by the meltingpot: Bomb blast and a starting point

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Indeed, what is at work in the recent return of realism is the revenge of geography in the most old-fashioned sense. In the 18th and 19th centuries, before the arrival of political science as an academic specialty, geography was an honored, if not always formalized, discipline in which politics, culture, and economics were often conceived of in reference to the relief map. Thus, in the Victorian and Edwardian eras, mountains and the men who grow out of them were the first order of reality; ideas, however uplifting, were only the second.
And yet, to embrace geography is not to accept it as an implacable force against which humankind is powerless. Rather, it serves to qualify human freedom and choice with a modest acceptance of fate. This is all the more important today, because rather than eliminating the relevance of geography, globalization is reinforcing it. Mass communications and economic integration are weakening many states, exposing a Hobbesian world of small, fractious regions. Within them, local, ethnic, and religious sources of identity are reasserting themselves, and because they are anchored to specific terrains, they are best explained by reference to geography. Like the faults that determine earthquakes, the political future will be defined by conflict and instability with a similar geographic logic. The upheaval spawned by the ongoing economic crisis is increasing the relevance of geography even further, by weakening social orders and other creations of humankind, leaving the natural frontiers of the globe as the only restraint.
So we, too, need to return to the map, and particularly to what I call the “shatter zones” of Eurasia. We need to reclaim those thinkers who knew the landscape best. And we need to update their theories for the revenge of geography in our time.
Here is the link for the whole write up.

Now at 2nd place

My view is that relations between countries in the coming decades are most likely to reflect their cultural commitments, their cultural ties and antagonism with other countries rather than other factors. Quite obviously, power will continue to play a central role in global politics, as it always does. But usually there is something else behind conflicts. In the 18th century in Europe, the issues to a large extent involved questions of monarchy versus the emerging republican movements, first in America and then in France. In the 19th century, it involved states identifying themselves through nationalism. In the 20th century, ideology came to the fore, largely, but not exclusively, as a result of the Russian Revolution. We had fascism, communism and liberal democracy competing with each other. Well, that’s pretty much over. Liberal democracy has come to be accepted, in theory at least, around the world, if not always in practice. So the question really is what will be the central focus of global politics in the coming decades? My argument remains that cultural identities, antagonisms and affiliations will not only play a role, but play a major role in relations between states. The full interview is here.

This is the 3rd

Every citizen in the City of Richardson will be able to access 756 Kbps of internet connectivity for free, from anywhere in the city. They will be able to access the internet from their homes, schools, restaurants and parks using standard wi-fi connections which are now installed on almost every notebook computer. That is almost as fast as many so-called high speed broadband connections that one pays dearly for today, and several times faster than the various hotspots at your local coffee shops. And I should note that the tax-payers of the City of Richardson are not paying one penny for this, and in fact are going to see additional revenues as a benefit. ... At the beginning of this letter, I suggested that this would be one of the fastest worldwide rollouts of a technology ever seen. It was just 20 years ago that the first cellular systems were being built. The rollout for mesh wireless systems is going to make that look slow. There are several reasons I make this assertion. But they all center on the facts that installing mesh systems will be cheaper and easier than any previous system and the economics in both the developed and especially the developing world will be so radically compelling. Throw in the fact the any astute politician will want to be at the front of this parade (They will all want to say, "I was the man who helped bring free internet to everyone!") and the groundwork is laid for rapid deployment. In Richardson and elsewhere, MeshLinx is offering the basic infrastructure for free. This avoids all the time consuming, political budget battles in the cities. When a service is offered for free, much of the mandated competitive process is eliminated. Next is the low cost of installation of the system. As noted above, Richardson is a city of roughly 100,000 people living in 27.4 square miles. It will "only" cost about $2,000,000 today to lay the wireless blanket I mentioned above. It will cost a great deal less in the future, as MeshLinx is building the pods at a pace of 100 a month today. The maximum output of the US pilot assembly line is 500 a month. When the demand exceeds this (and it will in a very short time) discussions have been held to move volume production to China. Of course, the world will need tens of millions of pods. The cost for a pod will be a fraction of today's cost, with that installation number for a city like Richardson soon being half (or less) the cost of today. What does that $1 or 2 million get you? The infrastructure to be an internet connection, telephone, security, entertainment provider and a whole lot more company. As noted, it will get cheaper as the number of pods being made each month rises, thus lowering their costs dramatically. This technology does have scale. The cost of physically putting up a pod is not a large part of the equation, as you simply need to run a power line, attach a few bolts to a mount on the side of a building or light pole and then off to the next point. Think about the 40,000 homes and businesses in Richardson. If and (hopefully) over time when 10% decide to pay $50 a month for 10-20 Mbps high speed internet access you could see a revenue of $2.5 million a year just from internet access. Now add in all the other income possibilities (phone, entertainment, security and don't forget advertising revenue on the free service!). Think about your town or country. What would service like this be worth? If you are a small city that does not have high speed connections available, how many businesses that could bring jobs do not come your way because they need reliable communications for their work and their employees? If you are in a developing country, where internet access is difficult and expensive, it will open whole new vistas. Couple that with the various programs which want to give cheap laptops to kids in poor countries, and you could see significant social progress in a generation. Here is the link.

