高樓低廈,人潮起伏,
名爭利逐,千萬家悲歡離合。

閑雲偶過,新月初現,
燈耀海城,天地間留我孤獨。

舊史再提,故書重讀,
冷眼閑眺,關山未變寂寞!

念人老江湖,心碎家國,
百年瞬息,得失滄海一粟!

徐訏《新年偶感》

2013年12月28日星期六

安裕周記﹕留下只有思念

二○一三年倏忽而過,歲末之時,西方人多要唱一闕蘇格蘭古詩Auld Lang Syne,日本人則在大除夕圍爐看完《紅白歌唱大賽》後與全場歌手合唱《螢之光》送別一年;其實這兩首歌都是我們小學年代的《友誼萬歲》,曲譜一樣,曲詞不同。然而這裏頭也有政治:Auld Land Syne原詩是用蘇格蘭語寫成,後來才改作英文,蘇格蘭獨立鬧得震天價響的今天,這首在年末寒風之下滿是暖色的曲子卻另有意涵,剛烈民風在歌裏翩然而至。

《螢之光》則是十九世紀明治維新後編入小學歌唱讀本的官方指定歌曲,日語 原歌詞有四節,極極大多數場合,包括學年畢業或紅白歌唱大賽以及棒球賽小息之時,只唱第一節「螢之光,窗邊雪,讀書歲月,由是經年」,第三四節一般場合絕 不會唱。用上「極極大多數」和「絕不會唱」這些字眼,是因為《螢之光》在歷史上帶有軍方色彩,也和日本近代史有覑緊密關係。這歌曾經是日本帝國海軍的《告 別進行曲》,原歌詞第三四節,「千島之廣,畄繩亦然」,就曾在清廷割讓台灣後改為「千島之廣,台灣亦然」。日本文部省多次更改歌詞,便是有其政治原因。近 期中日糾紛惡化,日本社會有人在網上提出「為何不可唱第三四節」。這些都是後話。

不過,二○一三年於我們而言不僅是回憶的總結,正如這些驪歌一樣更多的是 政治含意。在我們的憶念當中,二○一三年是香港社會及政治運動的啟蒙歲月,佔領中環運動由一篇文章揭櫫成形,兩個大學教授和一個牧師促動了香港回歸以降最 深入人心的政治理想。社會躁動在年輕一代之間立下誓約,爭取這個城巿成為我們真正的家,而不是廉價文宣的「家是香港」或口腹之欲的「築福香港」。政治學者 稱,此刻香港政治是「難以管治」(ungovernable),真正意義實應在於管治當局已失民心,社會相當部分人口階層不承認梁振英政權的合法性,造成如此情狀的肇因不是社會,而是梁的「民可使由之,不可使知之」管治哲學。

二○一三年流逝的不僅是我們對政府的信任,更多的是人們對昔日流金歲月的 憶懷。在面對政治失衡的現實世界,香港社會義無反顧對曾經在我們建設社會的漫長日子攜手走來的人與事留下深深思念。文化界在今年年頭走了也斯,歲暮時分吳 昊也走了;影劇界的蘇杏璇和黎漢持在六月相差不過兩天,一先一後離開我們。他們在七十年代以還,在不同範疇寫下他們版本的香港故事——對七十年代的中學生 來說,周末午後溫煦陽光下閱讀《大拇指》是少年文學世界的心靈補足;一九七九年深冬一個星期五傍晚,《網中人》吸引了旺角山東街電器店前聚集的逾百路人。 蘇杏璇的《新紮師兄》賢母,黎漢持在《大內群英續集》總舵主,俱皆歷歷在目,更不要說盧國沾為《大內群英》寫的主題曲詞,「面對絕境,難道我會頹然後退? 勝負存亡難道冥冥中早有命運落下聖旨判了罪」,那是何等恢宏的大氣。百花齊放,橫空出世,是這個海港城巿尋得一己自我的騰飛前夕,絕非甘於當一個萬能蘇的 低眉失額。

