Sad, angry, depressed, hopeful, were few of the thousands of emotions aroused reading ‘From Beirut to Jerusalem’, a memoir by Ang Swee Chai. Through her passion, love, perseverance, bravery, and determination, the world is indeed greatly indebted for her work both as a doctor and also as a witness to the massacre suffered by Palestinian refugee in Sabra-Shatila during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982.

Her maternal grandfather was a conservative and traditionalist, he believed that an educated woman will not make a good wife. But her mother was a defiant daughter, register herself to school and went to become a teacher. Her father ran away from his grandfather in mainland China refusing to marry a girl arranged for him and went to became a journalist in Singapore. During the Japanese invasion on Malaya, both of them met in the Outram Road prison in Singapore.

After Japan was defeated, they settled as a family. When her mother was pregnant, she went back to her hometown in Pulau Pinang to give birth to her. She was raised in Ayer Itam district in Pulau Pinang with her younger brother, Lee Cyn. They eventually moved back to Singapore following their father’s work. Raised in poor family, her mother raised her with discipline, she then continues her studies in medical school. She married Francis Khoo, a lawyer and activist. Francis was accused to be a communist, he fled Singapore in 1977 avoiding arrest under Internal Security Act (ISA) and took refuge in Britain.

Her parent was areligious but they allowed their children to choose a religion of their own. She embraced Christianity during her studies in medical school.

Ang was well versed about Israel even before volunteering. The church has taught her that Israel was God’s chosen people, and the return of the Jew to Israel was a verification of biblical prophecy. There are many reasons why she supported Israel, one of it was the oppression of the Jew by the Nazis, and the Nazis were Japanese ally during world war, with the creation of Israel the Jew can defend themselves, its a realization of justice from God.

She was prejudiced towards Palestinians, the church has told her that they were terrorist, an old foe, the Philistines of the Old Testament. She was a bigoted, self-righteous fundamentalist Christian, like many Christians she rejoiced in the military triumph of Israel. But that morning in Sabra and Shatila, God destroyed that self-righteousness.

In her memoir, she recreated that journey, from a bigoted Christian fundamentalist to peace activist and friend of the Palestinian people. It started in 1982 when she watch the horror of Israeli invasion and bombardment of the people of Lebanon through British television. The killing of women and children shook her to the core, she resigned prom her hospital in Britain, pack her bag, and went to Beirut as a medical surgeon volunteer.

In Beirut, Dr. Ang Swee Chai served at Gaza Hospital, Palestinian refugees named their hospital with their town in Palestine, its a symbol of longing to their homeland from where they were expelled by the Zionist colonialism. Many of the camp residence were refugees who fled the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948. The hospital situated near the Sabra and Shatila camp. Here, she witnessed the kindness of Palestinian people, the gentleness they showed toward their guest, she also saw their courage, resolution, patience, and resistance against Israeli aggression and occupation.

Before the Sabra and Shatila massacre, Palestinian fighters from Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) agreed to evacuate from Beirut as a condition of a ceasefire. Dr. Ang noted “this is the first time that I realized that PLO fighters (who she preconceived as a terrorist) have a home and family in Lebanon, they withdraw and left their wives, children, siblings and parents”. The Palestinian gave away their weapon, the roads are cleared from any barrier. On 14 September 1882, water and electricity supply were restored. They believed in the promised of United States and western powers, that they will be let to live unharmed. They were wrong.

The next day, the camp were encircled by Israeli army and under siege, Israel coordinated Phalangist militia to enter the camp and massacred the people, children, baby, women, old people were brutally murdered. Dr. Ang realized the scale of barbarity and hope that the PLO did not withdraw on the first place, so they can defend the camp people. But it was too late. She recollected this barbaric massacre in her memoir which was first published by Grafton Books & Times Book International in 1989.

Reading her memoir really shock reader’s emotion to the core, your tears will be flowing like a river as she collected her horror, by page 70 your tear will run-out dry, there is so much to take. The story of a people exiled from their homeland in 1948 only to be massacred again by the Israelis in 1982, Dr. Ang could not help but ask, where should they go?

She recalled a story on the height of the killing, there was a woman and a child brought into the hospital, the woman was shot on her stomach and badly wounded. After operation, she needed a blood transfusion. She overheard that the nurse told the doctor that the blood pint given to her was the last, and the child need blood transfusion of the same blood type. She refused the blood pint so that the child can have it and asked for painkiller instead. She died shortly after.

She also written a story about a boy named Mahmoud, who was her patient before the massacre, he injured his wrist whilst helping his father rebuilding their house. After the massacre, when she walked down the road in the camp, Mahmoud appeared, ran toward her and hug her, he was so happy to know that she was alive. Soon, children began to appear around her, they saw her camera and asked for a photo, they wanted the world to see that although their house have been destroyed, their parent massacred, they still can smile and raised their hand with victory sign. Their courage was astonishing.

Reflecting on the Palestinian tragedy, she wondered why Palestinians need to suffer to accommodate the victim of Nazis persecution and European racism? At the end of the memoir, in the post-script, she also reflected on her Christian belief. She wrote “[I was] a bigoted, self-righteous fundamentalist Christian. I thought that I knew the Bible, and God was on our side. I rejoiced in the military triumph of Israel. On that morning in Sabra and Shatila, God destroyed that self-righteousness. Many of my Zionist Christian friends shunned me, but I am no longer intimidated by all this. I have seen a different face of God – that of love, compassion, and grace. He promised Ishmael would be a father of many nations. Palestinian are the children of Ishmael and the children of Abraham. He will wipe away all tears and bring us home..next year in Jerusalem.”

