Humanity is in the midst of a global emergency. The policies that drive the world economy have magnified the gap between rich and poor, led to conflict over the planet’s natural resources, and resulted in an ecological crisis that threatens life on earth.

We urgently need to move beyond the restrictive political and economic ideologies of the past and embrace solutions that meet the common needs of people in all nations – which will be impossible to achieve without some degree of economic sharing both within and between countries. In an increasingly unequal and unsustainable world in which all governments need to drastically re-order their priorities, a call for economic sharing embodies the need for justice, human rights and sound environmental stewardship to guide policymaking at every level of society.

This report gives a concise introduction to the principle of sharing in relation to the interconnected global crises we face, and makes a simple case for how the world’s wealth, power and resources can be shared more equitably and sustainably.

Part 1 introduces the political economy of sharing, and highlights the many broad and diverse expressions of sharing throughout the world. As these examples demonstrate, sharing has long been central to human civilisation and integral to the healthy functioning of societies. But as systems of sharing are being increasingly undermined, it is critical that we support and scale up the process of sharing within nations and internationally.

Part 2 outlines how humanity’s continued failure to share is largely responsible for creating what can only be described as a global emergency. This includes the growing tragedy of poverty amidst plenty, the climate and ecological crisis in all its dimensions, and the intensifying conflict over the world’s finite natural resources. Altogether, this leaves the international community with one remaining option: to finally place sharing, cooperation and ecological preservation at the forefront of policymaking and global governance.

Part 3 proposes an alternative approach to managing the world’s resources based upon economic sharing and international cooperation. This process must begin with an unprecedented programme of humanitarian relief to prevent life-threatening deprivation and needless poverty-related deaths as a foremost priority, followed by a major restructuring of the global economy to address the structural causes of our present social, political, economic and environmental crises.

As the conclusion of this report makes clear, we cannot wait for governments to rethink the management of an economic system built upon massive inequality, unsustainable consumption and competition over scarce resources. Given the entrenched vested interests and structural barriers that obstruct progress, the hope for a better world rests with the participation of the global public in a call for reform that extends beyond national borders. Hence it is imperative that millions more people recognise what is at stake and take the lead as proponents for change – a solution to the world’s problems depends on our united demand for a just, sustainable and peaceful future.

Part 1: What is economic sharing?

Many examples demonstrate how economic sharing has long been central to human civilisation by strengthening the social fabric of communities, improving levels of wellbeing across society and promoting social equity. But despite such notable exceptions, the fact of our global unity is still not sufficiently expressed in our international economic and political structures. The critical question facing humanity today is whether we choose to support and scale up these systems of sharing on local, national and global levels, or whether we allow them to be further undermined and dismantled by those who are ideologically opposed to putting sharing at the centre of policymaking.

The political economy of sharing

Contrary to the common misconception that people are individualistic and selfish by nature, anthropologists have shown that gifting and sharing has long formed the basis of community relationships in societies across the world. A recent spate of scientific research has built on this evidence to demonstrate that as human beings we are naturally predisposed to cooperate and share in order to maximise our chances of survival and collective wellbeing. Without the act of sharing and reciprocity, there would be no social foundations upon which to build societies and economies.[1]

In this light, it is not surprising that the principles of sharing and equality are important components of many of the world’s religions, as well as many secular movements such as humanism. In broadly similar ways, Judaism, Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism and numerous other faiths all expound the importance of sharing wealth and other resources fairly, as well as the need to protect the vulnerable and those who are less well off in society. For millennia, the principle of sharing has aligned closely with the moral values and ethics that should underpin the fabric of society.

Yet despite the prevalence of sharing throughout the natural world and in family life, we have largely failed to create a global community of nations in which sharing is embodied in our international economic and political structures. Rather than seeing the family of nations as a unit and accepting that the principle of sharing must play a key role in governing our collective use of available resources, the global economy has been built on the opposing and misguided objects of national self-interest, aggressive competition and materialistic acquisition.[2]

After centuries of colonialism and the exploitation of weaker countries by the more powerful, a tremendous imbalance exists in living standards between the so-called developed and developing worlds, which is a crisis that lies at the heart of present-day world tensions. As the global economy increasingly hits natural resource limits and planetary thresholds, a very real threat to human survival is now posed by escalating conflicts over land, energy reserves and other key industrial inputs, notwithstanding the ecological consequences of overusing the Earth’s finite resources.

Global democracy

If our collective failure to share resources within and among nations is responsible for increasing inequalities and exacerbating many of the other crises we face, then it stands to reason that we need to find ways of reforming our political and economic systems by bringing them more in line with the principle of sharing. From such a common sense perspective, the term ‘economic sharing’ can be used to describe the application of this principle to how economies are organised and resources are distributed, which could include everything from land and energy to knowledge and technology. Furthermore, the concept of sharing applies to democratic forms of governance in terms of how equally power is distributed both nationally and globally, which has potentially dramatic implications for participatory politics and global democracy – not least for the major institutions that determine the rules of economic globalisation.[3]

In both economic and political terms, ‘sharing’ can be a direct path to the fulfilment of basic human needs and rights, and is naturally aligned with the concepts of social and economic justice. As long recognised by progressive campaigners, social justice cannot be achieved by market mechanisms or charitable giving and requires the implementation of redistributive government policies, effective laws and regulations. Relating the principle of sharing with economic policy in this way is important for debates around income and wealth inequality, in which it points to the need for distributive justice and long-term structural solutions that cut to the heart of how we organise societies.[4]

However, economic sharing is not an ideological construct or ‘ism’ that is accompanied by a specific set of policies or procedures. The principle of sharing is ubiquitous in society and precedes the doctrines of capitalism and socialism by millennia, hence it is not beholden to any current or historical political philosophy. This is not to say that existing political concepts and economic policies do not reflect or even embody the principle of sharing, as they do in many cases.[5] Applying this simple principle to the field of political economy can also help to navigate between the divisive ‘isms’ that still drive much of the debate on how States can guarantee social and economic rights for all people.[6]

Humanity urgently needs to move beyond the restrictive ideologies of the past and embrace solutions that meet the common needs of people in all nations, both now and for future generations – which will be impossible to achieve without some degree of economic sharing. In an increasingly unequal and unsustainable world in which all governments need to drastically re-order their priorities, a call for economic sharing embodies the need for justice, human rights and sound environmental stewardship to guide policymaking at all levels of society.

Sharing locally and nationally

Through its many expressions, the process of economic sharing already underpins a huge variety of practices, institutions and policies that operate at the local and national level. One of the most familiar examples of sharing is in the form of charitable giving by individuals and organisations, or else through volunteering efforts and other philanthropic activities. In many ways, charity constitutes an elementary form of sharing, albeit an important one given the entrenched social and environmental problems that exist across the world. However, sharing in the form of philanthropy is widely criticised for its lack of democratic transparency, and for addressing the symptoms of inequality and not the underlying structural causes. For such reasons, charity and philanthropy is often regarded as a substitute for real justice that allows governments to escape some of their broader responsibilities to citizens and the world as a whole.[7]

Other well-recognised examples of economic sharing on the local level include the use of land in agricultural communities, which was traditionally shared by farmers who managed it cooperatively as a commons. The right to save and share seeds has also played an integral role in farming practices around the world, even though major agribusiness corporations are relentlessly pushing to outlaw this practice through patenting laws.[8] Despite the increasing exclusion of small-scale and family farms that results from the current globalised food system, the tradition of sharing is also promoted in community supported agriculture (CSA) projects in which the responsibilities, risks and rewards of producing food are shared between farmers and the local community.[9]

In recent years, a resurgence of community-led initiatives in both rich industrialised and less developed countries embody a process of economic sharing in different ways. These include the many cooperatives in the food and retail sectors, where employees participate in the decision-making process and often share in the proceeds of business activity.[10] Many trusts have also been created at local levels that successfully manage land and other shared resources, such as forests, without intervention from the State or private sector.[11] The practice of economic sharing is also evident in local sustainability initiatives across the world, which often work to redistribute economic activity among communities and build alternatives to unsustainable patterns of production and consumption.[12]

The sharing economy

More recently, the ‘sharing economy’ movement has rapidly grown in popularity throughout Western Europe, North America and other regions, which encompasses everything from online crowd-funding initiatives to food banks, mutual aid societies and gift economies. In particular, collaborative consumption has emerged as a new economic model that allows people to share various goods and services with their peers via internet-mediated sharing platforms, in everything from cars and food to office space and professional expertise. As the many proponents of the sharing economy maintain, ‘accessing’ rather than ‘owning’ resources works to save money, build community and utilise resources more efficiently, while reducing levels of personal consumption and carbon emissions in the process.[13]

Yet sharing is even more fundamental to how we organise our societies than these examples demonstrate. For instance, the process of participatory democracy can embody the principle of sharing as it seeks to share political power more equitably with citizens. And arguably the most advanced form of economic sharing that exists in the modern world is the pooling of a nation’s financial resources to ensure that everyone has access to healthcare, education, social security and other essential public services.

Social welfare systems in developed countries are far from perfect and not always efficiently administered, but they represent a natural evolution of the human propensity to share that builds on practices that have been familiar to people for millennia. They are also an expression of social justice, solidarity and equitable wealth distribution that can reduce inequalities and strengthen social cohesion within countries. Moreover, systems of universal social protection are widely supported by many millions of people who have long recognised the role that effective ‘sharing economies’ can play in creating a fairer, more just and healthier society.[14]

All these and many more examples demonstrate how economic sharing has long been central to human civilisation by strengthening the social fabric of communities, improving levels of wellbeing across society and promoting social equity. The critical question facing humanity today is whether we choose to support and scale up national and local systems of sharing, or whether we allow them to be further undermined and dismantled by those who are ideologically opposed to putting sharing at the centre of policymaking.

Global economic sharing

We live in a globalised world where the crises we face, from wealth disparities to climate change and resource wars, affect all nations to a greater or lesser extent. Systems of worldwide communication, trade and finance mean that people in different countries live highly interconnected and interdependent lives, yet the benefits of economic activity remain extremely skewed in favour of high-income countries. Given this reality and the enormous discrepancies that exist in levels of affluence between rich and poor nations, any process of economic sharing cannot be limited to a solely national context and must be actively applied on a planetary scale.

On the national level, an effective process of economic sharing can help governments to realise their long-standing commitment to protect socio-economic rights by ensuring that all people have access to essential goods and services. A majority of UN member states have already adopted a number of legally binding human rights instruments that embody these commitments, including the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.[15] On the international stage, however, there is a huge disparity between those rights enjoyed in the richest countries – such as the right to food, the right to adequate housing or the right to an education – and the daily infringement of these basic rights for millions of men, women and children in less developed countries. This reality points to the need for governments to finally recognise their extraterritorial human rights obligations by sharing resources more equitably on a global as well as a national basis.[16]

In a climate and resource constrained world, a process of global economic sharing can also play a major role in addressing environmental crises and reducing interstate conflict over vital resource interests. As many environmentalists propose, ensuring that all nations can access resources equitably without transgressing ecological thresholds will require a ‘fair shares’ approach to managing the global commons. In the longer term, sharing finite resources more equitably and sustainably will necessitate a new global governance framework that will have immense implications for the way we extract, distribute and consume the Earth’s produce.[17]

The emergence of global sharing

History provides some important examples of the recognition that humanity must work cooperatively as an international community in line with the principle of sharing. The establishment of the United Nations after the Second World War was one of the first major expressions of sharing in political and global terms, as it facilitates international cooperation on a wide range of issues including peace and security, economic development, social progress and human rights.[18] Not long after the UN was created, a major exercise in cross-border economic sharing was kick-started by the United States government, which embarked on a massive transfer of financial resources to a number of European countries that had been devastated by war. Although historians debate how altruistic the ‘Marshall Plan’ was, it demonstrated the great potential of international resource sharing that has inspired many proposals for a ‘global Marshall Plan’ today, mainly in the form of a massive relief effort for developing nations.[19]

A more contemporary example of global economic sharing is Official Development Assistance (ODA) that OECD countries have been providing to developing nations since the 1960s, although foreign aid comes with so many associated problems that it cannot be considered a true or effective form of economic sharing on an international level.[20] A further example is the important precedent in international law known as the Common Heritage of Mankind, which enables certain cultural and natural resources to be recognised as ‘shared commons’ that should be protected from exploitation by individual nation states or corporations, and held in trust for the benefit of future generations.[21]

Despite these notable exceptions, the fact of our global unity is still not sufficiently expressed in our international economic and political structures. Rather than scaling up and strengthening diverse forms of global economic sharing, the world’s ‘operating system’ is still based on the competitive geopolitical interests of the most powerful and wealthy nations. At the same time, the main institutions that set the rules for international trade and finance – the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and World Trade Organisation – are all widely criticised for being undemocratic and furthering the interests of large corporations and rich countries.[22]

A more inclusive international framework urgently needs to be established through the United Nations and its relevant agencies. The UN is the only multilateral and fully representative global institution in existence with the necessary mandate and capacity to coordinate the process of restructuring the world economy, despite being in need of significant reform and democratisation (particularly by abolishing the Security Council with its arbitrary power of veto, and renewing the UN’s independence as a forum for economic policy-making). After more than 60 years, the UN Charter and Universal Declaration of Human Rights still embody some of the highest ideals expressed by humanity. If the UN is fundamentally renewed and entrusted with more authority, it could be in a position to foster the growing sense of community between nations and facilitate economic sharing on a global scale.[23]

Part 2: Why nations need to share

Our failure to share resources internationally has led to the creation of a global economic system that is inherently unjust, highly unequal and environmentally unsustainable. Humanity is now facing a series of interrelated global crises as a consequence that includes massive poverty and rising levels of inequality, climate change and the ecological crisis in all its dimensions, as well as ongoing conflicts over the world’s dwindling natural resources. The following section outlines the extent of this global emergency and the need for an alternative approach to managing the world’s resources based upon economic sharing and international cooperation.

A global emergency

Despite the wealth of scientific evidence that demonstrates how human beings are naturally predisposed to cooperate and share, mainstream economists and politicians still base much of their decision-making on the assumption that people are inherently selfish, competitive and acquisitive. This one-sided perspective of human nature has defined centuries of aggressive empire building and the politics of domination and control, and it still underpins how societies and nations are organised and the way the global economy functions.[24]

The influence of this ideological approach to economics is apparent in the policies of governments on both sides of the political spectrum. The dominant trend in most countries is to overemphasise the role of market forces in shaping society by downsizing the State, rolling back government regulations and encouraging the privatisation of public resources. With the pursuit of economic growth driving policy decisions, social progress is largely dependent on promoting consumerism regardless of the social and environmental costs.[25]

Since the 1980s, a radically different approach to international development took shape under the guise of economic globalisation and ‘structural adjustment’, which aimed to remove all barriers to economic activity between nations and limit government intervention so that market forces can drive the global economy. With increasing vigour over recent decades, almost all governments have pursued policies that favour large-scale corporate activity, debt-fuelled finance, reduced barriers to global trade and increased capital flows between states. As a result, trade between countries remains premised on national self-interest, international competition and a ‘survival of the fittest’ attitude to business that has shifted economic power towards transnational corporations and largely unaccountable global institutions.[26]

The ‘neoliberal’ ideology that institutionalised greed and self-interest may have been discredited by the global financial crisis in 2008, but it continues to dominate policy discourse and practice in both the Global North and the South. Previous economic ideals based on egalitarian values, redistribution and social rights have been replaced by a new ‘common sense’ that takes for granted the supposed naturalness of the market and the primacy of profit-making – assumptions that continue to set the parameters of public discussions and media debates. Commercialisation now permeates almost every aspect of life, and has drawn entire populations into a financialised and marketised view of the world that disinclines a majority of citizens from perceiving an alternative to the status quo.[27]

Sharing as a solution to global crises

Yet the world situation today starkly challenges the vision that expanding the free market and private ownership will create greater economic efficiency and social well-being. The economic freedom promised through the liberalisation of market forces has, in reality, resulted in a freedom for the very few and a contradiction of the core free market promise – that increased wealth will be shared. Our failure to share resources internationally has led to the creation of a global economic system that is inherently unjust, highly unequal and environmentally unsustainable. Humanity is now facing a series of interrelated global crises as a consequence that includes massive poverty and rising levels of inequality, climate change and the ecological crisis in all its dimensions, as well as ongoing conflicts over the world’s dwindling natural resources.[28]

It takes little imagination to see how nations could apply economic sharing as a solution to these critical global issues. In simple terms, a just sharing of the world’s wealth, power and resources is fundamental to bridging the gap between rich and poor countries and meeting basic needs for all. Establishing a new international framework for sharing natural resources more equitably and sustainably (such as land, minerals and fossil fuels) is also essential for safeguarding the environment, ending centuries of inter-state conflict and fostering global solidarity.

