Iran Bids Obama Farewell With Insults: New Age Islam's Selection, 18 January 2017
New
Age Islam Edit Bureau
18 January 2017
• Iran Bids Obama Farewell With Insults
By Abdulrahman Al-Rashed
• Where Will One-Man Rule Lead Turkey?
By Serkan Demirtas
• Paris Conference: Mourning The Two-State Solution
By Osama Al-Sharif
• The Inauguration Of A New American Era
By Oubai Shahbandar
• Trump And Putin: The Unusual Alliance
By Hussein Shobokshi
• The Muslim As A 'Manchurian Candidate'
By Kevin Schwartz
• The Difference Between Right And Left-Wing Populism
By Santiago Zabala
• China: Future Of Yuan Currency Policy And Gulf Implications
By Dr. Mohamed A. Ramady
Compiled By New Age Islam Edit Bureau
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Iran Bids Obama Farewell With Insults
By Abdulrahman al-Rashed
17 January 2017
The Scorpion and the Frog is an animal fable about a frog that carries a scorpion on its back across a river. The frog is first hesitant to carry the scorpion out of fear of being stung but the scorpion insists it wouldn't. However, the scorpion does indeed sting the frog and when the latter asks it why it did so, the scorpion replies saying it was its natural for it to do so.
Last week, US navy destroyer, the USS Mahan, faced the potential threat of a confrontation with Iranian revolutionary guards' vessels in international waters in the Gulf and it had to fire warning shots. Meanwhile, celebrations were held in Tehran because a year passed since Iran's detention of American sailors and what Tehran calls "humiliating" American sailors.
All this embarrasses President Barack Obama who ends his eight years as president this week. Obama is the only president who carried the Iranian regime on its back since 1979. He cancelled the policy of five former American presidents and negotiated with the Iranians and signed generous agreements with them after lifting economic sanctions and keeping silent over their crimes in Syria. The Iranian regime rewarded him and bid him farewell as he exits the White House by coming near American troops in Gulf waters and insulting them again. This is in addition to insulting campaigns against him through Iranian official media outlets.
In all cases, there are few days before the inauguration of the president-elect. After that, we will observe how the Iranian regime will deal with the new American government. Will it dare intercept its vessels and detain its sailors or open fire at military vessels present in Gulf waters?
Preparations are underway in Washington to hand over power. Everything we've heard so far hints that the end of Obama's presidential term is the end of his policy in the Gulf and that this phase will be followed with a different era in the Middle East. I don't want to rush expectations from Trump's administration but what high-ranking officials said during hearing sessions at the Congress last week indicates that Trump will be different than Obama. This was confirmed by the testimonies of three major nominees for the departments of defense and state and the CIA regarding Iran.
All three men clearly accused Iran of being the source of unrest in the region and said the new administration will confront it instead of allying with it and this does not mean abandoning the nuclear agreement as they respect the signed agreements.
Unleashing The Monsters
If they execute what they threaten Iran with, it will be a major shift in American policy in terms of its relations with the Gulf and the balance of power in the Middle East. Obama secretly began building relations with the Iranian regime and trusted it, the scorpion in this case, and carried it on his back betting that it will be a regional partner in peace and a major ally in fighting terrorism. Since Obama's administration deliberately communicated with the Tehran regime covertly for a long period of time, it was easy to make promises and sign deals that were not only bad for the US but for the region and the entire world. No one in the region objects to Washington being open to Iran and reaching an agreement that suspends the latter's nuclear program but Obama's administration made a series of mistakes that unleashed the Iranian regime's monsters which are behind the disasters in Syria, Iraq and Yemen.
This was not necessary and it's time for Iran to realize that it can enjoy its economic capabilities and the world can open its doors for it for trade, tourism and exchange of knowledge. However, Iran must not leave its forces and militias loose and continue to threaten the security of the region and the security and interests of the entire world.
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Abdulrahman al-Rashed is the former General Manager of Al Arabiya News Channel. A veteran and internationally acclaimed journalist, he is a former editor-in-chief of the London-based leading Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat, where he still regularly writes a political column. He has also served as the editor of Asharq al-Awsat’s sister publication, al-Majalla. Throughout his career, Rashed has interviewed several world leaders, with his articles garnering worldwide recognition, and he has successfully led Al Arabiya to the highly regarded, thriving and influential position it is in today. He tweets @aalrashed
Source: english.alarabiya.net/en/views/news/middle-east/2017/01/17/Iran-bids-Obama-farewell-with-insults-.html
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Where Will One-Man Rule Lead Turkey?