Dr. Ang Swee Chai then became a co-founder of Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP), she became an activist and regularly invited to talk about the plight of the Palestinians. Her experience in Lebanon changed her life completely, she became the witness of Sabra-Shatila massacre which taught her to never relent in the face of injustice. In her letter to her husband, Francis Khoo she wrote “we are just two small persons in the history of liberation..I saw the face of death, I saw their power and ugliness, but I also saw fear deep inside their eyes, the children of the new generation will come, and they are not afraid”.

The book opens with a foreword and preface of the new version which basically gave a summary of what had happen since the first publication in term of reception. The work was cherished by heterodox economist and sparked debate over the way of economics was taught as a subject. This was in light of the economic crash in 2008-09, which was not predicted by many ‘experts’.

The idea however was rejected by mainstream neo-classical economist due to the fact that it challenges the established theory.

David Orrell blamed the abused of mathematical models, used by bankers, analyst, and economist, not just the models cannot predict the crash, he argued that the model helped cause the crash. But he went further, not just the mathematical models were flawed, the fundamental theory in which we understand economy is plain wrong.

Orrell maintained that whilst economist based their economic law from reductionist model of Newtonian physics, humans are not like atoms, they are not rational and cannot be modelled. He is not alone on this, Ha Joon-Chang also maintains in his book that economics is not a science like physics.

But while Chang criticized free-market economics, Orrell went further and dispelled the fundamental ‘law’ of economics – the supply and demand theory. He insisted that the supply and demand curve, which was taught in every economic school, has never been proven empirically with real data, the curve is “like a unicorn, always drawn but never really seen”.

The problem with the curve is that it exists on ceteris paribus – other things held constant, but in real life, this was never the case, supply and demand always change and dance together. The danger of perceiving the concept as ‘law’ will have a severe consequence in real life, we will be searching (wasting our time) for a creature that is non-existent.

Orrell then pointed his gun to the ‘efficient market’ hypothesis which assume that people are rational motivate by profit, have access to market data, and independent in making decisions. This theory take root from atomic theory which equate individuals like a particle of atoms. He lamented that this is fundamentally wrong as human always did irrational things and they communicate, advocate, and influence others, to create a mathematical model out of individuals based on atomic theory will lead us to a catastrophic trap. This trap made IMF made a comment in 2007 that “world economy will have a robust growth in 2007 and 2008” before they eventually crashed.

He then cited evidence from the UK housing market, where people under constant pressure from advertisement to buy house and made profit through speculation. People buy houses more than they needed, to make profit. This creates a psychological pressure and induced others to follow suit, they did not act rationally, but emotionally fearing of missing out, and behave in “herd” behaviour. Obviously, you can’t make mathematical model from human emotions. The notion that market will regulate itself in mathematical precision is therefore highly unlikely and nowhere to be seen.

One of Orrell point is to make finance less efficient, this point was in common with the call made by economist, Ha Joon-Chang in his book about problem with capitalism. Orrell argued that by abolishing the Glass-Steagall Act which separate daily commercial bank with speculative investment bank make the financial system more integrated. Therefore, default is contagious, one failure can drag the whole system down. He called for re-compartmentalization of these banks, although it reduces efficiency, it introduced a control mechanism to limit failure. Another aspect that might save us in time of crisis is redundancy, in nature this can be observe on the extra kidney we carry, while in the economy, this mean that banks need to have limit to their gambling risk and hold extra reserve to survive the bad time.    

The economy is unstable according to Orrell, to elaborate this argument, he explained the banking system in the word of economist Hyman Minsky who contended that the borrower can be categorized to three, first the hedge, this is a regular borrower who can pay their principal and interest. Next, the speculative, who can only service his interest such as the mortgage borrower. Than the final one, the ponzi, who had a lot of hope, can only pay if the asset price continue to rise. As the debt continue to accumulate, it will eventually burst, starting with the ponzi, followed by the speculative, and finally dragging down the hedge – this will be the Minsky moment.

Financial system is not a natural system, we had a say and can better engineer them. Orrell suggest that we model them from the current extreme form which focussed on short-term profit towards a more normal ones which gave lesser profit but much more resilient from crashes, he then laid his suggestion on how to achieve this goal. One of them, is create a barrier by testing financial product to understand their risk before releasing them to market. Regulation, contended Orrell, will caused some inefficiency but it gave stability, he then poked the concept of the ‘invisible hand’ by saying that if we looked at our own hand, it is heavily regulated – from temperature to cell salinity – putting economist to shame.

Other interesting discussion in the book by Orrell is about the differences of government monetary policy between Milton Friedman and John Maynard Keynes. Whilst Friedman inherit the free-market ideology and anti-regulation propagated by the Chicago boys, Keynes expanded government involvement in the economy and advised the boosting of government spending during recession to compensate demand. He also took a punch on Friedman stating that its ironic he opposes government intervention but at the same time the Chicago boys sustained themselves in part by government grants.

Many of his argument do ring a bell, underlaying assumption in economics such as people are rational is somewhat laughable. Human are not computers, they are highly emotional, and because humans are the building block of the whole economy, the economy must be emotional, we can’t exclude the most important trait of human being, produced a model out of it and applied it to the real world.

But there is also an oxymoronic argument put forward in his book. In one of the chapters he tried to make a case that the economy is gendered, he even brought forward the concept of yin and yang claiming that the aggressive bet and speculation are attributed to male trait (female did not gamble?). But while trying to make his point, he took a sharp turn and wrote that ‘it would be terribly reductionist to blame…solely on people with a tendency to grow facial hair’. So which is it, is it really gendered or it is a reductionist assumption?

