Quickstops (Nov 30, 2005): mostly Nguyen again

- I can't help but wonder if this is calculated to fail: "It is up to the members of the Singapore Cabinet to decide that the death penalty is inappropriate for Van, and it is inappropriate for every person convicted of serious crime in Singapore," --said Tim Goodwin of Amnesty International. (See next item, under "Peter N".)

- Probably only if you are an insomnaic; but look especially for the comments (there are three at last count) by one "Peter N", otherwise, prepare for some thunder and lightning along the way.

- Joseph K. H. Koh, Singapore high commissioner in Australia, and mythology. Koh has since protested the title.

- Singapore's chief executioner has threatened to sue his Government for unfair dismissal if he is sacked from the job. More of the same.

- Something about Myanmar in all of this; but see also an earlier article. (Links to earlier posts about Myanmar-Singapore and Myanmar-ASEAN here.)

update: Australian poll: 47%--"hang", 46%--"don't hang", 7--"don't know". More online feedback.

Earlier related posts: here, here, here and here.

New Blog: Vacant Lot

Dasani (who, I assume, is the same as someone who used to guest blog somewhere) has started her own blog "The Vacant Lot"; and it looks promising.

Quickstops (Nov 27, 2005): mostly Nguyen

- Was reading this and the comments thereof. Somewhat amused (but for the gravity of the issue). Incidentally: sure there might be plenty of arguments against the formulation of the Misuse of Drugs Act, against the death penalty, against the mandatory death penalty, and against either of them for drug trafficking; but whether or not Nguyen was under the jurisdiction of Singapore's laws when he was caught with the stuff in Changi airport is a total non-issue.

- Meanwhile, John Howard has warned Singapore it faces lasting public resentment in Australia if the hanging execution of Melbourne man Tuong Van Nguyen goes ahead. This is only to be expected, given some are already saying that trade sanctions may be the way to go. The Australian government has so far ruled that out; some agreed. Meanwhile, another defends Howard from the flak he is taking.

- Trade sanctions? *Shrug* Sure it will hurt both Singapore and Australia, but it's their country, their call, not ours. The strange thing is that Singapore's insistence on not granting clemency has a touch of the unpragmatic (something in the region of "principled; to a fault") about it. How difficult can it be to come up with some useful fiction to get Nguyen off the hook--ignoring the laws, of course. Over the past days, my mind was drawn again and again to a passage in Thucydides:

[Diodotus:] However, I have not come forward either to oppose or to accuse in the matter of Mitylene; indeed, the question before us as sensible men is not their guilt, but our interests. Though I prove them ever so guilty, I shall not, therefore, advise their death, unless it be expedient; nor though they should have claims to indulgence, shall I recommend it, unless it be dearly for the good of the country. I consider that we are deliberating for the future more than for the present; and where Cleon is so positive as to the useful deterrent effects that will follow from making rebellion capital, I, who consider the interests of the future quite as much as he, as positively maintain the contrary. And I require you not to reject my useful considerations for his specious ones: his speech may have the attraction of seeming the more just in your present temper against Mitylene; but we are not in a court of justice, but in a political assembly; and the question is not justice, but how to make the Mitylenians useful to Athens.

- Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, III.9 (Richard Crawley trans.)

The legal is not always the politic, the politic is not always the legal.

- Quetelet points to an article about life and art in Singapore.

more: - Victoria's Vietnamese community is divided over the fight to save Melbourne drug smuggler Tuong Van Nguyen from the gallows; more from Subhas Anandan on how the Australian government should have acted if they had wanted to get Nguyen out alive, two years ago; a minute of silence on Friday? Absolutely not! says this piece; on how Singapore-Australia relations could be affected; on one hangman, and another who wants to be.

- You know where and how to find the rest of the news. With that, I take my leave for now.

coda: "I accept responsibility for my actions," wrote Nguyen.

GHS on Slashdot

Somehow, certain topics just have a tendency to generate certain forms of responses (see the comments).

Video scandal in Malaysia, et varia

First, it was the pig's head drawn on the breakfast vouchers for Chinese tourists to distinguish them from nonpork-eating Muslims. The latest (from the BBC, Nov 25):

Malaysia has launched an inquiry after a video emerged which apparently shows a police officer humiliating an ethnic Chinese woman. The clip, apparently filmed on a mobile phone, purportedly shows the naked woman being forced to squat as she is watched by a woman in uniform. Deputy Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak said the incident was a severe blow to Malaysia's image. It follows a number of complaints against police by Chinese tourists.

Coming fast on the heels of a large-scale operation (NST, Nov 22) to "track down the 50,000 overstaying Chinese tourists", this can't be good news. In another report of the video incicent, the vernerable beeb quotes Malaysian blogger Jeff Ooi.

* * * * *

Meanwhile, in unrelated news, the Taipei Times (Nov 24). "in the spirit of cross-strait reconciliation," offers some advice to fellow countrymen about how not to generate more misunderstandings:

...there are a number of phrases which should not be employed when speaking to tourists from China. Failure to not say these things will only exacerbate the mutual misunderstanding and cultural rift that exists between the two countries.

Therefore, do not -- under any circumstances -- say any of the following 10 phrases to Chinese tourists: One, noodles, paper, gunpowder. What have you done for us lately? Two, one-child policy plus patriarchal society equals no women. Three, 5,000 years of civilization, and all you have to offer us is pandas? Four, welcome to Taiwan. Please don't spit. Five, Simplified characters for simple people. Six, Mr. Hu, tear down that wall! Seven, our opposition leaders get to have dinner with your president, but your opposition leaders get shot. Eight, our Chinese culture is better than yours. Nine, my dad owns the factory your dad works in. Or finally: We were going to "retake the mainland," until we went there.

Heh...

Elsewhere, Thailand and Singapore agreed Wednesday (Nov 23) "to jointly attract 1 million Chinese tourists to their two shores by 2008 while doubling bilateral trade and investment by 2010."

update: more about the video scandal from cookie-cutter comments, Cowboy Caleb (thanks Han), and extended ruminations over at Brand New Malaysia.

update 2: more from Jeff Ooi.

Quickstops (Nov 24, 2005)

- Mentioned in Andy Ho's ST (Nov 25) op-ed about criminal justice in Singapore: Cheng Tai Heng, The Central Case Approach to Human Rights: Its Universal Application and the Singapore Example. Ho quoted some from the article; but what he didn't quote is just as interesting, if not more so. | update: noself reminds me that Michael Hor's paper (linked earlier is also relevant (he has more on the Ho-Cheng-Hor nexus). | update: Wannabe Lawyer has a detailed critique of Andy Ho, who is turning out to be everybody's favorite columnist...

- Nguyen. The view from Australians--to be more precise, the readers of news.com.au. Meanwhile, some unpopular opinion from James Morrow, editor of Investigate magazine. Elsewhere, the lawyer of another foreigner who did managed to escape the gallows has some words. |update: Guofeng forwards more unpopular opinions, one dated 18 Nov, and a couple from 23 Nov; this one 26 Nov is not so much 'unpopular' as just sober.

- Max Boot: "when it comes to the future of Iraq, there is a deep disconnect between those who have firsthand knowledge of the situation — Iraqis and U.S. soldiers serving in Iraq — and those whose impressions are shaped by doomsday press coverage and the imperatives of domestic politics."

