced that the local population broadly supported them or, in the case of the Soviets, that the locals would be cowed into submission. The Soviets were proven wrong, and the Americans have learned they can’t count on the support they thought they had. Top Army officials in Iraq have conceded that they have a "guerrilla war" on their hands—and the dynamics on the ground for the two occupations begin to look increasingly similar.

Guerrilla wars are fought militarily and, probably more importantly, as a battle for "hearts and minds."

LA Times -Washington Post

Diversity democratic concept

By Shiva Rijal

I was searching for some expressions to sum up the spirit of the seminar about multiculturalism that brought over thirty scholars - professors and teachers from different universities of South Asia in Pune, India last month. I think I found the words on the very first day of the seminar – ‘a culture of diversity’, which is much bandied about term in the discourses on studies of culture. It still retains a great significance. The seminar was titled "America’s Multicultural Heritage", which was organized by the United States Education Foundation in India (USEFI).

The culture of diversity is a democratic concept. It teaches us to accept other’s culture not as a part of tolerance but of celebration. Tolerance implies a forceful relationship whereas the celebration implies a complete participation of both parties. Moreover, celebrating differences between or among cultures is a matter of understanding the spirit of the culture itself. In his key note address to the seminar Prof. P. C. Kar from M.S. University, Vardodra said: "The main challenge for the multiculturalism is to establish a culture of diversity. We should realize that it is not the mere numbers of cultural forms that make this world a beautiful place. It is the culture of diversity which makes our civilization prosper. Moreover, a culture of diversity makes us open-minded and sensitive to other’s culture. It is sad that we have seen many ethnic conflicts and clashes in the past. America itself is an example. But we have learned great many lessons from the cultural experiences of such kinds in the past too".

The selection of place for the seminar of this kind itself showed an attempt to bring the issue -- a culture of diversity -- to the fore. What can we make of the multicultural heritage of America by relating it to the Indian or South Asian cultural experience as a discussion topic in a seminar? Prof. Prashant Sinha, the Head of English Department of Pune University, said that South Asia, especially India, is the right place to discuss the multiculturalism in America or anywhere of the world, for that matter. Prof. Sinha was making his direct reference to the diverse forms of culture that have been making their existence felt side by side within the Asian subcontinent since the time immemorial. To the cultural experiences of this multiple kinds or streams in India, South Asia for that matter, a renowned Indian scholar Dr. Kapila Vatsyayan gives the name a ‘perennial flow’. Can we say the same to the American multicultural scenario too? Moreover, should we take the American experience of multicultural forms as a flow or the clash of forms?

I think when we speak of a culture of diversity in a multicultural setting, ‘flow’ is a better name that suits it. Flow tells about the liberal attitude towards the culture of both -- that we belong to and the one that others belong to. The flow gives a sense of cultural stream where the demarcation or binary opposition between the cultures is erased. Whereas, the clash makes us think of the uneasy relationship between the different forms of culture. But the clashes have always ended in confluence – a flow.

As a person working in the domains of the performing arts, I presented a paper on the theme of ethnicity in American theatre. My point was that when we talk of the multiculturalism in the field of arts, theatre for that matter, we call for the experimentation of a kind that allows the multicultural voices speak. To locate ourselves in a multicultural space we do not totally depend on the so called ‘pure’ forms of the culture, neither do we use the modern canonised forms too.

The other important thing about the seminar of this kind in India can be made out from the South Asian students and writers, who have made or are making the American universities as their destination of learning or career development. Speaking on the occasion Prof. Jane Schukoske, the director of USEFI said that 66,600 Indian students went to America for their studies last year only. This figure makes us think about the flow of students not only of India but also of South Asia.

Moreover, the participants discussed about the works of South Asian writers like Bharati Mukharjee, Jhumpa Lahiri and Samrat Upadhyay who have been making America as their working place. The participants also discussed about these writers’ choice of forms and the characteristics of their writings and made points that their writings or voices too should be taken as part of the culture of
diversity.