來自司法部門的最高法院大法官李福善九十高壽而去,他曾是基本法起草委員 會港方委員,一度角逐首屆特首選舉。人稱「李官」的他個性耿直,回歸前夕,民主派對中共始終放心不下,李福善曾在面對記者提問時對此不以為然。今天憶起那 一刻的李官,絕無輕蔑民主派的一絲意味,而是以他個人為中共寫下保票﹕他不相信中共會一舉破眦「莊嚴承諾」,他相信中共的「一國兩制」至少會有半世紀。可 是,今天連發電視牌中聯辦也介入,西環中環諸君,能有臉面對這位打從心底信膺中共誠意的大法官?

香港二○一三年本土派思潮抬頭,構成這一現象的不純是中共喉舌所云「港 獨」或「思念英殖」或者其他,而是一隻手掌打不響的問題出自中共的對港政策失敗。有一種說法是,香港青年一代未能職場上流而萌反彈,這是粗糙地把社會現象 訴諸簡單的就業或經濟問題,全然沒有考慮回歸十六年的香港需要的是什麼,既不是上樓的居者有其屋,也不是就業滿足的人人有工做,更不是競爭力敗於北京上海 深圳廣州,因為這些事在戰後大半世紀的香港歷史都曾經發生,五十年代人浮於事,六十年代貪污腐化,七十年代無處棲身,八十年代經濟轉型,香港巿民都曾經此 中最終取得勝利。這一過程百轉千迴,從失去到獲得,香港是應允之地而非施捨之城;得的多還失的多,這筆帳清楚不過。

二○一三年留給人們的不僅是喚起港人的社運烽火,更多的是以下這些人們。在我們的大腦記憶裏,他們或她們留下難以抹去的片段,人們為此曾是喜怒哀樂哭笑嗔癡。今天這篇周記的標題來自梅艷芳《似水流年》歌詞,明天是她去世十周年,是的,已經十年了。


Patti Page(美國歌手)

五十年代聲質美如醇酒的女歌手,《田納西華爾滋》溫柔婉約,美國在戰火焚城的第二次世界大戰後給自己一個休養生息空間,她就是那個平安女神。


Van Cliburn(美國鋼琴家)

YouTube仍有他一九五八年參加第一屆蘇聯柴可夫斯基鋼琴大賽的紀錄片。當年僅二十三歲的他,決賽以《柴可夫斯基降B小調第一鋼琴協奏曲》奪魁,技壓四座。當時正值冷戰,美國藉此先拔頭籌,有人說是蘇聯放手相讓,云云。


莊則棟

(中國,三屆世界乒乓球男子單打冠軍)


日本乒乓完敗始於莊則棟,他從一九六一年起連勝三屆世界賽。左推右攻的極致是速度,中國乒球至今不衰的「快,狠,準」即來自莊。文革期間,莊是又紅又專典型,江青麾下紅人,文革後一直無法再進國家隊。

一九七一年名古屋世界賽,莊則棟與美國運動員科恩相交,想不到由此構建中美解凍的乒乓外交,世界格局從此改寫,中美俄大三角延續至今。


佐野洋(日本,推理小說家)

六十年代最多產的日本推理作家,一九六四年的《華麗的醜聞》成為社會話題,「華麗」一詞的負面用義一時風行。佐野洋是東京大學心理學系畢業,弟弟丸山昇是日本著名中國文學研究學者,兩兄弟政治立場左傾,皆日本共產黨鐵桿支持者。


陳僖儀(香港,歌手)

年輕的香港新晉女歌手,天妒紅顏,車禍去世,令人嘆息。


戴卓爾夫人(英國,前首相)

英國至今仍無法從她的政治及經濟政策走出第二條路,她於七十年代英國政經一團亂時上台,不折不扣的新保守主義信徒。英國八十年代脫離瀕於經濟破產的危機,卻一頭栽進美國總統列根懷抱。戰略的美英同盟伸延到二○○三年伊拉克戰爭,當年的首相貝理雅到今天依然難辭其罪。


三國連太郎(日本,演員)

足可與三船敏郎和仲代達矢分庭抗禮的日本國寶級演員。中國人民對他有所認識,八十年代曾與孫道臨合演《沒有下完的一盤棋》,講述中日兩位棋王的友誼不因戰火而眦,放在如今中日勢成水火的政治環境,是笑當年人們太天真,抑或為今天的政客計算而暗下神傷?