- The drive for "green energy" in the developed world is having the perverse effect of encouraging the destruction of tropical rainforests. How's that for "unintended consequences"?

Quickstops (Nov 20, 2005)

- What's the difference between this and this? update: Mr. Miyagi responds to his "favouritest newspaper in the whole wide world".

- Abu Musab al-Zarqawi...possibly dead? US authorities: possibly not. Meanwhile, his family "sever links with him until doomsday".

- Two stem cell researchers chose 32-degrees-celcius-all-year-round-Singapore over Stanford.

- Scanning for plastic, the exploding kind.

- A blast from the recent past: Antonin Scalia on God’s justice and ours.

Back and Forth 2

continuing from here:

The statement put out by Philip Alston is singularly brief as far as the argument for his contention that Singapore's mandatory death penalty is inconsistent with customary international law (note: we are talking about law, not morality) beyond the bare assertion:

In the Nguyen case, the Singapore Court of Appeal considered a range of cases decided by the Privy Council. But, according to Alston, "it failed to examine the most relevant case of all" (Boyce and Joseph v. The Queen, decided in 2004). In that case four of the Law Lords endorsed the statement that "No international human rights tribunal anywhere in the world has ever found a mandatory death penalty regime compatible with international human rights norms."

On the face of it, this doesn't really get us very far, not especially when the very line quoted by Alston is from the dissenting Law Lords, rather than the ruling proper (the subject of my earlier post). So I became curious as to whether Alston has more substantial things to say. Unfortunately, the online sources don't seem to get me far (any help would be greatly appreciated). But I did find an interview in which he says this:

I don't think that it [the Singapore court] has worked through, in the systematic way that it should have, the decisions which emanate from the Privy Council. It's acknowledged that it's going to take full account of those decisions. It quotes some of them, but it doesn't draw what I would consider to be the clear inference that emerges from those decisions which is that the mandatory death penalty is a violation of international law [emphasis mine].

In a sense, this is still about as helpful as the previous. (To begin with, it sounds as he's implying: anyone who doesn't draw what Professor Philip Alston would consider to be the clear inference of the Privy Council decisions must therefore have failed to worked through, in the systematic way that they should have, those decisions; which is not an argument.)

Not being a lawyer, I wouldn't give two cents to any inference I would care to draw from Privy Council decisions--and neither should you. What I want to do now is to present, in as compact a fashion as possible, something in Boyce & Joesph v. The Queen that apparently complicates MFA's rebuttal against Alston--because on a second and closer reading, the ruling does contain a twist.

To recap: the ruling was that the mandatory death penalty is consistent with the Constitition of Barbados; but the situation with respect to international law is different, and that's the twist. To quote from a summarizing paragraph that came early (para. 6):

6. ...although the existence of the mandatory death penalty will not be consistent with a current interpretation of section 15(1) [of the Constitition of Barbados], it is prevented by section 26 from being unconstitutional. It will likewise not be consistent with the current interpretation of various human rights treaties to which Barbados is a party...It follows that the decision as to whether to abolish the mandatory death penalty must be, as the constitution intended it to be, a matter for the Parliament of Barbados.

Let's spell out the different points:

(1) The ruling of the Privy Council is that the mandatory death sentence is consistent with the Constitition of Barbados.

(2) Given (1), the Constitition of Barbados is inconsistent with the current interpretation of "various human rights treaties to which Barbados is a party"--and in that specific sense, is inconsistent with international law.

(3) How the inconsistency cited in (2) is to be resolved is a matter for the Parliament of Barbados.

(1) is argued for in the bulk of the ruling itself (para. 27-conclusion in para. 69-71). Not as interesting to us. The more interesting issues concern (2) and (3).

We need to be clearer about (2), especially about the "various human rights treaties to which Barbados is a party", and what's with "current" interpretation. The relevant text is para. 16-26 of the ruling, entitled, "International Law". From it, we can see the following:

16. In 1967 [Barbados] became a member of the Organisation of American States (OAS). Membership involves adherence to the OAS Charter, which includes an obligation in very general terms to respect the fundamental rights of the individual. These were elaborated in 1948 by the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man, similar in its terms to the Universal Declaration...The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, an organ of the OAS, has expressed the view that all member states are bound by the American Declaration.

17. In 1973 Barbados acceded to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR)...

19. Barbados ratified the ACHR [American Convention on Human Rights] in 1982. The organ which interprets the treaty is the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and in 2000 Barbados accepted its compulsory jurisdiction.

This is the background--these are the relevant treaties and declarations and whatnot to which Barbados is a party. They thus constitute the context of "International Law" to which Barbados owes obligation given that it signed on the dotted line on the mentioned documents. If they are inconsistent with something in the Constitution, why would Barbados ratify these treaties? -you might ask. Turns out that it wasn't always so:

20. At the times when Barbados adhered to these treaties, it is unlikely that many people would have thought that the mandatory death penalty for murder involved a breach of any of their obligations. ...The notion that the objectionable element lay in it being mandatory for all cases of murder only gained currency as a result of the decisions of the United States Supreme Court in Woodson v North Carolina (1976) 428 US 280 and Roberts v Louisiana (1977) 431 US 633...

22. ... Edwards v The Bahamas (2001) Report No. 48/01 the Inter-American Commission decided that the mandatory death penalty for murder was inconsistent with the American Declaration of Human Rights. In Hilaire, Constantine and Benjamin (2002) (Ser.C) No. 94 the Inter-American Court of Human Rights decided that it was inconsistent with the American Convention on Human Rights. And in Kennedy v Trinidad and Tobago (2002) CCPR/C/67/D/845/1999 the Human Rights Committee of the United Nations decided that it was inconsistent with the ICCPR.

And so the new situation came about in which Barbados found itself with treaty obligations which are inconsistent with its own constitution. And in this specific sense, the mandatory death penalty--provided by the Constitution of Barbados--is inconsistent with international law (2).

How then, to proceed from this point? This is where (3) comes it. The ruling of the Privy Council is that it is something that Barbados has to work out on its own:

25. ...the mandatory death penalty is inconsistent with the international obligations of Barbados under the various instruments to which reference has been made. This does not of course have any direct effect upon the domestic law of Barbados. The rights of the people of Barbados in domestic law derive solely from the Constitution...

And again, as the earlier para. 6 puts it:

6. ...the decision as to whether to abolish the mandatory death penalty must be, as the constitution intended it to be, a matter for the Parliament of Barbados.

The ruling doesn't say so, but we might imagine the two (logically) possible ways out: junk the treaties, or change the constitution.

My layman's view of things: it is now clearer to me why Alston made such a big deal of Boyce. Though the ruling was that the mandatory death penalty is consistent with the Constitution of Barbados, it is also the considered judgment of the Law Lords (and mind you, not the minority opinion for this one) that the same Constitution is therefore inconsistent with the treaty obligations of Barbados, and in this specific sense, inconsistent with international law. I keep stressing "in this specific sense" because as far as I can tell, the Law Lords did not concern themselves with relatively nebulous concerns of "international standards" or "customary international law" and such like, but the specific treaty obligations entered into by Barbados. This point must be kept in mind. And as far as I can tell, the dissenting Law Lords worked from the same page. They too, were not talking on the basis of customary international law, but again, specific treaty obligations. Both the majority and minority agree that the Constitution of Barbados--with its mandatory death sentence--is inconsistent with its treaty obligations. (The disagreement is over whether there is a reading of the same constitution that renders the mandatory death sentence unconstitutional. The majority says "no", the minority says, "yes".)

