Blend of idealism and realism

June 6, 2009
OBAMA'S CAIRO SPEECH

By David Brooks

ALL smart analyses of the Obama administration begin with Chicago. That's where the top members of the administration were tested and formed. The Chicago mentality is the one they take with them wherever they go.

That means they start with an awareness of diversity. The nation and the world are a bunch of jostling wards that have to be knit together.

That means they are not doctrinaire. Chicagoans like to see themselves as pragmatists, not ideologues.

That means they contain both sides of The Great Tension. In Chicago, there is a tension between the lakefront and the neighbourhoods inland. The lakefront tends to be idealistic, earnest and liberal. The neighbourhoods are clever, cautious and Machiavellian. In all great endeavours, the Obama administration weaves together both of these tendencies.

President Barack Obama's Cairo speech characteristically blended idealism with cunning. At one level, the speech was an inspiring effort to create a new dialogue in the Middle East.

Mr Obama came to a region in which the different groups have their own narratives and are accustomed to shouting past one another. Mr Obama, as is his custom, positioned himself above the fray and tried to create a new narrative that all sides could relate to.

In the Obama narrative, each side has been equally victimised by history, each side has legitimate grievances and each side has duties to perform. To construct this new Middle East narrative, Mr Obama strung together some hard truths, historical distortions, eloquent appeals and strained moral equivalencies.

The President's critics complained on Thursday about his distortions: The plight of the Palestinians is not really comparable to the plight of former slaves in the American South. The Treaty of Tripoli in 1796 was not really a glorious example of Muslim-American cooperation, but was a failed effort to use bribery to stop piracy.

But this is diplomacy, not scholarship. Mr Obama was using this speech to show empathy and respect. He was asking people in different Muslim communities to give the US a new look and a fresh hearing. He was showing people in a region besotted with tiresome hysterics how to talk to one another with understanding and dignity.

That was the idealistic part of the speech, and it was effective. But there was another layer, designed for the people in the ministries. In this layer, Mr Obama implied American policies that are cautious and Machiavellian. On nearly every substantive issue, he scaled back American goals and expectations.

The US used to talk of ending Iran's nuclear programme. But, as Dr Robert Satloff of The Washington Institute for Near East Policy observed, now Mr Obama hopes only to prevent Iran from weaponising its nukes. The US used to aim to de-radicalise Islam. Now Mr Obama accepts radical groups so long as they don't kill people. The US used to want to turn Iraq into a model for the region. Now Mr Obama merely wants Iraq to be the sort of place the US can safely leave behind.

The big retreat to realism concerns democracy promotion. The Bush administration tried to promote democracy, even at the expense of stability. That proved unworkable.

But many of us hoped that Mr Obama would put a gradual, bottom-up democracy-building initiative at the heart of his approach. This effort would begin with projects to create honest cops and independent judges so local citizens could get justice. It would make space for civic organisations and democratic activists. It would include clear statements so the world understands that the US is not in bed with the tired old Arab autocrats.

There was a democracy-promotion section to the speech, and given the struggle behind it, maybe we should be grateful it was there at all. But it was stilted and abstract - the sort of prose you get after an unresolved internal debate. The President didn't really champion democratic institutions. He said governments 'should reflect the will of the people' and that citizens should 'have a say' in how they are governed.

Mr Obama didn't describe how a democratic Iraq could influence the region. He seems to have largely given up on democracy promotion in Egypt.

Professor Larry Diamond of Stanford liked the Cairo speech, but pointed out that Mr Obama delivered it in a country where an ageing dictator is passing power to his son, where the country is crumbling to dust because of autocracy and stagnation. The administration seems to accept this. Meanwhile, as The Washington Post noted, it's slashing aid to Egypt's democratic activists.

This speech builds an idealistic facade on a realist structure. And this gets to the core Obama foreign policy perplexity. The President wants to be an inspiring leader who rallies the masses. He also wants be a top-down realist who cuts deals in the palaces. There is a tension between these two impulses that even a sharp Chicago politician is having trouble managing.