Current economic theory is not a science, Orrell contended, but rather an ideology peculiar to a certain period in history because it does not add up to the empirical data and made various assumption which does not hold true in real life situation. He went on outlining the similarity of the global economy with a ponzi scam by Bernie Madoff. Such similarities includes a complicated but plausible story, trust, incentives, a network of rich and powerful people, influence with regulators, illusion of growth, and an outdated machine (a price theory that said price is always right).

Orrell also called ethics to be included in the economic equation, as there are many aspect that will lead to harmful consequence if the whole decision was left to market to decide. For example, he asked if we leave resources such as oil for investment company such as pension fund to decide, why should they put a cap on production? Their motive is short term gain without consideration of long-term environment decays. These are the area that need to be addressed by ethics in the form of government intervention and regulation.

I do find one question fairly amusing. When he tried to make a case that other field of studies actually needed to construct new economic model, he asked a question ‘are philosophers in agreement that market can make ethical decision?’ This question, I think, is also an oxymoron. Philosophers were always in disagreement almost about everything between them.

Finally, concluding his book, he asked readers to confront every economist in their lives and observe their reaction. They can reply in denial, anger, depressed, or in good case, accepted the criticism and chartered a new path. For a change to happen, we need to acknowledge first that the problem exist.

This article is a review of the book ‘Economyths: 11 Ways Economics Gets it Wrong’ by David Orrell.

What was missing in the economic theory that lead to the financial crisis in 2008-09? This was the first question Drennan want to answer in this book. His thesis is that income inequality plays a role in the lead-up to the financial crisis by maintaining consumption through surging household debt. The second question he asks was ‘Why the economist get it wrong?’. Drennan’s answer to the second question is that the consumption theory of neo-classical economics does not include income distribution to their economic theory.

To prove his points, Drennan brought forward econometric evidence to link income inequality with the financial crisis. He also used various set of data to show that many people resort to debt to maintain their consumption, meaning that people borrow more money to buy the necessities to maintain their lifestyle. He also present historical data as evidence to show that the 2008-09 crisis is not something new and has happen before.

Drennan also noted that the two feature that were on the rise leading to financial crash were the stagnant growth of income and income inequality – although this two do not necessarily occur together. Although Drennan try to back his argument with data and statistics, layman reader will not find this useful, understandable, and almost definitely lost in the process.

What are the possible causes of rising income inequality? Asked Drennan. Economist pointed out that one of the candidates is globalization, but he cast doubt to this theory as other countries such as Japan, Germany, and France were exposed with the same globalization forces but does not produce higher income inequality. Other candidate favoured by economist to explain income inequality is skill-biased technological change (SBTC). This include higher order specialization, for example box mover can learn to operate forklift easily, but factory worker might have problems changing their career to higher-order specialization such as a programmer. Some economist listed SBTC as the cause of the rising income inequality.

But all these candidates do not give the whole picture. The more compelling cause, is the institutional structure. Drennan noted that as the economy turn from manufacturing to service economy, the labor union diminished. This is because the service sector does not have a strong labor union traditionally. The structure of the law also plays important roles in containing the labor union force, without them worker have a lower protection and had to accept lower wages as they don’t have any bargaining power.

Then there is government intervention. Contrary to free-market ideology, that income stabilize in its current level due to rigorous market forces, there are many government legislation interferences that favors the rich and enlarge the income inequality gap. Among the law includes treatment to corporate stock option award, access to bankruptcy, copyright and patent protection, to name a few. Various conservative think-tanks served as an advocacy lobby to ensure government keep policies for the benefit of the rich, their objective is rent-seeking – spending money not on production of product or service but to take advantage and enlarge their own economic pie at the expense of someone else’s share.

After presenting his theoretical background, Drennan continue with the data to back his theory. Although he emphasized in the introduction that the role of the data presentation is ‘not to obscure the fact’, he did just that for a layman reader as they lost in the jargon terms and various graph. Drennan drew from Federal Reserve’s data that there are a huge build-up of debt-to-income ratio for the bottom 95 percent whilst consumption remains more or less the same, which means that consumer are shifting to debt to maintain their consumption, this lead to financial burst eventually. These consumptions include shelter, health care, and education which are a necessary expenditure which cannot be postponed, such as taking a vacation trip.

In the book, Drennan also help explain economic principle such as the Pareto efficiency principle which stated that “any change that make one people better off, without making any other worse off, is an improvement”. This principle is a fundamental tenet of neoclassical economics, which describe the gain of top 1% of the income distribution as Pareto efficient. This is one reason why economist turn away from income inequality.

Other theory, such as Kuznets’s inverted-U hypothesis, also made economist less worry on the income inequality and its effect. Drawing from various historical data from numerous countries, Kuznets argued that the economic shift from agriculture to industrialization will lead to the rise of income inequality for some time, but as countries develop, democracy expands and more protection were given to labor causing the inequality to fall back. He also discussed Arthur Okun’s tradeoff theory although Okun provided no strong evidence.

In analyzing the data, Drennan also drew his criticism towards Milton Friedman model for theory of consumption, noting that the theory does not true for the period 1984-2007 and for the early twentieth century. He went further to underline the basic flaw of Friedman, Modigliani, and Brumberg’s model which become the mainstream theory for consumption, the models devoid of motive and proclivities, whereas in real life human behavior play an important role in their daily choices and consumption.