By Serkan Demirtas
January/18/2017
Parliament will on Jan. 18 begin the second round of voting on an 18-article constitutional package, planning to accomplish the process before the end of this week and before President Recep Tayyip Erdogan leaves for a three-country tour of Africa on Jan. 22.
Prime Minister Binali Yildirim and Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) head Devlet Bahçeli, who jointly drafted the constitutional amendments shifting Turkey from a parliamentary system to an executive presidential system, have expressed their absolute belief in the package. Yildirim said he was not expecting a “surprise” in the second round of the voting process, describing his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) as “rock solid.”
The main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) is trying to urge AKP-MHP lawmakers that these changes will only bring about a dictatorship and instability, as parliament will lose its role as the main check and balance mechanism. CHP head Kemal Kiliçdaroglu will meet Bahçeli on Jan. 18 for a last-minute meeting, warning that his support for the package will cause irreparable damage to Turkey’s unity and stability. But Bahçeli has already announced that he will not change his position, while harshly criticizing the CHP for not backing the package.
That is the picture of Turkish politics just a day before the key vote at parliament. In this column I will not reiterate the content of the package, but will try to analyze how it would change the country’s regime.
One of the most important points of the proposed executive presidential system is that it almost precludes the president from having to account for their actions. Under the proposed system, permission to prosecute the president can be given by a two-thirds majority at parliament. What’s more, even in the highly unlikely event that a parliamentary majority is found, the president can only be prosecuted by the
Constitutional Court, 12 of whose 15 members will have been appointed by the president himself.
Practically speaking, the president will assume the powers of the executive, but will be unaccountable before the law. This recalls one of the distinguishing features of autocratic regimes: The ruler not being accountable for what they do.
The fact that the president’s executive powers will also contain tools to bypass the legislature and to control judiciary, the proposed system will abolish the principle of the separation of powers and risks turning the country into one-man rule.
This very picture reminds me of a remarkable piece by Carl J. Friedrich and Zbigniew Brzezinski titled “Totalitarian Dictatorship and Autocracy,” which summarizes the hallmarks of totalitarianism under six subtitles.
The first is an official ideology to which general adherence is demanded, intended to achieve a “perfect final stage of mankind.” The second is a single mass party, hierarchically organized, closely interwoven with the state bureaucracy and typically led by one man. The third is monopolistic control of the armed forces. The fourth is a similar monopoly of the means of effective mass communication. The fifth is a system of strong police control. The sixth is a centralized and directed economy.
A good number of these hallmarks can be observed in today’s Turkey, while some of these features - the fifth and sixth particularly - also exist in many democratically developed countries where security remains a problem.
The AKP, by its nature and its successive election victories since 2002, could be well described as a single mass party with no other parties seemingly able to challenge it. It has just one leader, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who will be able to officially return to his party’s leadership thanks to the proposed constitutional amendments.
More importantly, the AKP has a very strong and acknowledged ideology. Accompanied by a strong conservative Islamist background, this ultra-nationalist ideology has gained a new impetus after the July 2016 coup attempt, accompanied by strong anti-terrorism rhetoric. The trauma that Turkey has been experiencing since the coup attempt and after every bloody terror attack could pave the way for the government to consolidate its powerful and influential place in Turkish society through its calls for unity and solidarity.
This does not necessarily mean that these calls for unity and togetherness should not be endorsed, but efforts to demonize and discriminate against those who have different views on Turkey’s current issues only increase concerns about the state of democracy in the country.
Moreover, under the ongoing state of emergency - where freedom of expression and the right to protest and freely assemble are restricted – it is getting harder to expect that this legislation will bring anything other than totalitarian rule.
Source: hurriyetdailynews.com/where-will-one-man-rule-lead-turkey.aspx?pageID=449&nID=108648&NewsCatID=429
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Paris Conference: Mourning The Two-State Solution
By Osama Al-Sharif
18 January 2017
Throughout its tragic and tumultuous history spanning nearly a century (beginning roughly with the 1917 Balfour Declaration), the Palestinian national cause has never seen a more surreal and bizarre period as the one it finds itself ensnared in today.