From this truly common sense perspective, a new economic paradigm based on sharing rather than competing for the world’s resources presents a pragmatic way forward for the international community in light of the major crises we face. At the same time, it presents a revolutionary challenge to the status quo that necessitates a drastic departure from a prevailing ideology based on economic selfishness, rampant commercialisation and purely materialistic goals.

Global poverty and inequality

The most pressing reason for establishing an international framework that facilitates economic sharing is to create a more equal world where basic human needs are met universally. Governments first committed to this goal in 1948 when the UN General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states in Article 25 (1): “Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.”[29]

More than 65 years later, achieving these basic entitlements for all the world’s people still remains a distant hope and vague aspiration of the international community. Even in many of the richest countries poverty rates have been rising for a decade, and the situation is rapidly deteriorating as austerity measures are rolling back social safety nets and weakening essential public services. Five years after the financial crisis of 2008, for example, about 50 million people in the US – 1 in 6 of the population – were officially hungry, even before dramatic cuts to government food assistance programmes.[30] Across Europe, where the social gains of previous decades are now under sharp attack, analysts have been forewarning of a divided continent with entrenched poverty for more than a decade.[31]

Nothing describes the dangerous shift away from the practice of sharing within societies more than the growing levels of hunger and needless deprivation in the affluent parts of the world. But there is no escaping the fact that the impact of extreme poverty remains generally far more severe in the poorest countries of sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and Latin America, among other low- and middle-income regions. Despite rapid advancements in standards of living for a large proportion of the world population in recent decades, an unacceptable number of people are still denied access to the basic necessities of life.

Even if the Millennium Development Goal for halving extreme poverty is met, around one billion people will officially live without adequate means for survival in 2015 – although unofficial estimates are even higher.[32] Altogether, 95% of people who live in developing countries survive on the equivalent of less than $10 a day (comparable to what $10 would buy in the United States) – an almost impossible task for someone living in a high-income country.[33] The controversial ‘dollar-a-day’ measure of poverty also fails to reflect the harsh reality of life for millions of people in the majority world, not least in the fast-growing slums of developing cities.[34]

Poverty amidst plenty

In an interconnected global society with an abundance of wealth, technological capacity and expertise, it is morally reprehensible and economically short-sighted not to have ended extreme poverty decades ago. But this will be impossible without simultaneously redressing levels of global inequality, which have steadily increased since the 1980s when corporate-driven policies of economic globalisation were widely adopted. In order to tackle this growing crisis of ‘poverty amidst plenty’, far greater emphasis must be placed on reforming the unjust policies and institutions that maintain a divided and increasingly unequal world.[35]

Today, highly biased regimes of international trade, finance and taxation mean that at least ten times as much finance flows from developing countries to the rich world than is provided by donor governments as overseas aid.[36] As a result of these unjust arrangements of the global economy, the wealthiest 20 percent of the world’s population enjoy nearly 83 percent of total global income, whereas the poorest 20 percent receive a mere 1 percent.[37] In recent years, this concentration of wealth has become increasingly extreme, with one percent of the richest people in the world owning $110 trillion – 65 times the total wealth of the bottom half of the world’s population.[38]

This astonishing misdistribution of wealth and income highlights just how distorted the world’s priorities are when many millions of people still cannot access the essential resources that others take for granted. As global justice campaigners often repeat, the underlying causes of this gross inequity are political in nature as they stem from the policy choices that governments make, the institutions that govern economic relationships, and the unrivalled power and influence of the world’s largest corporations.[39]

Without reforming these structural conditions, international aid and other forms of financial redistribution will never be an adequate means for ending poverty or reducing the gap between rich and poor. If the global economy is to serve the interests of all people, it must be primarily geared towards guaranteeing the fulfilment of social and economic rights in perpetuity – founded upon a genuine form of multilateral cooperation and economic sharing.

The environmental crisis

A call for greater economic sharing has long been at the heart of the international debate on climate change and sustainable development. The crux of the issue is how to ensure that the world’s finite resources are consumed fairly and at a rate that does not exceed the regenerative and absorptive capacity of the biosphere. Whether discussed in terms of ecological footprints or ‘fair shares’ in a world of limits, all people should have an equal right to share the earth’s resources without irreversibly damaging the planet or depriving future generations of access to these resources.

To date, governments have abysmally failed to agree on a policy framework for capping carbon emissions and equitably sharing the remaining ‘carbon space’ of the atmosphere among all nations.[40] But climate change and environmental pollution is only one aspect of a much wider ecological crisis that has resulted from our over-exploitation and degradation of the natural world. Approximately 60% of the planet’s ecosystems have been significantly degraded by human activity in the past 50 years, which starkly indicates the rapid loss of biodiversity worldwide that is threatening human well-being and civilisation as we know it.[41]

Humanity is currently consuming natural resources at a rate 50% faster than the planet can replenish them, and as a result we already require the equivalent of one and a half planets to support today’s consumption levels.[42] Yet demand for resources of all kinds is increasing exponentially, especially for food, oil, land and water. Hence the issues of resource scarcity and environmental limits have risen up the global agenda in recent years, and are becoming ever more pressing due to both a growing population and rising affluence in emerging economies.[43]

Fair shares

However, the challenge of sharing the planet’s resources is inherently linked to the huge imbalances in consumption patterns across the world. Currently, the wealthiest 20% of the world’s population – most of whom live in rich countries – consume 80% of global resources, and are therefore responsible for the vast majority of climate change and environmental destruction. Meanwhile, the poorest 20% of the population lack sufficient access to essentials such as food, clean water and energy, and account for just 1.3% of global resource consumption.[44] It is also the poor that suffer disproportionately from the harmful effects of climate change and resource depletion, which further contributes to growing inequalities and often increases poverty and social conflict.[45]

This leads to serious issues around fairness and equity in the discussions around planetary boundaries and sustainable limits. If the world’s finite resources are to be made accessible to all people but consumed at a sustainable rate, high-income countries will clearly have to reduce their use of natural resources considerably in order to enable poorer nations to grow their economies and improve their material standard of living. At the same time, poor countries will have to aim towards a less materially intensive model of development than compared to today’s industrialised nations, in accordance with international environmental objectives. [46]

There is no way around this basic adjustment needed to achieve equity-based sustainable development, which will ultimately require reconceptualising notions of prosperity and wholesale economic reorganisation. Creating a sustainable and just world will remain impossible to achieve unless we change patterns of production and consumption that deplete natural resources, erode biodiversity and pollute the atmosphere, and until we place the rights of Mother Earth before commercial interests.[47] Such a transformation may seem unachievable within the current political and economic context, but the certainty of irreversible damage to the Earth’s life-support systems leaves the international community with one remaining option – to place economic sharing and environmental stewardship at the forefront of policymaking and global governance.

Conflict over resources

An alarming consequence of humanity’s continued failure to share resources is the escalation of interstate conflict over land, fossil fuel reserves and other key industrial materials. Almost every government now assigns a great strategic significance to resource security, particularly in relation to oil and gas supplies. The result is a new global landscape in which competition over vital resources is becoming the governing principle behind the accumulation and deployment of military power. With the proliferation of nuclear weapons continuing unabated, however, any intensification of the struggle to secure the world’s untapped natural resources increases the likelihood of a catastrophic war among the major industrial powers.

The need for a vigorous military role in protecting energy assets abroad has long been a presiding theme for many of the world’s nations, and remains increasingly central to both foreign policy and national security strategies.[48] Between 1965 and 1990 alone, 73 civil wars over resources occurred in which more than a thousand people a year died,[49] and at least 18 international conflicts have been triggered by competition for resources since then.[50] Many analysts also maintain that securing key resource interests was a key factor justifying intervention in the Persian Gulf War in 1991, as well as the invasion of Iraq in 2003.[51]

Even today, the possibility of future violent conflict grows as nations race to control oil and gas reserves in the Arctic, the East and South China Seas, around the Falkland Islands and elsewhere. As governments continue on their current trajectory of aggressively competing to control the planet’s scarce natural resources, a number of factors all but guarantee a further escalation of violent conflict in the immediate future. This includes a growing world population and a rapidly expanding consumer class in developing countries, which is spurring an enormous increase in demand for energy and raw materials. The impact of climate change will also further exacerbate resource scarcity by dramatically constraining access to food, water, land and other vital resources over coming decades.[52]

A cooperative approach

Despite a distinct lack of public debate on this issue, there can be little doubt that a viable resource security strategy for the 21st century must be based on an alternative framework of international cooperation and resource sharing rather than national self-interest and recurring conflict. While there are various options for how such a framework could function, it would be essential to establish robust and impartial international institutions in order to ensure equitable access to the world’s existing resource stockpiles, alleviate shortages in times of acute scarcity or emergency, and guarantee universal access to critical commodities. Working through the UN system, the international community could also reduce the pressure on global fossil fuel reserves by channelling investment into renewables and sharing alternative energy technologies as they emerge.[53]

A cooperative approach to resource security is not only necessary for avoiding conflict and addressing social and environmental crises, but it would also salvage significant financial resources from global military budgets and foster goodwill among nations. Even to engage in the formidable process of negotiating such a strategy, governments will have to overcome the zero-sum, nationalistic impulses that currently dominate what is essentially a ‘winner takes all’ global resource acquisition paradigm – particularly in relation to fossil fuels. At the same time, policymakers must be prepared to mitigate rapidly escalating consumption rates that drive the unsustainable demand for energy and raw materials. In the end, this will mean fundamentally rethinking the dominant economic model that requires ever-higher levels of consumption for its continued success, and adopting new industrial processes that are not dependent on supplies of finite resources.

However idealistic it may seem to envisage cooperative solutions that can prevent future conflict over land, water or fossil fuels, humanity faces an unavoidable choice: either to find ways of sharing the environmental commons more equitably, or to continue on the path of intensified resource competition and risk further economic trauma, the acceleration of climate change, and the eventual possibility of a third world war.

Part 3: How can global sharing work?

At this critical juncture in human history, only a united global public can pressure governments to reorder their distorted priorities, cooperate more effectively, and share the resources of the world more equitably. As outlined in the sections below, a crucial first step is for UN Member States to implement an international program of emergency assistance to end life-threatening deprivation, followed by a longer-term transformation of the global economy in order to secure an adequate standard of living for all within ecological limits.

A programme for survival

Addressing the interlocking crises highlighted above represents the greatest challenge that humanity has faced in its long history, and calls for a thorough restructuring of the world economy as well as far greater understanding, commitment and solidarity between peoples and nations. In order to move beyond national self-interest and aggressive competition over vital resources, a dramatic adjustment is needed in political relations between governments on the basis of international cooperation and genuine economic sharing.

Such fundamental changes to the international economic order can only become a reality if world public opinion is focused upon eliminating poverty and safeguarding the environment as a foremost priority for the 21st Century. Given the current ‘business as usual’ approach to policymaking, it is unlikely that governments will accept the need for economic sharing on a global scale until the crises of inequality, resource scarcity and environmental breakdown reach a dangerous climax. Pressure from the public for change and justice will inevitably mount until such a time, and politicians may eventually have little choice but to rethink their distorted priorities or risk further social, economic and ecological chaos.

It is impossible to predict how a process of world repair and rehabilitation will unfold, but if the necessary economic transformation is to come about by democratic means it will require all-inclusive international dialogue over a period of months, if not years. The purpose of outlining these proposals is not to dictate the terms of global economic reform, but to inspire public engagement and debate on these critical issues and galvanise popular support for a campaign that calls on governments to share the world’s resources.

As outlined in part 1, a reformed and democratised United Nations is the only multilateral institution in existence that can facilitate a coordinated global programme of wholesale economic reform. A broad coalition of civil society must therefore bring pressure to bear on governments to convene an international summit at the UN General Assembly to agree upon a comprehensive agenda for restructuring and cooperatively managing the global economy in the interests of all nations. These negotiations should focus on both the immediate and longer-term measures for mitigating the world’s poverty, environmental and security crises, which will require a radical shift in economic relationships to embrace our collective values and global interdependence.

The sections that follow outline the key pillars of this transformative global agenda, which should include:

1. An international programme of humanitarian relief: By definition, any process of economic sharing between and within countries must prioritise the urgent needs of the very poorest. In light of this imperative, the major concern for the first stage of global negotiations must be to organise and implement an emergency programme of humanitarian relief to prevent life-threatening deprivation and avoidable poverty-related deaths – regardless of where this occurs in the world. Such a programme needs to be agreed and implemented in the shortest possible timeframe, and will require an unprecedented mobilisation of international agencies, resources and expertise over and above existing emergency aid budgets and humanitarian programs.

2. Structural reform of the global economy: The UN General Assembly must also convene a worldwide public consultation with representatives from all countries and all sectors of society to debate, negotiate and implement a strategy for restructuring the global economy. Among the many reforms that these negotiations should consider, particular attention must be placed on guaranteeing access to adequate social protection and adequate public services for all; establishing a just and sustainable global food system; and instituting an international framework for sharing natural resources more equitably and within planetary limits.

Such an aspiration may seem radical to some, but these above two propositions broadly echo those put forward more than 30 years ago by the Report of the Independent Commission on International Development Issues (the Brandt Commission). Today the world’s problems are even more complex and interlinked after three decades of economic globalisation, and the solutions needed to address global crises must go far beyond the proposals of the Commissioners who contributed to the Brandt Report. Despite the disparities that Brandt spoke of now reaching breaking point, however, we’re still far away from his vision of nations coming together in a collective effort to “ensure a sustainable biological environment, and sustainable prosperity based on equitably shared resources”.[54]

It is imperative that world public opinion embraces the understanding that we are in the midst of a civilizational crisis, and there is little time left for governments to implement a ‘programme for survival’ that is our only hope of averting economic and ecological disaster.

An emergency relief programme

Whether from a moral, humanitarian or purely economic perspective, the number one priority for governments in the 21st Century should be the urgent prevention of life-threatening conditions of deprivation across the world. Every day we fail to act an additional 40,000 people are likely to die from avoidable poverty-related causes, almost all of whom live in low- and middle-income countries.[55] If we are serious about putting the principle of sharing at the heart of our response to global crises, the very first step in this process of world reconstruction must surely be an international programme of emergency relief to end all instances of unnecessary deaths due to hunger or poverty.

Government rhetoric may suggest that a great deal is being done already to help prevent extreme deprivation in less-developed countries, but this is far from the reality. Official Development Assistance (ODA) remains linked to financial restrictions and policy ‘conditionalities’ that dramatically reduce its effectiveness, while most donor countries are still failing to live up to the long-agreed pledge of providing a mere 0.7% of Gross Domestic Product in overseas aid.[56] Furthermore, of the comparatively negligible sums that are transferred from rich to poor countries as aid, few people realise that only a small proportion is used to respond to humanitarian emergencies – as little as 8% of all ODA.[57]

It is high time that the international community considered life-threatening poverty to be a global emergency and treated this preventable crisis accordingly. For every person who dies in an emergency such as a natural disaster or conflict, 200 people die from poverty-related causes.[58] Should governments not therefore broaden their conception of what a humanitarian crisis entails, and put arrangements in place at the international level to ensure that people suffering from acute economic deprivation at least have access to the minimum requirements – water, sanitation, food, nutrition, shelter and healthcare – to satisfy their basic right to life and dignity (in accordance with long-agreed international human rights declarations and conventions)?[59]

A global humanitarian crisis

The structural causes of poverty are complex and political in nature, and addressing them will necessitate far-reaching changes to the policies and institutions that govern the global economy. In the longer term, the responsibility for poverty reduction and development rests with national governments who need to develop strong public sectors and redistributive tax systems, and overseas aid should not be a substitute for domestic resource mobilisation. But the least developed countries cannot afford to wait for these structural changes to take place while millions of people are facing a condition of life-threatening poverty. The global community of nations urgently need to take a much bolder step towards saving lives and ending extreme deprivation today – and regardless of the excuses given by world leaders, doing so is eminently practical and affordable.

As STWR’s report Financing the Global Sharing Economy outlines, there are many progressive policy options that could enable governments to rapidly mobilise several trillions of dollars to help mitigate the worst effects of poverty and hunger in the most deprived regions of the world. The institutional structures, capacity and expertise needed to utilise these additional financial resources for essential human needs is already in place, including many UN organisations, thousands of NGOs and numerous humanitarian agencies that are often critically underfunded.[60]

There is no reason why an inter-governmental emergency programme cannot be launched to provide basic necessities for the world’s impoverished as a leading international priority. With sufficient support from UN Member States, such an unprecedented global action plan could be initiated through the UN General Assembly in a relatively short space of time. Moreover, the necessary redistribution of financial resources from rich to poor countries could be organised within the existing political and economic framework, and independent of overseas aid budgets.