In his final chapter Drennan drew attention that this crash has happen before, and in his conclusion, he argue for the need to drop traditional economic theory that did not stood the empirical test from the data. Unless we take into account other element such as ‘behavior’ in our economic theory, we will be chasing unrealistic economic development using unrealistic theory.

If you have read ‘Freakonomics’ by Dubner & Levitt and searching for a kind of book that provide the same unconventional, myth-busting analysis on economics occurrence, this book is definitely it!

Written in layman term without heavy technical terms, Chang open the access gate to wide range of ordinary readers about the working of economics. As he himself noted in the introduction, you don’t need to be an economist to understand his book. He lay out his aim explicitly on what he intended to do, which is to exposed free-market capitalism, he still believes that capitalism is the best economic system, his problem lay on specific type of capitalism which has dominated the world economy which is the free-market capitalism.

Chang argues that free market does not exist. Every market has rules, boundaries, and restriction which govern them. As we accept all these rules unconditionally, we fail to see them as market restriction. Labor market has many restrictions, you can’t hire child laborer this day. Also, most countries have immigration control to protect local labor market, and to hold the wage standard from falling. All these restrictions were not been put based on sound economic reason, they are political decisions. That is why Chang argues that the free-marketeer was as political as the one who opposed them. 

Workers in rich countries doing the same job are paid more compared to their counterpart in poor countries. Why is this so? It is not because of the people in rich countries are more productive, brilliant, or creative. It is precisely because of the immigration control that retain the wage standard. The gap also presented not because individual in rich countries are highly educated, it is because they have better technologies, better institutions, and better infrastructure. This line of analysis is consistent with what was presented by Turkish American economist, Daron Acemoglu and British political scientist, James A. Robinson in their famous book ‘Why Nations Fail’.

Chang discussed about Alexander Hamilton, the first Treasury Secretary and the architect of the modern American economic system. Hamilton laid out protectionism strategy to protect American industries ‘in their infancy’. Have he come up with the same policy that develop America then today, Chang argued that he will be criticized by US Treasury Department and denied loan by IMF and World Bank. Chang brilliantly argued that developed countries forced market liberalization on developing countries, whilst they themselves used protectionism policy when they were developing. In other words, the rich countries said to poor countries “do what we say not as we did”.

Why do European migrated to the U.S. in 1880-1914? – asked Chang. He argued that the New World lack of feudal legacy which led to higher social mobility compared to the Old World. The U.S. also had a massive tract of land and a shortage of labour, thus wages are three to four time higher than Europe. But he argued, today American does not have the highest living standards. They worked longer hours and had inferior healthcare system. Average income also did not gave an accurate living standard in the U.S. as she had a bigger unequal income distribution, with bigger size of underclass.

Chang also criticized many economist approaches on the question of Africa’s poverty. Chang argued that  rather than blaming free-market policy failure to develop Africa, free-market economist shift the blame towards Africa’s geography, climate, history, demography and ‘resource curse’. While all these factors are not all irrelevant, the outcome can change, for example, there are many resource-rich countries that were well developed. Some factors like geography and history cannot solve the question as they can’t be change. The most important factor, Chang noted, is policy. Policies can be change when they failed, especially and evidently in Africa.

On trickle-down economics, Chang brought evidence that the policy failed to deliver its promise and failed to accelerate growth. The book also discussed the failure of micro-credit, as a system to finance small enterprise and lift people out of poverty. The idea was famously attributed to the economist who won a Nobel Peace Prize, Muhammad Yunus and his Grameen Bank. Factors for the micro-credit failure includes the used of the funding for consumption, not for their initial intended purpose. While some used the funding for their business, the business failed to develop and re-create itself once their market was overcrowded and profit fell.

One of the most profound idea I found in the book is on how we limit our choices to make decision. Chang brought this idea base on Herbert Simon’s thought. Human cannot easily make decision when they were flooded with seas of information. That is why we develop routine, although they might be a better way to do things, people stick to routine so that they don’t have to make too many decisions. Market, Chang argued, were far more complex with billions of product, people, and companies. So, government intervention using regulations is justified, to limit the uncertainties and risk in the market, so that we can make a more rational and easier decisions.

Switzerland is one of the top few richest and most industrialized countries, but it is by far the lowest in term of university enrollment. Chang argued that excessive education does not lead to more productive economy. Subject such as history and biology does not much needed for average factory workers. He argued that knowledge-based economy is an exaggeration with many rich countries still rely on their manufacturing output, so, developing countries cannot skip manufacturing phase of the economic development.

Equality is not enough, said Chang. It does not make any sense if a rich boy and poor boy given the same opportunity to attend school, but the poor need to compete with a hungry stomach. So, its not just the opportunity to enter competition needs to be given, but the condition must be equalized.

His logic about big government is a compelling one. Big government he argued, make the economy more dynamic. When basic income was guaranteed, people will not be afraid of changing jobs from sunset industries into sunrise industries. When government provide re-skilling opportunities, people can more easily shifted from less productive industry into more productive one. People don’t afraid of loosing job because they know it will not be the end of the world, they have a safety net, and can move on.

Overall, the book is very rich with myth busting, facts, case studies, jokes, that will transform your understanding about economics. You know that the system is broken, but it is broken for a wrong reason and can be fix. The fix, as argued by professor Chang in his concluding remark, will not be comfortable or fair, but it is needed to give a chance for billions of people, and alleviate them from poverty.

Every Nation for Itself: Winners and Losers in a G-Zero World by Ian Bremmer published by Portfolio Penguin in 2012.