Moreover, multiculturalism as a heritage demands it to be taken as an issue of great significance. It does become heritage only when people take or celebrate the multiple voices or forms of life and art. America as a democratic country has always given emphasis on the multiple voices. I think topics like the multicultural heritage of America is a subject of interest and importance to the people of everywhere in this age of globalisation.

Pain goes deep and wide

By BISWAS BARAL

I t was very poignant watching the little kids singing hymns and reciting the names of the victims of the terrorist attacks in the United States two years ago as part of the memorial service.

But as I was listening to the names—of Christians, Muslims, Hindus and people of many other castes and creed—for a second time in as many years, I couldn’t help but think about all those who died in Afghanistan and Iraq in the ensuing wars that followed. More civilians were killed in Afghanistan and Iraq in the US-led war against terrorism than in the terrorist attacks in the United States.

So quite logically, I began to think if anybody, anywhere in the world even remembered how many died in the two war-torn countries, let alone organise some kind of memorial for them. While some of the victims of the "war on terrorism" are being immortalised and sanctified, many others of the same war remain anonymous to most of the world.

It should not be forgotten that what happened on September 11, 2001 did not only affect the American lives and psyche. What happened that day and what followed next has had a deep impact on almost everyone throughout the world; but none more profound than on the people of Afghanistan and Iraq.

So as we remember all innocent people who lost their lives on that fateful day, should we also not pray for those who were inadvertently put in danger during the two wars?

Let us not value human lives on the basis of nationality and opulence. We surely are not trying to convey the message that an American or a British life is worth more, hence worth remembering, than an Afghan’s? Shouldn’t a moment’s silence has been observed at ground zero for all those who died during the US-led war against terrorism?

Does a common American even know that more women have become widows and more children orphans because of the wars led by his/her government than in the 09/11 terrorist attacks.

I also think that the western media could have done more to educate Americans and most of the western world by highlighting the pains and sufferings of common Afghans or Iraqis who lost their loved ones in the war.

Let us get together and pray in the days ahead not only for Americans or British, but for every parent, every child, every friend whose life has been changed forever in the post-September 11 world.

Will China talk to Dalai Lama?

Gregory B Craig

As the Dalai Lama visits Washington this week, he may be bringing good news to a president sorely in need of it. For the first time in recent years, there is reason to hope that the Chinese are finally willing to consider new ways of resolving the protracted Tibetan problem. Envoys representing the Dalai Lama recently met with the Chinese leadership in Beijing and—over a period of many days filled with many contacts and conversations—discussed all the hot-button issues that have been so intractable for almost 50 years. The talks were candid and the tone was civil. Quietly and almost invisibly, a process of reconciliation may be underway.

For many years, American presidents—as well as other friends of Tibet—have urged the Chinese government to begin a dialogue with the Dalai Lama. Perhaps the most dramatic and visible manifestation of this effort came during the joint June 1998 press conference held in Beijing in Jiang Zemin, then president of China, and Bill Clinton. At the end of the press conference, the two presidents exchanged comments about Tibet. Clinton urged Jiang to meet with the Dalai Lama, saying: "I have spent time with the Dalai Lama. I believe him to be an honest man. I think you will like him."

I then worked for Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and served as the first special coordinator on Tibet, a position created to reflect the American public’s concern about the Tibetan people and issues. Direct contact between the Chinese leadership and the Tibetan side stopped in 1993, but in 1998, partly because of Clinton’s interest in the issue, an informal channel of communication between the Chinese and the Dalai Lama opened up, and things began to look hopeful. There was evidence that Jiang himself was interested in exploring rapprochement with the Dalai Lama. But as the Chinese became more absorbed with their change of leadership, the situation deteriorated. The informal channel was silenced. The human rights situation in Tibet got worse. The personal attacks on the Dalai Lama intensified.

The Dalai Lama is well known and respected—even revered—in the West, and, for that reason, the Chinese government’s campaign of vilification directed against him has always seemed bizarre, if not infantile. It is clear, however, that so long as the Chinese inveigh against him in such a personal way, the hope of opening a dialogue is faint at best.