Relief efforts could also be coordinated on the basis of universal need, within rich OECD countries as well as less developed nations, even if the inevitable focus is on the poverty belts and urban centres within the Global South. Similarly, any government could provide financial or additional strategic resources to the programme, including military personnel to assist humanitarian agencies in distributing food and providing equipment or technical assistance.

An international aid effort of this nature would clearly not be a comprehensive solution to hunger and poverty, but it could provide a lifeline for the millions of people who subsist without any form of welfare provision, suitable health or working conditions, or adequate purchasing power to meet their basic needs. The necessary political will to implement such a strategy of global economic sharing was sadly lacking in the early 1980s when world leaders were considering the Brandt Commission’s proposal for ‘massive transfers’ of funds from rich to poor countries, but the scale of the humanitarian crisis is even greater today. If governments and civil society are ever to end this moral outrage, we cannot afford the same level of political and public complacency to continue.

Reforming the global economy

An emergency relief programme can only form an initial stage in a broader agenda to overhaul the global economy and address the structural causes of our present social, political, economic and environmental crises. The scale and complexity of such a task is unparalleled; never before have representatives from all nations engaged in an effective dialogue that links the full range of critical global issues – from poverty and environmental protection to world trade and financial reform – and seeks to establish new global rules and institutions that can bring us closer to a more equal world.

In order to achieve an international consensus on how to reform the global economy, an extensive UN-led consultation process must be initiated with input from civil society groups, governments, relevant global agencies and institutions, as well as representatives from the private sector. As outlined in the following sections, the minimum aim of these negotiations should be to agree upon the reformed structural and redistributive arrangements required to:

• Guarantee access to adequate social protection and essential public services for all people in all countries.
• Establish a just and sustainable global food system and guarantee universal access to nutritious food as a basic human right.
• Ensure that all people and nations can access and consume a fair share of the world’s resources without transgressing environmental limits.

Regardless of how nations agree to organise a global framework that enables a more equity-based and sustainable distribution of resources, the implications for existing institutions, policies and financing mechanisms are immense and all-encompassing. A new vision of our global interdependence is called for, with profound changes in international economic relations on the basis of true cooperation and shared sacrifice. A fairer distribution of wealth, power and resources on a worldwide basis will require more inclusive structures of global governance and institutional reforms that go far beyond existing development efforts to reduce poverty, push for fairer trade and provide compensatory aid.

A programme of priorities

Over six years since the financial collapse of 2008, governments have yet to restructure financial and monetary systems or impose tighter regulations on the banking sector and speculative activity. Particular attention must be paid to establishing a balanced global financial architecture with a stable international reserve currency, and many proposals exist for money to be created through a democratic and transparent body working in the public interest.[61] Furthermore, popular calls to clamp down on tax havens and cancel unjust and unpayable debts in developing countries are long overdue, and remain essential to achieving a more equal distribution of the world’s financial resources.[62]

A more viable approach to managing national economies will require a significant rethink of Western notions of development, a more holistic vision of our relationship to the natural environment, and a reconceptualisation of financial measures like GDP as the main yardstick for national and social progress.[63] Environmental challenges – from climate change to the depletion and degradation of natural resources – mean it is inevitable that governments must reconsider the relentless push towards trade liberalisation, as well as the dominance of consumption-led economic growth over government policy.[64] Much needs to be done to dismantle the culture of consumerism, and investment must shift dramatically towards building and sustaining a low-carbon infrastructure, alongside a vast array of energy and resource efficiency measures.[65]

To counter the growing concentration of financial and economic power in the hands of a small number of multinational corporations, governments should also support policies that increase the control that citizens have over their local economies, especially in developing countries. State funding should be directed to local initiatives in order to help diversify economies and encourage social cohesion and local economic renewal, alongside greater support for cooperative businesses and mutual enterprises that redistribute economic activity back into towns and communities. An increased focus on domestic markets would also boost opportunities for stable employment in local industries, and help restore local and national self-reliance in meeting essential needs.[66]

The issues highlighted above provide only a snapshot of a comprehensive agenda for economic transformation, different aspects of which are widely promoted by various campaign groups worldwide. The challenge of enacting any of these reforms is essentially a democratic one that requires civil society to reassert their right to determine the future direction of economic policy, and to ensure that politicians honour their responsibility to serve the needs of ordinary people. For governance systems to be inclusive, effective and respectful of economic and cultural diversity, citizens must be given the opportunity to engage in the decision making process at all levels of society – from the local to the global.[67]

The following sections introduce the three major areas of focus for global negotiations highlighted above, and explain why these reforms will require an unprecedented degree of international cooperation and economic sharing to ensure their success:

• Sharing the world’s food
• Building a sharing society
• Sharing the global commons

Sharing the world’s food

Despite the production of more than enough food to meet the nutritional needs of all the world’s population, life-threatening food emergencies continue to devastate many developing countries, and at least 842 million go hungry every day.[68] Clearly, global food systems are working against the principle of sharing at a fundamental level when widespread undernourishment co-exists with large surpluses of food in global markets. From the most basic perspective, sharing food in a world of plenty infers a family of nations in which no one is permitted to die of hunger, and that demands a re-ordering of government priorities to ensure that everyone is guaranteed their right to safe, sufficient, nutritious and affordable food.[69]

But the scandal of hunger is only the most egregious example of a broken food system that is in crisis at every level. Industrial farming practices have significantly degraded the natural resources upon which human life depends, and governments face enormous challenges in meeting future demand for food as a result of water shortages, fossil fuel depletion, climate change and environmental degradation. According to some estimates, the globalised industrial food system contributes over half of all greenhouse gas emissions.[70] The United Nations also reports that 75% of plant genetic diversity has already been lost as a result of the profound shift towards an environmentally destructive model of agriculture over the past century.[71]

A new paradigm in global agriculture is urgently called for. If we accept that food is an essential for life that should be shared at every level – family, community, national and international – then we cannot continue to treat grains and other staples as ‘commodities’, just like any other merchandise. Yet the entire edifice of the global food economy is based on the belief that food should be grown for profit, not human need, which has far-reaching implications for food and farming systems if sharing is to guide the process of global economic reform.[72]

This is starkly illustrated, for example, by the intellectual property rights regime, which is in many ways the antithesis of sharing – built as it is upon the belief that corporations have rights to privatise and ‘own’ the genetic commons, while smallholder farmers are even deprived of their right to share and save seeds.[73] Stock market speculation on basic foods is also a scandal when millions of people are starving in the world, with clear evidence now suggesting that betting on food prices in financial markets has caused drastic price swings in recent years, with catastrophic consequences for the poorest households.[74]

Transforming global food systems

Reversing these trends necessitates action and cooperation on a global scale. For example, there is an imperative need to establish fairer regional and global trade arrangements, which at present enable the largest corporate players to reap colossal profits from the international trade in agricultural commodities – especially in the midst of food price crises.[75] In a dramatic reorientation of agricultural trade policy, governments should rather aim to establish higher levels of food self-sufficiency, re-regulate markets and reduce dependency on imports, both within OECD countries and across the Global South.[76]

Put simply, a more just and sustainable food system depends on people and communities being empowered to grow and share food. This new direction is rigorously articulated by a food sovereignty movement that rejects the corporate vision of agriculture in favour of a more localised, ecological and people-led approach to farming.[77] Indeed the scientific case for small-scale, low-impact farming has already been won: in 2008, the conclusions of more than 400 experts was released in the UN-sponsored IAASTD study, which gave a damning verdict on modern systems of industrial agriculture and presented policymakers with an effective blueprint to confront today’s global food crisis.[78]

The practice of sharing has a pivotal role to play in a new paradigm for food and agriculture, but it clearly needs to be a true form of economic sharing that addresses the power structures and politics underlying an unjust global economy. It is imperative that governments finally accept their responsibility to guarantee access to nutritious food for all the world’s people, and thereby enact policies to democratise and localise food economies in line with the principles of sharing and cooperation. In sum, the political challenge for the international community could not be more critical and deep-seated: to reinstate the spiritual, non-material value of food that allows it to be treated as more than just a commodity – and ultimately shared universally as a basic human right.[79]

Building a sharing society

As a priority for longer-term global reform efforts, governments must ensure that economic systems are primarily geared towards meeting the essential needs of all citizens. An emergency relief programme and existing forms of overseas aid must give way to the creation of nationwide systems of social protection and public service provision, in line with longstanding international human rights commitments. Governments in both hemispheres – and particularly in the South – need to be empowered to develop more self-sufficient and sustainable economies, which must become the overarching goal of social and economic policy in the 21st century.

Systems of social welfare and public service provision are essentially complex ‘sharing economies’ that exist in a variety of forms throughout the world. Through the process of progressive taxation and redistribution, citizens collectively share a portion of the nation’s financial resources for the benefit of society as a whole. Although often far from perfect, national systems of social protection are an expression of solidarity and social justice that can redistribute wealth, reduce inequalities and strengthen social cohesion within countries.[80]

Many experts recognise that the universal provision of social protection (including health services, education, housing, water and sanitation, public infrastructure and transport, as well as social security benefits) has to be part of a country’s social contract and cannot be left to the private or charity sectors. This inevitably requires a strong interventionist role for governments, strictly regulated markets, the decommodification of public services, and the democratic participation of all citizens who need to be empowered to articulate their needs.[81]

It also depends upon strong tax authorities and effective financial administrations, which is a major challenge for many poor countries that have a large informal sector and internal problems of corruption and mismanagement. There remains a huge gap between how much tax revenue is raised by most low-income countries, and where they need to get to in order to end aid dependence and indebtedness.[82]

For many decades, poorer countries have been severely constrained in their ability to raise enough domestic revenue to guarantee universal access to public goods and services. Due to a combination of factors such as investment abroad, illicit capital flight and sovereign debt repayments, far more money flows from poor to rich countries than flows the other way.[83] The pressure towards trade liberalisation and tariff reduction – enforced by ‘free market’ economic programmes – has further deprived many governments in the South of vital income.[84] Indeed, the infamous Structural Adjustment Programmes in the 1980s and 1990s effectively dismantled the basic safety nets that existed across much of the developing world.[85]

A global sharing economy

Even in high-income countries today government policies are generally going in the wrong direction, particularly across Europe where IMF-led austerity programmes are rolling back systems of social welfare and undermining public services. To reverse the effects of these divisive and damaging measures that go against the very notion of a sharing society, a renewed social and economic model must invest in public services for all people and build fair and redistributive tax systems, founded upon an economic policy in harmony with the environment and climate.[86]

Yet even the most basic welfare taken for granted by those in developed countries is still a dream for the majority world population, with 4 out of every 5 people denied a minimal set of social protection guarantees.[87] Consequently, high-income countries have a responsibility to do much more to assist poorer nations to strengthen domestic taxation and social protection systems, while enabling them to develop the productive capacity they need to generate decent employment and a vibrant, diversified economy. As a minimum, the international community should urgently establish a global fund to provide financial support to low-income countries as they strive to develop robust and self-sufficient public sectors.[88]

In the longer term, it will remain impossible to pursue a sustainable and inclusive agenda for development until we extend the principles that underpin domestic systems of sharing to encompass the global community of nations. In other words, we need to establish an effective ‘global sharing economy’ based on national and international forms of redistribution that can ensure that everyone is guaranteed access to essential goods and services, which is the first major step towards realising a truly united world that upholds the human rights of all people.

Sharing the global commons

Guaranteeing access to essential goods and services for all people would go a long way to establishing a global economy that serves the common good, but it falls short of ensuring that the overarching economic framework is inherently fair and environmentally sustainable. New economic arrangements also need to reverse decades of privatisation, corporate control and profiteering over the Earth’s natural resources (such as water, oil, gas and minerals) so that nations can share the global commons more equitably and sustainably.[89] This presents an epochal challenge for the international community at a time when humanity as a whole is already consuming resources and emitting waste and pollutants 50% faster than they can be replenished or reabsorbed.[90]

Clearly this state of affairs cannot continue indefinitely, and governments may eventually be forced – through public pressure or intensifying ecological catastrophe – to abandon the current economic logic in favour of a cooperative strategy for sharing the world rather than keeping it divided. Two basic prerequisites will remain essential to successfully negotiating such a transition. Firstly, governments have to accept the need to limit resource use in both national and global terms. Instead of the endless drive to increase economic growth and maximise profits, the goal of economic policy must shift towards a sustainable sufficiency in which nations aim to maximise well-being and guarantee ‘enough’ for everybody, rather than encouraging the consumption of ‘more’ of everything.[91]

Secondly, nations will have to collectively formulate a recognition that natural resources form part of our shared commons, and should therefore be managed in a way that benefits all people as well as future generations. This important reconceptualization could enable a shift away from today’s private and State ownership models, and towards a new form of global resource management based on non-ownership and trusteeship.[92]

Transitioning to a sustainable world

New governance regimes for sharing natural resources could take many forms. For example, in line with the Common Heritage of Humankind principle that already exists in international law, many of the commons that are truly global in nature, like the oceans and atmosphere, could be held in a global public trust and managed by elected representatives, or else by newly created United Nations agencies. Another option for governments is to maintain sovereignty over the natural resources held within their jurisdiction, but agree to a coordinated international programme of sustainable use of those resources and the sharing of national surpluses.[93]

Such economic arrangements may finally make it possible for governments to progressively reduce and equalise global consumption levels so that every person can meet their needs within the limits of a finite planet. To achieve this, over-consuming countries would have to take the lead in significantly reducing their national resource use, while less developed countries increase theirs until a convergence in levels of material throughput and carbon emissions is eventually reached. At the same time, a progressively tighter cap on the overall rate at which nations consume resources could ensure that global consumption patterns are gradually but definitely reduced to a sustainable level.[94] To facilitate this dramatic shift towards ‘fair share’ ecological footprints, the international community will also need to adopt a low-carbon development strategy by significantly reducing dependence on non-renewable fuels and investing heavily in alternative sources of clean energy.

The implications of implementing any form of global mechanism for sharing natural resources cannot be underestimated. For example, the transition to an era of cooperative resource management is dependent on more inclusive governance at all levels, the democratisation of global institutions (including the United Nations), and a shift in power relations from North to South. An orderly transition will inevitably have to be negotiated and coordinated by UN Member States, which presupposes a degree of international cooperation that is increasingly lacking today. World leaders have yet to move beyond the self-interest and aggressive competition that characterises foreign policy, and are heavily invested in maintaining the dominant economic model that prioritises short-term business interests ahead of a healthy ecosystem and social justice.[95]

Hence we cannot wait for governments to rethink the management of an economic system built upon endless consumption and competition over scarce resources. A solution to global environmental and resource security crises can only be brought about by the active engagement of civil society, with concerted efforts to overcome the corporate and political forces that stand in the way of creating a truly cooperative and sharing world.

A global movement for sharing

In response to a call for an emergency programme of humanitarian relief alongside a wholesale restructuring of the global economy, it is possible to view such a proposition as utopian considering the political underpinnings of our world. At present, the dominant trend is still towards the centralisation of state and market power, and the shifting of real power away from ordinary people and communities towards largely undemocratic global institutions and multinational corporations.[96]

For too long, governments have put short-term political interests and commercial profits before the welfare of all people and the sustainability of the biosphere. Public policy under the influence of neoliberal ideology has created a world economy that is structurally dependent upon unsustainable levels of production and consumption for its continued success. Decades of failed global conferences on interconnected issues such as climate change, international trade and sustainable development have also starkly illustrated the sheer lack of cooperation and goodwill that exists between nations today.

A major reason for the failure of these high-level talks and summits is widely recognised: policymaking has long been captured by powerful corporations and business lobby groups that have the ability to maintain their vested interests at all costs. ‘Business as usual’ is the anthem of this lobby, and their influence over governmental decision-making – including negotiations at the United Nations – has now reached an apex.[97]

As humanity moves ever closer to social, economic and environmental tipping points, it is clear that we can no longer rely on governments alone to create the future we want. The hope for a better world rests with the participation of the global public in a call for reform that extends beyond national borders. As the worldwide mobilisation of people power since 2011 has demonstrated, only a united and informed public opinion is stronger than the private interests that obstruct progressive change from taking place. The responsibility to take a stand falls squarely on the shoulders of ordinary people, not just the usual campaigners and NGOs. It is imperative that millions more people recognise what is at stake and take the lead as proponents for change – the wellbeing of planet earth and future generations largely depends on this shift in global consciousness.[98]

A united peoples voice

Already, popular uprisings in almost every country are demonstrating in the streets for sharing, freedom and justice, and are connected by their revulsion against an economic system that has caused such huge inequalities in income and wealth. From Wall Street to Gezi Park to the Puerta del Sol, an implicit call for economic sharing is being expressed in many diverse forms. This includes the widespread mobilisations for an alternative to austerity measures; for the sharing and conservation of natural resources; for shared public spaces and the non-enclosure of the commons; and for the right priorities in public spending on behalf of the common good.[99]

At the same time, longstanding campaigns for tax, trade and debt justice all reflect the need to redistribute wealth and political power downward. All of these movements and many others are ultimately demanding a fairer sharing of wealth, power and resources and the protection of the natural world. In the crucial period ahead, concerned citizens from every walk of life must widely support these causes and activities if there is to be hope for creating a more just, sustainable and peaceful future. Humanity as a whole still lacks a broad-based acceptance of the need for planetary reconstruction, even despite a growing awareness among civil society of the unfolding human and environmental catastrophe. Without a global movement of ordinary people that share a collective vision of change, it may remain impossible to overcome the vested interests and structural barriers to progress that we face.