NEW YORK TIMES

[Author seems unhappy that Obama drops "democracy promotion".  I think he is pushing for the system, rather than the substance. The important thing is whether the people live free with rule of law, justice, and honest govt. Whether this govt is elected democratically or is groomed and grown through the party ranks and "endorsed" by the people is less relevant than whether the govt is good for the people.]

On democracy and government

Extract of Obama's speech in Cairo on democracy.

That does not lessen my commitment, however, to governments that reflect the will of the people. Each nation gives life to this principle in its own way, grounded in the traditions of its own people. America does not presume to know what is best for everyone, just as we would not presume to pick the outcome of a peaceful election. But I do have an unyielding belief that all people yearn for certain things: the ability to speak your mind and have a say in how you are governed; confidence in the rule of law and the equal administration of justice; government that is transparent and doesn't steal from the people; the freedom to live as you choose. Those are not just American ideas, they are human rights, and that is why we will support them everywhere.

[Obama drops "democracy" for "govt that reflects the will of the people". And good government: rule of law, justice, transparent, and not corrupted (honest).]

Obama reaches out to Muslims

June 5, 2009

President sets new tone in a wide-ranging landmark Cairo speech

By Bhagyashree Garekar

WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama yesterday made a broad and honest attempt to 'seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world', saying the two need not be in competition.

In a speech notable more for candour than his trademark rhetoric, Mr Obama plunged into the Palestinian issue, often pinpointed as the No. 1 cause of bad blood between the West and the world's 1.5 billion Muslims, unequivocally supporting the two-state solution eschewed by Israel.

In the highly anticipated speech translated into 13 languages, webcast live and distributed over online social networks, he drew upon his heritage as the Christian son of a Kenyan Muslim who lived part of his childhood in Indonesia to seek a connection and credibility with his audience. He referred to the Quran as well as the Bible and the Jewish Torah as he sought to 'speak the truth' about US relations with the Muslim world.

'We must say openly the things we hold in our hearts, and that too often are said only behind closed doors,' he declared in Cairo's famed Al-Azhar University on the second day of his trip through the Middle East and Europe.

He visited the seven major 'sources of tension' in the relationship ranging from violent extremism, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and nuclear arms to democracy, freedom of religion, women's rights and economic opportunity.

It was a speech laying out the intellectual background to forthcoming policies, sweeping enough to lead some observers to compare it to former president Ronald Reagan's 'Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall' call at the height of the Cold War.

Mr Obama made the case for common cause: 'When one nation pursues a nuclear weapon, the risk of nuclear attack rises for all nations. When violent extremists operate in one stretch of mountains, people are endangered across an ocean.'

He also tried to step beyond the increased mistrust and stereotyping after the 9/11 terror attacks. 'Partnership between America and Islam must be based on what Islam is, not what it isn't. And I consider it part of my responsibility as President to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear.

'But that same principle must apply to Muslim perceptions of America. Just as Muslims do not fit a crude stereotype, America is not the crude stereotype of a self-interested empire.'

To the satisfaction of many in the Arab world, he attempted to inject a sense of balance in American involvement in the Middle East. While he called his nation's bonds with Israel 'unbreakable' he also pledged not to 'turn our backs on the legitimate Palestinian aspiration for dignity, opportunity, and a state of their own'.

'Just as Israel's right to exist cannot be denied, neither can Palestine's,' he said, underlining his commitment to the two-state solution not acceded to by Israel's new hawkish leadership.

He also explained his strategy for the hot spots in Asia where the majority of the world's Muslims live and where Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden is believed to be hiding. 'We know that military power alone is not going to solve the problems in Afghanistan and Pakistan,' he said, stressing his commitment to more aid for the region even as he prepares to send an additional 21,000 troops to Afghanistan where Taleban insurgents are increasing attacks and challenging the US-backed government.

He addressed Iran, the quixotic regional giant with whom the US, Arabs and the Israelis alike have uneasy relations. He acknowledged the 'tumultuous history' with Iran, re-stating his willingness to talk without pre-conditions but drawing the line at Teheran's nuclear ambitions 'that could lead this region and the world down a hugely dangerous path'.

In a sign of the vast chasm that remains to be crossed before the scenario sketched out by Mr Obama can be realised, many sceptics said the speech was all slogans and no action.

