Editor's Blog
Smoke rises from the city center of Abidjan in this still image taken from video. Ivory Coast's Alassane Ouattara's forces have made a rapid advance aimed at unseating his rival Laurent Gbagbo. (REUTERS/Reuters TV)
Autocrats and the road to ruin
Tyranny is both seductive and destructive. Libya's Muammar Qaddafi and Ivory Coast's Laurent Gbagbo so believe in their right to rule that they would rather see their nations torn apart than leave office. Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe and North Korea's Kim Jong-il drove their countries to economic ruin rather than allowing others to challenge their ideas.
So it's heartening that Russia, which not long ago was under colossal misrule, seems increasingly aware that political reform leads to economic progress. Russia knows how destructive one-man rule can be. Under Joseph Stalin, millions died from famine, forced relocation, and imprisonment. Shaking off autocracy has been a long process -- from the post-Stalin era through the collapse of communism, from the rise of oligarchs and mobsters to the reasserting of the heavy hand of the Kremlin to stifle dissent.
Now advisers to both President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, likely rivals in next year's presidential election, are calling for a more open system. It could be political maneuvering, but it is hard to escape the logical link between freedom and prosperity.
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A Syrian sits in his shop to watch Syrian President Bashar Assad make a televised address in Damascus on Wednesday March 30, 2011. Assad has blamed a wave of protests on "conspirators" who are trying to destroy the country. Assad gave his first address to the nation since the protests erupted in this tightly controlled Arab country. The speech was seen as a crucial test for his leadership and one that may determine Syria's future. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
Can Assad thread the needle in Syria?
Henry Kissinger called Hafez Assad the shrewdest Arab leader, a man who spun the 1967 and 1973 Syrian defeats at the hands of Israel into power and prominence for him and Syria.
As former Monitor correspondent Robin Wright noted in her book "Dreams and Shadows: The Future of the Middle East," "The primacy of survival and a legacy of tyranny were Assad's bequests to his son," the current president, Bashar Assad.
A London-trained opthamologist, the younger Assad never seemed destined to rule -- and certainly not with the iron fist his of his father, who harbored terrorists and ordered the massacre of regime opponents at Hama in 1982. In his 2000 inaugural address, Assad called for democracy and free speech. When that led to dissent within a couple of years, however, political life was shut down.
Democracy advocates reappeared a few years later, only to be clamped down on again. Now he is faced with an unprecedented uprising. Part of him knows the value of freedom. Part of him reflects his father's instinct for self-preservation.
If he can maneuver Syria toward greater democracy without the sort of violent spasm Libya is going through, he will be the shrewest Arab leader of 2011.
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Rebels retreat after forces loyal to Muammar Qaddafi attacked them near Brega in eastern Libya, (REUTERS/Finbarr O'Reilly )
Can negotiations end the Libya conflict?
How does Libya end?
The air campaign against Muammar Qaddafi's forces -- which halted their eastward advance and allowed the rebels to retake coastal towns in eastern Libya -- seems calculated not to go too far. Pro-Qaddafi forces have not, for instance, been heavily hit in the Sitre region in the center of the country, even they are using tanks and artillery against the rebels.
That has stymied the rebels' westward movement and raised questions about whether the ragtag force could take the Libyan capital without a massive bombing campaign.
There is a kind of logic to the idea of a temporary east-west division of the country. The United States and Europe don't want an outright rebel victory to result in score-settling in Tripoli any more than they wanted to watch Qaddafi conduct a massacre in Benghazi. If Qaddafi and his family can be persuaded to go into exile, the way could open for negotiations among Libyan tribes, whose members live in both the east and west.
Too elegant a plan to be carried out by air power? Perhaps. But with President Obama limiting the military campaign and saying Qaddafi is not the target, negotiated settlement would be the only alternative.
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Tokyo Electric Power Company, Inc. vice president Takashi Fujimoto (2nd from left) and other executive officers bow at a news conference at the company head office in Tokyo. TEPCO is struggling with the Fukushima nuclear power complex and with providing electricity to customers following he March 11 tsunami, which knocked out generating capacity. (REUTERS/Toru Hanai)
Global implications of the Japan disaster
As the Japanese nuclear crisis persists, its effects are being felt across the globe. Concern about radiation has prompted international shipping companies to order their vessels to steer clear of trade routes in northern Japan and avoid even the important ports of Tokyo and Yokohama, south of the Fukushima danger zone.