In the end, the case for global economic sharing can be summarised with a simple appeal to our common humanity and compassion. Only a collective demand for a fairer and more equal world is likely to unify citizens of both the richest and poorest nations on a common platform. Hence the urgent process of world rehabilitation must begin with a united people’s voice that speaks on behalf of the poorest and most disenfranchised, and gives the highest priority to the elimination of extreme deprivation and needless poverty-related deaths.

If the case for sharing on an international basis captures the public imagination as quickly as the calls for redistribution within individual countries, then an end to gross inequality, ecological crisis and global conflict could finally become a realistic possibility.

Source:
This article was published by STWR, which may be found here.

Notes:
[1] For example, see Dacher Keltner, Jeremy Adam Smith and Jason Marsh, The Compassionate Instinct: The Science of Human Goodness, W. W. Norton & Company, 2010.; Jeremy Rifkin, The Empathic Civilization, Cambridge: Polity Press, 2009; Michael Tomasello, Why We Cooperate, Cambridge: MIT Press, 2009; Frans De Waal, The Age of Empathy, New York: Harmony Books, 2009; Colin Tudge, Why Genes are not Selfish and People are Nice, Floris Books, 2013.

[2] David Korten, When Corporations Rule the World, Berrett-Koehler, 2001.

[3] There is a significant literature on the need to democratise the major global institutions that create and express the rules of economic globalisation. For an introduction, see John Cavanagh et al, Alternatives to Economic Globalisation:  A Better World is Possible, Berrett-Koehler, 2004; George Monbiot, The Age of Consent, Harper Perennial, 2003; Joseph Stiglitz, Globalization and its Discontents, Penguin, 2003; Richard Peet, Unholy Trinity: The IMF, World Bank and WTO, Zed Books, 2009.

The post A Primer On Global Economic Sharing – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Israel declared its independence in 1948. Less than twenty years later it expanded its territorial control across the West Bank and Gaza (and Sinai).

What has subsequently come to be referred to as “The Occupation” has referred to the status quo which (with a few modifications) has endured for the overwhelming majority of Israel’s existence.

The Oslo Accords, signed in 1993, and the so-called “peace process” which followed, have merely provided political cover for the relentless expansion of Jewish settlement and Palestinian dispossession across the West Bank.

What right-wing Zionists refer to as Judea and Samaria is not an aspiration — it is the political reality of a state in which full democratic rights are granted to Jews but not Palestinians.

While the mantras of ending the occupation and dismantling the settlements have tirelessly been repeated, year after year, the settlements have grown.

Both the terms settlement and occupation, mask with seeming impermanence a reality that has been set in reinforced concrete.

Given that over the course of more than twenty years, no progress whatsoever has been made towards the implementation of a two-state solution, the fact that it has now been rejected by Benjamin Netanyahu is a non-event. Yet this is a non-event that is deeply upsetting to many American Jews.

It’s not that they believed that peace was just around the corner. On the contrary, the value of the two-state solution has never derived from expectations about the future. Instead, its value is based very much in the present.

For liberal Americans — Jewish and non-Jewish — the two-state solution ideologically sanitized Israel by ostensibly embodying the desire that the political aspirations of both Jews and Palestinians could be recognized. If this promise is taken away, liberals are deprived of a fiction that allowed them to avoid confronting the illiberal nature of the Jewish state.

Americans want to be able to say they support Israel and democracy and Israel is forcing them to choose between the two.

Noam Sheizaf provided a reality check for participants at the J Street conference in Washington DC this week, when he said:

In Israel, we’ve got to the point where arguing for a state for all its citizens — equal rights for everyone — is a form of ‘Arab nationalism’ that should be made illegal. While arguing for an ethnic state that gives privileges to one group over the other is ‘democracy’…

I am 40 and I only know one Israel — and that’s from the [Jordan] River to the [Mediterranean] Sea. And in which there live Palestinians and Jews, roughly the same size of populations — they’re totally mixed with each other. They’re mixed in the Galilee, they’re mixed along the coast, they’re mixed in the West Bank by now, they’re mixed in the Negev — everywhere Jews living next to Palestinians.

One group has everything — all the rights — the other one has privileges given to it according to a complicated system of citizenship and where they happen to live and where their grandparents were in ’48…

I think we need to start looking at this in civil rights issues, if that’s what we believe in — and that’s the kind of activism I’m looking for. Not redrawing maps in a way that will keep some people in and some people out so that we can call themself [a] democracy.

Sheizaf also took J Street to task for its failure to talk about Gaza:

The post The Myth Of The Two-State Solution – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

The close bilateral ties between Singapore and the United States centred on friendship between Mr Lee Kuan Yew and successive American leaders. He established institutions to pursue strategic interests of both countries in a pragmatic partnership.

By Ong Keng Yong*

Mr Lee Kuan Yew, who died on 23 March 2015 aged 91, has been the most instrumental factor in the development of Singapore’s relations with the United States. In fact, bilateral ties were initially very much centred on the friendship between Mr Lee and successive American leaders who deeply respected his strong conviction, clear big-picture vision and extraordinary strategic leadership.

The Vietnam War could be said to have strengthened Mr Lee’s cachet and standing with Washington. Mr Lee saw American participation in the Vietnam War as buying time for non-Communist states in Southeast Asia, and played a role in stiffening US resolve to resist Communism. Singapore’s independent and non-aligned foreign policy orientation gave him great credence within the American policy establishment, as a neutral party supporting their military campaign in Vietnam.

A vital interpreter of events in Asia

Mr Lee remained a vital interpreter of events in Asia long after the Vietnam War ended. His standing in American policy circles has been explained by Foreign Minister K Shanmugam who notes that Mr Lee recognised some fundamental truths about the US and the world well before other states and leaders. Mr Lee saw that strong US presence was vital to maintain peace and balance in Asia as the Asian economies developed, and supported it long before it was fashionable to do so. Singapore was often in the minority of voices, sometimes even alone, in speaking up for the US in the developing world and forums such as the Non-Aligned Movement.

Later, again under Mr Lee’s leadership, Singapore stepped up to help the US maintain its presence in the region even as the US drew down its assets elsewhere. In November 1990, in one of his last acts as Prime Minister, Mr Lee signed a Memorandum of Understanding with then US Vice President Dan Quayle in Tokyo offering enhanced use of facilities in Singapore to American military aircraft and naval vessels as a contribution to sustaining US forward military position in Southeast Asia.

Even as he worked with American statesmen at the strategic level and preserved the balance of power in Asia, Mr Lee saw flaws within American society. Although he praised America’s strengths, its enterprising spirit and openness to talent, Mr Lee did not shy away from speaking of America’s weaknesses such as the widespread availability of guns, and as he puts it, the breakdown of civil society and erosion of the moral underpinnings of American society.

As American leaders valued Mr Lee’s views on geopolitics and the world order, and admired his accomplishment, they have not taken to heart his criticism. In some cases, American opinion makers also agreed with Mr Lee’s analysis of the problems troubling their country. They knew that Mr Lee believed in the American can-do way and that the US is the only country with the strength and determination to deal with the challenges faced by the global community. Even as the US was affected by the recent financial crisis and its supposed decline, Mr Lee repeatedly reminded others not to underestimate American creativity, resilience and innovative spirit. He is confident the US will find its feet again.

Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger writes: “…Lee has made himself an indispensable friend of the United States, not primarily by the power he represents, but by the excellence of his thinking. His analysis is of such quality and depth that his counterparts consider meeting with him as a way to educate themselves…Every American president who has dealt with him has benefitted from the fact that on international issues, he has identified the future of his country with the fate of democracies. Furthermore, Lee can tell us about the nature of the world that we face, especially penetrating insights into the thinking of his region. Lee’s analyses shed light on the most important challenge that the United States confronts over the long term: how to build a fundamental and organic relationship with Asia, including China. There is nobody who can teach us more about the nature and the scope of this effort than Lee Kuan Yew…Lee is not only one of the seminal leaders of our period, but also a thinker recognised for his singular strategic acumen.”

A pragmatic partnership to pursue strategic interests

Mr Lee’s long-term vision and strategic intellect single-handedly contributed to the cementing of the close ties that Singapore now enjoys with the US. Singapore and US officials often articulate that Mr Lee has established the institutions and processes for both countries to pursue strategic interests which would normally be impossible between a small island state and the global superpower. American policy-makers would always recall how Mr Lee developed the basis of bilateral defence cooperation, especially access arrangements for American forces in Singapore.

They also believed that it was Mr Lee’s persuasive influence which laid the ground for the US to enter into negotiations with the Singapore government on a bilateral free trade agreement. Through Mr Lee’s readiness to meet a large number of officials from the American policy establishment, substantial linkages have been built up which are now permanent and regular exchanges between the Singapore and US authorities.

Differences in policy and governance have surfaced from time to time. There will always be different priorities and emphasis in policy implementation but bilateral ties are now locked into a pragmatic partnership going beyond individual personalities. The solid foundation established by Mr Lee had allowed both countries to focus on the strategic issues and the big picture to substantiate the unique relationship. Ultimately, the ability of Singapore to articulate regional concerns and views, particularly on geopolitical and strategic issues, and to foster consensus in various international forums on common challenges facing the world will ensure a continuous dialogue and cooperation between the two countries.

Singapore leaders will continue to have access to the top policy-makers in Washington. Yet, they would need to establish their own level of influence and strategic value to the US. Countries in Asia have new leaders who can engage the US directly and in their own ways. This is different from the situation when Mr Lee was in government. The quality of Singapore’s strategic assessment of developments in Asia and beyond will determine the level of confidence, trust and value which American policy-makers will accord to Singapore.

*Ong Keng Yong is Executive Deputy Chairman of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. This commentary, which appeared earlier in Today, is the first in a series on the Legacy of Mr Lee Kuan Yew.

The post Pursuing Mutual Strategic Interests: Lee Kuan Yew’s Role In Singapore–US Relations – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

(RFE/RL) — Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has thanked the United States for its involvement in what has become the longest foreign war in U.S. history.

“We owe a profound debt to the 2,315 servicemen and women killed and the more than 20,000 who have been wounded in service to your country and ours,” he said, speaking in front of a joint session of the U.S. Congress on March 25.

The White House had announced the previous day that it would halt the drawdown of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, maintaining 9,800 troops through the end of 2015.

Ghani also thanked Washington for development aid and other civilian assistance to Afghanistan.

He also called the Islamic State (IS) group a “terrible threat” to the countries of Western and Central Asia, adding that IS fighters had already been sent to Afghanistan “to test for vulnerabilities.”

Ghani said that such groups are looking for new havens.

He said that “terrorist movements whose goal is to destabilize every state in the region are looking for new bases of operation.”

Ghani added that “We are the frontline, but the terrorists neither recognize boundaries nor require passports to spread their messages of hate and discord.”

He said that “to date, Afghanistan’s people have rejected the violent [IS] movement. We are willing to speak truth to terror.”

Ghani vowed that Afghanistan will never again be a haven for Al-Qaeda or other terrorist groups.

Ghani was received warmly by congressional members.

But his reception was not as enthusiastic as that of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who spoke to Congress on March 3.

Ghani’s gratitude towards the United States contrasted with that of his predecessor, Hamid Karzai, who had a rocky relationship with U.S. President Barack Obama.

Karzai said late in his term as president that he saw “no good” in the U.S. presence in Afghanistan and repeatedly refused to sign a bilateral security agreement with the United States, which Ghani promptly signed upon taking office in September.

Ghani thanked a broad section of American society: “We [Afghans] owe a profound debt to the many Americans who have come to build schools, repair wells, and cure the sick. And we must acknowledge with appreciation that at the end of the day it is the ordinary Americans whose hard-earned taxes have over the years built the partnership that has led to our conversation today.”

He also touted Afghanistan’s goal of self-reliance, which he defended as “no pipe dream.”

“We don’t want your charity. We have no more interest in perpetuating a childish dependence than you have in being saddled with a poor family member, who lacks the energy and drive to get out and find a job. We’re not going to be the lazy Uncle Joe,” he told Congress, eliciting laughs.

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NASA announced Wednesday more details in its plan for its Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM), which in the mid-2020s will test a number of new capabilities needed for future human expeditions to deep space, including to Mars.

NASA also announced it has increased the detection of near-Earth asteroids by 65 percent since launching its asteroid initiative three years ago.

For ARM, a robotic spacecraft will capture a boulder from the surface of a near-Earth asteroid and move it into a stable orbit around the moon for exploration by astronauts, all in support of advancing the nation’s journey to Mars.

“The Asteroid Redirect Mission will provide an initial demonstration of several spaceflight capabilities we will need to send astronauts deeper into space, and eventually, to Mars,” said NASA Associate Administrator Robert Lightfoot. “The option to retrieve a boulder from an asteroid will have a direct impact on planning for future human missions to deep space and begin a new era of spaceflight.”

The agency plans to announce the specific asteroid selected for the mission no earlier than 2019, approximately a year before launching the robotic spacecraft. Before an asteroid is considered a valid candidate for the mission, scientists must first determine its characteristics, in addition to size, such as rotation, shape and precise orbit. NASA has identified three valid candidates for the mission so far: Itokawa, Bennu and 2008 EV5. The agency expects to identify one or two additional candidates each year leading up to the mission.

Following its rendezvous with the target asteroid, the uncrewed ARM spacecraft will deploy robotic arms to capture a boulder from its surface. It then will begin a multi-year journey to redirect the boulder into orbit around the moon.

Throughout its mission, the ARM robotic spacecraft will test a number of capabilities needed for future human missions, including advanced Solar Electric Propulsion (SEP), a valuable capability that converts sunlight to electrical power through solar arrays and then uses the resulting power to propel charged atoms to move a spacecraft. This method of propulsion can move massive cargo very efficiently. While slower than conventional chemical rocket propulsion, SEP-powered spacecraft require significantly less propellant and fewer launches to support human exploration missions, which could reduce costs.

Future SEP-powered spacecraft could pre-position cargo or vehicles for future human missions into deep space, either awaiting crews at Mars or staged around the moon as a waypoint for expeditions to the Red Planet.

ARM’s SEP-powered robotic spacecraft will test new trajectory and navigation techniques in deep space, working with the moon’s gravity to place the asteroid in a stable lunar orbit called a distant retrograde orbit. This is a suitable staging point for astronauts to rendezvous with a deep space habitat that will carry them to Mars.

Before the piece of the asteroid is moved to lunar orbit, NASA will use the opportunity to test planetary defense techniques to help mitigate potential asteroid impact threats in the future. The experience and knowledge acquired through this operation will help NASA develop options to move an asteroid off an Earth-impacting course, if and when that becomes necessary.

In 2005, NASA’s Deep Impact comet science mission tested technology that could assist in changing the course of a near-Earth object using a direct hit with a spacecraft. The ARM robotic spacecraft opens a new and second option for planetary defense using a technique called a gravity tractor. All mass exerts and experiences gravity and, in space, the gravitational attraction even between masses of modest size can significantly affect their motion. This means that by rendezvousing with the asteroid and holding a halo orbit in the appropriate direction, the ARM robotic spacecraft can slowly pull the asteroid without touching it. The effectiveness of this maneuver is increased, moreover, if mass is moved from the asteroid to the spacecraft by the capture of a boulder.

It will take approximately six years for the ARM robotic spacecraft to move the asteroid mass into lunar orbit. In the mid-2020s, NASA’s Orion spacecraft will launch on the agency’s Space Launch System rocket, carrying astronauts on a mission to rendezvous with and explore the asteroid mass. The current concept for the crewed mission component of ARM is a two-astronaut, 24-25 day mission.

This crewed mission will further test many capabilities needed to advance human spaceflight for deep space missions to Mars and elsewhere, including new sensor technologies and a docking system that will connect Orion to the robotic spacecraft carrying the asteroid mass. Astronauts will conduct spacewalks outside Orion to study and collect samples of the asteroid boulder wearing new spacesuits designed for deep space missions.

Collecting these samples will help astronauts and mission managers determine how best to secure and safely return samples from future Mars missions. And, because asteroids are made of remnants from the formation of the solar system, the returned samples could provide valuable data for scientific research or commercial entities interested in asteroid mining as a future resources.