At home, the 55-minute speech being billed historic sparked debate on whether his words would be taken for weakness when he conceded that America had erred in some of its actions in the past.

A future President's apprehension

May 30, 2009

By Li Xueying

AN ENERGETIC man of 35, Mr SR Nathan weaved his way through the crowds with apprehension, feeling like a stranger in his homeland where he was born and bred.

Thousands of Singaporeans had gathered in front of the City Hall steps on that evening of June 3, 1959, jubilant at the onset of self-government.

But Mr Nathan - while exuberant that Singapore was 'halfway to independence' - felt a sense of foreboding.

'In the crowds that milled around City Hall, I found myself a stranger,' he says. 'This milling crowd was sometimes hostile in appearance and hostile in demeanour. And they were all PAP supporters.'

Now the President of Singapore, MrNathan remembers clearly the uncertainty of those days through decidedly non-rose-tinted glasses.

Then, he was welfare officer to seamen, administering to their needs, which range from wages to discipline matters.

These seamen were 'tough people, not English-educated'. But they accepted Mr Nathan - who himself was 'non-racial' - as 'one of them'.

But what he felt that night about the crowd of mainly Chinese was a 'body language of hostility'.

'There was a certain aggressiveness, a what the hell were you doing here (attitude),' he recounts.

'It set me thinking of the days immediately after the war, when with the coming of the MPAJA (Malayan People's Anti-Japanese Army) in town, the behaviour of people changed. And there was strong chauvinistic conduct, which was later tempered down.

'So my main preoccupation was, what awaited us? Will we be overwhelmed by this crowd, and their behaviour?'

It did not help when Dr Goh Keng Swee made a speech at the rally, warning the English-educated that the special privileges they enjoyed under the British was to come to an end.

For civil servants like Mr Nathan, it came as a blow.

Mr Nathan, who held a diploma in social studies from the University of Malaya, says: 'Disappointment set in with Dr Goh's remarks. I was not sure if what he was telling was meant to be taken as a message that we were going to be shunted away.'

The message 'might have been well-intended', he acknowledges. But it was expressed at 'the wrong place, at the wrong time'.

Says Mr Nathan: 'We were part of this place. We joined in the struggle. We shared everything. And suddenly to feel alienated and to have this remark come in at that time...(there was a) negative effect on us. After all, we have been the mainstay, we ran the administration.'

Alarmed by the message, many Indian and Eurasian families emigrated.

Indeed, that very night, one of Mr Nathan's friends - a Straits Times journalist - sold his house in Serangoon Gardens and left for Australia.

But he himself did not contemplate it.

He says: 'You see, we have been here for three generations; we had very little contact with India.'

But what he did consider was leaving the civil service.

In the ensuing months, party cadre members were haughty towards the civil servants, he discloses.

'They'd come around and ask, why haven't you done this, why haven't you done that, why are you giving priority to this person...and all sorts of petty, petty things.

'So it was very frustrating for those of us working on the ground, dealing with human problems.'

Many considered leaving the service for the private sector, he says. 'But at that stage, we learnt that within the PAP, there was a division and that there were moves in line with our thinking...and we decided to give up any idea of looking for a job.'

So it was a time of transition, one 'marked with so much uncertainty that I can't say that I was looking ahead with great hope'.

'It was only when the split came and the struggle was really on, that there was some hope.'

Ultimately, despite those initial uncertainties, June 3, 1959, was an important milestone in Singapore's history, says Mr Nathan.

'The immediate problem of being a colony had ended. We were on the way to being independent. And a new phase of our existence had come into play.'

Let to roam free for months

June 1, 2009

PUTRAJAYA (Malaysia) - MALAYSIA allowed a Singaporean Islamic terror suspect to remain free for months so that he might lead authorities to other militants, an official said on Monday.

Mas Selamat Kastari was captured in Malaysia's southern state of Johor on April 1, more than a year after he escaped from a high-security prison in neighbouring Singapore in February 2008 by wriggling out a bathroom window.

Officials were aware that Mas Selamat had fled to Malaysia from 'the moment he came to our country', Malaysian Home Ministry Secretary General Mahmood Adam said in an interview with The Associated Press.