Here is where I don't quite get Alston--in claiming that the mandatory death sentence in Singapore is inconsistent with international law, is he talking about our treaty obligations? If he is not talking about our treaty obligations, then perhaps Boyce is not as relevant for our case as he seems to suggest. If he is talking about our treaty obligations, then which specific treaties? The Law Lords were quite specific; I had wished that Alston would be as well. As far as I can tell, Singapore is not part of the OAS, or party to the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man, or the American Convention on Human Rights. The last I heard, we still have not ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), but I am not sure (anyone knows? see update). One might think that this is not an ideal state of affairs, that Singapore ought to ratify the relevant treaties. Again, there may be good moral and pragmatic arguments about such things, but until they are ratified, Singapore is not bound by them, and cannot be accused of violating them--that is, the specific sense of "inconsistent with international law" at stake in Boyce does not apply to the discussion at hand.

More importantly, even if it turns out to be the case that Singapore's mandatory death penalty is inconsistent with our treaty obligations--to be more precise, the current interpretations of those obligations--is he also willing to say, as the Law Lords did, that this is a matter that must be left to the Singapore Parliament?

update: Singapore might have sign on to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) after all; at least this seems implied by this news report. But as the same report points out, we never signed the relevant "second optional protocol", so it's hard to say whether what we did sign will give us treaty obligations to abolish the mandatory death penalty. corrected: according to Ivan (thanks!), we have not sign the ICCPR after all (as I suspected).

update 2: talking about treaty obligations and customary international law, the following quotes are relevant (in illustrating the position of the Singapore court). From Nguyen v. PP:

106. The [Universal Declaration of Human Rights] is not an international treaty or convention and there is no consensus that it is a statement or codification of customary international law...

108. Even if there is ...a customary rule [concerning something, e.g., the death penalty], it would not apply if it is inconsistent with the domestic law. As Lord Atkin explained in Chung Chi Cheung v The King [1939] AC 160 at 167-168:

[S]o far, at any rate, as the Courts of this country are concerned, international law has no validity save in so far as its principles are accepted and adopted by our own domestic law. There is no external power that imposes its rules upon our own code of substantive law or procedure. The Courts acknowledge the existence of a body of rules which nations accept amongst themselves. On any judicial issue they seek to ascertain what the relevant rule is, and, having found it, they will treat it as incorporated into the domestic law, so far as it is not inconsistent with rules enacted by statutes or finally declared by their tribunals.

And in Collco Dealings Ltd v Inland Revenue Commissioners [1962] AC 1, the House of Lords affirmed the proposition that if a statute is unambiguous, its provisions must be followed even if they are contrary to international law.

From the Appeal:

88. The common law of Singapore has to be developed by our Judiciary for the common good. We should make it abundantly clear that under the Constitution of our legal system, Parliament as the duly elected Legislature enacts the laws in accordance and consistent with the Constitution of Singapore. If there is any repugnancy between any legislation and the Constitution, the legislation shall be declared by the Judiciary to be invalid to the extent of the repugnancy. Any customary international law rule must be clearly and firmly established before its adoption by the courts. The Judiciary has the responsibility and duty to consider and give effect to any rule necessarily concomitant with the civil and civilised society which every citizen of Singapore must endeavour to preserve and protect.

94. We agree with the trial judge’s reasoning on the effect of a conflict between a customary international law rule and a domestic statute. The trial judge held that even if there was a customary international law rule prohibiting execution by hanging, the domestic statute providing for such punishment, viz, the MDA, would prevail in the event of inconsistency. The trial judge cited Chung Chi Cheung v The King [1939] AC 160 and Collco Dealings Ltd v Inland Revenue Commissioners [1962] AC 1 in support of this proposition.

1939? The King?! That was like, a long time ago... But more seriously, it is not obvious that even the Privy Council of 2004 would simply disagree, given Boyce.

"Bloggers Beware: The Five Commandments for Bloggers" - article in Law Gazette

From the November 2005 issue of the Law Gazette:

There is a need for Singapore bloggers to be aware of legal issues arising from their online diaries, particularly in the light of the recent cases involving seditious remarks made online by bloggers that resulted in jail terms and fines; and earlier in the year, a dispute arose over allegedly defamatory speeches made by a blogger about A*STAR’s Chairman, Philip Yeo, which was resolved amicably, but not without an apology. The threats of legal repercussions in the form of civil lawsuits and criminal charges serve as reminders of the potential legal problems that can arise from blogging, and indeed from any online activity, such as chat rooms, that involves the expression of opinions and views. Most bloggers treat their blogs as merely an online version of their personal diaries or journals. However, they often forget that the private-public distinction between keeping a written diary and one that is open to public viewing, can give rise to civil and criminal liability. This paper will consider some of the potential legal issues that may arise. Its aim is to create awareness and care, as well as to highlight sensitivities, but not to the extent that it may impact, to any significant extent, the greater freedom of expression that so many of us take for granted when navigating cyberspace.

Read the whole thing.

Back and forth

note: there is now a Part 2.

First, the Statement by Philip Alston, the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (November 16/17, 2005). The money quote:

The principal problem...is the mandatory nature of the death penalty...In the Nguyen case, the Singapore Court of Appeal considered a range of cases decided by the Privy Council. But, according to Alston, "it failed to examine the most relevant case of all" (Boyce and Joseph v. The Queen, decided in 2004). In that case four of the Law Lords endorsed the statement that "No international human rights tribunal anywhere in the world has ever found a mandatory death penalty regime compatible with international human rights norms."

MFA responds: November 16, 18. The main gist:

- Mr Alston grossly misrepresented the facts in claiming that the Singapore Court of Appeal "considered a range of cases decided by the Privy Council ... [but] ... failed to examine the most relevant case of all" i.e. Boyce and Joseph v. The Queen. That case was in fact cited by Mr Nguyen's lawyers in their written arguments and the Court of Appeal dealt with it in its judgment.

- Mr Alston did not disclose that he cited the minority judgment in Boyce and that the majority in the Privy Council upheld the constitutionality of the mandatory death penalty in Barbados.

- Mr Alston is the Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions. Mr Nguyen was tried and convicted in an entirely open, fair and transparent manner, according to due process of law, as has been acknowledged by the Australian Government. Therefore this case does not fall within his mandate.

Ok, last one first. So what exactly does a "Special Rapporteur" do? What is his mandate? Check out the UN website. (Sidenote: apparently part of his mandate is "To apply a gender perspective in his/her work".)

But what's with Boyce and Joseph v. The Queen? Turns out the case was mentioned during the appeal. Nguyen Tuong Van v Public Prosecutor (October 6, 2004), see para. 62, and especially 83:

83. We do not propose to examine each decision in detail. However, in both Watson v The Queen and Reyes v The Queen, the mandatory death penalty in respect of certain classes of murder was ruled unconstitutional as a violation of the prohibition against cruel or inhuman treatment or punishment. In Matthew v The State and Boyce v The Queen, the Privy Council would have ruled the same way but for certain "saving provisions" in the relevant national Constitutions which preserved pre-existing national laws.