In 2012, the president’s NASA budget included, and Congress authorized, $20.4 million for an expanded NASA Near-Earth Object (NEO) Observations Program, increasing the resources for this critical program from the $4 million per year it had received since the 1990s. The program was again expanded in fiscal year 2014, with a budget of $40.5 million. NASA is asking Congress for $50 million for this important work in the 2016 budget.

“Asteroids are a hot topic,” said Jim Green, director of NASA Planetary Science. “Not just because they could pose a threat to Earth, but also for their scientific value and NASA’s planned mission to one as a stepping stone to Mars.”

NASA has identified more than 12,000 NEOs to date, including 96 percent of near-Earth asteroids larger than 0.6 miles (1 kilometer) in size. NASA has not detected any objects of this size that pose an impact hazard to Earth in the next 100 years. Smaller asteroids do pass near Earth, however, and some could pose an impact threat. In 2011, 893 near-Earth asteroids were found. In 2014, that number was increased to 1,472.

In addition to NASA’s ongoing work detecting and cataloging asteroids, the agency has engaged the public in the hunt for these space rocks through the agency’s Asteroid Grand Challenge activities, including prize competitions. During the recent South by Southwest Festival in Austin, Texas, the agency announced the release of a software application based on an algorithm created by a NASA challenge that has the potential to increase the number of new asteroid discoveries by amateur astronomers.

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The Afghan President Ashraf Ghani is on his first trip to Washington as head of state. The visit is seen as an opportunity for both sides to put past the legacy of troubled US-Afghan relations and start afresh. The US continues to be a key determinant of Afghanistan’s future. The Afghan president is accompanied by his chief executive, Abdullah Abdullah, and around 65 Afghan officials. During the four-day trip to the US, Ghani is scheduled to address a joint session of the US Congress and visit Camp David and New York.

Ghani would probably have liked two events to set the tone of his visit. First is the Afghan army’s first-ever solo offensive against the Taliban in Helmand province, seeking a decisive victory ahead of the spring fighting season. The offensive suitably demonstrating for the first time since 2002, the ability of the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) to go to battle without foreign combat assistance. The second, which eludes Ghani, is the success in the renewed push to bring the Taliban to the negotiating table and initiate a peace and reconciliation process.

The US Posture

Series of developments at various levels have brought the US mission in Afghanistan to a critical juncture even as it draws down. Newly appointed US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter announced on February 21that Washington is considering a number of changes to its mission in Afghanistan, which includes the drawdown schedule and the counter-terrorism mission.

The Barack Obama administration appears to be nearing a decision to keep more troops in Afghanistan next year than it has declared. Also related is the fact that maintaining the troop levels closer to 10,000 would also allow the US-led coalition to operate two large bases in Kandahar and Jalalabad. The Jalalabad base is the hub for intelligence gathering activity and drone operations. On the other hand troop contribution by North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies for the training mission in Afghanistan have not been easy to come by.

The events in Iraq of last year have also had an effect. These have not only caused the US to take a hard look at the ANSF capabilities but also changed to an extent, the public opinion back home on extended troop deployment in Afghanistan. Pakistani cooperation on countering terror and coordinated operations with the ANSF along the international border has also made US oversight of the developments crucial. Ghani is pushing to keep as many international troops in Afghanistan as possible for as long as possible and accordingly is requesting more flexibility on the scheduling of the drawdown. The US is reportedly “actively considering” his request.

On the flip side, the US use of air power in Afghanistan in the first two months of 2015 has been its lowest in five years. None of the 503 air support sorties by US air assets this year have been flown to support ANSF in battle. A move, when seen along with its decision not to launch ground operations by coalition troops against the Taliban, is perhaps to provide both Afghanistan and Pakistan a more suitable environment to progress peace talks with the Taliban.

Afghan Taliban

Taliban ranks appear to be deeply divided over whether to engage in talks and have persisted with attacks on the government in Kabul. In eastern and southern Afghanistan, where the Taliban have traditionally been stronger, it was the US airstrikes and other combat support that had prevented the Taliban from making significant inroads during last year’s fighting season. Yet the Taliban has gained influence in parts of northern Afghanistan in areas that were recently seen to be firmly under government control. Also the observers feel the fighting this winter has been among the most intense since the war began. This increased intensity of operations maybe efforts to secure a stronger negotiating position, or worse, part of the Taliban plan to fight out the government in Kabul.

A breakthrough in peace talks with the Taliban would have allowed the US to stay course with its drawdown plan to reduce the number of troops in Afghanistan from 10,000 to about 5,600 by the end of this year.

While the Taliban continues to be the primary challenge to peace in Afghanistan, it has now been assessed that the remaining Al Qaeda presence in Af-Pak is probably more robust than estimated. Besides Al Qaeda, concerns are also mounting over reports and evidence of groups affiliated with the Islamic State (IS) emerging in Afghanistan. The IS besides extending its writ, analysts fear, may be eyeing the estimated $3 billion a year from Afghanistan’s poppy crop to augment its war chest. It is felt that the ANSF in measuring up to these challenges in 2015 may find itself wanting in capacity to ensure the country’s security.

The Visit

In addition to the US drawdown plans, Taliban peace talks and the IS threat, Ghani during his visit is also expected to focus on the financial support to Afghanistan, which has been secured until 2017, but needs to be secured for the next five years. The growing role of China in the peace process may be up for discussion. Ghani also needs US backing, to pressure the Pakistani government to deliver more on bringing peace to Afghanistan. The risk of insufficient action by stakeholders is clear and has the potential to reverse the progress made so far.

The US president on his part may bring up the issue of implementation of the US-backed plan for the unity government in Kabul. Critics feel that instead of decentralizing the president’s powers as he had vowed, Ghani has been quietly consolidating his power and creating an even more dominant presidency. Ghani is reportedly bringing billions of dollars in procurement deals under his direct purview, denying ministries the opportunity to contract their own goods and services, citing corruption fears.

This is also the time when analysts back home have been criticising the Narendra Modi government for a passive Afghanistan policy and the Afghan government of ignoring Indian interests. Even as Ghani visited Saudi Arabia earlier this month, his CEO Abdullah was in India to shore up support for a “regional consensus” on reconciliation with the Taliban.

India would look at Ghani’s US visit for some more tangible indications of the future US strategy in Af-Pak and even Central Asia. It would also provide a measure of how the Afghanistan-Pakistan counter-terrorism coordination is progressing and how far US would go in supporting it. Though India is playing along, the current US approach in Af-Pak invokes little confidence within India.

This article was published at South Asia Monitor

The post Ghani In Washington: Unfolding Of Future US Strategy – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Preety Bhogal*

South Asia is a regional bloc that holds immense trade potential but the achievement in intra-regional economic integration has been insignificant so far. The scope of regional cooperation among the South Asian economies is still limited. The 18th SAARC Summit held in Kathmandu, Nepal in November 2014, marked the dominion of the “alliance with neighborhood first” tenet in the evolving foreign policy of India. However, in terms of the India trade with the region, the reality is far from the popular belief.

The relationship between India and other South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) member states rejects the gravity theory of international trade, which emphasizes on the role of geographical proximity in augmenting bilateral trade among countries. Despite the nearness, India has a prolonged history of poor trade with the other SAARC nations. In 2013-2014, India’s trade with SAARC members was 2.6 percent of India’s total trade with the rest of the world. Compared to this, India’s trade with countries further away in terms of distance namely the United States (US) and countries in the European Union (EU) was much larger.

India’s trade with SAARC member states is not only low, but it has been more or less stagnant over the past few years. It stood at about 2.2 percent in 2009-10, and continued to remain in bandwidth of 2-2.6 percent over the past five years.

Within the SAARC region, India is the largest economy in terms of its gross domestic product and the size of its market. It is the most strategically located, as a center point of the SAARC region, with both land and sea connectivity with other SAARC member states. India shares a land border with four member nations and a sea border with two others. No other SAARC nation shares a common border with each other. Due to its strategic location, India acts as an important trans-shipment hub for the land-locked SAARC member states such as Nepal and Bhutan. According to an estimate, more than 50 percent of the total trade for these countries takes place with India. The trade statistics from 2013-2014 show that within SAARC, a majority of India’s trade takes place with Bangladesh (33.3 percent), Sri Lanka (26 percent) and Nepal (20.6 percent).

Traditional theories of comparative advantage very well justify the low level of trade in the SAARC region. There is a lack of trade complementarities in the region. Most countries specialize in the production of similar products such as textiles. India’s trade therefore is skewed towards the developed countries in the West, namely the US, the EU and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The major items of trade (apart from gold) include petroleum, gems and jewellery, high-technology machinery, fertilizers, textiles, among others.

India’s present trade in the SAARC region reflects more of the strained political relationship than an economic logic. However, more recently, there have been several initiatives in the right direction.

With the new government in 2014, India’s foreign policy is being redrawn with a buoyant outlook, which accentuates the need to move from a protectionist environment to a more liberal trade framework. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has reinforced the importance of South Asian regional integration at several international forums and this has also been reflected in growing diplomatic visits in the region. The reigning idea of India’s ministerial conferences with the leaders of the neighboring nations is to improve the overall trade and investment climate in the region. More specifically, the focus has been to improve physical (road, rail, sea and air) and cultural connectivity within the SAARC region. This is expected to provide an impetus to India-SAARC ties.

It is well recognized that removal of trade and non-trade barriers would enhance regional cooperation among the SAARC members. While tariff reduction is the most popular tool for trade liberalization, for streamlining trade and investments in the region, SAARC member states have undertaken a series of trade facilitation measures. For instance, SAARC member states had established the South Asian Regional Standards Organization (SARSO) in 2011 to address the most important non-trade barrier of divergence in standards of the products traded in the region. While this is a step in the right direction, there are presently only 38 items for which the standards are being harmonized. This list of items needs to be expanded by including other essential items of regional interest such as refined sugar, jute bags, cement, among others. For certain product categories such as food items, the SAARC standards can be brought in line with the globally followed Codex Alimentarius standards.

The leaders of SAARC are also committed to transform this region into South Asian Economic Union (SAEU) through free flow of goods among the member states, which requires streamlining the customs procedures, easy visa regimes, direct road and rail connectivity and rationalization of the tariff structures. This delay in delivery is due to the absence of a direct road or rail link between India and Bangladesh, which hinders the growth of trade between them. Several efforts have been made by the SAARC nations to improve road and rail connectivity within the region, which is expected to boost trade and cultural exchanges in SAARC.

While some measures are being undertaken to enhance trade in goods, it is important for the SAARC member states to enhance the scope of collaboration beyond goods, to include trade in services and economic cooperation. Some of the potential areas of cooperation include hydropower trading, religious tourism and asynchronous intra-grid connectivity.

Bhutan’s power sector has an untapped trade potential of nearly 28,520 megawatts (MW) as the four major hydropower plants namely Chukha, Kurichhu, Basochu and Tala have an installed capacity of merely 1,480 MW, which is barely 4.9 percent of its total hydropower potential. This is a potential sector for investment for Indian companies as the production cost of hydropower in Bhutan is one of the lowest in the world, which translates into higher returns for the investors. Moreover, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India and Nepal (BBIN) have taken multilateral approach-laden initiatives by exploring the scope for engaging in power trade and inter-grid connectivity among themselves. At present, India-Bhutan, India-Bangladesh and India-Nepal grids are interconnected that facilitate cross-border trade in these nations. However, the potential trade partners for India, namely Sri Lanka and Pakistan, still remain isolated from the power grid connectivity loop among SAARC nations.

Another measure for enhancing intra-SAARC merchandise trade requires India to redesign its sensitive list by removing products that are of export interest to SAARC member states. A reduction in the size of sensitive lists will magnify the size of regional trade among SAARC members. A closer look at the sensitive list of Pakistan reveals that items that hold comparative export potential for India such as automobiles, textiles, steel and pharmaceuticals form a part of the restricted imports from India to Pakistan. This might be a measure directed at protecting the domestic industries in Pakistan from international competition, but an improved regional integration would produce a win-win situation for both the members. The liberalization of foreign direct investments (FDI) climate in SAARC region is likely to deepen the trade linkages among the member states. Creation of well-targeted investment opportunities for private and public sector companies within SAARC, particularly for infrastructural development, could be a way forward in the integration of India with SAARC members.

There exists a huge trade potential of India with the SAARC nations, a large proportion of it is still untapped and yet to be realized. It is essential that the SAARC leaders recognize the distinct issues and problems of each member state and address them separately.

For instance, the cross-border terrorism and insurgency issues with Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka have to be dealt with independent of each other. Moreover, the bilateral trade between India and Pakistan is largely affected due to the Kashmir issue as well as the denial of granting accord of the most favoured nation (MFN) status to India. The issue of India and Pakistan is delicate, and therefore it needs to be addressed appropriately without affecting the spirit of free trade and integration in the overall SAARC region.

There is an urgent need to overhaul in the SAARC region for bringing the member states closer to each other. Several initiatives have been made by India in this regard.

The recent visit of Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar to four SAARC nations is conclusive of India’s determination to forge cooperation with its neighbours. The Indian foreign secretary undertook the ‘SAARC Yatra’ with an objective to review the initiatives announced for the region by Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the 18th SAARC Summit in Nepal, such as launch of a SAARC satellite, a SAARC business travelers’ card and partnership between South Asian University (SAU) and other universities in the member states. Similar regional integration efforts are being fostered by other neighbouring states, such as the visit of Sri Lankan President, Maithripala Sirisena, to India in February 2015 has paved the way for India and Sri Lanka cooperation in energy and water front.

The SAARC nations must realize that greater economic cooperation is to be built on the foundation of cultural cooperation. Developing economic cooperation among them through people-to-people contact and educational and cultural exchanges is the foremost step in enhancing regional cooperation. Such partnerships among SAARC members are likely to shape the trade and investment climate of the region and provide a new dimension to their alliance.

*Preety Bhogal is Researcher, Centre for Policy Research (CPR), India. The author can be contacted at preety273@gmail.com

The post India And SAARC: Will New Initiatives Work? – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By G. Padmaja*

SAARC regional cooperation and sub-regional cooperation were some of the issues discussed during Indian Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar’s visit to Bhutan and Bangladesh on March 1 and 2 as part of his SAARC Yatra. These issues have acquired importance following Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘neighbourhoood first’ policy. At the 18th SAARC summit in Kathmandu Prime Minister Modi minced no words in describing the limited progress which the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation has made in the last 30 years.

It is in this context that the experience of sub-regional cooperation in SAARC is being examined to understand whether it has facilitated the bonds to grow among the member countries. But before going any further it is important to understand – What is sub regional cooperation? The normal form of regional cooperation is institutional integration which is characterised by legal arrangements that promote preferential trade among members. Sub regional cooperation is considered as a less formal form of cooperation.

The focus is on border regions of the member countries and not the countries as a whole. Studies have brought out that one of the successful sub-regional cooperation programme is the Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS). In GMS, facilities were provided that reduced transaction costs associated with international movement of goods, services, and other production factors. Thus, GMS devised economic corridors where a network of roads were built to connect the region and reduce costs of transporting goods and people. These corridors also focused on interconnections for power transmission and telecommunication links. The GMS programme also simplified customs, and the visa systems among others which helped in regionalism as a whole.

Only with necessary ‘connectivity’ infrastructure – in terms of transport; energy/power transmission; communication – will the member countries benefit from the agreements that they have reached to bring down tariff barriers. Thus, sub-regional cooperation focuses on these non-tariff barriers. It is also observed that the institutional agreements and sub-regional cooperation facilities complement each other wherein the latter helps in effective implementation of the former. In the absence of ‘connectivity infrastructure’, even in a scenario of free trade, the member countries will not benefit.

It was only in the 9th SAARC Summit held at Male, Maldives in 1997 that the member countries agreed for, “…the development of specific projects relevant to the special individual needs of three or more member states”. This proposal was not easy to arrive at and there was resentment among the member countries who would not be part of such projects. However, it was argued that sub-regional cooperation would help in evolving solutions to the development needs of a particular area and that it was not contrary to the SAARC Charter.

The BBIN-GQ (Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal – Growth Quadrangle) is the result of these efforts. The concerned countries decided that BBIN-GQ was to follow a project- led approach to cooperation in the core economic areas of multimodal transportation and communication, energy, trade and investment facilitation and promotion, tourism, optimal utilisation of natural resource endowments and environment.

These projects were to be supportive of and complementary to the national plans of the concerned countries and would make the best use of neighbourhood synergies. However, no significant progress was made in BBIN-GQ.