One can describe the plight of the Palestinian people as an ongoing case of brash abandonment by the global powers of the day. No other nation has been made to suffer for so long, pay the price for historical injustice while enduring the longest episode of occupation in the modern era.
So it was not unusual that the Paris peace conference — which was held on Sunday with more than 70 delegates representing nations and international organizations, minus Israel and the Palestinians — underlined the obvious but failed to provide actionable measures to end the stalemate that has paralyzed bilateral negotiations for so long.
The final communique renewed the international community’s endorsement of the two-state solution based on the 1967 borders. It called for an end to violence and to unilateral actions, including the building of unlawful settlements in Palestinian territories.
Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu described the conference as “rigged” and “futile,” and the US lobbied so delegates would not seek another UN Security Council resolution that would be seen as anti-Israel. The UK sent a low-level delegation and refused to sign the final statement. The Palestinians, naturally, supported the conference’s outcome, with President Mahmoud Abbas describing it as a last chance for peace and for salvaging the two-state solution.
However, the meeting came at a somber and uncertain moment for the Palestinians. It would be reasonable to assume that we will not see another international gathering of this nature in the coming four years.
The elephant in the room in Paris was obviously President-elect Donald Trump, whose statements and reactions on the Israel-Palestine issue signaled tough days ahead for the Palestinians, and for international law and UN resolutions. That is why Netanyahu has stuck to his guns and promised brighter days ahead for Israel.
In reality, the Paris conference was not an attempt to revive the two-state solution, but to mourn its passing. So was US Secretary of State John Kerry’s speech on Dec. 28 on the prospects of peace between Israel and the Palestinians. The incoming administration, as well as a pro-Israel US Congress, has an ideologically skewed and one-sided view of a complex conflict.
By promising to relocate the US Embassy to Jerusalem and holding a favorable view of Jewish settlement activities in the West Bank, the Trump administration will formally negate what previous US governments had committed to for decades, beginning with the Oslo and Washington accords all the way to Kerry’s recent speech and the US abstention at the UN Security Council in December.
It is shameful that the British government, trying to recover from the Brexit shock, is also veering from decades-old positions on the Israel-Palestine conflict in an attempt to court the new tenant in the White House. It is another example of how the just cause of the Palestinians is being sacrificed as a card in a largely cynical political game.
No one really knows how the world will react to Trump’s unilateral actions, which will pour directly into the coffers of Israeli extremists inside and outside Netanyahu’s far-right Cabinet. Few realize, or choose to ignore, that Israeli society is sharply divided over the future of the two-state solution, and on the proposal by some key Cabinet members, such as Education Minister Naftali Bennett, of annexing substantial chunks of the West Bank.
News that about 200 former top officials from Israel’s security services have recently warned that Bennett’s calls would put the country on a course to lose its Jewish and democratic character do not make it to US lawmakers or the White House. By the same token, even American Jews are uncertain on such issues, with some movements such as J Street — which supports the two-state solution — being lambasted by hard-line Israelis as anti-Zionist.
The problem with the pro-Netanyahu approach by Trump and Congress is that it does not provide a workable alternative to the nearly defunct two-state solution. With the Arab world so divided and in turmoil, and with EU members going through an existential crisis, the Palestinian voice is slowly being muffled. Making things worse is the fact that Palestinian factions are disunited and suffering from a gross lack of leadership.
Thus it is surreal, even absurd, that amid this major challenge to the Palestinian national cause, and as major powers lean toward abandoning the Palestinians once again, a Hamas senior official would come out to suggest forging a federation between Gaza and the West Bank.
Bennett has used such statements to argue that a Palestinian state already exists in Gaza. This is a classic case of how some Palestinian leaders fail to understand reality, proving once more that they are their people’s worst enemy.
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Osama Al-Sharif is a journalist and political commentator based in Amman.
Source: arabnews.com/node/1040486/columns
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The Inauguration Of A New American Era
By Oubai Shahbandar
18 January 2017
As I prepare to attend President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration and participate in observing the grand American tradition of a peaceful transition of power from one president to the next, I cannot help but reflect on the significance of this event. The inauguration will likely be a watershed moment for the US.
Hundreds of thousands will descend onto the nation’s capital to celebrate (and thousands of others to demonstrate). While “controversy” has been the buzzword surrounding the incoming Trump administration most often wielded by the media, one cannot escape the tremendous historical moment that the whole world will witness this Friday.