And fortunately, Privy Council judgments are actually available online. So: Lennox Ricardo Boyce and Jeffrey Joseph v. The Queen (July 7, 2004) (.rtf file). It's long, but this is from the judgment itself (para. 69-71):

69. ...In Barbados...the mandatory death penalty is, as their Lordships have decided, preserved by section 26 of the Constitution. And the exercise of the power of commutation in death sentence cases is expressly codified in section 78. Both mandatory sentence and executive clemency are in accordance with the Constitution.

70. ...All that matters is whether the mandatory death penalty and executive clemency are in accordance with the Constitution of Barbados. In their Lordships' opinion, they are.

71. Their Lordships will therefore humbly advise Her Majesty that the appeal ought to be dismissed.

So this must have been the "saving provisions" mentioned in the judgment for Nguyen's appeal. After that comes the dissenting (i.e., "minority") opinions of four of the Law Lords, the ones mentioned by Philip Alston.

coda: (scroll down to see "important note") To be clearer about my sense of the back and forth. Indeed, the Privy Council no longer has the sort of say in our courts they used to have. If Alston's point is simply that we ought to pay attention to Boyce just because it's the Privy Council, then he is barking up the wrong tree. But I take it that his point is that the mandatory death penalty is contrary to customary international law and that Boyce supports his point. In addition, I take it that the local courts are at least willing to consider such things, even if they are not determinative in any straightforward way (see Nguyen appeal para. 94).

The problem is that Alston was citing the minority, dissenting opinion rather than the actual judgment in Boyce, which weakens his case considerably. (To compound his problem, he fails to even admit that. When will critics of the Singapore government ever learn to do their jobs properly...) So we have four Law Lords who basically say that "No international human rights tribunal anywhere in the world has ever found a mandatory death penalty regime compatible with international human rights norms", which does sound like saying that mandatory death penalty is incompatible with CIL. But given that the actual ruling goes in the other direction, the least that can be said is that Boyce as a whole hardly counts unequivocally in favor of Alston's point. The best that Alston can make of the case is that there are some Law Lords out there who agrees with him. So we are pretty much back to square one: there is no clear CIL against either the death penalty or even the mandatory death penalty.

There may be moral, perhaps even pragmatic reasons against the mandatory death penalty, but I am not convinced that it's contrary to present CIL in any obvious way--at least not on the basis of Boyce. If this is Alston's strongest argument (according to him, this is supposed to be "the most relevant case of all"), then it seems, on the face of it, an incredibly weak one.

important note: I have a lot more on this in Part 2 that will qualify or correct I posted above in the "coda".

more on Alston's mandate: As MFA's statement put is (again):

Mr Alston is the Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions. Mr Nguyen was tried and convicted in an entirely open, fair and transparent manner, according to due process of law, as has been acknowledged by the Australian Government. Therefore this case does not fall within his mandate.

To see if MFA has a point, we need to get clearer about the mandate of the Special Rapporteur. This brings us to the relevant section of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Website, especially the pages about "Principles on the Effective Prevention and Investigation of Extra-legal, Arbitrary and Summary Executions" and "International Standards" (regarding "extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions"), the last of which has this to say:

The situations of extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions that the Special Rapporteur is requested to investigate comprise a variety of cases. All acts and omissions of state representatives that constitute a violation of the general recognition of the right to life embodied in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (article 3) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (article 6 and, also, articles 2, 4, para. 2, 26 and, in particular with regard to the death penalty, articles 14 and 15), as well as a number of other treaties, resolutions, conventions and declarations adopted by competent United Nations bodies, fall within his mandate.

So looks like it's going to be long and complicated. So you will have to look up the Declaration and the Covenant yourselves.

But really, the title--assuming that it is properly given--is not to Alston's advantage: "Extra-legal [i.e., by individuals acting outside of a country's laws], Arbitrary and Summary Executions". Whatever one might think about the decision of Nguyen Tuong Van v PP, it doesn't appear to be a case of extra-legal, arbitrary or summary execution. So we are still back to the moral and pragmatic arguments--and how those considerations bear on the law.

continue on to Part 2.

Book Voucher for Sale

I recently did some small work for McGraw-Hill Education (Asia) and they gave me the above. Because the voucher is redeemable only at their office at 60 Tuas Basin Link and only from 1 Dec 2005 to 31 Mar 2006 (I'm not in Singapore and won't be in Singapore for the period), I'm willing to part with it for S$250 (including cost of normal airmail). Anyone interested may email me at philoyhc@gmail.com. Click on the graphic to see a larger version so as to read the "terms and conditions" (yes, the "sample" is photoshopped in by me). You should be able to look up the catelogues from the McGraw-Hill (Asia) website itself.

update: ebay.com.sg entry.

"Freedom of the press a non-issue" says letter to ST Forum (Nov 14)

The basic idea is a simple one: "While a muzzled press may restrict the flow of information in countries where the reach of the Internet is still embryonic, for an IT-savvy nation like Singapore, the press is no longer the sole source of information." Then why all the fuss about the freedom of the press and the supposed connection it has with democracy? The writer, Paul Wee Kian Nghee, posits a difference between the (pre-internet) past and present:

In today's lightning-speed communications with which a newsworthy murmur can be relayed globally in an instant, such talk of press freedom is silly because one cannot stop the flow. Unlike in the past, when sources of information could be snuffed out easily even before newspapers hit the street, cyberspace today is just too big to police - and so it will remain at large.

In other words: "while press freedom was once a coveted element of democracy," it is no longer in itself relevant for Singapore "because one does not need the local press to be kept informed."

Interesting.

One assumption is that the authorities here do not resort to using technology to block external sites (and as far as I know, they don't , at least not in a way that would make a difference). My sense is that this will remain constant, and to that extent, Singaporeans potentially have fairly unbridled access to information on the web.

A second assumption is that the press is primarily a source of information for citizens in a democracy. This is actually less than what more classically minded freedom of the press advocates might have in mind, especially when they are thinking of the "fourth estate". On this conception, a free press is not just a unbiased source of information, but also a source of advocacy and even a framer of public discourse. Now needless to say, the PAP rejects this conception of what the press should be allowed to do in Singapore.

But frankly speaking, as a denizen of the post-Memogate world, I am not sure they are simply wrong to think so. It is not obvious that a free press on the "fourth estate" conception is necessarily or always in the best interest of democracy, as it often is in the service of either advertisers or the cultural elite, the interests and values of both of which can diverge from those of the people at large. Not that their interests always diverge, but that they could diverge. At the end of the day, it is possible for the "source of unbiased information" and "public advocacy" aspects to come apart and they often do come apart.

And remember that we live in a small country, a place that can probably not support more than a couple of big English dailies. Is it really much better to be at the mercy of whoever runs and writes the newspapers, 'independent and free' though they may be, than the government? If I can't even trust my elected officials, why should I trust mere journalists to look out for my interests?