Since 2001, the South Asia Sub-regional Economic Cooperation (SASEC) programme (www.sasec.asia) has brought together Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, India in a project based partnership to promote regional prosperity by improving cross-border connectivity, boosting trade among member countries, and strengthening regional economic cooperation. Since 2014, Sri Lanka and Maldives are also part of this programme. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) serves as Secretariat to the SASEC programme.

The SASEC partnership works to increase trade and cooperation within South Asia, while also creating the linkages to East and Southeast Asia. SASEC countries follow a flexible multi-track approach, with coordinated projects in different countries implemented nationally as well as across borders, to promote sub-regional cooperation. national road and rail networks, for example, are strengthened within individual countries, yet are planned and prioritized to link up across national borders with transport networks in neighbouring countries. Under SASEC, the Chittagong Port Trade Facilitation Project has increased the capacity and efficiency of the container terminal and is helping international port security and environmental standards to be met. This leads to lower shipping and port charges, contributing to more international trade.

Sub regional cooperation is an important instrument to build bonds among member countries. Within SAARC the BBIN –GQ has not been able to show results. However, the experience of SASEC has shown that sub-regional projects have been successfully implemented. SAARC needs to learn from the experience of SASEC. India can take the lead in activating sub-regional cooperation projects. The experience of SASEC has important bilateral lessons for India. For the ‘neighbourhood first’ policy to be effective, it is essential to identify those specific bottlenecks or non-tariff barriers which prevent economic cooperation even in a situation when tariff barriers are brought down.

*G. Padmaja, a former United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research, Visiting Research Fellow at the United Nations, Geneva, is presently an independent researcher writing on SAARC and India’s Foreign Policy towards its immediate neighbours. She can be reached at sri2003ja@yahoo.com

The post Sub-Regional Cooperation Can Give SAARC New Wings – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

(EurActiv) — During an interview on 8 March, Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said that the EU needed its own military, in order to deal with the Russian threat, as well as to restore the bloc’s standing around the world. (Related: A European Army: Not For Now – Analysis)

Not everyone agrees. Germany and France support Juncker’s idea, while Poland, Romania, the Czech Republic and Slovakia insist that NATO should remain the guarantor of security on the European continent.

EurActiv asked its network to report on national reactions. Unsurprisingly, the British position was negative.

A spokesman for the Cameron government told EurActiv UK: “Our position is crystal clear that defence is a national, not an EU responsibility and that there is no prospect of that position changing and no prospect of a European army.”

Germany: the army is in the coalition agreement

The 2013 German coalition government agreement states: “We strive for an even closer network of European forces, which can evolve into a parliamentary-controlled European army.”

Chancellor Angela Merkel and Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier (SPD) are in favour of a European military, but they both stated at the beginning of March that Juncker’s proposal could only be realized over the long-term, and should be discussed further at EU level.

“The Chancellor agrees that it is generally good that there is and should be a deeper military cooperation in Europe,” said deputy government spokeswoman Christiane Wirtz, also referring to the “concentrated challenges” in European security policy, which require a common response.

Elmar Brok, an influential MEP from Merkel’s CDU party, said an EU treaty change was necessary for giving flesh to the idea of a European army. Normally troops are sent abroad by a decision of parliament. Since it is not possible to wait for 28 parliaments to decide, countries should delegate this right to the European Parliament.

In the Berlin’s Tagesspiegel, Steinmeier spoke of “new risks and threats” to European peace that necessitate a “swift adaptation” of the security strategy. “For the SPD, the long-term goal of a European army is a major policy matter and has been part of the party program for many years,” he said.

Government officials in Berlin made it clear they do not expect any swift implementation. Wirtz spoke of a “future project that can’t be forced into a schedule”. A spokesman from the Defense Ministry called the project a “long-term goal”. Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen (CDU) welcomed Juncker’s proposal.

Speaking to Bayerischer Rundfunk, Omid Nouripour, an MP from Germany’s Green Party, supports Juncker’s proposal in principle, calling it an “excellent idea”. Such a denationalization of the armed forces would in his view be the largest contribution to a policy of peace in the world. But a common army could not exist as long as there is no real common foreign policy, he argued.

Criticism however came from the left. “Juncker’s proposal is clearly directed against Russia,” said the defense spokeswoman for the Left faction, Christine Buchholz. “Instead of a European army and a European arms policy, Europe requires a peaceful foreign policy and disarmament.”

Claudia Major and Christian Mölling from the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) see the whole discussion as an ideological battle that does not advance Europe’s defense. Instead, they call for pragmatic steps on the way to a defensible Europe.

According to both political scientists, many issues are unclear, such as where the joint army should be deployed, and who should be in control or authorize the army’s use. Major and Mölling regularly see considerable resistance against a real debate about the idea, because with the Europeanisation of defence, national privileges and traditions would need to be abandoned. Thus, the call for a European army remains a symbolic commitment to more Europe, situated in the far future, that only distracts from the real problems of European defence in the here-and-now.

France: the European army already exists

Commenting on Juncker’s support for a European army, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said that such an army “already exists”, adding it was France who assumed the heaviest burden each time the EU undertook a military effort abroad.

Valls mentioned France’s operations in Mali and in the Sahel, and appealed to the rest of the EU to “better share the expenses”

Harlem Désir, the French Secretary of State for European Affairs, said that France was very keen to implement a real common European defence policy.

“We hope to make progress with the European defence policy, which is indispensable in light of the peace and security challenges that Europe faces from its surrounding countries, to which we must find a common response,” Désir said.

He said France was keen on working not only on issues such as capability, external operations and financing, but also in the field of the European defence industry.

France was in favour of the merger between the French and German armoured vehicle manufacturers Nexter and KMW, Désir said, adding that work had also started on developing European surveillance drones following a decision of the European Council of December 2013. “We have to continue combining our industrial forces,” the Secretary of State said.

But before entertaining thoughts of a European army, he stressed the need to make full use of the agreements already in place, which allow the EU to mobilise response teams, like those recently sent to Mali and the Central African Republic.

“But it took a long series of negotiations before around 60 European soldiers were deployed alongside French and African troops in this last conflict. Europe can and must do better. This will be discussed at the European Council in June,” Désir said.

Italy: Let’s use the resource of the Lisbon Treaty

EurActiv Italy interviewed the Executive Vice President of the Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI) Gianni Bonvicini, who argued that if EU countries want to move towards a European army, they can already make progress under the Lisbon Treaty.

“The Lisbon Treaty includes the possibility of creating a cooperation in this sector. Therefore the member states can get together and launch a stronger cooperation in defense,” Bonvicini said.

The scholar argued that NATO was not an obstacle if member states wanted to do more in the defense field, compared to the past, as the United States was ready to share responsibilities in this field.

“Yet the EU lacks reliability, because member states failed to reach an agreement on this issue. In 1998, during the St. Malo summit, the UK and France agreed to increase cooperation between their armed forces, setting a new era for their military relations. But today things have changed, and the UK doesn’t want to participate in this project anymore,” Bonvicini said.

Czech Republic “We have NATO”

The Czech Republic supports the idea of a common EU army, but says that this army will become a reality in the future.

Minister of Defence Martin Stropnický said the idea was not surprising. “The only thing which is new is that Juncker puts the vision of the EU armed forces in context with (of) the Russian challenge,” Stropnický told EurActiv.cz.

But for this purpose there is NATO, Stropnický stressed. “The Czech Republic perceives the NATO as a primary tool of European collective defence and deterrence of eventual aggressor(s),” the minister said.

The discussion about the possible common EU armed forces appears to be in limbo in the Czech Republic. Politicians addressed by EurActiv mainly welcome the debate, but some of them sounded sceptical, and repeated that the core of European defence is NATO.

“Juncker’s conception should not duplicate NATO, despite the fact not all the EU member states are members of NATO,” MP Marek Ženíšek, from the center-right opposition TOP 09 party, told EurActiv. “We should strengthen the existing EU military conceptions as Battlegroups or (the) Pooling & Sharing Initiative,” he added.

Senator Ivan Gabal from the opposition KDU-ČSL party (centre-right) sounded more sceptical. “The EU army should be able to be deployed. The EU is not capable of doing it at this point and I would be very nervous about the transfer of such powers from the member states to the EU institutions”.

Slovakia: The discussion is premature

The idea of a European army did not spark much public interest in Slovakia. Strangely enough, not even the keenest adversaries of Slovak involvement in NATO seized the opportunity to speak up.

Martina Balleková, the spokeswoman of the Slov Ministry of Defence, told EurActiv Slovakia: “Since we do not know the details of this proposal, it would be premature to respond to it. However, we would like to focus on strengthening the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) of the EU, in line with the decisions of the European Council of December 2013.

Balleková added that progress in this area, including changes in our security environment, would be evaluated by the European Council in June 2015. “The North Atlantic Alliance remains the main security guarantor for Slovakia,” she stressed.

Poland doesn’t believe the idea

Poland neither believes (in) nor wants a European army, a spokesperson of the Ministry of Defense told EurActiv Poland.

Being one of the member states geographically closer to Russia, and having had negative experiences with the country in the past, Warsaw is wary of any action that may bring any divisions to European solidarity against Russian aggression. Creating a common European army “is currently neither possible nor needed, Warsaw believes. (A) weakening of NATO’s cohesion in such a difficult moment of history is undesired”, the Ministry explained.

Other government security agencies sounded equally sceptical. General Stanisław Koziej, the Chief of the National Security Bureau, called the potential creation of the European army “an idea that is virtuous but unrealistic in the current political situation”.

Koziej explained that a common army would require civilian political oversight. Such oversight could only be provided by a united, federal Europe, a “United States of Europe”. Therefore, he does not believe that a creation of such an entity would be possible at the current stage of European integration.

“There is no state that would relinquish control of its army or intelligence services. Therefore, while intellectually attractive, any talk about the European army, is only theoretical at this point,” Koziej told EurActiv Poland.

Yet Poland is all in favour of increasing European security capacities within NATO, as well as individually and regionally among the member states. The Polish MoD stressed to EurActiv the need for an increased number of joint military exercises, with the aim “to provide experience and a framework for realising common goals”.

Romania: Don’t open the Pandora’s Box

In Romania, Jean-Claude Juncker’s proposal has been met with concern, particularly from academics. In a comprehensive article covering the issue, Valentin Naumescu, associate professor at Babeş-Bolyai University, wrote that the Junker idea translates the inefficiency of the Union’s foreign policy, and the obstinacy of EU leaders, into searching for alternatives for NATO.

In an exclusive interview with EurActiv Romania, Luciana Ghica, the Director of the Centre for International Cooperation and Development Studies (Department of Political Science, International Relations and Security Studies, University of Bucharest) stated that “Juncker has just opened a Pandora box”.

“A European army would seem a natural step forward in the logic of nation-state building, an idea that addresses the core of the European Union political project and, at the same time, it shifts in a direction that many would find inappropriate, particularly within the current economic and security climate,” Ghica writes.

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Cambodian authorities should drop trumped-up charges of “insurrection” against 11 opposition party activists, Human Rights Watch said Wednesday. A hearing in the trial of the Cambodian National Rescue Party (CNRP) members is scheduled for March 27, 2015, in the Phnom Penh Municipal Court.

A Cambodian judicial officer familiar with the insurrection charges described them to Human Rights Watch as “ridiculous.” Cambodia’s international donors should inform the government that their continued support depends on ending the prosecutions of Cambodians for exercising their fundamental rights to freedom of expression, association, and peaceful assembly.

“The prosecution of the 11 activists is the latest round of Prime Minister Hun Sen’s campaign to intimidate and imprison opponents of his government,” said Brad Adams, Asia director. “Donors should speak out against such proceedings and the growing list of political prisoners in the country.”

The case against the 11 men is in connection with violence that occurred on July 15, 2014, around Phnom Penh’s Democracy Plaza (also known as “Freedom Park”). Those facing trial are: Meach Sovannara, Oeu Narit, Khin Roeun, Neang Sokhon, San Kimheng, Sum Puthy, Ke Khim, Tep Narin, An Patham, San Seihak, and Uk Pech Samnang. Six have been granted temporary release under judicial supervision, but five remain in detention. They face 20 to 30 years in prison.

The indictment alleges that the CNRP members already indicted and others who may yet be indicted plotted to violently storm Democracy Plaza. The plaza is a legally designated site for demonstrations that had been used by the CNRP to protest election fraud and other irregularities since the July 2013 national elections.

“Individuals who engaged in or incited violence against the authorities should be appropriately charged with credible offenses and fairly tried, but the government should end its practice of making up cases against its opponents,” Adams said.

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By Abdulateef Al-Mulhim

Muslims across the world are going through a very difficult phase due to the wrong and un-Islamic actions of a few terrorist groups. These days it has become all the more important for every Muslim to spread the true teachings of Islam so as to present the true face of our religion to the world.

In such a situation, a brutal incident that took place in the war-torn Afghanistan came to the fore. According to media reports, a group of thugs held a woman and accused her of desecrating a copy of the Qur’an. They brutally tortured her and set her on fire. Most likely she must have had succumbed to the injuries caused due to the torture long before she was set ablaze. It has been reported that the deceased woman was known for being mentally ill.

Sadly, none of the self-appointed custodians of faith who committed the act had reportedly seen the woman desecrating the copy of Qur’an.

It all started when a group of women shouted and accused the lady of burning the holy book. Some men outside heard the accusation and within minutes the woman was lying lifeless. Vigilantes, who apparently did not have a proper understanding of the true teachings of Islam, killed her in the most brutal manner.

Exactly two years ago, in my article published in the Arab News “Do Muslims really understand Islam?,” I had raised this question. Apparently, many Muslims don’t understand the true spirit of Islam.

In the current global situation, it would be difficult to convince non-Muslims after each and every incident that the crime might have been committed in the name of Islam by Muslims but such brutalities have nothing to do with the true teachings of Islam. Of course, how could they believe us? The Internet is replete with videos of horrific acts committed by so-called Muslims against Muslims and non-Muslims.

The question is: Who really burned the copy of the Qur’an and who really desecrated it?

The Qur’an was revealed to our Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) through angel Gabriel. It was revealed gradually over a period of more than two decades. The first word that was revealed is read. In the Arab and Muslim world, Qur’an is a book that you will find in every room of every Muslim’s house, classrooms, hotel rooms, automobiles, shops and mosques.

As a matter of fact, many non-Muslims across the world also keep a copy of this book to learn about Islam and many non-Muslims have genuine respect for Islam and Muslims. During the past few years, some incidents of Qur’an’s desecration had been reported in the media. In the wake of such incidents, we witnessed riots leading to some deaths in many Muslim countries. We tend to forget one important fact that Muslims are taught that Qur’an is protected by Allah and not by humans.

Islam does not encourage Muslims to carry copies of the Qur’an to places where it might be desecrated due to negligence or misunderstandings. But sadly just by looking at the damages done to mosques, schools and houses in the Arab and Muslim world during the so-called Arab Spring or sectarian violence elsewhere, it could be inferred that hundreds of copies of the Qur’an must have been burned by Muslims themselves.

Beating and killing a woman without any evidence has nothing to do with respecting the Qur’an. Respecting the book is to understand the true meanings of its contents. The holy book should not only be read thoroughly like a parrot but we should try to absorb the meanings of its verses. We have seen war planes flown by Muslims, armored tanks driven by Muslims, powerful explosives carried by Muslims that damaged mosques, schools, houses and other buildings that are full of copies of the Qur’an in Syria, Libya, Yemen and other Muslim countries. And in the wake of violence in these countries, damage has been done to thousands of copies of the Qur’an. So who really burned and desecrated the Qur’an?

If Muslims really read and understand the Qur’an, the Muslim world will be free from sectarian violence, sectarian wars, political chaos, corruption, poverty and killings in the name of Islam. We should bear in mind that the world judges what we do in the name of Islam and not what we say about Islam.

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(RFE/RL) — Hackers aligned to Islamic State (IS) militants attacked 600 Russian websites last year, according to a new report by Russian cyber intelligence company Group-IB.

The websites targeted by the group include a number of banks, construction companies, government organizations, and even schools and a local history museum in the North Urals, Group-IB said on March 25.

According to Group-IB’s research, several pro-IS hacking groups appear to have been involved in the attacks on Russian websites. As well as the “CyberCaliphate,” the research also found groups calling themselves Team System Dz, Global Islamic Caliphate and FallaGa Team were involved in the hacks.

Group-IB’s Ilya Sachkov, who helped undertake in the research, told RFE/RL that the pro-IS hackers have, at least so far, used only simple hacking techniques and hacking kits to carry out their attacks.

However, companies and governments in Russia and elsewhere should not underestimate the IS group’s hacking capabilities, he warned.

The pro-IS hackers are “trying to find new kits and new malware” to use in future attacks, Sachkov said.

According to Sachkov, the number of pro-IS cyber criminals appears to be increasing.

“There is a risk that IS hackers will switch from relatively easy attacks to more complicated ones, including against critical infrastructure and industrial systems,” Sachkov said.