Friday, July 14, 2006

Bomb blast and a starting point

I’ve been scanning the newspapers for any clue to enhance my suspicion that the Mumbai blast is more of the league of Madrid’s or London’s. I still can’t believe that any Kashmiri militant group would have the logistic competence to carry out a series of blast within 15 minutes interval, that too in a big metro city like Mumbai. It is most likely that Al Qaeda has opened shop in India and that snuff out the refreshing proposition that India, despite having the largest Muslim population in the world have not been infected with the virus of Al Qaeda type militancy.

Then it is logical to assume that their nerve centre for the whole South Asia would be in Bangladesh. Because they have succeeded in infiltrating all the various institutions of the Bangladesh Government with the result that the Govt is soft towards the activities of the Islamic militancy of any hue.

Thus we are confronted with a new dimension of unrest in the already troubled region of ours, especially Assam and Manipur. We should note that Bangladesh is very near to us and the border with them is extremely porous. There is even the widespread allegation that the Government of Bangladesh itself is encouraging its citizen to infiltrate the border and fan out inside the sparsely populated states of the region. And the Muslims population of the region, especially of Assam and Manipur, is in a state of flux and the youths amongst them are desperately seeking for an ideological mooring to ‘compete’ with the ‘revolutionary movements’ sprouted in the communities surrounding them.

I know it is a tough call to address the problem of how best to respond to a terrorists’ asymmetric attack, like that of Mumbai. But I think it is all wrong to start using the same trains, which served as a killing field for several hundred innocent people, within the next 10-15 hrs. Doing so is creepy and is certainly an act of heartlessness. Isn’t it the case of a bunch of heartless terrorists making all the citizens of Mumbai equally heartless?

But at the same time, I also agree that it is definitely very tough to devise an effective response to such an asymmetric attack.

Personally, I find the idea of Mr Paul Donnelly for countering the whole gamut of Islamic militancy very refreshing and attractive. He is of the opinion that there should be a theological component in the strategy to fight back. I found about his ‘theological component’ theory in the course of a raging debate in Mr David Neiwert’s blog. I was very intrigued about this theory and so, I shot off an email to him asking him about the details of his proposition. Please note you google his name and easily get his email id from among the search results.

I’m quoting from one of his emails. I’m doing this because there is nothing personal about the email exchange and for someone living in India it is the most appropriate moment for quoting Mr Donnelly.

*********
“ Well, let's see. First - while I think I know a little, I hope I know enough to realize that I'm not really an expert on Islam. That said, this is what I think the core of it is. (I wrote about this in National Review online a few years back - go to the site and search my name, you'll find it.)

Islam is unusual among religions in that the founders actually fought wars during the Prophet's lifetime. Christ didn't do that, and while various major figures in Judaism and Hinduism and so on DID, they weren't 'founders' in the way Muhammed was.

Still - what makes Islam the world's premier 'us vs. them' ideology, now that Communism is gone, is NOT in the Koran. It's the notion of the House of Submission to the Will of God (Muslims) opposed to the House of War (infidels - the rest of us). That's not in the Koran - it's a creation of Muslim scholars about a thousand years ago, when it was, let's face it, a pretty accurate view of the world: Christendom vs. Islam.

He has been banned from the U.S. (I wrote about that in the Washington Post, you can search for that, too) but I think his notion of a "House of Witness", in which Muslims and unbelievers compete in good works to show the truth, is the way out of the us vs. them thing.

I am also intrigued by the insight of a Muslim friend of mine (with the unlikely Islamic name of Tanya O'Connor, who grew up in Egypt and whose grandfather was a notable United States Congressman: go figure). She wonders why we don't translate "Islam", and "Muslim" from Arabic.

It's an interesting point: Islam, I am told by serious Muslims, is not really a 'religion' in the same way that Christianity (notably Catholicism) is. It's more of a way of life, like being male or female. That is, Islam has no Pope, and actually precious little that is universal to the faith, as distinct from the culture. It has LAWS - which is perhaps the primary reason the separation between Church and State is so slippery for Muslims.

Most of the world's harshest critics of Islam note that there are verses in the Koran to the effect of 'when you find infidels, hunt them down and kill them', which contradict what Muslims like to point to as its pacific and tolerant character, e.g., "There is no coercion in religion."

Tonya explained to me that when you read Arabic, of course, you're not translating "Islam" and "Muslim", you're READING them - and they have very specific meanings, namely "submission to the will of God" and "those who obey God". They are not proper nouns.

So the infamous passage about 'when you come upon infidels' refers more to mass murderers than to Christians or Jews. I mean - who is it exactly who deliberately disobeys the will of God? Islam doesn't teach that Christians nor Jews do that - in fact, in some true sense they are all "Muslims", just not followers of the sharia. That means they are misguided - but "there is no coercion in religion'.

That's why I think the "House of Witness" concept is potentially so useful - FWIW.”

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The email was dated 13th January 2005. Note that his main thrust is the concept of ‘House of Witness’. Personally, I also think that it will serve as a good starting point.

What do you think?

by the meltingpot

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Now at 2nd place

This is the 3rd