What about the press as a forum for participatory democracy, for civic discourse and national debates? Well, assuming that we have these things and think that we ought to have these things in Singapore, are they really better served by a more robust free press? That is--not just the debate framed and participated in by a cultural elites, but by ordinary Joes (or in our case, Tans, say). And given another decade of increasing internet penetration and the continued maturity of the local blogosphere, will it matter? But if we think that freedom of the press doesn't matter because of the internet, are we simply presupposing a degree of freedom--of information, of citizen advocacy, of debate, etc.--there?

Questions, more questions.

update: at the urging of Random, let me say a few words about another letter on the same topic. This one is entitled "What's most important is a stable, secure environment" by Siow Jia Rui. Now the main line of thought that runs throughout is roughly this:

The challenges Singapore faces in maintaining social cohesion in a small multi-ethnic and multi-religious society cannot be overstated. As a small country, the Government's primary task is the 'bread- and-butter' concerns of the people. Investors will always pick a country that can guarantee a stable environment and efficient system rather than one ranked top in the press freedom index but with little else to offer...

We know what our interests are and we have compelling reasons for our laws and regulations. In this regard, we should not change just to please Western-influenced liberals who apply their notion of freedom of the press unthinkingly to Singapore, without the slightest effort to comprehend the rationale behind our policies. I want to continue to see Singaporeans live in a stable, secure and prosperous environment. To this end, I will gladly accept a top ranking for choice of location by investors rather than see us sit atop the press freedom index any day.

Not being a dogmatic liberal-democrat myself, I am willing to entertain the possibility that we might have "compelling reasons" for abridging freedoms. And knowing something about Singapore history, I can consider that the task of "maintaining social cohesion in a small multi-ethnic and multi-religious society" is no cake walk and might involve tough and even unpopular choices. These are serious issues that people who are not already prejudiced about the answer ought to think through. But all this just so that we will remain a "top ranking for choice of location by investors"? What a let down!

The twist to the argument, however, is the citation of negative examples from other countries:

At least we are not hypocrites about where we stand with regard to press freedom. We make it clear that issues such as race and religion must be handled with great sensitivity, unlike countries which curb press freedom when it is politically expedient. Let me highlight two examples.

In Australia, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) is government funded. During the war in Iraq, ABC was under continuous attack by the Australian government for its critical reporting of Australian involvement in Iraq, characterised by 'one-sided and tendentious commentary by programme presenters and reporters'. The government gave it an ultimatum to change its coverage, or it would cut its funding.

More recently, British Prime Minister Tony Blair censured the British Broadcasting Corporation for its negative approach to the Bush administration in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. He denounced its coverage as 'full of hatred of America' and 'gloating at the country's plight'.

Now both BBC and ABC are at least partly government-funded institutions. So what's so strange about the people paying the bills showing up to say a few strong words about how they expect their funds to be spent? What's important is that BBC and ABC do not the British and Australian press make. The British government, for example, have no automatic sway over the Times, the Independent, the Guardian, the Telegraph, and so on. To call the actions described "curbing press freedom" is a real stretch: real examples of the British government really "curbed press freedom" occurred during periods in WW2, when Churchill perceived compelling reasons to do so. The difference with Singapore is not so much that liberal democracies have no appreciation of "compelling reasons", but that we seem to be in the grip of such reasons all the time.

update 2: Ted points to this, which is interesting:

From what I understood of US constitution, Thomas Jefferson and others designed the American Constitution specifically with the assumption that power corrupts. Thus it is designed specifically to check the government. In short, the people must be protected from the government.

This assumption leads to many implications. It explains why Americans have a right to hold guns, it serves as a kind of "check" on the govt. The Press is also meant to be the check on the government.

In Singapore, we work under the assumption that the PAP government is a benevolent one and thus, conversely, it must be protected from the people. It was probably Cherian George who first mentioned this.

That is why we rave and rave, until the cows come home, about the importance of a responsible press. That also justifies all the restrictions on freedom of speech and assembly.

For the American case--think of it as rooted in the very foundation of the nation itself as a rebellion against the excessive use of power on the part of the English Crown. The slogan was "no taxation without representation"--or more generally, no government except by the citizen's leave. The part about "power" is further developed in the Federalist Papers, about parts of which I blogged before (e.g., here).

The official story for Singapore, however, I believe, is not so much that the government must be protected from the people as the people needs the government to protect them against themselves and against each other; and only a strong government--a Leviathan--can do that. The alternative is a war of every man against every man:

In such condition there is no place for industry, because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently no culture of the earth; no navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea; no commodious building; no instruments of moving and removing such things as require much force; no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. (Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, XIII)

It's not just that without Leviathan, people (in our context, the races) will fight; but also that without Leviathan, so too will "commodious living" depart.

Puzzled...

From the ClusterMaps (most recent map update: 2005-11-11 04:47:50 GMT) for this site:


Is that Alice Springs?

Random thoughts about happiness

Warning: the post does not actually "go" anywhere--hence "random thoughts". So don't get too excited. (note: 2105 Nov 11 -0500 I've added slightly to the post for the sake of improving clarity.)

'Been thinking about certain recent meditations on "whether money buys happiness" by Mr. Wang (and also this) responding to Stardom Dreamer. This post is not about that question and such issues as whether materialism is evil and so on; rather, I would like to take a couple of steps back to ask: What is "happiness"? But again, the question I have in mind may not be the same as the one you are thinking about. So let me explain.

A quote from Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 1.4 to get things started. The Philosopher is considering the question--given that "all knowledge and every pursuit aims at some good"--what then, "is the highest of all goods achievable by action". The ultimate goal of human life, as it were? This is how he begins his investigation into the issue:

Verbally there is very general agreement; for both the general run of men and people of superior refinement say that it is happiness, and identify living well and doing well with being happy; but with regard to what happiness is they differ, and the many do not give the same account as the wise. For the former think it is some plain and obvious thing, like pleasure, wealth, or honour; they differ, however, from one another, and often even the same man identifies it with different things, with health when he is ill, with wealth when he is poor; but, conscious of their ignorance, they admire those who proclaim some great ideal that is above their comprehension.

(I'm bracketing issues to do with whether eudaimonia is properly translated "happiness" except to say (hand waving) that this translation will have to do. In any case, the same ambiguities I want to explore with "happiness" occur with eudaimonia as well.)

Notice the following things: Everybody agrees that "happiness" is "living well and doing well" and "the highest of all goods achievable by action". But wait, don't they also disagree "with regard to what happiness is"? Yes they do--some say it is pleasure, wealth, etc., etc., and eventually, Arisotle will himself conclude that "happiness is activity in accordance with excellence (or virtue)". What's going on then?

There are actually two ways to look at the question: "What is happiness?" --we could be asking for the formal sense of the term, or we could be asking for something more substantive. The formal sense of the term is simply "living well, doing well" and I might add, "making a smashing success of life". But this definition does not in any way tell us what makes for "living well, doing well" or "making a smashing success of life"--whether it is a life of pleasure, wealth, honor, or some other thing. In fact, I would also add that so defined, "happiness" is (by definition) what everyone ultimately pursues or wants to pursue--whatever makes for it.