The book was written by Ian Bremmer which was also the author of ‘The End of the Free Market’. In this book, Bremmer put forward his thesis that the world is moving toward a leaderless world, a world where no single nation or group of nations can impose anything to other states to coordinate international respond and solve global problems. He termed this new world G-Zero, as opposed to the grouping of established power which created a club G7- a club of 7 powerful nation.

The G7 has diminishing power as the U.S. power slowly wane off and the EU disintegrates, while a much larger club like the G20 produces nothing of substance. On contrary, we have a number of emerging nations assuming greater economic and political power on the global arena, but none of them was capable or willing to assume global leadership.

One of the areas which are crucial for the survival of our planet is on the issue of global warming. This global problem cannot be solved by individual nation, it needs a coordinated and planned international effort. Copenhagen climate summit in 2009, for example, produced nothing substantial to come up with a global solution. India and China unwilling to cut emission that will hamper their economic development, they instead remind western counterpart that today’s problem was the result of the western industrial revolution, and they are the one who needs to foot the bill.

Bremmer explained that the waning of American global dominance is due to their swelling debt. With China on the rise, and the Chinese willingness to invest in U.S. debt, it is harder for the U.S. to impose anything on China. The U.S. also spending too much money on foreign war trying to keep the world “peace, democratic and stable”. Although many would disagree with Bremmer assessment, Chomsky for example once stated that the best way of ending terrorism is by stop participate in one. One can argue that U.S. wars were good or not, but no one can deny that it help dries the U.S. from the fund it needs for productive economic development.

China also benefited from the service of U.S. navy patrol of the major trade route but has no incentive to take over the lead. Russia on the other hand, since the fall of the Soviet Union has lost military clout and the ideological appeal for much of the developing world.

The book also is dense with ‘American exceptionalism’ which made it non-objective and highly political. Some of it was not based on fact but an assumption. For example, in discussing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), Bremmer wrote that “Iran join the club but cheat”. No evidence cited for this accusation, instead,  in the following line he said Iran “generally assumes” to be hiding its nuclear weapons program. So, this accusation is not based on fact but an assumption.

In discussing the US-China trade relationship, Bremmer prediction turns to be not very far stretched, as China keeps Yuan devalued, the trade war looms as the U.S. and China have already slapped tariff to each other. China manufacturing strategies also seem to be working, especially in the telecommunication industries which has put the Western counterpart unease, the latest is the Huawei case.

Market forces were also discussed in the book, he connected the dots and explain how these forces impacted the price of commodities. The growing middle-class for example, given rise to the demand of meat-based diet. This, in turn, will push the grain price up as grain is needed so much more to nourish livestock rather than feeding human. The rising price of grain will hit poor countries the most as they spend a large portion of their income on food, whilst in rich countries, the food is highly processed and the price fluctuation usually lost after adding other costs such as processing, manufacturing and transportation.

Who are is the possible winner in the leaderless world?

To this question, Bremmer suggests that countries with broad cooperation and does not rely on any single superpower will thrive. As there is no single power can impose any standard global system, these emerging states can play using their own rules. Countries like Brazil, Turkey are possible winners, as does the African continent.

States which does not obey the American leadership (Bremmer called it rogues states) which have powerful friends will also have a good advantage in the leaderless world. As the U.S. is plagued by war fatigue, Europe troubled with fiscal austerity, the military threat was seen less credible whilst economic sanctions were ineffective and porous.

Who will be the losers?

To this Bremmer answered states that still hang on to the old power structure. They resist changes and stick to their own rules and institutions. Institutions that have already accomplished their mission but not yet decommissioned, such as NATO will also be on the losing end.

Closing the book, Bremmer comes out with what the future might look like. The future according to Bremmer depends on the U.S., China, and the other countries. This book was written in 2012, whilst this review was written in 2019. So, we already in the future and can look back at Bremmer proposed image of the future.

Bremmer suggested 4 possibilities, judging from the current world affairs the most suitable candidate will be the “Wold of Regions” where the emerging countries become stronger whilst the U.S. and China relationship becoming more hostile. We can see the trade war currently brewing between these two superpowers, with tariff been imposed on each other and the growing tension on Huawei expanding their technological reach. While other countries climbing the global political ladder. Even the U.S. sanction on Venezuela is not working as India continue to buy Venezuelan oil. Whilst Turkey ignored U.S. threat and continue purchasing Russian missiles system. 

Bremmer concludes the book on looking at the U.S. fate in the G-Zero world. He ends the book with his last touch of American exceptionalism saying that the U.S. always has a second act and can rise again. To do this they need to accept the world as it is and innovate to adapt.

This book discussed the double-standard of U.S. foreign policies and the mass media who helped control public perception so that these policies can continue unimpeded. The propaganda propagated by U.S. media were discussed, the reasons for this phenomenon were given. Herman and Chomsky introduced a series of “filters” in their “propaganda model” which explain why the media followed state’s narrative like a herd of sheep.  

In their long introduction, they pointed out that how commercialization has blurred the line between editorial and advertising. Also in the introduction were criticism of the use of chemical weapons by the U.S. including concentrated arsenic-based and dioxin-laden herbicides, Agent Orange, napalm and phosphorus bomb against South Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia – a heinous crime which was not reported by the mass media. The media also published biased report in-line with U.S. interest, with worthy victims, such as the people killed by Pol Pot were written clearly to identify the party responsible for the killing. Unworthy victims such as the one killed by Indonesian regime under Suharto, were written passively, leaving out the party who did the killing, for example The New York Times reported “a 1965 coup led to the massacres of hundred s of thousands of supposed communists” – here we can’t tell who did the killing.