Giulio Andreotti

(安德里奧蒂,意大利前總理)


三度擔任總理的政壇老手, 手段柔剛並用,每在國難當頭之際便是他上台之時。晚年失德之事頻現,包括與黑手黨的關係,被指涉及一九七九年一名揭穿他與黑手黨往還甚密的記者被殺案。此 案先打三年,判安德里奧蒂無罪;三年後檢察官找到新證據得以入罪,判監二十四年,他隨即上訴,翌年被判無罪。


劉家良(香港,武術家,演員)

洪拳正宗,廣東十虎黃飛鴻徒孫劉湛之子,演藝圈的真功夫表表者。武術指導作品多如天上繁星,執導演筒後以義貫戲,自成一格。一九九四年《醉拳II)時已是近花甲之年,腰馬仍在,出拳生風,誠大家也。



竹內實(日本,中國研究專家)

生於中國山東的日本中國研究專家,以研究魯迅及文化大革命著名,在日本有 人稱為「竹內魯迅」。更為人熟悉的是竹內實對毛澤東思想的研究,但當日本毛派迷倒文化大革命之時,竹內實提出要對文革保持清醒。中日建交之後,竹內實說, 影響日中關係的最大因素,是日本對歷史的態度,果然一語中的。


Helen Thomas(海倫湯馬斯,美國記者)

美國合眾社記者,白宮記者團團長。美國總統在她筆下只是行政首長級官員,她要的是人們能夠接受的答案。二○一○年,她公開發表反猶太言論後被迫退休,翌日的白宮記者會,這位一向坐第一排中央的記者留下的空椅子,沒有人坐上去,CNN用了十幾秒時間,鏡頭固定對覑這張缺了主人的椅子,以示敬意。


David Frost(佛羅斯特,英國記者)

尼克遜退出政壇後,接受佛羅斯特訪問,講出半句真話,「我讓美國人民失望」。英國嗣後再也沒有如此咄咄逼人的記者。


山崎豐子(日本,作家)

日本社會派作家,以書寫大歷史為己任。有一種說法認為,日本就是曾經出過像山崎豐子、有吉佐和子、松本清張這些自由派作家,才能在日皇千秋萬世的戰後氛圍不致再沉淪。香港台灣讀者對山崎豐子認之甚詳,《白色巨塔》膾炙人口,但《華麗一族》始是力透紙背的萬鈞之作。


林錦堂(香港,粵劇演員)

文武生,七八十年代頗受年輕一代歡迎的頌新聲劇團主角。


于光遠(中國,經濟學家)

中國從黑暗文革走向改革年代的著名知識分子,有人從經濟改革的層次評論于先生,但更大的貢獻當不於此,而係從毛澤東定於一尊的遺風之下,勇於發聲呼喚解放思想;七十代末以迄如今,于先生無畏無懼,是知識分子良知的典範。

梁伯琪(中國,前總書記趙紫陽夫人)

中國近代史最悲慘一頁的目擊者。梁伯琪去世,香港有線電視記者在北京趙宅門外訪問趙家親朋,一人黯然而言,「歷史對他們太不公道了」。天下蒼生淚如雨下。


Mikhail Kalashnikov

(卡拉什尼科夫,前蘇聯軍械設計家)

AK四七衝鋒槍設計者,這槍自六十年代以來成為與美國M十六抗衡的兩大流派之一。AK四七曾是第三世界反抗象徵,但是一九六八年的一張照片,手持AK四七的蘇軍士兵,木無表情阻擋捷克之春,一國的獨立遭槍托狠狠打碎。