The differing substantive answers to the question "What is happiness?", on the other hand, are competing attempts to give content to what makes for "living well, doing well", "making a smashing success of life", "that which everyone ultimately pursues or wants to pursue". The thing is that if the various competing attempts are genuinely competing attempts at answering the same question, then they all have to presuppose at some point the same formal sense of happiness; for other wise, they would be like saying

A is X
B is Y
C is Z

Which are hardly competing accounts of the same thing. Rather, they have to be more like:

H is X
H is Y
H is Z

(I will use "H" to stand for Happiness, formally defined) One complication is that in ordinary (English) discourse, "happiness" is usually associated with a cluster of substantive notions--that is, we normally assume a particular set of stuff that goes into the X/Y/Z slot in using that term. What stuff? Here, I believe that it's actually in the region of what some psychologists call "Subjective Well-being" (SWB):

Subjective well-being (SWB) refers to how people evaluate their lives, and includes variables such as life satisfaction and marital satisfaction, lack of depression and anxiety, and positive moods and emotions...A person's evaluation of his or her life may be in the form of cognitions (e.g., when a person gives conscious evaluative judgments about his or her satisfaction with life as a whole, or evaluative judgments about specific aspects of his or life such as recreation). However, an evaluation of one's life also may be in the form of affect (people experiencing unpleasant or pleasant moods and emotions in reaction to their lives). Thus, a person is said to have high SWB if she or he experiences life satisfaction and frequent joy, and only infrequently experience unpleasant emotions such as sadness and anger. Contrariwise, a person is said to have low SWB if he or she is dissatisfied with life, experiences little joy and affection, and frequently feels negative emotions such as anger or anxiety. The cognitive and affective components of SWB are highly interrelated...

I'm not saying that ordinary users of the word "happiness" has such an involved definition in mind when using the term; all I am saying is that as ordinarily used, the term takes a sense that is in the region of "having a positive cognitive evaluation of one's life and experiencing satisfaction." In other words, "feeling great", "contentment", "positively evaluating one's life", "flow", etc. The important thing to note is that this is actually a substantive, not formal take on what is "happiness"--one particular (though popular) take.

(Incidentally, this is also in the region of what Nietzsche meant by "happiness" when he said: "Man does not strive after happiness; only the Englishman does that." If the formal sense is meant, then he would not have made much sense, since H just is, by definition, what man seeks after. What he is saying is that only the English--read, bourgeois--seeks after SWB. Real men seek after other stuff. Anyway, that's another story for another time.)

In any case, an important consequence of this ordinary use of "happiness" is that issues are now often raised at the level of "What makes for SWB?"--even though officially, the question is "What makes for happiness?" In other words, people who says that materialism, wealth, etc., do or do not make people happy are often not best understood as saying that:

H is/is not "a life enjoying material wealth..."

But

"A life enjoying material wealth..." makes for/does not make for SWB

The fact is that the two are actually quite different issues and one could, in principle, go in different ways for them.

But let me get back to the sorts of stuff that might go into the X/Y/Z slot. Here, we can divide them between objective and subjective accounts. One way to think of the difference is to ask the questions: can an individual be wrong about whether he or she is happy? Does his or her judgment about his own happiness answer to facts that are in some sense independent of his contingent beliefs, desires and feelings?

If you think that (for instance) happiness is a life enjoying honor among men and power over other men, that's presumably an objective acount of happiness. Whether one has power over others and whether one has honor among them is not up to my subjective beliefs. I might believe that I am a tyrant ruling over a city but the facts may be otherwise--and when they are otherwise, I am wrong. Or take Aristotle's "activity in accordance with excellence (or virtue)"--that would be an objective account too. SWB, on the other hand, is in the subjective camp. In fact, it is an umbrella that covers most of the possibilities in that camp.

Sometimes, a formulation may be ambiguous, or admits of an objective and a subjective reading. Consider the following--a parent says: (part of) happiness is to have my children doing well in life. Now imagine that the children at issue are captured and tortured by terrorists but the parent does not know, believing that they are safe and well. If we take the formulation to be subjective, then we should conclude that the parent's happiness has not changed. If we take it to be objective, then it has changed--even though he does not know it.

And an account could also insist that there is both an objective and a subjective dimension to happiness. To use my last example again: the parent (given his own partial definition of happiness) must both believe that his children are well, and it also be the case that they are well in order for him to be genuinely happy.

The example of the parent brings up another way to divide the potential X/Y/Zs--an account of happiness could be individualistic or not. An individualistic account would make an essential reference to the person himself and no other. For example, "happiness is the enjoyment of (my) bodily pleasure". The objective version of the parent's (partial) account of happiness cited above, however, makes an essential reference to his children, it is thus not individualistic. On the subjective version, however, all that he needs for his happiness is his belief that his children are well, so there is no essential reference to his children. Unless I am mistaken, all subjective accounts would be individualistic , but not all objective accounts need be non-individualistic. Incidentally, it is also possible to have (non-individualistic) accounts that make essential reference to, say, God, or the Divine.

Another way to cut the X/Y/Zs is to make a second formal vs. substantive split (not the same as the first). To see what a formal definition of happiness at this level might look like, consider the following two examples from the history of philosophy:

To which end we are to consider that the felicity [=happiness] of this life consisteth not in the repose of a mind satisfied. For there is no such finis ultimus (utmost aim) nor summum bonum (greatest good) as is spoken of in the books of the old moral philosophers. Nor can a man any more live whose desires are at an end than he whose senses and imaginations are at a stand. Felicity is a continual progress of the desire from one object to another, the attaining of the former being still but the way to the latter. (Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, XI)

And:

In what, then, consists human wisdom or the road of true happiness? It is not precisely in diminishing our desires, for if they were beneath our power, a part of our faculties would remain idle, and we would not enjoy our whole being. Neither is it in extending our faculties, for if, proportionate to them, our desires were more extended, we would as a result only become unhappier. But it is in diminishing the excess of the desires over the faculties and putting power and will in perfect equality. It is only then that, with all the powers in action, the soul will nevertheless remain peaceful and that man will be well ordered. (Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Emile, Bk. 2)

Notice that both Hobbes and Rousseau do not posit an actual something--some state, process or activity the being, doing or enjoying of which constitutes happiness. Rather, one says that happiness is the continued satisfaction of one desire after another--whatever those desires are, while the other says that happiness is the perfect equilibrium between one's desires and powers--again, whatever those desires are. Such accounts are also "formal". Some ways of elaborating SWB can also be seen as formal in this sense: after all, it isn't as if the precise contents of the "positive cognitive evaluations and affections" are stated; they just have to be positive, whatever they are.

coda:

Is there any practical implication to the above? Sort of. I think that much debates about "the nature of happiness", or what "truly conduces to happiness", etc., potentially fall prey to a degree of conceptual confusion about the level at which we talking (though I am not saying that anyone is particular did fall prey to this confusion--so take this as a reminder to myself not to so fall prey).

Take the cliche "money doesn't buy happiness". One question is: what exactly does the "happiness" part of the saying refer to--what exactly is the X that money can or cannot buy? So for example:

Is the saying making a point about what should or should not go into the X/Y/Z slot, i.e., the issue of what the substantive nature of happiness (H) consists in? --i.e., that H does not consist in "money"? If this is the reading, then in agreeing with the saying, we would be saying that something else apart from "money" should go into the X/Y/Z slot, perhaps something like SWB? Or perhaps SWB is not enough? (The issue at this level concerns what truly is worth pursuing in some ultimate sense.)