Pro-IS hackers are not just targeting Russia, Sachkov said.

“Right now, IS will attack any country — their mission is to carry out attacks for attention and to create panic,” he added.

It is not clear whether the pro-IS hackers who carried out the attacks against Russian sites are IS sympathizers based in Russia, or whether they are located elsewhere.

Sachkov said that he was urging Russian law enforcement to try to establish whether Russian nationals are involved in the attacks.

Russia is not the only country to have come under attack from pro-IS hackers, however.

Cyber criminals claiming to be from a group named the “CyberCaliphate” have targeted a number of Western websites and social media accounts, hitting headlines in January when they hacked the Twitter and YouTube accounts of the U.S. Army’s Central Command and posting what seemed to be the private information of U.S. army generals.

The “CyberCaliphate” has also targeted websites and social media accounts belonging to media outlets. In February, the group hacked Newsweek’s Twitter account, replacing the main banner and avatar of the account with images of a black flag and a masked militant. The hackers posted a message wishing U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama a “Bloody Valentine’s Day.”

Earlier this week, pro-IS hackers calling themselves the “Islamic State Hacking Division” released a hit list of 100 U.S. military personnel, including names and addresses. A message from the group was signed by the “Islamic State hacking division.”

While these attacks have had their intended effect of grabbing headlines and causing alarm, they have also raised questions of whether the pro-IS hackers are tech-savvy terrorists with the ability to access confidential, encrypted data — or just individuals with access to Google.

Although the “Islamic State Hacking Division” claimed to have obtained the names and addresses of U.S. troops by hacking U.S. government databases, the “hackers” involved didn’t hack the Pentagon. Instead, The Daily Beast claims, they likely just searched Google.

At least two-thirds of the U.S. military personnel whose names appear on the “hit list” had been featured on public Defense Department websites designed to promote the military, the Daily Beast reported.

One defense official even told the Daily Beast that some of the addresses were not correct, and one service member listed is no longer serving in the military.

— Joanna Paraszczuk

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Saudi Arabia and a coalition of Arab allies launched airstrikes in neighboring Yemen late Wednesday, according to Adel al-Jubeir the Saudi ambassador to the United States.

According to Adel al-Jubeir, Saudi ambassador to the US, the airstrikes were part of a 10-nation coalition, which also comprised members from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).

“The operation is to defend and support the legitimate government of Yemen and prevent the radical Houthi movement from taking over the country,” Jubair told reporters in Washington, as cited by Al Jazeera.

According to the Saudi state news agency SPA, the Minister of Defense Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz “supervised the first air strike on the Houthis’ strongholds in Yemen, which resulted in the destruction of all Houthi air defenses fully, Al-Dailami base, SAM missiles batteries and four warplanes, without any losses in the Saudi Air Force.”

The news of the airstrikes followed reports that Yemen’s President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi was rushed to a “secure location” Wednesday as rebel forces bore down on his southern stronghold and a warplane attacked his presidential complex, prompting pleas for urgent intervention, as reported by Arab News.

According to that same Arab News report, a top aide said that Hadi had been taken to a safe haven “within Aden,” the southern port city. Earlier a source in the presidential guard said that Hadi had flown overseas, but the aide denied he had left the country.

Earlier in the day, the Houthis said they had captured Hadi’s defense minister.

According to CNN, Ansar Allah, described as a leading member of the Houthis’ political wing, the Houthis will meet the Saudi-led attack with force.

“This is a clear aggression and we will respond by a counteraggression … The Saudi move will unite all the people of Yemen against the Saudis and the kingdom will pay the price,” said Ali Al Imad as cited by CNN Arabic.

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The Germanwings co-pilot seemed to have crashed the plane deliberately, killing 150 people on board. The co-pilot wouldn’t let the captain inside the cabin, with the “intension to destroy” the jet, the French prosecutor said at a press conference.

The Germanwings co-pilot was identified as Andreas Lubitz.

The captain was between 30 and 40 years old, fully qualified, had 10,000 hours of flight, and had worked with Lufthansa for 10 years, while the co-pilot was 28, and commenced working for Lufthansa in 2013.

Prosecutor Brice Robin provided the explanation he thought the most likely, judging by the transcript of the black box recording of the last 30 minutes in the cockpit before the crash.

The captain left the cockpit to go to the toilet, asking the co-pilot to take over. Then the co-pilot accelerated the plane’s descent, likely voluntarily, the prosecutor said.

Someone attempted to break open the door to the cockpit from the outside, he added.

Afterwards, demands for the co-pilot to open the door are heard, and the captain “desperately” bangs on the door, but the co-pilot refuses to open it.

On the recording, there is the sound of the co-pilot breathing “normally” and “not uttering a single word” until the plane crashes, the prosecutor said.

The recording suggested that passengers began screaming just before the final impact.

Services on the ground didn’t receive any distress signals from the A320 before the crash, despite several attempts to contact the aircraft.

The prosecutor said that there are no grounds to regard the crash as a terrorist act.

Robin said that there is a case for premeditated murder to answer as the co-pilot was responsible for the lives of the passengers and crew onboard.

Germanwings wrote on its Twitter page on Thursday that it was shocked by the prosecutor’s statement.

The co-pilot accused of deliberately crashing the plane had passed all the necessary medical tests and was “100 percent” fit to fly, Lufthansa CEO Carsten Spohr told a press conference.

However, he added that pilots do not undergo regular psychological assessments beyond training.

“We have no words,” he said. “We never thought that this could happen to our concern. We are very attentive to recruitment. We pay great attention, including to the psychological characteristics of our candidates.”

Lubitz started his pilot’s training in 2008 and started work at the airline in 2013, Spohr said. He had a pause in his training six years ago, Spohr added, without offering further explanation.

“No matter your safety regulations, no matter how high you set the bar, and we have incredibly high standards, there is no way to rule out such an event,” Spohr said. “This is an awful one-off event.”

Speaking on the safety regulations, Spohr said that if one of the pilots leaves the flight deck, upon reentering he can use a special code to signal his colleague inside to open the deck door. This code is also used if the pilot inside loses consciousness, he added. However, the person on the flight deck can also prevent someone from entering with a code by clocking the door by pushing a special button.

The Lufthansa CEO added that the co-pilot had permission to stay on the deck alone under the airline’s regulations. This stands in contrast to the practice of most US airlines, under which another crewmember is required to enter the cabin if one of the pilots leaves.

It is not yet known if the company is legally responsible for the crash. The prosecution is set to give information on that later.The recovery of bodies from the Alps has already begun, and will last for the next week or two. Body parts are being recovered via helicopter, and the process is very difficult, Robin added.

Marin Medic, an A320 pilot, told RT that all flight crew go through vigorous health checks to make sure they are fit for the responsibility of flying a passenger jet.

“Every crew goes through a yearly check, a complete medical checkup, which involves everything from blood work to interviews with psychologists to ocular exams and basically it should have assured that both flight crew members were in perfect health,” he told RT.

But he also said that pilots are coming under more and more pressure from the industry.

“Every person is an individual, but obviously if this is the case that the plane was flown into terrain on purpose, then obviously there was a major problem of a psychological nature with the first officer. It could be variety of things. Anyone can be depressive but you would think the colleagues would notice that. Although, truth be told, pilots are coming under more and more pressure as the industry seeks to expand and the work conditions deteriorate,” he said.

The voice recorders installed in flight decks are very sensitive and can detect pilots’ breathing, aviation expert Julian Bray told RT.

“The whole point is that what they have to do is that, when they analyze these tapes – remember they go into the laboratories to be analyzed – is that they need to hear everything that is going on, because there will be audio signals or warnings, and to listen to the pilots and to their breathing,” he said. “If he is breathing, that means he is there, and he is well. They really need to get an audio snapshot of exactly what has happened on that particular deck.”

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Saudi warplanes have carried out fresh airstrikes against Yemen, hitting the northern city of Sa’ada and Ta’izz in the south, local officials and witnesses said.

The attack hit the al-Tariq airbase in Ta’izz, located in southwestern Yemen, they told AFP.

Air strikes also targeted arms depots in Malaheez region in the northern city of Saada near the border with Saudi Arabia.

Saudi air raids also struck the civil airport in Saada, according to the same sources.

Saudi warplanes started bombing the positions of the Houthi fighters and launched attacks against the Sana’a airport and the Dulaimi airbase early on Thursday.

Earlier on Thursday, Hezbollah slammed as “unwise” and “illegitimate” Saudi Arabia’s invasion of Yemen.

“Hezbollah strongly condemns the US-Saudi aggression targeting the brotherly people of Yemen and the national army and vital installations,” a statement from Hezbollah’s media office said.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif also called on Saudi Arabia to immediately cease its military aggression against Yemen.

Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Ministry slammed Saudi Arabia’s aggression against its southern neighbor with Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman, Alexander Lukashevich, saying, “Such a scenario cannot lead to the conflict’s settlement by definition.”

The European Union foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, also raised concerns about the situation in Yemen, saying, “The latest events in Yemen have dramatically worsened the already fragile situation in the country and risk having serious regional consequences.

Original article

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Terrorism by Boko Haram is contributing to voter apathy in Nigeria as citizens fear for their very safety in public spaces. Furthermore, many voters are being drawn towards leaders whom they feel will better protect them from the imminent threats posed by militant groups.

By Tendaishe Tlou*

Nigeria is a nation that has long been divided among itself, without a strong central government; a country ravaged by civil war involving hundreds of ethnic groups. In rural areas, there are millions of internally displaced persons. In the midst of this pandemonium, the situation has further deteriorated with the emergence of Boko Haram in the Northern region; a part of the country that now has only a few functioning schools and health centres due to the scourge of terrorism. Against this bleak background, terrorism is contributing to voter apathy, with the government postponing elections scheduled for February to March 2015 due to security fears. Averting this challenge is key for peace and human security in Nigeria.

Blessed with natural resources such as oil, Nigeria is also cursed by the salience of a plethora of ethnic-religious groups willing to obtain them. Nigeria has never been a master of its own fate. Since obtaining independence in 1960, this nation has been under the “draconian rule of a string of military dictatorships which were founded on monopolization of resources and perpetuating corruption” (Achebe,1987). Control and ownership of lucrative natural resources by the oligarchy and minority elite has augmented the formation of the vicious and ruthless militant group Boko Haram, which has since clamoured for the formation of a theocracy so as to curtail pervasive corruption, poverty, hunger and unemployment, spawned by the weak civilian government led by Goodluck Jonathan. Under the former’s leadership, the Boko Haram allege that the Nigerian government has led the nation into an abyss and now it is their responsibility to spearhead a reign of terror so as to put the country back on track through Sharia law. Despite its reputation as the largest economy in Africa, Nigeria is increasingly being caught under the whims of crisis after crisis.

Boko Haram have been terrorizing people in the Bono and Baga States. However, the terrorist movement gained much popularity when it kidnapped two hundred school girls and raided an agricultural school, mutilating and killing a hoard of college students in the Bono State, Abuja and others. In the meantime, Boko Haram has escalated its campaign by staging suicide bombings in public places, killing civilians indiscriminately. The trend indicates that the attacks target teenagers who are keen to learn (bearing in mind that Boko Haram literally means ‘Western education is forbidden’), eager to vote and are mostly caught-up in the attractive packages proffered by globalization. Each week has brought reports of a new atrocity and the militant group vowing to disrupt elections. In the face of the much anticipated election, the sole purpose of these attacks on civilians is to instil fear and impose what is called ‘Agoraphobia’, fear of the market/public place, due to the fact that polling stations are places where people will confer. Solomon (2012) posits that the Radical Islamicic sect is responsible for the escalating scale and intensity of terrorist attacks, wreaking havoc across North-Eastern Nigeria.

The impact is to ensure that Nigerian civilians live under the fear of being killed in public places, which compels them to stay confined to their homes. Aziz (1993) raises the ante by arguing that battles for Islam are not won through the gun, but by striking fear into the heart of the ‘enemy.’  In the same way, the government will compound the fear by imposing embargoes, such as deploying heavily armed men in public places, cancelling flights, restricting movements, states of emergency and, most importantly, postponement of elections. It is the objective of these terrorist cults to merely initiate contagion and governments do the rest. Given that the Nigerian government is also caught-up in a state of paralysis illuminated by their call for help from the United States after failing to redeem the abducted girls, the masses have lost confidence in a government which cannot protect its own civilians.

To buttress my argument that there were will be extensive voter apathy in the 28 March 2015 election, the Daily Times (2015) states that the first civilian President, Godfather and mentor of Nigerian politics, Obasanjo, withdrew from the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and endorsed a former military dictator and the leader of the opposition, Retired General Muhammadu Buhari, just before the election due to the lack of political will by Jonathan to quell Boko Haram as a threat to peace and security. Thus, Schmidt and Jongman (2005) are of the view that terrorism is an anxiety inspiring method of repeated or simultaneous violent actions employed by semi-clandestine individuals, groups or state actors mainly for idiosyncratic, criminal or political reasons, whereby the direct targets of violence are not the main targets. However,coming from a background that Nigerians are still reeling under military rule since independence, the endorsement of Buhari will induce voter apathy. Notwithstanding the chaos in the state, Nigerians are not prepared to be ruled by yet another despotic leader. They cannot withstand the fear and intimidation that comes with dictatorship, hence most Nigerian people would rather not go to cast their votes. The experiences for many after independence was unpleasant and the memory of execution of prominent human rights activists such as Ken Saro-Wiwa in 1995 by Nigeria’s military (Watts, 2004) and the ensuing events are still fresh.

In light of the delicate situation in Nigeria, civilians – especially teenagers – will demonstrate extensive voter apathy due to fear for their lives. Boko Haram is deploying suicide bombers to public places, such as the recent February 2015 bus rank attack which claimed twenty six lives (SABC, 2015). The State is failing to proactively quell the havoc wreaked by the militant group. Hence, Crenshaw (1995) maintains that terrorism is a ‘conspirational’ type of violence calculated to alter the attitudes and behaviour of a particular multitude or audience. Hence, President Jonathan might well lose the 2015 election due to mass contempt and dissatisfaction of a government that fails to protect its citizens from insecurity. Fear is terrorism’s catalyst (Barber, 2001) which compels people to choose radical options.

Failure by the Jonathan Administration to formulate and implement sound economic policies for employment also explains why Boko Haram’s contingent is mostly comprised of youths, because the violence perpetrated is not meant for the actual people it affects but for the government that fails to deal comprehensively with the country’s problems. Another major bone of contention is that Nigeria is still being exploited by its own leaders and Western allies who export oil at the expense of unemployed youths, escalating poverty and corruption, which also contribute to voter apathy. The overarching sentiments are that the men who have risen to power have led the country with the same cruelty, greed and disregard for the Nigerian population as did their predecessors.

The presence of Boko Harm will remain a threat to peace and security in Nigeria if the government keeps operating under the illusion that help will come from external players. First and foremost, Nigeria must proactively deal with the massive unemployment engulfing the youth, and proceed to strengthen their military forces since it has emerged that Boko Haram is better equipped and trained than the Nigerian national army. During elections, civilians are expected to vote for leaders whom they feel will meet their needs and protect them in the face of imminent threats from militant groups and other challenges. The State must always be well equipped politically, economically, socially and psychologically to deal with all threats that threaten human, state and security in Nigeria and elsewhere.

*Tendaishe Tlou is a freelance researcher and writer specialising in human rights, environmental security, peace and governance issues. He holds a BSc (Honours) Degree in Peace and Governance with Bindura University of Science Education and a Post-graduate Certificate in Applied Conflict Transformation. He works with various NGOs and Government Ministries in Zimbabwe and South Africa. However, these are his personal views; no authors, NGOs, Universities or any other Institution must be held accountable for the arguments in this article.

References

• Achebe, C (1987), ‘Anthills of the Savannah’, Random House,USA.
• Aziz, A (1993), ‘Terrorism: Patterns of Internationalization’, Sage Publications,USA.
• Barber, B.R. (2001), ‘Fear’s Empire’, W.W Norton and Company, New York.
• Crenshaw, M (1995), ‘The Logic of Terrorism’, SAGE Books, New York.
• Hoffman, B (2006), ‘Inside Terrorism’, Columbia University Press,USA.
• Ignatius, D (1992), ‘Islam in the West’s Sight: The Wrong Crusade,’ The Washington Post,USA.
• SABC (2015), ‘A Suicide Bomber Detonates a Bomb in a Bus Rank’, SABC News, Johannesburg.
• Smidt, A and Jongman, A (2005), ‘Political Terrorism’, Transaction Publishers, Piscataway.
• Solomon, H (2012), ‘Counter Terrorism in Nigeria’, RUSI Journal, Routledge, London.
• The Daily Times (2015), ‘Endorsement of Buhari’ by Obasanjo, Soyinka a Big Surprise,’13/02/14.
• Watts, M (2004), ‘Resource curse?’ Govern mentality, oil and power in the Niger Delta’, Geopolitics, 9/1;p 50-80.