I have spent over a decade in Washington, and have seen first-hand the steadily escalating viciousness of partisanship take hold. However, I have also observed that uniquely American characteristic of optimism and getting the job done, regardless of who is in the White House at the time.
It is why public servants such as former Defense Secretary Robert Gates can prove to be so effective while working for two different presidents (first George W. Bush and then Barack Obama) with disparate policies. That same ethos also underpinned public servants such as former CIA Director Leon Panetta, former Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Gen. David Petraeus.
When it came time to put party affiliation aside and work together toward the common good regardless of the discordant political rhetoric in Washington, these public servants put country and service first and foremost.
America has not lost its way. Every new election cycle brings a fresh batch of outside experts questioning whether America’s time in the sun has come to an end. Every time the naysayers are proven wrong.
As a Syrian-American immigrant to the US, partaking in the inaugural traditions is a way of giving thanks for the immeasurable opportunity of citizenship in a country that prides itself on civic involvement. The peaceful transfer of power, and the domestic stability and security that transitions from one leader to the next, afford citizenry luxuries that many in the world do not enjoy.
The destruction in Syria is testimony to what happens when one man and his family put their own insatiable desire to maintain power at the expense of condemning the country and its people to ruin. The inauguration, and America’s great promise for all its citizens, crystallizes the contrast of where I and my family came from and where we are today.
That is what is so great about the US: No matter the depth of political fracture or the friction of nasty partisan rhetoric, the country and its traditions endure. It is a valuable lesson for countries worldwide to remember.
The world needs America, whether the world or America likes it or not. The whole world will be watching this inauguration, some in trepidation and others with excitement. The country will move forward, and the world will remember that it is never a good idea to bet against the US, regardless of who is in the White House.
To have a front-row seat for this next chapter of American history provides real perspective as chaos reigns elsewhere in the world. The inauguration is an opportunity for Americans to come together, and to usher a renewed compact between government and citizens. As a child of the Middle East and a naturalized US citizen, the resonance of the American inauguration — and all it stands for — rings louder and stronger than ever.
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Oubai Shahbandar is a former Department of Defense senior adviser, and currently a strategic communications consultant specializing in Middle Eastern and Gulf affairs.
Source: .arabnews.com/node/1040526/columns
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Trump And Putin: The Unusual Alliance
By Hussein Shobokshi
17 January 2017
Donald Trump will take over as the new president of the United States of America and occupy the White House very soon. Trump takes office at a time when the world is witnessing a change in global balance of power with a key player in Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is setting new terms and conditions of the world in a practical way.
As part of his design, Putin succeeded in removing a part of Ukraine and “returned” it to its original owners as a result of which he had to suffer very powerful and painful economic sanctions.
In Syria, Putin successfully used the tyrant military force with diplomatic maneuverability to achieve his goal. As he saw his plan succeeding, he aspired to increase his presence in the region. He played an important and effective role in bringing about a paradigm shift that resulted in an agreement with oil-producing countries, which was historical and unprecedented among the members of OPEC and the non-OPEC members.
Meanwhile, Trump is showing “full support” for all the initiatives taken by Putin, although they apparently seem to be directed against America’s national security and its major interests. It was a strange statement when Trump said that America would not bear the cost of defending Europe in the name of NATO alliance.
This is an unusual remark against the old European continent, especially since Russia has a huge military movement on the border with the Baltic States — the states which are flattered by the unofficial welcome from Russia that is formulating to bring some the states back to “mother” Russia again.
Chinese Danger?
But why does Trump offer all these free gifts to the Russians? Does this suggest that he supports their policies and the position of Putin with his intense admiration for his personality? Trump realizes that he is dealing with a “person” Putin and not with the institution of the government in Russia, which is trying to win over him as an ally to face the most important and the greatest danger for the United States of America which is China!
China’s party system governs the integrated military and economic institutions and it has a growing influence and boundless political ambition. Trump, who comes from a “national and religious conservatism” background, has found in Vladimir Putin cherishing same values and common goals.
He believes that Putin, whose ancestral origin is from the Western civilization — Christian and conservative values — which Putin himself proudly announced repeatedly and expressed his desire to defend them. Both leaders do not have faith in China. With the intentions and the directions China is heading and its growing influence in the world, it will inevitably and directly affect America and Russia.