The Dalai Lama has made clear that he no longer seeks independence for Tibet, and that he is committed to "the Middle Way." He has also said that the concerns of the Tibetan people could be addressed within the framework of the People’s Republic of China. The Dalai Lama has made these statements in reliance upon Deng Xiaoping’s assurance in 1979 that, except for Tibetan independence, everything else could be discussed and resolved. Although still skeptical of the Dalai Lama’s Middle Way approach, the Chinese have never repudiated Deng Xiaoping’s statement.

In 2002 the Chinese invited the Dalai Lama’s elder brother, Gyalo Thondup, to China and Tibet for a private visit. In September 2002 and then again in May and June 2003, they invited a delegation led by the Dalai Lama’s special envoy, Lodi Gyari, to Beijing to meet with Chinese officials, and to Lhasa, the capital of Tibet. The trips were, by any measure, successful. Most significant, however, was the change in tone of the Chinese government’s public statements about Tibet and the Dalai Lama.

There are other signs that attitudes may be changing in Beijing. When British Prime Minister Tony Blair visited China in July 2003—after the second Tibetan delegation had come and gone—he complimented President Hu Jintao on the Chinese government’s decision to receive the Tibetan delegation. With no sign of discomfort or defensiveness, the Chinese president described his experience as party secretary in Tibet, and the two leaders had a long and relaxed conversation about Tibet.

Not known for diplomatic finesse or patience on other issues, this administration deserves credit for both with respect to U.S. policy on Tibet. While consistently expressing concern about threats to Tibetan culture and the plight of the Tibetan people, the administration has also been unambiguous about its support for dialogue. The president’s decision to appoint Undersecretary of State Paula Dobriansky as special co-ordinator for Tibet—and to take her with him on his trip to China—deserves high praise. This week Bush will continue the practice first adopted by his father and followed by President Clinton of welcoming the Dalai Lama to the White House.

These are dark and uncertain days in other parts of the world, and a dialogue between the Chinese and the Dalai Lama seems too much to hope for. But the dynamic is there for all to see. Bit by bit, momentum seems to be growing. Given sufficient political will on both sides, real progress is possible. President Hu Jintao would be well-advised to give serious consideration to taking the next step and agreeing to meet with the Dalai Lama. It would establish the president of China as a world leader willing to take risks for peace and progress—and he could see for himself that the Dalai Lama is actually a great guy.

(Craig, a Washington lawyer, served in the State Department in the Clinton administration)

LA Times – Washington Post

Iraq is Bush’s Waterloo

ANIL PANICKER

W e have just passed another anniversary of the horrific WTC tragedy that not only led to the loss of several hundred precious lives but also brought home the demon of terrorism to a country which until then viewed itself as an omnipotent super power that no human or mechanical hand could inflict even an iota of damage.

Spurred on by the tremendous self-preservation instincts of all law abiding citizens, US president George Bush embarked on what is undoubtedly one of America’s biggest troop deployments in a single region. The results are there all for of us to see.

Iraq today is a bombed nation; its people leaderless, defenceless and penniless. Bush and Co have ensured that all the ‘evil men’ (their definition not mine) have bitten the dust. Their main target Saddam Hussein still eludes them and is believed to be in hiding, vainly exhorting his fast depleting band of loyalists to wage a final, decisive war against the "infidels who have invaded my country". His two sons , Uday and Quasay have met their gory end while scores of the fallen dictator’s inner coterie have either been captured, fled the war torn nation or fallen victims to Allied guns and missiles.

But the big question remains? Has Bush carried his ‘subjugation through war at all costs’ theory a bit too far. There has already begun very audible rumblings and synchronised protests from his own countrymen, who are slowly beginning to realise the exorbitant price that they are being forced to pay through the nose for Uncle Bush’s continued honeymooning in Iraq.

If US Department officials are to be believed, America’s tragic flirtation in Iraq and Afghanistan is already running up a monthly bill of an astronomical $five billion. This undoubtedly has elicited comparisons with the monumental Vietnam blunder, which not only cost America to lose a lot of her able bodied men and women and several billions of state exchequer but also showed the world how the folly of a few can lead to disastrous consequences for several million innocent citizens all around the globe.