Or is the saying about what best conduces toward SWB? That is, the question already presupposes a specific answer to the prior question: "what is happiness"--happiness is SWB, and then goes on to make a claim about what does and does not conduce toward our enjoying SWB. (The issue at this level concerns what we should do given that we want SWB.)

And I've not even begun to talk about the massive ambiguity for the "money" part of the adage--does it mean the possess of money, or the spending of money, or the accumulation of money, etc., and in what sort of contexts?

"Philosophy is not afraid of anything! Nothing!" thundered the job applicant

I just had to post this--after I stop laughing. M. Garrett Bauman, "But Can You Teach", The Chronicle of Higher Education (Oct 28; via. ALDaily). It's about the antics of university job applicants (the writer is in a hiring committee for the English and Philosophy department). Often enough, the candidates are asked to do a teaching demo:

One man illustrated proper logic with this syllogism:

All men are mortal.
Socrates is mortal.
Therefore, Socrates is a man.*

I raised my hand. "Birds are mortal too, aren't they?" I asked, hoping he would correct his error.

"Yes," our teacher agreed.

"So Socrates could be a bird?"

He smiled benignly. "No. Socrates doesn't have feathers."

(...jaws dropped...) The next one is on the...bizarre side:

My favorite self-destructive candidate was a young philosophy graduate who delivered his opening-day introduction to the course. Several rivals had handed out syllabi and lectured on course rules. Yawn. But he began, "I am ... " - then clenched his face and grimaced while uttering his name. "And this is ... " - he sighed as if about to reveal the Ark of the Covenant - "Philosophy 101."

Scorning preliminary definitions or rules, he drew Plato's cave on the board, complete with men, sun, shadows, and perhaps mice and lollipops, then announced, "This is a lesson in symbols. To study philosophy is to recognize the cave. Philosophy is not afraid of anything! Nothing!" He groaned like Prometheus having his liver pecked out by the eagle. "So how does learning happen?"

He turned toward the board as though to write, then spun back with wild eyes and cried, "I don't know!" His eight "students" jerked back as if Beelzebub had sprung at us. "What's going on here? I don't know!" He stared at his notes, then brushed them to the floor. "We will wrestle with the important questions. We will be afraid of nothing!" His passion swelled and deflated six times a minute as anguish and chaos battled for his soul.

I really hope I didn't come across like that to my students.

*Note: if you really need to know, yes, despite having true premises and a true conclusion, the 'syllogism' is faulty.

Crime fighting observations

From NYT (Nov 10):

This is one of the most interesting experiments in crime we've ever seen," Mr. Scharf said. "Without effective courts, corrections or rehabilitation, we have reduced the crime rate by 100 percent." Hurricane Katrina, Mr. Scharf continued, "was one of the greatest crime-control tools ever deployed against a high-crime city.

Somehow, I still think it will cause less of a furor than a certain earlier observation:

BENNETT: ...one of the arguments in this book Freakonomics that they make is that the declining crime rate, you know, they deal with this hypothesis, that one of the reasons crime is down is that abortion is up. Well—

CALLER: Well, I don’t think that statistic is accurate.

BENNETT: Well, I don’t think it is either, I don’t think it is either, because first of all, there is just too much that you don’t know. But I do know that it’s true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could—if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down. That would be an impossible, ridiculous, and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down. So these far-out, these far-reaching, extensive extrapolations are, I think, tricky.

See this for a more philosophical take.

White elephant t-shirts

And they say our youths are apathetic. I say they have a sense of humor. Received in the mail today:

From: proj.white.elephant@gmail.com

Hi: We're a bunch of 16 year old girls who started this white elephant t-shirt project in response to the Buangkok incident. We thought you guys might be interested. Attached is some information about what we're doing. Any support is greatly appreciated.

The girls are from class 415 of Raffles Girls School (Secondary) and they have already made it to Zaobao (click to enlarge). See also the T-Shirt design:

update: Mr. Wang comments on the legal dimension, while Agagooga also has T-Shirts to sell; Tomorrow'ed; The Void Deck has more comments | just a quick note--in case you are wondering about the proceeds of the sale, the girls are raising funds for Youth Guidance, "a charity organization which works with the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Police in mentoring and reaching out to youths at risk" (see info sheet below). | somewhat related: just read in ST (Nov 11): "TWO years of lobbying by grassroots leaders in Punggol South may finally have paid off, with plans underway to open Buangkok MRT station in January." (add: Stardom Dreamer has the story)

Stuff from their attached infosheet:

HOW IT ALL STARTED

There was a recent incident in which eight white elephants made out of cardboard were placed at the Buangkok MRT station on the North-East Line by some residents to convey their views on how the station is still as yet closed. This issue sparked off a huge debate amongst Singaporeans, not to mention provoked much interest in the closure of the station, the subsequent acts taken by the government, and expressing the views of Singaporeans in general.

Our class has always taken a strong interest in current affairs and this in particular caught our attention. We are not embarking on this project to judge the act in any way; rather we feel that it brought a very important issue - effective, reasonable ways of airing one's views - to prominence. Thus we were inspired to spontaneously start this initiative in an effort to promote active participation in citizenship, which we believe would eventually lead to a more open, participative society.

I really like that last sentence. There's more from the infosheet...

OUR BELIEFS

- The capacity to which our society can grow is immeasurable
- Increased communication between the government and the people is essential for society to improve and progress as a whole, and lead to a more participative and united society
- Citizens should bear in mind the responsibility of keeping to legal boundaries while expressing their views
- Political maturity is essential to the concept of active citizenship

OUR AIMS FOR THIS PROJECT

- To push for the concept of a more open, participative society in which people can discuss and air their views in an intellectual and insightful manner, bearing in mind the need to adhere to the law while doing so.
- Galvanize the youths of today to rise up from the apathy they are stereotyped with and take an active role in airing their views, as well as participate actively in the molding of our society
- To raise funds for Youth Guidance, a charity organization which works with the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Police in mentoring and reaching out to youths at risk. For more information on the organization, please see the section titled "About Youth Guidance" below.
- To ultimately help create a more participative, united society where everyone has a part to play in active citizenship

THE CONTEXT OF THE "WHITE ELEPHANT" IN OUR PROJECT

We would like to remind the public that even though the White Elephant has become our mascot and symbol for the project, we are in no way attempting to judge or condone the Buangkok MRT incident. Rather, we are using the accidental fame of the elephants to spark interest in our project; they also serve as a reminder that legal boundaries are important and should be adhered to even while expressing one's views and opinions about political issues.

Paris burning

The riots in Paris has now entered its 12th night. It was particularly sobering for me reading the news because only a few weeks ago, I heard Francis Fukuyama talk about the festering immigration problem that is Europe and how that, and not the middle east, is the powder keg of the 21st century. An important part of his thesis was that a conscious policy of "multiculturalism" has over the years contributed to problems rather than solve them. That is, the policy of having a "cultural mosaic" of separate ethnic groups; rather than a "melting pot" that mixes them. This policy, when coupled with certain economic policies and other background national-cultural facts makes for an unstable mix destined to cause trouble down the road:

Contemporary Europeans downplay national identity in favor of an open, tolerant, "post-national" Europeanness. But the Dutch, Germans, French and others all retain a strong sense of their national identity, and, to differing degrees, it is one that is not accessible to people coming from Turkey, Morocco or Pakistan. Integration is further inhibited by the fact that rigid European labor laws have made low-skill jobs hard to find for recent immigrants or their children. A significant proportion of immigrants are on welfare, meaning that they do not have the dignity of contributing through their labor to the surrounding society. They and their children understand themselves as outsiders.