Joan Fontaine(鍾芳婷,英國演員)

父母是英國人,在美國成長,在《深閨疑雲》一舉奪得影后,把那個心神恍惚憂心忡忡的妻子刻劃入微。英國女演員有其獨特風彩,鍾芳婷與慧雲李(Vivien Leigh)都是纖巧娟秀的一類,伊莉莎白泰萊則入於華麗的另類。



Peter O'Toole(彼得奧圖,愛爾蘭演員

一個演員的一生,只要做好一個角色就夠了。彼得奧圖在《沙漠梟雄》的巨大成功,令人在五十年後仍然回味再三。當然,若無導演大衛連(DavidLean),也許就沒有這一光輝歷史。

紅線女(中國,粵劇演員)

《昭君出塞》翻唱不止一千次,仍無人能出其右。「南國紅豆」是周恩來給她的美稱,文革期間發生在紅線女以及八億人民身上的種種,只能說一句,中共如何對得起百姓。


Nelson Mandela(曼德拉,南非前總統)

三百年的種族隔離政策於他手上結束,可悲的是,巨人去世,文棍各取所需抽水頻頻。可痛,可恨。

Dani Rodrik : Africa’s Structural Transformation Challenge




PRINCETON – Long viewed as an economic basket case, Sub-Saharan Africa is experiencing its best growth performance since the immediate post-independence years. Natural-resource windfalls have helped, but the good news extends beyond resource-rich countries. Countries such as Ethiopia, Rwanda, and Uganda, among others, have grown at East Asian rates since the mid-1990’s. And Africa’s business and political leaders are teeming with optimism about the continent’s future.

The question is whether this performance can be sustained. So far, growth has been driven by a combination of external resources (aid, debt relief, or commodity windfalls) and the removal of some of the worst policy distortions of the past. Domestic productivity has been given a boost by an increase in demand for domestic goods and services (mostly the latter) and more efficient use of resources. The trouble is that it is not clear from whence future productivity gains will come.

The underlying problem is the weakness of these economies’ structural transformation. East Asian countries grew rapidly by replicating, in a much shorter time frame, what today’s advanced countries did following the Industrial Revolution. They turned their farmers into manufacturing workers, diversified their economies, and exported a range of increasingly sophisticated goods.

Little of this process is taking place in Africa. As researchers at the African Center for Economic Transformation in Accra, Ghana, put it, the continent is “growing rapidly, transforming slowly.”

In principle, the region’s potential for labor-intensive industrialization is great. A Chinese shoe manufacturer, for example, pays its Ethiopian workers one-tenth what it pays its workers back home. It can raise Ethiopian workers’ productivity to half or more of Chinese levels through in-house training. The savings in labor costs more than offset other incremental costs of doing business in an African environment, such as poor infrastructure and bureaucratic red tape.

But the aggregate numbers tell a worrying story. Fewer than 10% of African workers find jobs in manufacturing, and among those only a tiny fraction – as low as one-tenth – are employed in modern, formal firms with adequate technology. Distressingly, there has been very little improvement in this regard, despite high growth rates. In fact, Sub-Saharan Africa is less industrialized today than it was in the 1980’s. Private investment in modern industries, especially non-resource tradables, has not increased, and remains too low to sustain structural transformation.

As in all developing countries, farmers in Africa are flocking to the cities. And yet, as a recent study from the Groningen Growth and Development Center shows, rural migrants do not end up in modern manufacturing industries, as they did in East Asia, but in services such as retail trade and distribution. Though such services have higher productivity than much of agriculture, they are not technologically dynamic in Africa and have been falling behind the world frontier.