America has a long history of arriving late and then staying on longer than necessary. Look at what is happening in Iraq. The Iraqis would rather buy peace with an enemy they knew very well than someone masquerading as a friend and especially a ‘friend’ whom they do not know very well.

Everyday we see televised pictures of ordinary men and women roaming and hanging around the bombed out streets of Baghdad and other smaller towns, desperately trying to make sense of the fate that has befallen their nation. US-led Allied troops with deadly machine guns look menacingly down at them from the reassuring comfort of tankers and armoured vehicles, ready to shoot and mow down any show of bravado or resistance directed against these toy boys.

They are there because America believes the war on terror is still very much on. But terror is very much an everyday reality in other strife torn regions of the world as well. So what keeps the great US from not sending its much vaunted men and machine power to all such places?

Quite obviously, it is a selective war against terror that Bush and his cronies want to play. But this game in Iraq has gone a wee bit far. Today, America is finding that it is easier to start a war but very difficult to end it on an amicable note. Here’s what Bush said in what is clear acknowledgement that the US has bitten off more than it can chew.

"We will do what is necessary, we will spend what is necessary, to achieve this essential victory in the war on terror... and to make our own nation more secure," he said in a speech aimed as much at the international community as his fellow Americans.

And now that Bush has won what he believes was his preliminary round, he wants to rope in other nations to carry pounding and bludgeoning a defenceless Iraqi populace. Faced with bitter criticism at home for the large number of US casualties and the sheer brutality of the Iraq war, the US president, in a desperate bid to hold on to his fast sliding popularity graph, now wants non-Americans to become willing cannon fodder.

The message is loud and clear. No more US soldiers should die in Iraq. If at all any deaths do unfortunately take place, let these body bags come from less powerful nations who over the years have reasons to feel obliged towards the US.

And with his closest friend, Tony Blair in deep waters with the rug being pulled from under his feet for his inexcusable cover up in the Deep Throat Kelly case, the US is desperately scouting for fresh allies to fight wars of its own creation.

But not all nations are biting the US bait. Many have openly rejected such a demand, terming it preposterous and laced with several tragic pitfalls. There are several other fence sitters, who may or may not send their troops to Iraq.

Their final decisions will depend less on the current ground and humanitarian realities but more on how successful are the much vaunted arm twisting skills of the US.

So what is the honourable way out, even though it is a bit late in the day? Let all the organisational command in Baghdad be passed on to the UN. Only this will ensure that other nations, who are still caught in a Catch-22, become willing to lend their men and might and agree to join hands for "the reconstruction of Iraq and not for its further destruction".

But this is the optimistic viewpoint. The stark and unpalatable truth is that such a scenario may never materialise as there is a large, influential lobby in Washington that stoutly believes that their political fortunes are dependent on the longevity of war. Speak the peace lingo and Bush and Co will meet their Waterloo.

Once children’s home, now public toilet

Biplab Maharjan

The Bal Mandir (children’s home) situated in the district headquarters of Salyan no longer provides education or other services to children. But now it does not live up to its name. Because of sheer negligence, it has turned into a public toilet.

The usual playful noise of children has stopped enlivening the place. Teachers and staff are nowhere to be seen. Rooms, which were once classrooms and offices, are without furniture and necessary equipment. The windows and doors are always kept open. Human excreta can be smelt from even a long distance.

Budget for running the administration and classes stopped coming into this children’s home some three years ago. Since then, it has remained closed. Almost all educational materials, equipment and furniture, including wooden doors and windows, have been stolen.

After finding the building empty, the Royal Nepal Army personnel started using this three-storeyed building as their temporary quarters. But after nearly eight months, they also deserted the place and went to stay within the compounds of the District Administration Office. Since then, the place has been totally neglected, and is being used by locals and passers-by as a public toilet.

Established in 2028 BS, the children’s home was officially inaugurated by the late Queen Aishworya in 2034 BS. The home used to conduct pre-primary classes, besides extra curricular activities.