Walter Lippmann referred to the special importance of propaganda, which he called “manufacture of consent”. It serves as an organ for a popular government which fix the premises of discourse, the elite decides what the general populace can see, hear, think, and discuss.  

“A mass movement without any major media support, and subject to a great deal of press hostility, suffers a serious disability, and struggles against grave odds” – Chomsky and Herman argue that many labor movement fall into serious disability once their alternative mass circulation disappeared, this is due to the contribution of one of the filter – advertising. A paper which does not center itself on consumerism and selling product will ultimately lose against other publication in which many of their readers are buyers, such publication attracted advertisers and gave them extra capital to compete.

Sourcing is also one of the filter in the mass media where “the citizenry pays to be propagandized”. Government and largesse has easy access to media coverage as they become the source of news, the media depend on them to manufacture news. They provide media relation services (paid by taxpayer) to facilitate the media. The mass media in turn will not criticize them as they are afraid to lose their source. Other critical source will have a hard time to penetrate through the media and get coverage as their resources is limited, they usually will not pass the gatekeeper.

As the authors dive in specifically on the propaganda of U.S. foreign policy, the media acted as if the government has said “concentrate on the victims of enemy powers and forget about the victims of friends”. On this basis the concept of “worthy victim” and “unworthy victim” are developed. Coverage will be given extensively toward enemy victim as they are a “worthy victim” in order to demonize the enemy. But when the same crime perpetrated by U.S., their client, or their friends, the coverage was virtually non-existent, they are regarded as “unworthy victim”. The U.S. always shows their hypocrisy in its foreign policy, suppressing bad news when their supported dictators cooperated, and denounced them once they fall.  

The book also discussed the used of propaganda on foreign election result such as in Vietnam, Guantemala, and El Salvador, whenever the result does not favored U.S. desired candidate the election result was not accepted, rebellion is no longer portrayed as rejection of democracy, large turnout was no longer proof that the elected has a legitimate mass popular support. There are also planted observers by the U.S. government which was branded as “expert’ to give the media propaganda direction. We see this trend over and over again, recent case in 2019 was in Venezuela where the U.S. recognized the unelected self-declared president as a legitimate president, never mind the election result.

In cases of foreign elections the media accepted the framing and analysis provided by the states, the media role is more on channeling the information to the public. In case of the killing of the pope in 1981, the media play a larger role as agent of disinformation. The media help originating false claim,and keep the manufactured stories alive throughout the case.

Discussing the Indochina war, the book discussed how the U.S. bombed and invaded Cambodia, mobilizing the embittered peasant to the cause of the Khmer Rouge. The media facilitate U.S. aggression by framing the bombing in Vietnam as “defending South Vietnam”, and there is no recognition in the media that U.S. committed an act of aggression by invading Vietnam. The U.S. understand that it has no popular support, they were weak politically in Vietnam, political settlement thus is not an option, the only strength it has was military. At the end, the U.S. signed the Paris Agreement which incorporated many principles rejected by the U.S. in Geneva before the escalation of war started.    

The result of media obedience to state power, Herman and Chomsky argued, was that the state can commit serious war crimes unimpeded, without the outrage of domestic polity. In conclusion,they concluded that the media has failed to serve their real “societal purpose”, that is to search of the truth independent from authority and enable the public to assert meaningful control over the political process by giving them information needed for intelligent discharge of political responsibilities. Instead the media functioned as a ideological institution and state propaganda tool to defend the economic, social, and political agenda of the elite group.     

There are several competing narratives about the tragedy that befell Palestinians in 1948. The Palestinians regarded the event as ‘Nakba’ or catastrophe in English. The Israeli regarded it as their victory and the foundation of their modern state. Ilan Pappe, the Chair in History at the University of Exeter, UK, however, challenge these two narratives. He argues that what happened in 1948 was a clear-cut case of a war crime, a systematic and planned ethnic cleansing which rooted from the Zionist ideology.

The result of this crime was the expulsion of 800,000 Palestinians, 531 villages destroyed and 11 urban neighborhood emptied. Pappe argued that the evidence of this crime is abundance, it is possible to reconstruct the historiographical account of the crime, and the names of the criminal are known. He argued that all these criminals must be brought into a special tribunal and serve justice.

Pappe described in the book how British, with the work of their officer, Orde Wingate, helped train Jewish settlers combat tactic. Wingate who was enchanted with the Zionist ideology transformed the paramilitary organization, the Hagana to become a military army. Wingate attached the Hagana with British forces to crush the Arab revolt, which they jointly attacked villages. The Hagana also gained valuable military experience by volunteering in British war effort in the second world war.

Pappe also disclosed detailed data collection and studies done by the Zionist called ‘The Village Files’ which gather information on every single village by the help of professional topographer, photographer, surveyor, and a network of spies. These files include data on political composition, religious affiliation, quality of land, water springs, main sources for income, the name of the mukhtars, and during the final update in 1947, the files focused on ‘wanted list’ for each village. This intelligence was crucial during the execution of the ethnic cleansing operation in 1948.

Early on the Zionist leadership understand that the major problem to established an exclusively Jewish state is the vast population of Palestinians living in their desired territory. Ben-Gurion, the architect of the ethnic cleansing admits this reality to his Mapai party in 1947, that 40% of the Jewish population will not create a stable state. To overcome this problem the Zionist encourage Jewish immigration in a public venue as a solution. But they know this will not be enough, in their closed meeting the solution on the table was expulsion by force.