Consider Rwanda, a much-heralded success story where GDP has increased by a whopping 9.6% per year, on average, since 1995 (with per capita incomes rising at an annual rate of 5.2%). Xinshen Diao of the International Food Policy Research Institute has shown that this growth was led by non-tradable services, in particular construction, transport, and hotels and restaurants. The public sector dominates investment, and the bulk of public investment is financed by foreign grants. Foreign aid has caused the real exchange rate to appreciate, compounding the difficulties faced by manufacturing and other tradables.

None of this is to dismiss Rwanda’s progress in reducing poverty, which reflects reforms in health, education, and the general policy environment. Without question, these improvements have raised the country’s potential income. But improved governance and human capital do not necessarily translate into economic dynamism. What Rwanda and other African countries lack are the modern, tradable industries that can turn the potential into reality by acting as the domestic engine of productivity growth.

The African economic landscape’s dominant feature – an informal sector comprising microenterprises, household production, and unofficial activities – is absorbing the growing urban labor force and acting as a social safety net. But the evidence suggests that it cannot provide the missing productive dynamism. Studies show that very few microenterprises grow beyond informality, just as the bulk of successful established firms do not start out as small, informal enterprises.

Optimists say that the good news about African structural transformation has not yet shown up in macroeconomic data. They may well be right. But if they are wrong, Africa may confront some serious difficulties in the decades ahead.

Half of Sub-Saharan Africa’s population is under 25 years of age. According to the World Bank, each year an additional five million turn 15, “crossing the threshold from childhood to adulthood.” Given the slow pace of positive structural transformation, the Bank projects that over the next decade only one in four African youth will find regular employment as a salaried worker, and that only a small fraction of those will be in the formal sector of modern enterprises.

Two decades of economic expansion in Sub-Saharan Africa have raised a young population’s expectations of good jobs without greatly expanding the capacity to deliver them. These are the conditions that make social protest and political instability likely. Economic planning based on simple extrapolations of recent growth will exacerbate the discrepancy. Instead, African political leaders may have to manage expectations downward, while working to increase the rate of structural transformation and social inclusion.

Dani Rodrik is Professor of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey. He is the author of One Economics, Many Recipes: Globalization, Institutions, and Economic Growth and, most recently, The Globalization Paradox: Democracy and the Future of the World

Sin-ming Shaw : Thailand’s Silent Coup



BANGKOK – Thailand is once again being convulsed by extreme partisan politics, with the country’s polarization playing out on Bangkok’s streets. Several people have been killed, and many more have been injured. The sense that Thailand has been through all of this before would be mildly reassuring were it not for a nagging fear that this decent and prosperous society may be set to destroy its democracy.

Much of the violence has been led by Suthep Thaugsuban, a former deputy prime minister. He has inspired thousands of demonstrators, many from his power base in the country’s south, to storm and occupy government buildings with the aim of unseating Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, the sister of exiled former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. Suthep says that this is the first step in rooting out “Thaksinism” from the country’s political life.

On December 1, Suthep demanded – and received – a meeting with Yingluck in the presence of Thailand’s military chiefs, whom he had asked to “guarantee” his safety. During the meeting, Suthep gave Yingluck a two-day deadline to resign. With the police failing to control the mobs in the streets without the help of the military, Yingluck decided to resign and dissolve parliament, declaring that she would lead a caretaker government until a new election is held on February 2.

The date was endorsed by a “reform forum,” established to resolve the crisis and comprising Bangkok’s elite (including the military). Suthep and his followers were dissatisfied, and left the forum in protest, rejecting Yingluck even as an interim prime minister and demanding that the election be held after political reforms – the sort he would agree with – are implemented to eliminate all vestiges of the Thaksin clan from government.

In fact, Suthep has called for a “people’s council,” comprised of 400 unbiased representatives. The council would replace the Senate after the upper house nominates a new leader to be appointed by the King, thus obviating the need for elections in the near future. Wassana Nanuam, the military-affairs correspondent of the English-language daily Bangkok Post, has described the move as a “silent” coup d’état: no tanks in the streets.

