The Great Debate UK

From an Arab spring to a new English winter of discontent?

By Mark Kobayashi-Hillary. The author is the chief executive of technology research group, IT Decisions, based in São Paulo, Brazil. The opinions expressed are his own.

Labour leader Ed Miliband used a column in last weekend’s Observer newspaper to suggest that it is time for politicians to listen to the protestors at the Occupy London protest camp next to St Paul’s Cathedral.

In a clunking attempt to align the Labour party with the views of the protestors, Miliband seems to have lost the plot. He might want to cast aside any party allegiance, just for a moment, as he reads the home page of the protesters in London.

In stark contrast to the glossy flyers and gushing prose handed out to Labour party campaigners in the run-up to an election, the manifesto of the protestors runs to just 52 words:

“Occupy London stands together with occupations all over the world; we are the 99 percent. We are a peaceful, non-hierarchical forum. We’re in agreement that the current system is undemocratic and unjust. We need alternatives; you are invited to join us in debate and developing them; to create a better future for everyone.”

Two important statements leap out from this text: the system is undemocratic and unjust and you are invited to join us in debate.

The protestors don’t believe that the present system of parliamentary democracy, stuffed with lawyers and Bullingdon Club alumni arguing the toss in Westminster, really represents the country anymore. And they freely admit to not having all the answers.

The corporate hijacking of Occupy Wall Street campaign

By Kathleen Brooks. The opinions expressed are her own.

As New Yorkers hurried to work on Wall Street on Friday morning they were greeted by police bracing themselves to cope with a wave of protestors apparently threatening to storm the New York Stock Exchange. By lunchtime the storming had failed to occur, 14 protestors had been arrested and hungry workers were free to go out and get a sandwich.

In recent days the Occupy Wall Street campaign is looking more like a damp squib than a counter-capitalism movement. The protests may be born out of a genuine frustration with bank bailouts funded by the tax payer, but no sooner had the first placard been written then corporate big-wigs sensed the opportunity it presented and rushed in to join the fray.

According to reports, a condom maker is in on the act creating a brand of protection specifically for the protest; obviously some think there is the risk that Occupy might turn into a mini Woodstock. Added to this, the directors of the board of ice cream maker Ben & Jerry’s released a statement saying they were supporting the protest.

But this corporate alignment doesn’t seem to have had the desired effect. Instead of drumming up support for the protestors it has made them something of a laughing stock. Papers, blogs and TV reports are running competitions for the best flavour ice-cream Ben & Jerry’s could create to honour the protests (ocu-pie is gaining some traction). But all of this is distracting from promoting the protestors’ aims and message.

The problem is that corporate support is doomed from the start primarily because it is self-serving for the companies involved. Banker-bashing has become incredibly popular in recent years. Saying that you work in finance and earn squillions of dollars is outright unacceptable. It labels you as old school, probably male, out of touch with reality and a fervent believer that climate change is a conspiracy of the left – in other words the opposite of cool. Cool sells, so by aligning yourself with the protestors you can boost your bottom line.

It doesn’t take long for advertisers and other corporate machines to claim counter-culture for themselves. Look at Woodstock and the 1968 protests. Images of these events pervade so much of modern advertising. Free love sells jeans, fizzy drinks and beer these days.  Thousands of films have been made about the summer of love that have earned billions of dollars for Hollywood’s largest studios.

from Pakistan: Now or Never?:

Army, Allah and America: on Pakistani pitfalls and the future of Egypt

All countries are unique and comparing two of the world's most populous Muslim countries, Egypt and Pakistan, is as risky as comparing Britain to France at the time of the French Revolution. But many of the challenges likely to confront Egypt as it emerges from the mass protests against the 30-year-rule of President Hosni Mubarak are similar to those Pakistan has faced in the past, and provide at least a guide on what questions need to be addressed.  In Pakistan, they are often summarised as the three A's -- Army, Allah and America.

Both have powerful armies which are seen as the backbone of the country; both have to work out how to accommodate political Islam with democracy, both are allies of America, yet with people who resent American power in propping up unpopular elites.

As my Reuters colleague Alastair Lyon writes,  Egypt's sprawling armed forces -- the world's 10th biggest and more than 468,000-strong -- have been at the heart of power since army officers staged the 1952 overthrow of the monarchy. Mubarak's announcement that he was naming his intelligence chief Omar Suleiman as vice-president was seen as a move towards an eventual, military-approved handover of power.  And Egyptian protesters have sometimes tried to see the army as their ally -- an institution that puts country first before personal gain.

Yet armies, as Pakistan has discovered over its many years of on-again off-again military rule, are not designed for democracy. They are designed to be efficient, and with that comes the hierarchy and obedience to authority that would seem alien to many of those out on the streets of Cairo.

In his book about the Pakistan Army, defence expert Brian Cloughley writes about how the British general, the Duke of Wellington, responded to democracy in his first cabinet meeting as prime minister: ”An extraordinary affair. I gave them their orders and they wanted to stay and discuss them.” The story is told as part of an argument about why the Pakistan Army has never been particularly successful at running the country.

“All Pakistan’s army coups have been bloodless, successful and popular – but popular only for a while,” he writes. “The trouble is that military people are usually quite good at running large organisations, even civilian ones, but generally fail to understand politics and government, and the give-and-take so necessary in that esoteric world.”

It is a lesson that may yet need to be learned in Egypt.  As Amil Khan wrote from Islamabad in his Twitter feed,  "Love the way Pakistani twitterers puzzled by Egyptians' trust in army. Guys, you're kinda similar, but kinda different."

from FaithWorld:

Criticism mounts of “anti-Muslim frenzy” in U.S., Koran burning plan under fire

U.S. religious leaders  have condemned an "anti-Muslim frenzy" in the United States, including plans by a Florida church to burn a Koran on September 11, an act a top general said could endanger American troops abroad. Christian, Muslim and Jewish religious leaders denounced the "misinformation and outright bigotry" against U.S. Muslims resulting from plans to build a Muslim community center and mosque not far from the site of the September 11, 2001, hijacked plane attacks in New York by Islamist militants. The Vatican has also condemned the Koran burning plan.

Tensions have risen with the approach of both the September 11 anniversary on Saturday and the Muslim Eid al-Fitr festival that marks the close of the fasting month of Ramadan, which is expected to end around Friday. Passions have been further inflamed by Terry Jones, the pastor of a 30-person church in Gainesville, Florida, who has announced plans to burn a Koran on Saturday, the ninth anniversary of the September 11 attacks. Jones says he wants to "expose Islam (as a) violent and oppressive religion."

Religious leaders, including Washington Roman Catholic Archbishop emeritus Cardinal Theodore McCarrick and Dr. Michael Kinnamon of the National Council of Churches, released a statement on Tuesday saying they were "alarmed by the anti-Muslim frenzy" and "appalled by such disrespect for a sacred text." Read the full story here.

General David Petraeus, the head of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, said in a statement the Koran burning could "endanger troops and it could endanger the overall effort" to stabilize the Afghan situation. "It is precisely the kind of action the Taliban uses and could cause significant problems, not just here, but everywhere in the world we are engaged with the Islamic community." Read the full story here.

U.S. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley called the plan “un-American.”

“We are conscious that a number of voices have come out and rejected what this pastor and this community have proposed,” Crowley told a news briefing on Tuesday. “We would like to see more Americans stand up and say ‘this is inconsistent with our American values.’ In fact these actions themselves are un-American.”

NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen has also condemned the proposed Koran-burning, calling it disrespectful and saying it could put Western troops in Afghanistan at risk.