'We have a very good (police intelligence agency) here,' Mr Mahmood said. He did not say when exactly Mas Selamat came to Johor or whether Malaysia told Singapore about his whereabouts.

Mas Selamat, the alleged Singapore commander of the Al-Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiyah group, evaded a massive manhunt in the city-state and slipped into Malaysia by swimming across a narrow strip of sea that separates the two countries.

Police monitored Mas Selamat's movements instead of arresting him immediately because 'the most important (thing) sometimes is not the particular target, the most important (thing) sometimes is the networking', Mr Mahmood said.

Mas Selamat alone is not as valuable as who is behind him, Mr Mahmood said.

Mas Selamat lived in a Malaysian village of about 100 people, rarely going out or mixing with other residents, before being captured by Malaysian commandos.

Mr Mahmood declined to say whether authorities are on the verge of making further arrests, but stressed that Malaysia remained 'very safe and secure'.

Malaysia's government last week announced it would hold Mas Selamat for two years under a security law that allows for detention without trial. Prime Minister Najib Razak said officials want to obtain more information from Mas Selamat, calling him a 'threat to national security'. -- AP

[One conspiracy theory is that Mas Selamat was "allowed" to escape in order to track down his other contacts or network. If so, they should have revealed it by now. WKS and the ISD has taken alot of flak for this escape and Singapore's reputation has suffered. So it makes no sense to continue the charade.

So that's bunk.

On the revelation that M'sia allowed Mas Selamat to move about for months, may be true or it may be hyperbole. Certainly the arrest/recapture was well planned and could not have be executed without considerable intelligence gathering, or at least surveillance. But months? M'sian police would have two issues to worry about 1) keeping him under surveillance while not revealing police presence, and 2) tracking his movement if he does move about trying to resurrect his network.

Mas Selamat was hiding out in a village of 100 people. Unless one or more of these 100 people are police informants, any outsiders such as the police coming in or loitering about would have been noticed and commented on.

The M'sians are either better than expected, or the Home Ministry Sec Gen is as we say in singapore, talking cock.]

Opposition wins

June 1, 2009
MALAYSIAN BY-ELECTION

KUALA LUMPUR - MALAYSIA'S opposition won an easy victory on Sunday in a special election in a northern state after the ruling coalition declined to contest the vacant seat.

The opposition People's Alliance, led by former Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, won the seat in the northern Penang state assembly with more than 6,000 votes.

Three independents received less than 1,000 votes in total. The winner, Mansor Othman, will also become deputy chief minister of Penang state.

'I'm thankful ... that the voters have given us a resounding victory,' Mr Anwar told The Associated Press.

The ruling National Front coalition had refused to contest the seat, which Prime Minister Najib Razak said was vacated through 'political games.'

The seat fell empty after the incumbent from the opposition alliance resigned amid unsubstantiated claims of corruption.

Mr Najib denied the ruling coalition feared defeat, but his administration is struggling amid complaints of corruption, poor economic management and racial discrimination.

If it ran and lost - a likely outcome in the opposition stronghold - it would have been the ruling party's fifth loss in six by-elections in less than a year.

Only 7,100 of more than 15,000 eligible voters cast ballots on Sunday, compared with a turnout of more than 80 per cent in 2008 general elections.

Mr Anwar dismissed the low turnout as 'quite expected' because the Election Commission had restricted vote canvassing on the election day. Opposition alliance politicians campaigned vigorously with nightly speeches during the past week but the election lost steam when the ruling coalition pulled out. -- AP

[And PM Najib takes the wind out of the sails of the opposition. Only 50% turnout, no heated electioneering. No bluster and strutting. No media circus. Congrats to PM Najib. He shows that he can rise above the tactics of the opposition and get on with the real work of governing and leading the country.]

The opposition's Catch-22 situation

May 30, 2009

By Peh Shing Huei

AMID the slew of changes to be made to the political system, the trebling of the number of Non-Constituency Member of Parliament (NCMP) was the most eye-catching. Instead of the current three, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong proposed on Wednesday to increase it to a maximum of nine.