His prescription:

The real challenge for democracy lies in Europe, where the problem is an internal one of integrating large numbers of angry young Muslims and doing so in a way that does not provoke an even angrier backlash from right-wing populists. Two things need to happen: First, countries like Holland and Britain need to reverse the counterproductive multiculturalist policies that sheltered radicalism, and crack down on extremists. But second, they also need to reformulate their definitions of national identity to be more accepting of people from non-Western backgrounds.

The underlying analysis rings true. While American identity is very largely a matter of allegiance to a set of political ideas (laid out in the Constitution), the identities of the various European countries are constituted in a much thicker fashion. It seems that one doesn't become French, or German, or Dutch just by speaking the language or living in the country for generations or swearing allegiance to the tri-color. The rioters in Paris are mostly children of immigrants from North Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa--they have no other viable identity apart from being French; but neither do they feel particularly accepted as French by the society in which they live. Now add to this the additional complication of religion: as the Spiegel article puts it:

Jihad may not be what's inspiring the rioters, but Islam is undeniably an inseparable component of their self-identity. Islam strengthens their sense of solidarity, gives them the appearance of legitimacy and draws an unmistakable line between them and the others, the "French."

But there is a caveat: 'outsider' groups had successfully integrated before: the Jews in pre-Nazi Germany, Austria and elsewhere in Europe being an excellent example. Many were thoroughly assimilated and contributed to no small degree to the high culture of their adopted countries--think Popper, Wittgenstein, Freud, Mahler, Mendelssohn, Schoenberg, two Strausses. It shouldn't be difficult to see what the caveat to the caveat is.

Other related stuff (still compiling):

- "The Barbarians at the Gates of Paris" by Theodore Dalrymple (City Journal, Autumn 2002).

- "Islamist Violence and Immigration Policy" by Richard Posner, comments by Gary Becker, and more follow on responses by Posner and Becker (July-August 2005).

- "'Red Belt' Riots" by Stephen Schwartz (Techcentralstation, Nov 7, 2005) -

- "Bonfire of the Vanities" by Theodore Dalrymple (WSJ, Nov 7, 2005) - "No one should gloat over riots in other countries, since such Schadenfreude is usually soon punished by riots nearer home. After what happened recently in New Orleans or in Birmingham, who would dare to assert that what is happening in the suburbs of Paris could never happen chez les Anglo-Saxons? But at the very least, the events in the suburbs of Paris should puncture French complacency that they have developed a model of society vastly superior and more humane to that of supposedly savage economic liberalism."

update: Wandie gives a timely reminder not to go overboard; the view from the ground is not as drastic as some makes it out to be. This bit from the second link caught my eye:

...There was a lot of coverage in various places. Most of it showed shocked and uncomprehending populations in these cités, half "white" and half "dark". They showed how the whole cité and the teachers came to clean up the school that was burnt overnight, and which will thus be open again tomorrow. They showed groups of citizens that occupy their local infrastructure (unarmed) simply to create a presence and show that it is valued. They showed some youth saying that they were sick to death of not finding jobs because the don't have the right name, and expressing their anger at Sarkozy's words; there was an interview of inhabitants (again, half white and half brown) of one cité complaining about the racism and provocation of the police.

In 20 minutes, there was not a single mention of religion. Again, these events are not motivated by religion, they are motivated by economics, and by the (correct) feeling of these youth that they are excluded from "normal" society. all they want is a job, a car and decent housing, to live their lifes normally. Now a significant proportion of this underclass is indeed of Arab or African origins, and thus Muslim, but they are all French by nationality.

A final word: I am not trying to downplay the significance of these events, but I do think they need to be put in perspective, and the shrillness of the English language press made me want to give another view. Burning cars are not a good thing, but htey are not the end of the world either, and no sign of any Intifada (or the USA and the UK would be in one as well). The violence unleashed in the past two days will not be tolerated much longer, neither by the inhabitants of the cités nor by the State, and a combination of both actions will prevail.

Now the open question is what the political fallout will be. Will the right use it to push tough law and order policies (to shoot the messenger, effectively), or will France take a hard look at its social model and decide that it is high time to do something for these kids and these cités? On this I must admit that I am not so optimistic.

Bernard-Henri Levy has a WSJ column (Nov 9). Some highlights:

This is not war. Contrary to what those individuals in France who have an intellectual investment in the discourse of war would like to persuade us (roughly: the far right, the far left, the Islamic fundamentalists), this is not, thank heaven, a matter of an Intifada wearing French colors...

And, without even speaking of the inevitable and complete re-examination of our entire urban policy, let alone that famous "French model of integration" we used to be so proud of that's now shattering into pieces, it is clear that the government of the Republic has some urgent, immediate tasks, beginning with those of the police, that is to say protecting property and people -- a task, by the way, that I think, at the time of this writing, it is carrying out rather less poorly than the sermonizers are saying....

All the more so since what's really needed now is arbitration and talk. Oh! Not political talk in the usual sense of the term... No. The other kind of talk. The kind those young people are waiting for, the ones who don't want to hear themselves treated like children of immigrants anymore, because they're simply French. Talk that will express, not rancor and mistrust, but equality, citizenship, consideration, and, as they say, respect. The kind that, to put it another way, can express in one single voice, in one single breath, both mourning for Zyed and Bouna, the ones who were burned alive by the transformer in Clichy-sous-Bois, and for Jean-Claude Irvoas, beaten to death in front of his wife and his daughter because he was photographing a lamppost... That is the necessary condition if there is to be renewed, in the lost lands of the Republic, something that will one day resemble a social bond. The other alternative is clear. We have had, in these past few days, a foretaste of it, and, for a secular country, it would be an avowal of ultimate failure: transferring the task of maintaining order and preaching peace to the authorities of the mosques.

Read the whole thing.

another update: There is a bunch of op-eds in ST today (Nov 10) that are quite interesting, some also having an additional "Singapore angle". I'll see if I can find alternative sources for them (for obvious reasons).

Quickstops (Nov 2, 2005)

- Radical Islamism poses the greatest threat not in the Middle East, but in Europe, says Francis Fukuyama (incidentally, the article is more or less a part of a talk Fukuyama recently gave at the University of Toronto).

- In the same ballpark: the suicide bombers in the midst of British society.

- A professor of Islamic studies, asked to write an introduction "for the first-ever English translation of the major declarations of Osama bin Laden", oblidges with some insights drawn from actually reading the man's words.

- Shifting gears: "And with the Davids getting more powerful, it's no surprise that the Goliaths are depressed", says Glenn Reynolds.

- A student got booted from class for citing Freakonomics while an employee got fired for just having the book.

- Elsewhere, Singapore Ink meditates on the freedom of the press; while Dasani is unhappy reading about the situation of women in early Rome.