The Democrat Party, led by the former court-appointed Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, has separately announced a boycott of the February 2 election on the grounds that the party could not reform the country even if it participated. The Democrat Party last won a parliamentary majority in 1992.

While the military chiefs’ inclinations have been with Bangkok’s elites, they are being careful to keep their options open. Their unsuccessful stint in power following the military coup in 2010 appears to have taught them that they should wait to see if their political allies can break Thaksin’s electoral stranglehold, which has lasted 12 years and five general elections, before deciding what to do next.

Bangkok’s elites maintain that the billionaire Thaksin and his allies have bought their electoral victories. But Freedom House, which tracks democracy and civil rights around the world, declared Yingluck’s landslide electoral victory in 2011 free and fair, a position supported by most Thailand experts.

Despite Thaksin’s corrupt image, a majority of mainly poorer Thais see him as their only alternative to the country’s out-of-touch urban elites. Indeed, Suthep’s insistence on delaying the election is an open admission that he and his allies cannot win a fair contest, and he has even gone so far as to suggest that, with the “right” leader, Thailand may not need elections at all in the future. Nor is it clear that any reforms would satisfy the anti-Thaksin camp, except for those designed to deny Thaksin’s followers a parliamentary majority.

That said, Thaksin and his sister bear some responsibility for their recent misfortunes. Guilty of excessive hubris, their ability to empathize with the peasants and the urban poor is matched only by their disregard for the urban middle class and its members’ demand for clean government and rule of law rather than populism.

Yingluck must also take some blame for her clumsy handling of the current crisis. What ignited the protests was her attempt to amend an amnesty bill, originally intended as a grudging act of reconciliation between the country’s opposing “red” and “yellow” political camps. But, while the amnesty was to apply to lesser crimes committed from 2006 to 2011, Yingluck tried to extend it two years earlier and include capital crimes – a move rightly seen as a blatant attempt to absolve her brother and pave the way for his return to Thailand.

Thaksin’s supporters miscalculated in assuming that they could so easily abuse their parliamentary majority. Their effort to manipulate the amnesty, though not unconstitutional, was nonetheless arrogant and provocative. Anger erupted among Bangkok’s middle classes, prompting Suthep to unleash his mobs.

The story is far from over. If recent history is any guide, the February election (assuming it is held) will sweep Thaksin’s allies back to power. What follows will be fraught with risks of further instability, as poor rural Thais face off against wealthy urban elites, and polarization intensifies between the north, where most people live, and the southern power base of the Democrat Party and Suthep, the street mobs’ leader.

Sin-ming Shaw, a former fellow at Oxford University, is a visiting scholar at the University of Michigan

Laura Wharton : Jerusalem’s Unholy Alliance




JERUSALEM – What happens in Jerusalem rarely stays in Jerusalem. That is why anyone who cares about Israel and the Middle East should be alarmed by the composition of the city’s new municipal government.

Jerusalem’s mayor, Nir Barkat, was re-elected in October with 51% of the vote. For many who supported him, he was the lesser of two evils: his rival was backed by two powerful politicians implicated in corruption scandals. Voters did not consider Barkat a success on the issues that most of them care about – housing costs, clean streets, or conflicts with the ultra-Orthodox; but at least he was someone they already knew. They expected no surprises.

They were wrong. In forming his new coalition, the first agreement that Barkat signed was with a new local party called “United Jerusalem.” Though headed by a veteran politician formerly of the National Religious Party, the second position on United Jerusalem’s candidate list was filled by Aryeh King, a far-right activist who ran for the Knesset (parliament) with a party called Strength to Israel. Nationally, Strength to Israel failed to win enough votes to enter the Knesset, and the courts banned some of its campaign material for being racist. Yet in Jerusalem, King and the local version of his party won two seats in the 30-seat city council.