Putin will find Trump’s affectionate and warm gestures very “tempting”. Whether it is political or diplomatic support or a carrot and stick approach of economic and other lucrative incentives, it will be a step-by-step tactic until Russia firms up its alliance with America against China. This is most important, as this will shape the next phase of vital policies on the scene, an issue that will also have its reflection over the Middle East.
But the mystery will be clear only if they are to identify the causes and remove the fog by this new landmark coalition.
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Hussein Shobokshi is a Businessman and prominent columnist. Shobokshi hosts the weekly current affairs program Al Takreer on Al Arabiya, and in 1995, he was chosen as one of the "Global Leaders for Tomorrow" by the World Economic Forum. He received his B.A. in Political Science and Management from the University of Tulsa.
Source: english.alarabiya.net/en/views/news/middle-east/2017/01/17/Trump-and-Putin-The-unusual-alliance.html
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The Muslim As A 'Manchurian Candidate'
By Kevin Schwartz
17-01-17
Connecting President-elect Donald Trump's calls to either ban all Muslims from entering the United States, subject them to an ideological litmus test prior to entering, or have them register their whereabouts once in the country is one simple truth: the desire to see all Muslims as conspiratorial.
It is an idea that remains at the centre of political discourse defining Muslims in the US and Mr Trump's policy prescriptions represent its clearest articulation.
The conspiratorial Muslim means that all Muslims have the propensity to undermine and threaten. While only some Muslims may be deemed as immediate threats, all Muslims are latent threats. Residing within each is some potential to commit conspiracy. Each and every Muslim is a "Manchurian Candidate". Their embedded religion has the potential to trigger a subversive act at any time.
This desire to define Muslims globally as conspiratorial has its roots in the policies of various colonial powers in the 19th century. These attitudes, too, were the by-product of perceived security threats and fear.
A History Of Suspicion
When Anglo-Indian civilian William W Hunter (1840-1900) wrote in 1871 his famous work The Indian Musalmans: Are They Bound in Conscience to Rebel Against the Queen?, British concern over a chronic Muslim conspiracy in India was at an all time high. Writing in the aftermath of the 1857 rebellion, bouts of "jihad" on the Northwest Frontier, and the "Wahhabi Trials" of the 1860s, Hunter's work encapsulated fears and discussions of potential Muslim conspiracy meant to undermine British political and security interests in its colonial treasure.
Hunter concluded that while many Indian Muslims were peaceable, others were "fanatical disciples" of Wahhabism and would seek "to spread the Truth … at whatever expense of the blood of the Infidel, and at whatever sacrifice of their own lives". The threat, according to Hunter, was not Muslims in India, but the prospect of a foreign-born Wahhabism infiltrating India, affecting Muslims' religious proclivities there and swaying their political allegiances against the British Crown.
Further east, the multi-lingual scholar and Dutch civil servant Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje (1857-1936) would reach a similar conclusion, cautioning that Javanese Muslims' ties to strands of Islam percolating in Arabia could threaten colonial rule in the East Indies. Most Muslims in the Dutch colony were peaceable, but those travelling to Mecca for the Hajj pilgrimage and connecting with their countrymen who took up residence in Arabia would especially warrant oversight.
The ideas of Hunter and Hurgronje helped contribute to growing imperial concern over Muslim behaviours worldwide. The global Muslim community's engagement with the dual entrepots of Mecca and Istanbul - one a site of religious attraction and inspiration, the other, of political power - became a cause for alarm and scrutiny.
The annual pilgrimage was viewed as a centripetal exchange of potentially subversive ideas that could populate the colonial periphery; increased contact with the Ottoman Sultan and his court in Istanbul abetted fears of a spreading pan-Islamic threat.
Multiple imperial powers were now on the lookout for a global Muslim actor susceptible or beholden to religious proclivities that could threaten their interests and security. The conspiratorial Muslim was born.
The Return Of The 'Conspiratorial Muslim'
As the "war on terror" drags on and the West increasingly sees its own countries attacked, the resultant violence has necessitated a rekindling of the idea of the conspiratorial Muslim. Simply defining Muslims with the stereotypes of the Orient or dividing them into categories of "good" and "bad", which dominated much of 20th-century Western attitudes towards Muslims, will no longer suffice.
First articulated by imperial powers believing a foreign "Muslim" threat could undermine homeland security in their colonies, the idea of the conspiratorial Muslim has come to the fore once again. The perceived threat of Muslim infringement on the Western way of life, as seen in reactions to attacks in Paris, Brussels, San Bernadino and Orlando, has driven this labelling and implicated all Muslims, at home and abroad, as potentially conspiratorial. No matter that the attacks were carried out by a deranged few.