At a glance, that seems to be happy news for the opposition in Singapore. I wouldn't be surprised if quite a number of them cheered the announcement, pleased that the road to Parliament, albeit through the backdoor, has been widened significantly. But the expanded NCMP scheme is probably more of a curse than a blessing for the opposition. They will be pushed into a Catch-22 situation where they are damned if they do and damned if they don't.

The reason for the scheme is clear: To satisfy a curious Singaporean phenomenon, where the people yearn for a louder opposition voice in Parliament and yet prefer to vote for a People's Action Party (PAP) MP. The latter is deemed more likely to deliver the goods.

The Constitution allows for up to six NCMPs but for years, the number was capped at three. If two from the opposition were elected as MPs, then only one other opposition candidate - the one with most votes - would be invited to be an NCMP. And in the last 12 years, that precisely has been the case. With Mr Chiam See Tong and Mr Low Thia Khiang winning in their own right in Potong Pasir and Hougang respectively, Parliament has had only one NCMP. The late J.B. Jeyaretnam and MrSteve Chia have served as NCMPs; Ms Sylvia Lim of the Workers' Party is the current sole NCMP.

Most independent political observers would agree that both Mr Chia and MsLim did a good job. They were active, did their research and asked probing questions.

But therein lies the problem for the opposition. If the likes of Mr Chia and Ms Lim are such effective NCMPs, why would voters want them as 'proper MPs' (for want of a better phrase)?

This seems like a perfectly comfortable arrangement for voters. They can have their cake and eat it too. They get a PAP MP to take care of their needs as well as an opposition voice in Parliament to express their discontent.

The better the job an NCMP does in Parliament, the less likely it becomes for him or her to be elected as an MP. No NCMP thus far - there have been four since the scheme was introduced - has been able to translate the position into an actual parliamentary seat.

But that does not mean doing a bad job is an option. A more viable alternative is to not take up the offer to become an NCMP, which is what the Workers' Party (WP) did in 1984 when the scheme first started.

After the last General Election, the WP tussled with this option again. Its chief, Mr Low, had spoken of his disdain for the scheme on more than one occasion, arguing that it was designed to dissuade voters from voting for an opposition candidate. But when his party was offered the chance to nominate an NCMP, he did not want to stand in the way. The party nominated Ms Lim; Mr Low abstained from voting.

One reason for the WP's decision, I believe, was the fear that forgoing the opportunity carried the risk of being forgotten by voters during the long years between general elections, thus harming their chances of eventual victory.

After all, being an NCMP does provide a politician with an opportunity to speak up in the highest forum in the land, appear regularly in the media and gain name-recognition - all critical to an opposition candidate if he or she hopes to dislodge a PAP incumbent.

What all this means is that the

NCMP scheme has trapped the opposition. Take it up and you risk being seen by the voters as a 'useful loser'; reject it and you could very well be a loser forever. It is a beautiful straitjacket.

In the long-term, the opposition has little to win from the NCMP scheme, enlarged or otherwise. And the PAP has little to lose.

The increased number of NCMP seats will likely lock the opposition even tighter into a conundrum. Their voices will get louder in Parliament and their impact will get bigger. But their new-found visibility will give voters even more reasons to not vote for them.

The latest limitation of just two

NCMPs from each Group Representation Constituency (GRC) could also lead to further opposition fragmentation. Why form a five-man 'Dream Team' to contest a GRC if that would mean three of the five 'stars' cannot become

NCMPs if the team were to lose?

Such calculations, I believe, would not be far from the minds of many an opposition candidate. For let's face it: No one has beaten the PAP in a GRC. It would be realistic for the opposition to plan for likely defeat - and position themselves as best for an NCMP seat.

When covering the opposition during the last election, more than a few opposition politicians openly told me that they would be happy with a 'good defeat' - which they defined as a 35 per cent to 40 per cent share of the votes. Would they take up one of the nine

NCMP positions if they managed a good 'good defeat'? Probably.

The Parliament will become a livelier place as a result and the opposition will find more purpose in those years between elections. But the scheme will not bring the opposition parties closer to being genuine alternatives to the PAP.

shpeh@sph.com.sg