Sunday Posts

If Margaret Thatcher's legacy is sealed as "there is no such thing as society", Theresa May may have already given us something to remember her for: "But if you believe you are a citizen of the world, you are a citizen of nowhere." This is, she may claim later, taking her words of out of context. She said, to be exact:  "But if you believe you are a citizen of the world, you are a citizen of nowhere. You don't understand what citizenship means." Justifiably, she could claim, at a later and calmer time, that she was merely defining citizenship. However, she meant this to be a soundbite, and it is a good one: And, therefore, it can be taken in its more provocative sense, as it was meant for that. We are at a day and age where many people may indeed want to think of themselves as citizens of the world. They want to be footloose, live in different countries, have relationships across national boundaries, learn different languages and work in ...

This is a bad time for globalism. The recession has renewed the fear of the others, and various politicians, from Japan to Italy to United States, are inventing foreign bogeymen to obscure their own failures. Companies, while desperate for ideas and for growth, are receding to respective homelands for safety: The only international bit they would still like to do is to keep their cashes stashed in tax havens. In fact, by doing so, they have given global business more bad press - Starbucks dodging taxes, Wal-Mart paying bribes and various banks, almost all of them, defrauding customers and governments alike. Critics can say that this was bound to happen and globalisation is a sham: But when it comes to climate change, nuclear disarmament, human rights, the issues that the same critics love, they concede that there is no alternative to concerted global action. I shall contend that global connections (or disconnections) are a function of technology and due to progress in transportati...

There are three wars of civilization in play last week. First, let's call it the war of St Valentine. If we thought the debate was settled, on the eve of Valentine's Day, the discussion how romantic love undermines a society resurfaced. For example, Malaysian police monitored the hotels in provinces to ensure that nothing wrong is going on. In the extreme form, in India, a young boy of seventeen got killed because he was seen walking with a girl, his sister, on the the day. Young versus the old, it seems to be the theme. The conservatives of various hues usually portray their action as a fight against Western cultural imperialism, but increasingly, this has a local flavour. The women who sent out undergarments to the home of a Hindu fundamentalist leader after he instigated violence against couples seen in the parks etc, were not prompted by Western media of any sort, but their own sense of dignity and freedom. Second, let's call it the end of Caliphets of Mubarak and Ben ...