Japan's Yomiuri newspaper, meanwhile, reports that lost capacity means electricity shortages will persist into summer. Because of the interconnected nature of industries such as car-making, assembly lines and parts suppliers far from Japan are being affected. Toyoto is considering idlling its North American factories while Nissan may shift engine production to the US.
While those are temporary measures, economist Takahide Kiuchi of Nomura Securities told Reuters that Japanese companies will be more likely to accelerate the move of their operations out of earthquake-prone Japan. That would further "hollow out" the Japanese economy and hurt the tax base.
If the March 11 disaster had been all there was, Japan would have enough on its hands coping with the aftermath. The nuclear crisis adds more uncertainty not just for Japan but for the world.
Desks at an elementary school in Roxbury, Mass. (Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff/File)
If education breaks, progress stops
There are few things as satisfying as a turnaround tale.
From “This Old House” to “The Biggest Loser” to chef Gordon Ramsay grabbing a lazy restaurateur by the lapels and telling him to shape up, Pygmalion projects pervade pop culture.
Turnarounds can be superficial, artificial, and short-lived. The best, however, don’t change the underlying essence. They bring out qualities that were always there behind the fake paneling, self-doubt, and undercooked seafood.
Most of what we do during our waking hours involves renovation. We build on what came before, working with the materials at hand, tweaking and refining along the way. Today’s success stories are plowed under to create tomorrow’s innovations. So it’s natural that humans are keen to reform, improve, and renew.
But renovation is also crucial to society itself. Education is one big process of trying to make the next generation better than the current one. To do that requires the systematic and effective transfer of knowledge to young people. This is progressivism at its best.
(I’d like to propose, by the way, that we recapture the word “progressive” as meaning we want tomorrow to be better than today, not that we favor a particular ideology. To be progressive should mean that we support and celebrate humanity’s improvements, which include both liberal and conservative notions.)
In a progressive society, every generation builds on what has gone before it. That is why there is so much concern about the schools. Something has gone badly wrong when chaotic classrooms, the threat of physical harm, and failure to learn are prevalent. Teachers, administrators, parents, educational specialists, and political leaders have spent huge amounts of time trying to fix the problem over the years.
The latest approach (as detailed in this special report) is the turnaround school movement, a controversial attempt to remake failing schools in a fundamental way. Among other things, turnaround schools sometimes fire all the teachers, require school uniforms, and introduce a strong disciplinary code. Will that fix the problem? It is too early to tell. I have a little bit of personal knowledge of some of the techniques that turnaround schools use.
I wore a uniform during my elementary years. Discipline was strict. Parents heard immediately if we were falling behind in a subject. I was turned around from a C in spelling on one report card to an A on the next by dint of teacher alarm and cut-the-nonsense parental intervention.
No, I don’t know if this works for everyone, but I do know that removing distractions, strictly monitoring performance, and concentrating on learning is helpful. In my school, there still was a lot of energetic play at recess, some refreshing moments of rebellion, and plenty of occasion for friendships, crushes, and other formative social experiences.
The uniforms helped dampen the excesses of fashion-forward students, though there were still plenty of small style statements, from scarves to shoes. The discipline kept everyone focused on learning.
The creation of a culture of learning doesn’t start or stop with the schools. And schools cannot be fixed, as the Monitor special report notes, by simply plugging in some magic formula. What works in one location may not in another.
Every teacher, student, parent, and administrator plays a role.
There’s a scene that illustrates this in the film version of Ray Bradbury’s “Farenheit 451,” which is about a society where books are burned to discourage free thinking. A small band of gray-haired literature lovers takes to the woods. Each has memorized a book. Each is helping a young person, in turn, memorize the words. It is fiction, of course, but it is touchingly describes the generation to generation compact necessary for society’s progress.