The belief that Muslims are more populous in Western societies than they actually are and the fear over ISIL "weaponising" refugees to attack European Union countries all contribute to a rising climate of fear that Muslims maintain the potential to undermine societal norms and values and threaten stability in Western societies.
What underpins this conspiratorial thinking about Muslims, but is rarely admitted, is the belief that they don't belong in the US or the West, but are rather culturally and racially displaced from some "other" natural and intended habitat. They belong and believe elsewhere.
Therefore, there must be some other religious or civilisational axis summoning their allegiance. With an allegiance supposedly lying elsewhere, they are thus exposed to the charge of conspiracy, with their expanding populous and weaponised bodies.
There are differences between the construction of the conspiratorial Muslim as originally conceived by the likes of Hunter and Hurgronje and its re-emergence today. While the idea once simply applied to those Muslims swayed by the foreign strand of "Wahhabi Islam" or the entreaties of foreign places, like Mecca and Istanbul, today's conspiratorial Muslim knows no such geographic or theological restrictions. The foreignness residing at the heart of potential conspiracy is Islam and thus pertains to all Muslims, not just a select few.
It may very well become commonplace in the coming months and years to lay all the blame at Mr Trump's doorstep for his role in bringing the "conspiratorial Muslim" to life. But Mr Trump is only the clearest, most outspoken, and candid voice giving it expression.
The idea of the "conspiratorial Muslim" itself long preceded him. It is the outcome of a staggering array of policies and cultural practices, kept alive by a general complex of power, surveillance, entrapment, and Islamophobic think-tanks that have perpetuated, peddled, and promoted its narration.
There is a system in place premised upon the idea that Muslims are conspiratorial. While a great many Muslims may not feel the full force of its power, they all remain in its sights. Hunter and Hurgronje's caveat that many Muslims are peaceable is now little consolation. We now live in an age where all Muslims are deemed conspiratorial.
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Kevin Schwartz is a research fellow at the Library of Congress. He was previously a visiting professor at the United States Naval Academy.
Source: aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2017/01/muslim-manchurian-candidate-170116085751234.html
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The Difference Between Right And Left-Wing Populism
By Santiago Zabala
17-01-17
We will remember 2016 not only for the return of populism throughout the West, but also for the blindness of those who could not see the difference between right-wing and leftist populism.
This distinction is vital, and overlooking it further contributes to the degradation of a public discourse that is already in trouble. The rise of both kinds of populism is the result of the long-term failure of neo-liberal policies, as many already know, but it is also "a necessary dimension of democratic politics" as the political philosopher Chantal Mouffe explains.
But to understand why so many people in the world's "advanced" democracies have turned to both far-right and leftist populism, it is necessary to understand how harmful for traditional parties and voting habits throughout the West has been the moralisation of politics, which took place in the second part the 20th century.
The Problem With Compromise
With the victory of the "free world" over communism, the universalisation of liberal democracy, and the globalisation of trade agreements, traditional parties began to believe that partisan conflicts could be overcome through compromise. Democratic elections became all about establishing a discourse beyond "sovereignty" and "opposition", "left" and "right".
But aren't these necessary components of a healthy democratic society? Societal debates arise not simply because we are conflictual beings with diverse values, traditions and beliefs but also because we are suspicious of the possibility of universal rational compromises. The problem with these compromises, as we are now experiencing in the European Union, is that the deliberations they embody are always framed; that is, they do not involve real choices among alternatives.
Anthony Giddens' "third-way" political theory in the 1990s was among the first to represent this modern frame, as its implementation through Tony Blair's New Labour policies demonstrated. The British scholar explained that the goal of his idea was to create "one-nation politics" where there is "no authority without democracy".
This is framed democracy, where the submission of laws to the "consensus at the centre" is the only democratic, that is, acceptable outcome of politics. This framing claimed that it overcame traditional oppositional politics, but instead it substituted moral categories - "good" and "evil," "right" and "wrong" - for the language of competing political ideas, giving rise to the moralisation of politics.
As the third way embraced neo-liberalism and hid the language of debate behind curtains of political correctness, it not only obstructed democratic channels of expression for diverse political stances, but also delegitimised them. This moralising vocabulary, together with the third-way imperative of bipartisan consensus, has led to further shrinking of the difference between the parties of the left and the right and, as choices disappeared, popular interest in politics withered.