Till 2053-54 BS, the Bal Mandir struggled to stay afloat. A lady teacher and a peon were in permanent service. In 2050 BS, it had started running two pre-primary classes. A teacher was also appointed under teacher’s quota from the District Education Office (DEO) for one primary class.

But soon the district working committee of the Nepal Children’s Organisation, the authority concerned with the management of such homes, decided to cancel the teacher’s quota under DEO. Consequently, only one pre-primary class could be conducted, according to Yamuna Shakya, who had been working here as a teacher since 2033 BS.

"The Bal Mandir became defunct in 2056 BS, and we have not received salary since then," she lamented.

The Mandir used to receive an annual budget of Rs 15,800 from the Children’s Fund. Since the fund was insufficient, it received financial assistance from various governmental, semi-governmental and non-governmental organisations. But now, no such assistance is available.

Nobody seems to give any attention to this home for destitute children. Probably, everybody is more concerned with the ongoing Maoist insurgency that has imperilled the entire nation. This institution along with countless others has been badly affected by the eight-year-old violence and socio-political unrest. However, locals here believe even a little attention from the authorities concerned can at least save the centre from being a permanent public toilet. Nonetheless, given the present political crisis, bringing it into normal operation in the immediate future is not possible.

One state for two people

Marwan Bishara

Ten years ago, Israelis and Palestinians agreed to recognize each other’s national rights and separate peacefully. But Oslo failed utterly to accomplish what it set out to do: bring an end to the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza in return for peace.

Instead, it divided the Palestinian territories into 202 separate cantons, diminishing the inhabitants’ access to employment, health and education and reducing their gross domestic product by more than a quarter. The number of Israeli settlers doubled in the 10 years, and a complex network of bypass roads rendered the occupation irreversible.

How did such a dramatic turn of events come about?

The lion’s share of the blame falls with the United States and Israel, whose actions in turn triggered violent reactions from the Palestinians. The United States failed to use its considerable influence to curb the proponents of a Greater Israel, who slowly but steadily tore the spirit of Oslo to pieces.

To make matters worse, the Bush administration has put the fox in charge of the hen house by entrusting its vision of a Palestinian state to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel. Hence, if it ever sees the light, such a state will resemble the homelands that South Africa apartheid government created in the 1980’s.

If Israel must go the South African path, then it must also be ready to face the consequences: the long-term alternative to separation is integration, not apartheid

Theoretically, Israelis and Palestinian speak of separation; in practice they are not willing to reconcile their national aspirations with it. That’s why in addition to prominent Palestinian intellectuals, an increasing number of leading Israeli and American commentators are questioning the feasibility of a two-state solution and are considering one binational state as a way to achieve durable peace between Palestinians and Israelis.

For a two-state solution to work, Israel must begin by physically removing its military bases as well as its hundreds of thousands of settlers from all the occupied territories, including Jerusalem. To create one binational state, Israel would simply get rid of the system of apartheid that has condemned both peoples to war.

One state answers the requirements of true peace that were hardly addressed, let alone resolved, in the Oslo peace process. The differences over the Palestinian refugees, Jerusalem, the Palestinian minority in Israel, the settlers in Palestine, Israeli security, borders and water could all be resolved in the framework of one shared state based on citizenship and the constitutional protection of the religious and national identity of its inhabitants.

International Herald Tribune

American Eugenics

Steve Courtney

In the early 1890s, a German doctor, chicken-breeding hobbyist and utopian socialist named Alfred Ploetz practiced medicine in Meriden, Conn. Ploetz was interested in the possibilities of breeding humans as chickens are bred, and in the improvement of humanity. He compiled genealogies of 325 area families and found that immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe were crowding out those who came from Anglo-Saxon stock.

"He noted in particular that the Anglo-Saxons of America would be left behind, unless they adopted a policy that would change the relative proportions of the population," an associate later wrote.