John Yemma is the editor of The Christian Science Monitor
Staff Sgt. Bryan Holloway, 510th Aircraft Maintenance Unit avionics craftsman, performs scheduled radar maintenance on an F-16 fighter jet at Aviano Air Base in this U.S. Air Force. The aircraft has been deployed to support Operation Odyssey Dawn. ( REUTERS/U.S. Air Force/Airman 1st Class Katherine Windish/Handout)
Is Libya like Kosovo?
Politicians and military officials in the United States and Europe continue to wrestle over strategy and command of the Libyan campaign. In just one week, the goal has evolved from instituting a no-fly zone to attacking Muammar Qaddafi's tanks and artillery to what now appears to be regime change.
President Obama and other coalition leaders rule out a ground invasion. But can air power alone remove Qaddafi from power? The best precedent is Kosovo, where in 1999 NATO warplanes spent 2 1/2 months bombing the Serbian military.
As the sorties went on day after day, military leaders reluctantly began planning a ground invasion, which they knew would be costly. Before getting to that point, however, Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic, under Russian pressure, caved in and allowed NATO to enter the province.
How similar was Kosovo to Libya? Not very. Serb forces could retreat to Serbia-proper, and Milosevic could stay in office, which he did for another 18 months. Qaddafi is bunkered in Tripoli. He and his loyalists have few escape options.
The point is not that there should be an invasion. But if removing Qaddafi is the new goal, it is difficult to see how bombing alone will accomplish that.
A worker loads boxes containing bottles of water onto a truck to distribute to households with infants at a warehouse in Tokyo. Anxiety over Japan's food and water supplies soared following warnings about radiation leaking from Japan's tsunami-damaged nuclear power plant into Tokyo's tap water at levels unsafe for babies over the long term. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)
Japan's post-tsunami struggle continues
While workers are making progress at the Fukushima nuclear complex, the effects of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami continue to challenge the people of Japan. The latest problem is the elevated level of radioactivity in food and water.
Supermarket shelves in Tokyo and northern Japan had already been depleted because of supply disruptions and hording. Now the government has halted distribution of leafy vegetables from four prefectures near Fukushima and warned families in the Tokyo area not to give young children drinking water.
Even in normal times, the Japanese pay close attention to what they consume. Over the years, Japanese food safety officials have restricted imports from the United States and other countries over quality concerns. Now, radiation concerns have prompted the US to restrict some Japanese food imports.
This is the costliest disaster in Japanese history, with infrastructure repairs estimated at more than $310 billion. And costs don't end there. From factories idled to food safety to questions about whether the government has been honest with information, almost every aspect of Japanese society has been tested.
The Japanese people are remarkably resilient and long-suffering. Nevertheless, Japan that emerges from this disaster is likely to be a very different place than it was before March 11.
A French C160 Transall taxis as taxis a Greek F16 fighter takes off at the Souda military base, on the Greek island of Crete. Greece has no direct involvement in the air and missile attacks on Libya that began Saturday. Still it has sent a navy frigate to the region and has offered the use of its air bases to the countries involved. The United States has also used a navy base on the island to build up Libya-bound forces. (AP Photo/Image Photo Services)
The Libya campaign: Who will lead?
President Obama doesn't want the US to continue to lead the Libya intervention. But it is far from clear who will take over.
To start with, Germany and Italy are reluctant to assert themselves in a region that still harbors memories of World War II occupation. France has been out front in the early days of the attack on Muammar Qaddafi's military. Britain, too, has played a part. Would London and Paris continue the campaign together? Given old rivalries, would one let the other take the lead?
Then there's the Arab League. After initially supporting the no-fly zone, Arab leaders are expressing misgivings about civilian casualties. They also appear to be worried that attacking an Arab strongman could come back to haunt them, since many are strongmen themselves. Egypt has a powerful enough military to make a difference in next-door Libya. But at a time of political change, Egypt's interim leaders would not want to be accused of aggression against a neighbor.
The Libyan rebels are weak. Qaddafi's forces are still strong enough to hold territory. Bottom line: While the US may not want to lead, it is difficult to see how the conflict ends without decisive action and a strong US role.