The initial Zionist strategy is to used retaliation as a pretext to expel Palestinian villagers. Although many of the villages have been attacked up to December 1947 the mood on the ground did not give the Zionist this pretext. Palti Sela, Zionist intelligence officer reported that although many Jewish settlements have turned their residence into a military outpost. Many Palestinians villages continue to live as normal, in fact, many received him during his visit with a warm greeting as a potential customer for trading. The Zionist knew they need a new strategy as they did not have any pretext to retaliate.

Pappe noted the betrayal the Palestinian has suffered from their Jewish neighbor, who they themselves had invited to come and stay with them in the Ottoman period. The Jew arrived in Palestine wretched and penniless from Europe, they shared their thriving metropolitan city only to be expelled and betrayed by their neighbor.

Starting in February 1948 the operation to ethnically cleanse Palestine become more systematic, no longer sporadic as in December 1947. Qisayra was the first village to be explled in its entirety on 15 February 1948 under the watchful eyes of the British troops stationed nearby. The Zionist in their operation will blow up houses while the families still sleeping inside, which left many dead children. Up to this moment, the Palestinians still reluctant to fight, the Zionist later codified their operation into a well-defined plan to uproot the Palestinians en masse from their homeland. The massacre in Deir Yassin also was discussed in the book, the Hagana sent Irgun and Stern Gang to absolve themselves. Many villagers were massacred in cold blood, sparing not even children, and women were raped.

Arab leaders at that time were not serious in defending Palestine while the king of Jordan made a secret pact with the Jews on dividing the land between themselves. The Arab leader also knew that their young nations have inferior military power compared to the Jews. Although the leaders are weak, their citizens demanded action, as the event evolved, although their leaders betrayed the people, volunteers and soldiers on the ground fight heroically, some defied their leader’s order to retreat.  Among them, worthy of mention include the volunteer from the Muslim Brotherhood, volunteers and soldiers from Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan.

Looking at the historical archive, Pappe dispelled Israeli myth about Palestinians voluntary flight. Popular among traditional Israeli historians that they made way for invading Arab armies, the reality, however, is that hundred thousands of Palestinians already been uprooted and expelled even before the war began. This sheer fabrication according to Pappe – “holds no water”. Many of the massacres committed by the Jews were re-told vividly by Pappe from survivors account. One survivor, Muhammad Nimr al-Khatib described the massacre that took place in Tantura “The Jews gathered all women and children in a place, where they dumped all the bodies, for them to see their dead husbands, fathers, and brothers..”.

Despite the cowardice and betrayal from Arab leaders, Pappe recounted the bravery of individual soldiers, who defied orders to retreat and hold ground to defend the villagers. Captain Abu Rauf Abd al-Raziq for example, decided to stay behind and defend the village of Taytaba and Qalansuwa. There is also an account of Lebanese soldiers, crossing the borders to help defend Palestinians villages.

Then there are cases of rape. The most chilling was the case on 12 August 1949 by soldier based in Kibbutz Nirim where they abducted 12 years old Palestinian girl. She becomes a sex slave for the Jewish platoon, 22 soldiers participated in this barbaric act. The soldiers shaved her head, gang-raped her and in the end murdered her.

The Jews not only committed genocide and land grab. They also were responsible for what Pappe termed as ‘memoricide’ – a systematic act backed by the apartheid state to erase the memory of the Nakba in 1948. This was done by demolishing the villages, renaming the site with a Jewish name, reconstructing settlement on top of the ruin villages, and also planting a forest to cover the destroyed villages. This policy of erasing the memory and history of the Palestinians on their stolen land was the main job of the Jewish National Fund (JNF).

At the end of the book, Pappe highlighted that there are minority Jews that are not blind and deaf to the crimes committed by their army. Although their numbers are few, they hold the key to reconciliations with the Palestinians, as Pappe believes that peace only can be achieved, when these crimes were acknowledged and the right of return for refugees are respected. Overall the book is about how Palestinian been betrayed by their elites, Arab leaders, British, UN, and their Jewish neighbor. All of whom left them to bleed to death, savagely massacred by the Jews fueled by the Zionist ideology. If you did not cry reading this book, you have lost your heart.

 

 

 
This book explored the minds of young people, how they operate and how we can harness them instead of suppressing them. Adults, Siegel observed, usually loved routine, predictable schedule, which do away with creative exploration and makes life boring, almost lifeless. This is very different from a young mind, adolescent, which always experimenting, and seek ways to do things differently. Their passion for adventure and longing for a thrill.

Siegel also discussed the differences between old and modern times. During the old days, after a child enters puberty and adolescent, they quickly married and built a new family. Modern times however prolonged the period before adolescent ends, the need to be employed before starting a new family delayed this process for a decade or more, always with no clear endpoint. This is one of the challenges facing teens on modern age, as they search for meaning in the longer period of adolescence.

Siegel explained that the mind is not static but plastic. It can be shaped and build through experience. This plasticity remained at any age, we always can have a new experience and change the type of circuit connection we had in our brain, we can train our brain to learn and master new things at any age.

One of the parts which I liked the most is when Siegel explained that sometimes our emotion exploded, we cannot control our mind, we flipped our lid. Common views are when a person burst into anger, they revealed their true self. This is simply false. This happens to all human when their brain is in chaos and rigidity, at that moment there are little they can do. The best way to deal with this kind of situation is to remove oneself from the scene when the emotion builds up, and return when rational thinking was back again.