King is not to be feared just for his words. He launched a series of legal proceedings to evict Palestinian families from their homes in Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrach neighborhood and elsewhere, and established a fund (backed by donations from wealthy, right-wing Americans) to buy land from Palestinians in order to give it to Israelis – sort of a racist Robin Hood in reverse. He also won the backing of a small group of extremist rabbis who declared that selling or renting apartments to non-Jews is forbidden and treasonous (one of the rabbis is under investigation for these and other statements).

In his recent campaign, King proposed barring Arabs from city parks and, somewhat more ambitiously, called for preparations to construct the Third Temple. To this end, he encourages Jews to pray on the Temple Mount, today the site of two of Islam’s most important mosques. Asked in a recent interview about the similarities between him and the late Meir Kahane, whose racist party was banned, King noted a close ideological affinity (though he pointed out that Kahane’s movement was messianic, whereas his own is practical).

King’s views and actions are well documented. So Barkat’s decision to invite him into the municipal-government coalition is extremely disturbing, as is the willingness of almost all other putatively mainstream parties to approve his appointment without protest.

The consequences are likely to be serious. For starters, although Jerusalem is usually remarkably calm, given its great mix of populations, the kind of provocations for which King is known will increase street-level tension. In November, for example, King and a group of his followers disrupted a gathering of Palestinian and Israeli peace activists by shouting into a megaphone that Arabs should go to Gaza or Beirut; only police intervention prevented a riot.

Moreover, Barkat has appointed King to serve as a representative in the city planning and building council and as a replacement representative in the higher regional council. That will make it easier for him to displace Palestinian families living in East Jerusalem, and he is expected to use his voice in city management to back the acceleration of construction for Israeli settlers there.

Building for Israelis in East Jerusalem is illegal under international law, raises tensions, and, by making it ever harder to define the lines separating the city into the capitals of two states, complicates efforts to reach a peace agreement. Barkat has always supported such construction but was stopped in the past by forces within the previous coalition and the national government. Now, however, with King pressing from within the municipal coalition (and with a far-right construction and housing minister in the national government), Barkat is likely to escalate his efforts to expand settlements in Jerusalem’s Palestinian neighborhoods.

Giving a person like King responsibility in managing Jerusalem means increasing tensions within the city, aggravating the Palestinian population’s greatest fears, and encouraging Israeli settlers to develop new outposts, thereby erecting new obstacles to peace. His behavior in office should be closely watched, and no provocation should be left without a response.

Barkat has defended his choice of partners by saying that he wants a broad coalition and that he does not believe in boycotting anyone, even King. This is wrong: some people’s views should not be given legitimacy. Giving racism a voice in Jerusalem’s administration is a mistake that must be corrected – ideally before tensions in the city escalate further.
Laura Wharton, a member of the Jerusalem City Council since 2008, teaches political science at Hebrew University

Ian Buruma: East Asia’s Sins of the Fathers




NEW YORK – One way to look at the growing military tensions over a few tiny islands in the East China Sea is to see in recent events a straightforward case of power politics. China is rising, Japan is in the economic doldrums, and the Korean peninsula remains divided. It is only natural that China would try to reassert its historical dominance over the region. And it is just as natural for Japan to feel nervous about the prospect of becoming a kind of vassal state (the Koreans are more accustomed to this role, vis-à-vis China).

Being subservient to American power, as Japan has been since 1945, was the inevitable consequence of a catastrophic war. Most Japanese can live with that. But submission to China would be intolerable.

And yet, because East Asian politics remains highly dynastic, a biographical explanation might be just as useful. Shinzo Abe, the Japanese prime minister, is the grandson of Nobusuke Kishi, once the top industrial bureaucrat of wartime Japan. Imprisoned by the Americans as a war criminal in 1945, Kishi was released without trial at the beginning of the Cold War, and was elected Prime Minister as a conservative in 1957.

Kishi was a nationalist with fascist tendencies during the 1930’s and 1940’s. After the war, an equally deep aversion to Communism made him a staunch ally of the United States; Richard Nixon became a close friend. His lifelong quest was to revise the pacifist Japanese constitution, written by the Americans just after the war, and turn Japan into a proud military power once more.