According to Mouffe and her fellow political philosopher Ernesto Laclau, whose investigations of populism have now become central among political scientist, if democracy wants to preserve its superiority among other political systems, it must return to the people.
And this is what populism does. It is "a way of constructing the political on the basis of interpellating the underdog to mobilise against the existing status quo". It brings together different demands in opposition to a common enemy. Laclau and Mouffe do not consider populism an ideology but rather a political form capable of articulating identities, interests, and needs that have been delegitimised by centre-right and centre-left parties.
Contrary to others political analysts, Laclau and Mouffe do not believe that this strategy as it is applied by populist politicians is designed exclusively to obtain power; it is also a necessary effort to overcome the lack of alternatives embodied by the traditional parties of the past decades.
Right And Left Populism
As a consequence of framed democracies, populism has become the only productive form to take into account the demands of the people and to promote collective participation. But just as there was once a substantial difference between right and left-wing policies, there is also a difference between rightist and leftist populism.
Although both apply the same principle - bringing together a crowd around a political idea in order to shape an "us" against a "them" - the concepts used to define these groups are radically different. This is also evident in the emotions each side uses to mobilise voters: fear of the foreigner on the right and hope for a better future on the left. The former is rooted in hatred and indifference, and the latter, in justice and equality.
The right-wing populism of Donald Trump and Nigel Farage, expressed in their "Make America Great Again" and "Leave" campaigns, restricts the national identity of "the people", excluding immigrants, refugees, and any Other definable as "foreign" to a sentimental ideal.
Although exclusion is also present in the left-wing populism of Bernie Sanders and Pablo Iglesias, they do not exclude categories of people but rather those sectors of the establishment in the service of neo-liberal global corporations.
For Sanders, this meant "breaking up the big banks" and, for Iglesias, defeating the Spanish "caste" which includes the two major political parties, the right-wing People's Party (PP) and the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE). These parties, like the Republican and Democratic parties in the United States as well as the Tories and Labour in the UK, have also lost much of their popular support through their acceptance of the demands of financial capitalism.
The problem today goes deeper than the victory of the right-wing populism of Trump and Farage, though the xenophobic nature of their regimes are profoundly troubling. The failure of left-wing populism leaves democracy in an even more desperate state.
Sanders did not manage to win the primaries, an exercise in corporate governance designed to defang populist ideas. And Iglesias's Podemos, which now governs in a number of regions and cities, has proved unable to bring substantial social changes - such as the "basic universal income" - to the level of national politics.
Yet it is right-wing populism, now elected to positions of power, that is not compatible with a pluralist conception of democracy in the 21st century. The left-wing populism of Sanders and Iglesias represents the only chance that the parties of the framed democracies have to defeat the populist monster they have unleashed.
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Santiago Zabala is ICREA research professor of philosophy at the Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona.
Source: aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2017/01/difference-left-wing-populism-170112162814894.html
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China: Future Of Yuan Currency Policy And Gulf Implications
By Dr. Mohamed A. Ramady
17 January 2017
The war of words is heating up between China and Mr Trump, a few days before his formal inaugurations as President on Friday 20 January with the Chinese blasting Donald Trump for "playing with fire" after the US president-elect appeared to question the One China policy again. Mr Trump said in an interview on Friday that the policy was negotiable.
Under the longstanding policy, the US recognises Beijing as the only Chinese government, while maintaining an unofficial relationship with Taiwan. Mr Trump has questioned this arrangement, and in his latest remarks, in an interview with Fox News on Sunday, the president-elect suggested that the US should only continue to acknowledge China's position - that Taiwan is part of China - if Beijing agrees to make concessions.
"I fully understand the 'one China' policy, but I don't know why we have to be bound by a 'one China' policy unless we make a deal with China having to do with other things, including trade," Mr Trump said. As usual it would seem the Mr Trump sees it at a business level - that you should get what you pay for. And right now, Mr Trump believes the US has been doing all the paying and hasn't got enough in return and this centres around the value of the Chinese currency and Chinese government trade policies, but with the spat having far greater consequences on Gulf trade and world economies.