A burned car seen on a barricaded street in the village of Karzakkan, Bahrain. Bahrain's king blamed a foreign plot for his nation's weeks-long unrest, using veiled language to accuse Iran of fomenting an uprising by the Shiite majority in the Sunni-ruled island kingdom. (AP Photo/Sergey Ponomarev)
Two-track democracy in the Arab world
North Africa and the Gulf are distinct zones of the Arab World. Each is experiencing the "Arab spring" differently.
Despite the conflict in Libya, North Africa seems to be where democracy is taking root. Tunisia and Egypt have moved from street protests to political reform. The leaders of Algeria and Morocco have promised to liberalize.
The pace may not be fast enough nor the level of change deep enough for democracy activists, but so far the old guard has not put its foot down and radical Muslims have not asserted themselves.
In the Gulf, the Sunni-Shiite split complicates the Arab spring. Democracy protests have become mixed up with Saudi-Iranian rivalry in Bahrain and eastern Saudi Arabia. Though reforms have been promised, it is unclear how the political dynamic will play out in ethnically-split nations. (Yemen is a hybrid of North African and Gulf cultures. There the rule of Ali Abdullah Saleh looks increasingly shaky.)
Then there's Syria. Iran backs the Alawite-dominated government of Bashir Assad. The Saudis sympathize with the Sunni majority. But neither Riyadh nor Tehran wants more regional instability. If the Sunnis continue to test the Assad regime, they may find themselves on their own.
Northern Lights above the ash plume of Iceland’s Eyjafjall ajökull volcano, April 23, 2010. (Ingolfur Juliusson/Reuters/File)
Natural events v. natural disasters
Before there were natural disasters, there were natural events.
Earth’s great plates shifted, forming continents and oceans. Its crust erupted, spewing gas. Storms raged, forests burned, droughts parched. Nobody noticed.
As they say in Geology 101, human time is nothing compared with geological time. Civilization only really began at the end of the last Ice Age, about 10,000 years ago. The great monuments of humanity – the pyramids of Giza, the Great Wall of China – have been around only for the last few seconds of a geological clock that began ticking 4,500,000,000 years ago.
Natural events became natural disasters when human time intersected with geological time. During quiet periods, the handiwork of disasters is enjoyable, even necessary. Fresh air, abundant seas, inspiring mountain ranges have few detractors.
“We wouldn’t have air and water without volcanoes,” says Stephen Nelson, a specialist on volcanoes and head of the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Tulane University. “We wouldn’t have mountains without earthquakes.”
The more geologically active the area, the more impressive it often is. From California to Kashmir, the landscape is magnificent, with dramatic upthrusts and fertile values. The soil is rich with minerals. Rivers run through it.
Japan sits in a uniquely active earthquake zone, which makes the Japanese islands an attractive place to live. You can tell how much the people of Japan love their islands by looking at their art. One of the most popular themes is called “sansui.” These are paintings of steep mountains and waterfalls, sometimes with tiny human figures walking in the foreground.
But traditional Japanese art isn’t all about serene landscapes. One of 19th-century painter Hokusai Katsushika’s most memorable images, for instance, is of a huge wave cresting over tiny boats. Tsunami is a Japanese word. Both mountains and waves are reminders of nature’s ability to assert itself at any time.
Nature indifferently did just that in Japan on March 11. There has been great suffering in Japan and concern throughout the world about what happened along the northeastern coast of Japan’s main island, Honshu. The images and stories describing the instant interruption of everyday when the great wave rushed in are heartbreaking. The people of Japan are going through a time of deep testing.
You may live in a currently quiet corner of the world compared with the Pacific “Ring of Fire.” What is quiet today will someday be in motion.
Stephen Nelson, the volcano specialist, knows that. He has traveled throughout the world examining natural events and natural disasters over the past 31 years from his base in New Orleans, a city he loves for its vitality – its music, politics, community life. In 2005, nature turned its attention to New Orleans. The Nelson family evacuated.
They returned to a natural disaster named Katrina. One of the most vivid impressions he had was how at night the tall buildings of downtown were dark and abandoned. Nature had simply turned off the lights.
John Yemma is editor of The Christian Science Monitor.
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