Abe’s greatest wish is to complete the project that eluded his grandfather: abandon constitutional pacifism and bury the war crimes of Kishi’s generation, while remaining allied with the US against China. As a right-wing nationalist, Abe feels compelled to resist the dominance of China, if only rhetorically for the time being.

One of Kishi’s greatest Cold War allies – apart from Nixon – was the South Korean strongman President Park Chung-hee, who came to power in a military coup a year after Kishi resigned as prime minister. Park, too, had a dubious wartime career. Under the Japanese name of Takagi Masao, he served as an officer in the Japanese Imperial Army. He graduated from a military academy in Manchuria, where Kishi had once ruled over an industrial empire that was built on Chinese slave labor.

Like Kishi, Park was a nationalist. But, apart from his sentimental wartime connections to Japan, his anti-Communism was incentive enough to continue warm relations with the imperial power that had brutally colonized Korea for a half-century. Park Geun-hye, South Korea’s current president, is his daughter.

Park Geun-hye adored her father at least as much as Abe loved his grandfather, but the result of her dynastic connection is the opposite of Abe’s. To be seen as a Korean nationalist today, she must distance herself from some of her father’s political ties, especially his links with Japan. Though still admired by many South Koreans for rebuilding the country from the ruins of war, his legacy, like that of many members of the old conservative elite, is tainted by wartime collaboration. So his daughter must confront Japan over territorial disputes, to avoid inheriting the stigma of her father’s colonial past.

The case of the current Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, is perhaps the most complicated of the three. His father, Xi Zhongxun, was one of the top leaders of the Communist revolution. A guerilla leader in the war against Japan, he helped to defeat Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists in China’s civil war, became a member of the Central Committee, and then chief of propaganda, Vice Premier, and Governor of Guangdong.

An impeccable Communist career, one might think, giving his son no need to distance himself or to complete a frustrated ambition. But Xi’s nationalism, too, has a history.

Chairman Mao’s main aim was to consolidate his revolution at home. His nationalist credentials were so impressive that he could afford to be relatively easy on former enemies. Territorial disputes over unimportant islands could be laid to rest. He did not even bother to reclaim Hong Kong from the British.

It was only when Deng Xiaoping opened the door to trade with capitalist countries that anti-Japanese sentiments were deliberately stirred up. Neither Marxism nor Maoism could be used to justify China’s joining the capitalist world. This left an ideological vacuum, which old-fashioned nationalism soon filled. The more the leadership opened up the Chinese economy, the more it stoked popular anger over past wrongs, especially those committed by Japan.

The man who was most responsible for Deng’s Open Door policies was none other than Xi’s father, Xi Zhongxun. Always a pragmatic Communist, the elder Xi had been the target of several purges under Mao, when relative moderates were frequently denounced as counterrevolutionaries. His son appears to follow in this pragmatic tradition, open to business with the world. That is why he, too, like Deng’s reformers, must burnish his nationalist credentials by standing up to Japan and asserting Chinese dominance in East Asia.

None of these leaders – Xi, Abe, or Park – wants a real war. Much of their posturing is for domestic consumption. One reason why they can engage in this dangerous brinkmanship is the continuing presence of the US as the regional policeman. America’s armed forces are the buffer between the two Koreas, and between China and Japan.

The US presence allows East Asia’s rival powers to act irresponsibly. The only thing that might change their behavior would be US withdrawal of its military force. In that case, the three countries would have to come to terms with one another by themselves.
But that is still regarded by the Americans, Japanese, Koreans, and probably even the Chinese as too much of a risk. As a result, the status quo is likely to persist, which means that nationalist grandstanding over conflicting territorial claims is far from over.

Ian Buruma is Professor of Democracy, Human Rights, and Journalism at Bard College. He is the author of numerous books, including Murder in Amsterdam: The Death of Theo Van Gogh and the Limits of Tolerance and Taming the Gods: Religion and Democracy on Three Continents.