The Chinese Yuan, which threatened to break below the psychological 7.000 level against the dollar going into the New Year, instead reversed and surged over the first two trading days of 2017, pulling the dollar down against major global currencies along with it. But this was short-lived and the US dollar has been making strong gains against major world currencies on the premise that the new US President’s spending program and domestic economic revival would also lead to further US interest rate hikes.
Divergent Paces
Chinese officials believe that for 2017 the US and Chinese economies will continue to grow at divergent paces, and the US Dollar will continue to strengthen. In the big picture, it is clear that the number one and two major global economies – the US and China – will continue to grow at divergent rates through 2017 – and with that their respective monetary policies will diverge through the year as well. After devaluing for three consecutive years, Chinese officials expect the Yuan’s depreciation against the dollar through 2017 to be limited, and for this year to be the last year against which the currency weakens against the US. This undercuts Donald Trump’s assertion that the Chinese have been unfairly manipulating their currency against the dollar and keeping it undervalued to gain export market share, but the truth is far more deceptive as the Chinese are facing some domestic currency issues of their own.
This has led to the following four principles to guide foreign exchange (FX) and reserve management policy.
First, despite accusations of manipulation, that ensuring the relative stability of FX reserves is a higher priority than defending the Yuan exchange rate. In other words, the People’s Bank of China ( PBoC) should not unduly sacrifice FX reserves to stabilize the exchange rate; second, the PBoC should nevertheless continue to try and maintain the pace of depreciation against the dollar at a “slight” level vis a vis other major currency depreciations against the dollar, meaning the Yuan should not weaken much more against the dollar than other major currencies do; third, the PBoC should continue reducing dollar assets as a portion of the country’s FX reserves, translating primarily into a continued sale and gradual reduction in the size of China’s US treasury holdings, and fourth, that FX reserves should in turn be invested more heavily in countries along the “One Belt, One Road” Initiative Europe, Russia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and parts of Middle East like the Gulf countries, to the extent feasible, which is good news for countries like Saudi Arabia with its Vision 2030 placing the country as a central location for trade and manufacturing.
Despite holding the world’s largest dollar FX reserves, the Chinese have been faced by some sharp capital outflow and FX drawdown pressures, and Beijing has imposed restrictions on the ability of individuals to invest their annual $50,000 FX quota overseas, as well as a huge squeeze in funding interest rates for holders of Yuan short positions – with Hong Kong overnight Yuan rates at one point hitting a high of 80%. Chinese officials believe the bulk of the recent pressure on Yuan devaluation has not come from foreign speculators, but from Chinese citizens. China’s domestic capital, mainly capital from private enterprise, upper, and middle class individuals, has flown through various channels into US dollars.
In a very quiet manner, there has been a degree of unspoken US cooperation with the Chinese over their currencies and especially US interest rate policies. The US Federal Reserve has held back in 2016 from raising dollar interest rates, not because it feared the effect on the US economy but in assisting China from further capital outflows and FX reserve drawdown if dollar interest rates hiked and made the dollar more attractive. Maintaining a healthy Chinese economy that grew at a steady pace to sustain other world economies, and not creating another global contagion on Asian and Latin American countries seemed to have been an unspoken Fed policy agenda, vividly demonstrated when the Chinese economy showed faltering signs at the beginning of 2016. However, with Trump’s domestic economic consideration in the fore, the US Federal Reserve might change policy direction and raise US interests rates in 2017, putting even more pressure for a devalued Yuan, rather than the opposite.
2018, for what it’s worth, is expected to bring in a year of modest Yuan appreciation. But for now, China’s economy is still slowing, with growth trend still seen to be L-shaped at between a 6.5% to 7% growth level, while the US is picking up pace. Officials thus fully expect dollar strength to continue, while Beijing continues to focus on potential contractionary policies broadly aimed at preventing risks, curbing bubbles, and de-leveraging the financial system. For the Gulf, with its ever expanding trade and energy relations with China, any dislocation in the Chinese-US currency relationship could lead to higher regional imported inflation, interest rate and currency speculative pressure. The coming months will indeed be interesting times, as the famous Chinese saying goes.
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Dr. Mohamed Ramady is an energy economist and geopolitical expert on the GCC and former Professor at King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia.
Source: english.alarabiya.net/en/views/news/middle-east/2017/01/17/China-Future-of-Yuan-currency-policy-and-Gulf-implications.html
URL: https://newageislam.com/middle-east-press/iran-bids-obama-farewell-with/d/109756