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Political turmoil in Bangladesh spurs poverty, marginalization, illegal immigration to India and extremism.

By Saroj Kumar Rath*

More than 100 civilians, including prominent Bangladeshi American blogger Avijit Roy, have died on the streets of Bangladesh in political and terrorism-related violence during February alone. Bangladesh is under the grip of an impatient civilian population, an over-reactionary political class and a host of relentless extremist groups. Violent street contests between the cadres of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajid’s Awami League and former Prime Minister Khalida Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party are weakening the country’s nascent democracy and ceding space to extremist groups.

The extremists take advantage of political squabbles and power vacuums, as seen in Iraq, Syria and other troubled Muslim-majority countries,

The Shaikh Hasina government’s crackdown on extremists brought relative calm during her tenure as prime minister from 2009 to 2014. But toward the end of her tenure, she established a tribunal to punish Jamaat-e-Islami leaders for their role in the 1971 genocide; removed an election-related transparency clause from the constitution, forcing BNP and 17 other parties to boycott the vote that returned her to the prime minister post in 2014; and targeted her rival Khalida Zia. Shaikh Hasina’s act prompted Khalida Zia to renew old ties with Jamaat-e-Islami. A legitimate political party until August 2013 when the Bangladesh High Court de-registered the party, Jamaat-e-Islami was once associated with atrocities during Bangladesh’s independence struggle. Despite a 5 percent vote share, the conservative Jamaat-e-Islami possesses tremendous street power and substantial ownership of Islamic ideologies. Both Awami League and BNP as political parties occasionally solicited alliance with Jamaat-e-Islami.

In Bangladesh, extremist groups are freshly regrouping. The country’s complex militant landscape is comprised of home-grown groups (Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh, Harkat-ul Jihad al Islami Bangladesh and Ansarullah Bangla Team), India-based factions (United Liberation Front of Assom, National Front of Boroland and National Socialist Council of Nagaland) and international terrorist organizations (Al Qaeda, Hizb-ut-Tahrir, Lashkar-e-Taiba and the Islamic State). All are banned except NSCN. All exploit Bangladeshi and Indian politics, subvert security agencies and wreak havoc in the region. The intricate web of relations among a major political party, Jamaat-e-Islami and extremist organizations is turning the country into a new incubation ground of international terrorism with India as their immediate target.

With the Bangladeshi state’s writ weakening by the day, terrorist groups are making surprising inroads into the political space, aspiring to replace democracy with Sharia law and threaten India’s security. The Burdwan blast in October exposed deep-rooted tentacles of terror threats emanating from Bangladesh. Five Indian provinces – West Bengal, Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram – share a 4096-kilometer border. West Bengal alone shares a 2216-kilometer border along with a common language, Bengali. The topography of the porous border, yet to be fully demarcated, with jungles, hilly terrain and a dense population, is paradise for militants.

Terrorist groups like JMB, HuJI-B, Lashkar-e-Taiba, and Al Qaeda affiliates operating from Bangladesh have a pan-South Asia presence and ambition. Their modus operandi involves soliciting operational support from Pakistan-based terrorist groups and international jihadi organizations. They target India by using Bangladeshi migrants and local militant groups. Pakistan has yet to reconcile with India’s support to Bangladesh’s 1971 cessation, and the Inter-Services Intelligence of Pakistan is suspected of employing Bangladeshi militants to create chaos in India. As per the Indian Home Ministry, about 5.2 million displaced persons from Bangladesh have legally settled in India, 3.1 million of which in West Bengal. There are also roughly 20 million illegal immigrants in India, many registered as voters, facilitating uninterrupted inflow of militants and clamoring for a lenient approach towards Bangladeshi militants.

West Bengal is 25.2 percent Muslim, with some of those voters favorably dispensed towards Islamic extremists of Bangladesh. Bengali politicians, especially from the ruling Mamata Banarjee-led Trinamool Congress Party and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) remain convinced that a soft approach on Bangladeshi extremists and Indian supporters attracts the Muslim vote in the province and beyond.

Some political parties have exploited this notion. Three Trinamool Congress party leaders – Haji Nurul Islam, a former parliamentarian; Ahmed Hasan Imran, member of parliament; and Giyasuddin Mollah, a provincial minister – are accused of supporting local and Bangladeshi militants. In a scathing 2013 confidential note West Bengal’s 24 Parganas District Superintendent of Police accused Ahmed Hasan Imran, a founding member of the banned Student Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), of involvement in spurring communal violence in the state and funding Jamaat-e-Islami in Bangladesh.

Scores of other government reports have suggested linkages between Trinamool Congress members and Jamaat-e-Islami, demonstrating how India is tangled with the troubled Bangladeshi politics. An alert Bangladeshi Home Ministry blocked the visa of Ahmed Hasan for linkages with Jamaat-e-Islami. A chance surfacing of a April 2013 financial scandal at a Kolkata-based investment company, Shradha Group, led to accusations that a Trinamool Congress leader provided funding to Jamaat-e-Islami with the intention to foment civil unrest in Bangladesh.

In an attempt to reward supporters, Mamta Benarjee refused to accompany former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on his 2011 Dhaka visit, foiled a proposed Teesta river water sharing deal and rejected a possible land boundary agreement. Groups and individuals in the West Bengal Islamic lobby convince the political leadership that such bilateral overtures are politically beneficial.

But these policies are not in India’s national interest, harmful for Bangladesh and detrimental for Muslim community, the majority of whose members have had no role in such policies.

Police investigations in numerous pre-emptive arrests and small sporadic terrorist incidents in India trace a Bangladeshi footprint and indicate the possibility of coordinated attacks. Members of Trinamool Congress party, cadres of BNP and extremist elements of Jamaat-e-Islami affiliated groups are pitted against the combined strength of Awami League government and India’s federal government. .

By giving in to extremists in exchange for unverifiable short-term electoral gains, the provincial government of West Bengal is nursing a monster that could soon eat its own creator. Such policies have failed in other parts of the world, including Pakistan and Bangladesh, and probably won’t succeed in West Bengal either. In adopting a humanitarian approach, the provincial government must ensure that extremists don’t take advantage of the government.

In dealing with issues related to Bangladesh, the federal government under a resurgent Bharatiya Janata Party leader Narendra Modi must shed political rivalry and refrain from public blacklisting of provincial government officials, which would only send them into the arms of extremists. For the Modi government, rhetoric apart, it is essential to identify a viable solution to raging illegal Bangladeshi migration, work hard to end a porous border by increasing Indian flexibility on exchanges of enclaves, and establish a taskforce to monitor the spillover of threats emanating from Bangladesh.

*Saroj Kumar Rath is assistant professor at the University of Delhi and author of Fragile Frontiers: The Secret History of Mumbai Terror Attacks (Routledge, 2014).

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ASEAN and its integrative processes are working well, albeit at less than desired speed. However, the real worth and value of ASEAN is the consciousness that has been developed among ministers, officials and NGO representatives of thinking in regional terms.

By K. Kesavapany*

With his rich store of “insider” knowledge, my friend and colleague, Ambassador Barry Desker, has set out a case for believing that Asean has not achieved much in the way of regional integration in the five decades of its existence (“Asean integration remains an illusion”; last Wednesday). While acknowledging that Asean has been successful in “moulding a greater consciousness among policymakers”, Mr Desker fears the worst for the regional grouping in the years ahead.

His main frustration appears to be that Asean has not achieved its self-proclaimed goal of establishing a regional economic community by 2020, brought forward to this year. However, is this the only yardstick to measure Asean’s success? If politics is the art of the possible, then Asean policymakers have had to trim their sails in accordance with prevailing conditions, both domestically and regionally.

I believe that, when all is said and done, Asean and its integrative processes are working well, albeit at a speed less than what one would like to see. Apart from the European Union, no other regional grouping has been able to build so much cohesiveness as Asean has done. For that matter, even the EU is having trouble maintaining its cohesion as a union, as seen by the ongoing tiff between member states and Greece. Ukraine is another nettlesome issue, with geopolitical and economic implications.

For me, the real worth and value of Asean is the consciousness that has been developed among ministers, officials and NGO representatives of thinking in regional terms.

Emerging issues such as cross-border environmental issues and illegal trafficking of narcotics can only be addressed through a collective mindset.

Mr Desker writes that “Asean is a diplomatic community with little impact on the lives of most people in its 10 member states”. I beg to differ.

ASEAN socialisation and economic cooperation

The fact that this region has been at peace for over five decades surely is something to be treasured, particularly when members of regional groupings in other parts of Asia cannot even sit down together, let alone discuss to find solutions to the myriad of problems confronting them and their peoples. The ease with which nationals of member countries move across the region (except in the case of Myanmar) is but one example of the socialisation of Asean.

Until it joined Asean, Myanmar was of little economic significance to the region. Since opening up and embracing the values and practices of Asean, it has become a sought-after market and an investment destination. Thousands, if not millions, of Myanmar people have had their lives changed for the better.

Secondly, Asean economic cooperation, which has evolved into a gradual process of economic integration, has made the region attractive for the flow of foreign investments, capital and technology. In the past five decades, under the umbrella of political and social stability provided by Asean, member states have made unprecedented economic and social progress.

Thirdly, the diplomatic capital that Asean has built up over the years is a worthy strategic asset. This has led, among other things, to the US adopting its “pivot” policy – a reflection of its assessment of Asean’s continued relevance to regional peace and stability.

China, behaving as all Big Powers do, is beginning to ponder whether it has gone too far in alienating some of the Asean member states over the South China Sea issue, and in the process, causing disquiet in the international community. The newly elected Modi government in India is directing more of its policy measures towards this region, particularly in the maritime arena.

Bridging links in integrative process

Rather than dismissing Asean integration as an “illusion” and condemning five decades of efforts put into building a community, I would take a more realistic approach and opt for the route that Institute of Southeast Asian Studies researcher Moe Thuzar has suggested, that is bridging the missing links in the integration process. As she puts it, “it is all about changing mindsets and cultivating an outlook that sees the benefit of working regionally (“Asean’s missing links need to be bridged”; last Thursday).

On the occasion of the launch of the $100 million S. Rajaratnam Endowment by Temasek Holdings last year, it was observed in an editorial in The Straits Times that investing in promoting regional cooperation and development is the natural impulse of a small state with an open economy, which needs to stay engaged with its neighbours and others farther afield.

Pioneers like Mr S. Rajaratnam nurtured this instinct and laboured to institutionalise linkages. Illusion or not, Asean is here to stay and we, the inheritors of the legacy of Mr Rajaratnam and the other founding fathers of Asean, are duty-bound to make Asean integration a reality, however long it takes.

*The writer is a Distinguished Affiliated Fellow of the Asia Research Institute at the National University of Singapore. This article was first published in The Straits Times.

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Now that the GCC and other Arab nations have taken the decision to make a bold and intensive intervention to prevent the Shia Houthis from placing Yemen under its full control, what are the likely retaliatory measures that Iran could take?

There are two choices for Iran — and both are costly. On the one hand, Iran can’t afford to confront the Arabs and their allies in the form of the US and the EU. On the other hand, Iran definitely can’t afford to engage in a war that would make it an easy target for its other enemies, specifically Israel.

If Iran chooses to confront the GCC and her allies, Iran will have in its hands a costly war whose consequences are not short of its economic and military decline, if not collapse. The GCC may have never been involved in war for a long time and might lack combat experience, but the GCC has advanced weapons that can cause massive damage to Iran and her regional allies such as Hezbollah.

Even if the GCC is not able to stand alone against Iran, neither the EU and the US, nor indeed the rest of the world, will allow the GCC to become unstable. The GCC is the world’s energy tank and as such Iran’s face off with the Gulf is the same as if it were a confrontation with the rest of the world. Everyone is likely to suffer, but Iran is likely to lose everything it has thus far achieved.

Iran enjoyed widespread support in the Arab world when it appeared to be the only country in the region ready and willing to engage Israel. Arabs, however, will not support Iran and its endeavor to spread Shia-ism across the region. Iran has pushed the envelope so much that Governments and the public alike in the Arab world have sharply turned against it.

To reiterate, a confrontational posture on Iran’s part will simply be destructive for many in the region, but for Iran it could mean the end of the Persian nation as we know it. If Iran insists on its current course, it will eventually become the second Israel in the region in terms of seclusion.

Iran can choose not to engage to safeguard its own survival and viability, but that too would have consequences for the identity of Iran as the Shia midfielder of the world. The Houthis in Yemen would consider Iran as a traitor to their cause, which is in effect the major objective of Iran to spread Shia-ism in the world. Moreover, groups such as Hezbollah would start to question Iran’s loyalty to Shias across the globe.

Strategically, what is to be a expected is a continued proxy war between Sunni-Arabs and Iran within Yemen, Syria and Iraq. This is definitely the beginning of a prolonged Shia-Sunni war that won’t end until one side is fully dominant.

As Iran sends shiploads of weapons to Yemen, the possibility of a GCC attack on Iranian ship is high and as such a real face-off with Iran can’t be ruled out.

Enemies of the GCC have been identified at this point and they are in order of importance as follows: Iran, “Islamists”, and Israel. By its actions in Yemen, the Gulf has made a statement this time around that it does understand that the world has changed and that no matter how much it has tried to avoid military confrontations, it cannot control the choices of its enemies and as such it has to be militarily ready; it has to be ready for war.

That means that billions of dollars will now shift from social and economic programs into military spending and that’s the price the GCC should be willing to pay. It would appear that this is yet another war in the region that will greatly benefit the likes of the US and France.

This is a sensitive juncture where the strength of the fabric holding the different sects of Muslims together is being tested. Islam is in essence in a process of putting its own house in order. The major questions that this phase will answer: Is the GCC the custodian of Islam and Arabs affairs under the leadership of Saudi Arabia or does Shia Iran have a say in the matter? Is the GCC a power to be reckoned with? Will Iran pressures the Houthis to a table for talks to avoid the unknown?

Will have to wait and see.

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By Elvira M. Jukic

Catholic officials in Bosnia have revealed the first details of the June visit of Pope Francis, which is drawing a good deal of interest across the counry’s ethnic and religious divide.

Weeks ahead of the eagerly-expected arrival of Pope Francis in Sarajevo, Bosnia’s Roman Catholic Primate, Cardinal Archbishop Vinko Puljic, has revealed the first official organizational details.

During his visit to the Bosnian capital on June 6, Pope Francis is scheduled to hold an open air mass and meet political leaders.

At the press conference on Tuesday, Cardinal Puljic said the official motto of the papal visit would be “Peace be With You” while the logo of the official banners at the event will include images of Bosnia’s flag as well as a white cross and a dove carrying an olive branch.

These biblical symbols of peace show that the Pontiff intends to make peace-building the main focus of the visit, Puljic said, noting that this message had been clearly communicated to him by the Pope himself during the recent visit of Bosnia’s bishops to the Vatican.

“The expression ‘peace be with you’ is the expression with which Jesus greeted his followers at his ascension. This has its own symbolism. We live in insecure times and we need such an encouragement for all people in Bosnia and Herzegovina, especially to us Catholics,” Puljic said.

The Cardinal added that Bosnian authorities will have prime responsibility for handling security issues.

“No one will be able to go into the area where the mass will be held without a ticket, which will be distributed by the parishes and the central committee for the visit,” Puljic said, inviting all those interested to start registering.

The site of the main mass has not been confirmed but Church officials indicated earlier that it might be the Olympic stadium at Zetra, which has a capacity to hold 40,000 people.

This will be the third papal visit to Bosnia and Herzegovina. On the first visit to Sarajevo on April 12 and 13, 1997, the late John Paul II held a mass at Zetra stadium for more than 50,000 people. On June 22, 2003, he visited Banja Luka in north-west Bosnia.

Catholics are a relatively small minority in Bosnia where Muslims – Bosniaks – make up almost half of the population.

Most Catholics are ethnic Croats who comprise some 12 to 15 per cent of the population. Bosnian Serbs, most of whom are Orthodox, make some 35 per cent.

The Argentinian Pontiff’s care for ordinary people – the poor especially – has won him support and affection in Bosnia across the ethnic and religious divide.

“Respect for the Pope! Welcome man,” read a succinct comment on Bosnia’s Klix.ba web portal.

“This is important for all Catholics in this country and they are looking forward to it,” Amira, 28, from Sarajevo, said.

“The visit is important for believers and for Bosnian diplomacy, too,” she added. “Believers should greet him as their Pope, and our politicians as the top official of a state.

“Both aspects of the visits are positive, one for Catholics, the other for the country as a whole,” she remarked.

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