Forty years later, Ploetz was hailed as the founder of German eugenics by the German government, which had the will, and finally the power, to institute human breeding. In 1933, the new Nazi government passed laws requiring the sterilization of 400,000 German citizens affected by conditions that included manic depression, deformities, epilepsy and blindness.

The Eugenics Research Association in Cold Spring Harbor, Long Island, which was the Carnegie Institution’s well-funded effort at eugenics research, praised that German effort:

The links between the American pseudo-science of eugenics and Nazi eugenics is the core of Edwin Black’s new book, War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America’s Campaign to Create a Master Race.

Black, a journalist, is best known for another work bringing to light U.S.-Nazi linkage: IBM and the Holocaust. In that book Black detailed the data corporation’s sale of information-sorting machines that enabled the Nazis to systematize its identification of Jews and other "undesirables."

"We’ve all heard of eugenics; we’ve all heard of Hitler’s quest for a master race," Black said in an August interview. "Little did we understand that the quest for a blond-haired, blue-eyed master race was created not in Germany but in Long Island."

Black writes with a passion that extends into overlong quoting of sources and hammering repetition of his point. Some critics faulted "IBM and the Holocaust" for this hectoring tone. Other critics faulted the first critics for focusing on the messenger and not the horrific news.

War Against the Weak may get a similar reaction. It is a well-documented, comprehensive exposition of a story not known to most Americans, about a perversion of the pursuit of knowledge in the interest of race and social superiority.

"Basically," Black says, "this was a little science and a lot of racism."

Eugenics — the word is made up from Greek words for "well" and "born" — began with a cousin of Charles Darwin, Francis J. Galton. Galton’s ideas were picked up in an America already obsessed with utopianism and scared of change.

"In a post-Civil War era, when a white, Anglo-Saxon society is butting heads with waves of massive immigration, and the whole character of the United States is changing, an effort to solve social problems and economic problems in a post-Darwinian era simply took on a biological basis," Black said.

All this, Black says, would have remained "parlor talk" if it hadn’t attracted the support of wealthy industrialists — the Carnegies, the Rockefellers, the Harrimans. Carnegie’s Cold Spring Harbor facility still exists, as a prestigious biological laboratory (and, unlike IBM, helped his research unstintingly). But in the early 1900s, Cold Spring was the epicenter for the effort to study human bloodlines and plumb the causes of idiocy, imbecility and moronism — all accepted scientific terms in that odd world — as well as epilepsy, blindness and deafness.

By 1909, the movement was powerful enough for three states to pass measures legalising eugenic sterilisation of the unfit. Throughout the subsequent decades, eugenics was part of progressive American thought, winning the backing of Theodore Roosevelt, birth-control pioneer Margaret Sanger and Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, the inventor of corn flakes.

The movement culminated in a Supreme Court decision in 1927, after a Virginia home for the feeble-minded brought a test case in its effort to sterilize Carrie Buck, an unwed teenage mother whose family line was deemed to be tainted by mental retardation. Chief Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. justified the cutting of Buck’s Fallopian tubes in the majority’s decision: "Three generations of imbeciles is enough."

Black carries the story overseas, mainly through the connections between the Eugenics Research Association, its publication Eugenics News, and the Eugenics Record Office, all based in Cold Spring Harbor; and the Rockefeller Foundation, which actually funded German eugenic research. This included the program that ultimately put Josef Mengele, the sadistic "medical" researcher, into Auschwitz to perform gruesome experiments on twins.

With the end of World War II (and the spectacle of Nazi war criminals quoting Chief Justice Holmes at Nuremburg) eugenics died — but only temporarily, Black believes. With revolutions in genetic science, new, more subtle ways of controlling heredity are underway. He cites insurance companies’ efforts to identify policyholders’ genetic makeup to determine risk. Legislation forbidding genetic discrimination is being considered in Congress.

Black is quick to point out in his introduction that he is not against a woman’s right to choose whether or not to have an abortion, or against legitimate genetic research to fight disease.

"Do not read this book" if you intend to skim its message or skip chunks, he says — again lecturing the reader, but doing so in support of well-researched and important work, the illumination of a sordid detour in American science.

LA Times-Washington Post