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Into the inferno hollow language and hollow democracies

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Into the Inferno: Hollow Language and Hollow Democracies

Arundhati Roy

What can we do, now that democracy and the free market are one?
 
While we’re still arguing about whether there’s life after death, can we add another question to the cart? Is there life after democracy? What sort of life will it be? By democracy I don’t mean democracy as an ideal or an aspiration. I mean the working model: western liberal democracy, and its variants, such as they are.
 
So, is there life after democracy? Attempts to answer this question often turn into a comparison of different systems of governance, and end with a somewhat prickly, combative defence of democracy. It’s flawed, we say. It isn’t perfect, but it’s better than everything else that’s on offer. Inevitably, someone in the room will say: “Afghanistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia . . . is that what you would prefer?”
 
Whether democracy should be the utopia that all “developing” societies aspire to is a separate question altogether. (I think it should. The early, idealistic phase can be quite heady.) The question about life after democracy is addressed to those of us who already live in democracies, or in countries that pretend to be democracies. It isn’t meant to suggest that we lapse into older, discredited models of totalitarian or authoritarian governance. It’s meant to suggest that the system of representative democracy – too much representation, too little democracy – needs some structural adjustment.
 
The question here, really, is what have we done to democracy? What have we turned it into? What happens once democracy has been used up? When it has been hollowed out and emptied of meaning? What happens when each of its institutions has metastasised into something dangerous? What happens now that democracy and the free market have fused into a single predatory organism with a thin, constricted imagination that revolves almost entirely around the idea of maximising profit? Is it possible to reverse this process? Can something that has mutated go back to being what it used to be?

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Is south African foreign policy with Palestine tied in knots?

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south_africa_rally_palestine.jpg

The only remedy would be for Pretoria to sever all links with Tel Aviv.

 

By Iqbal Jassat

In a recent interview, South Africa’s ambassador to the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, Ted Pekane, made an intriguing observation:

“Currently we have no intention of breaking ties with Israel. That would be counter-productive. Our policy of engagement applies to Israel as well. Only if the [Palestinian Authority of President Mahmoud Abbas] asked us to support the disinvestments and sanctions campaign against Israel would we consider packing our bags”.

This admission is the closest any senior foreign ministry official has come to in revealing an inherent weakness in this country’s relations with Israel/Palestine.

It is shocking too in that it implies our diplomatic engagement in the world’s number one conflict zone is blinded and being pursued while voluntarily having our hands tied behind our back!

More importantly, it discloses an intolerable weakness that inevitably is exploited by the stronger of the two sides. Israel is in effective control of all aspects of Palestinian life by virtue of the occupation and the multiple layers of restrictive measures that renders the occupied Palestinian population to its “mercy”.
Read More »Is south African foreign policy with Palestine tied in knots?

Obamas dose of reality may be a cure for the palestinians

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By Tony Karon

(source: The National)

The Obama administration’s announcement that it had capitulated before Israeli recalcitrance on a settlement freeze should be read as a cry for help. Mr Obama has, in fact, taken a bold step in acknowledging frankly that he has a problem. He has been repeating the rituals and catechisms of the failed Oslo peace process in the hope of producing a different outcome. Now, he’s been forced to acknowledge that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not a communication problem that can be solved by simply getting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Mahmoud Abbas to talk.

Mr Obama’s epiphany appears to have come after his final humiliation by Mr Netanyahu, who turned down a massive package of military aid and diplomatic concessions offered for just 90 more days of a partial settlement moratorium aimed at restarting talks. Mr Netanyahu has so successfully resisted the US administration over settlements that there was little credibility to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s insistence, in a speech on Friday, “that the position of the United States on settlements has not changed and will not change… we do not accept the legitimacy of continued settlement activity”.

Strong words, perhaps, but they can barely be heard above the roar of construction equipment in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The US disapproves, but it will impose no consequences for Israel ignoring that disapproval, and international law, by continuing to build outside of its 1967 borders.

Read More »Obamas dose of reality may be a cure for the palestinians