The period of adolescence must be viewed as a period full of potentials to nurture, not just to survived. The tendency of teenagers to seek novelty and experiencing thrills must be acknowledged, nurtured, and channeled in a productive way. This will create a win-win situation for teenagers and adults. The essence of the adolescent mind, their purpose, is to solve problems in new and innovative ways. This is important for human survival, as they look at the problem at hand and applied solution suitable for their era. This, in turn, promotes sustainability. The mind of an adolescent, which always experimenting and searching for novelty, is an important piece of puzzle for human to stay adaptive on earth.

Reading the mindsight tool on taking time-in, the concept was very similar to the main thesis of Eckhart Tolle in his book ‘The power of now’ where he advised the reader to be present, to feel the present moment and train the brain to get rid of the distraction of thinking about the past or worrying about the future.

Siegel also discussed how we create attachment models during our early years with our parent. These model will be the basis of how we communicate and interact with others later on in our life. Due to this reason, we must always be mindful when nurturing our children, it is important that they feel safe and have the bravery to explore the world when they were nurtured with a solid fundamental model.

In the modern world, we are not a sole parent, we practiced ‘other parenting’. What this means is that we share child rearing with other trusted adults which may include babysitter, teachers, and others. It is very important that all these figures mold a safe attachment model for the children. Some parent does not create a secure attachment model not because they don’t love their child, they simply did not have that skill to connect with their children.

Sometimes rupture does happen in our relationship with our children and others. In an event such as this, it is important that we initiate repairs and reconnect with them. We should apologize for our contribution to the conflict.

In his last mindsight tool’s section, Siegel emphasized the importance of lifelong learning. Lifelong learning will keep us sharped and keep our brain growth. It is also a source of challenges that hinder ourselves from falling into boredom. He also touched on how schools often kill creativity by setting up a standard of what is right and wrong, often cage student into a little box which they cannot think outside of it and explore.

In his conclusion, he wrote that we need to “embrace notions of spirituality and there is a deeper meaning to life directly”. Overall it was definitely a good read especially for readers who wish to understand the human mind, its development, plasticity in the face of experience and how we can harness its potential to create a better world.

This article is a review of “Brainstorm: The power and purpose of the teenage brain” by Daniel J. Siegel, M.D. published by Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin, New York, 2015.

 

 

 

As Howard Zinn brilliantly puts it “you cannot be neutral on a moving train”. This book was written from the perspective of American’s interest on why they are losing their wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The short answer is that America doesn’t have a clear quantifiable objective. Now, let’s deplore the long answer as Michael Scheuer puts it in his book ‘Imperial Hubris’.

Scheuer was part of the American intelligence community in the CIA specializing in Osama bin Laden, he uses his insight and specialty to argue the reason of the American failure and the options it had to move forward. The central thesis of his book is that the animosity the Muslim world had with America and its allies is not because of the values they hold dear, such as democracy, representative government, feminism, women empowerment, gender intermingling etc. While Islam may disapprove of these values, they are not the reason why people are blowing up themselves. The real reason Scheuer argues were specific policies such as attacks on their brethren, occupying Muslim lands, support given to corrupt tyrannies, and unconditional support towards Israeli brutal aggression on Palestinians. He wrote:

“To make this so, we send forth U.S. diplomats, politicians, officials, and preachers to coercively persuade Muslims to Westernize the Koran and the Prophet’s traditions and sayings, especially the parts of the Islamic canon dealing with education, charitable giving, the non-separation of church and state, and manage an Islamic Reformation that makes Muslims secular like us, all this unfortunate, nonsensical talk about religious war will end and Muslim will be eager to keep God in the same kind of narrow locker in which the West is slowly asphyxiating Him” pg 166.

Since the demolition of Ottoman Caliphate by the British in 1924, there is no central authority to wage offensive Jihad. But defensive Jihad is an individual responsibility that does not need authorization from anyone, once the religion is under attack it becomes an individual responsibility for each Muslims to defend the religion using whatever power he had.

Commenting on Afghanistan, Scheuer attributed the failure to the failure of America to learn from history. In what he called ‘the checkable’ which America should do before they enter Afghanistan. The vast amount of resources was not utilized, America failed to learn from history even though America has a vast knowledge to be tap with its 13-years program of supporting the mujahideen pushing back the Soviet. The biggest mistake was the American initiative to install secular democracy, a foreign idea to Afghanistan’s tribal tradition. A tribal tradition that will be united to repel foreign power be it the British, the Soviet or America, and again fight each other when they are gone. America naively thinks that they can depend on Afghan proxy to do their dirty work.

But reading the list of Al-Qaeda victories compiled by Scheuer, it’s hard not to think that he has oversimplified things. Different insurgencies have their own local context, to add it all and put it under Al-Qaeda is plain wrong. Although all of them are Muslim, they fight for a different cause. The Uighur are fighting China due to the Communist iron fist control over their communities. The Chechen are fighting Russia for their liberation. Palestinian are fighting Israeli occupation. They may share the same faith, but not the same goal.

Scheuer also dispelled the myth that the rage the Muslim have towards the West was because of the declined Islamic Civilization, but rather because of what the West has done in the Muslim world. Their post-colonial arrangement and support the tyrannies, limiting the population their freedom and wellbeing.

America ineffective force Scheuer argues is because it views the threat as a terrorist which had to deal with law-enforcing strategy. The need to do all the fighting abiding laws and under thorough media scrutiny, while the enemy wage unrestrained insurgency and never read the Geneva convention. He also explained the differences between US agencies such as FBI and the CIA. While FBI collecting data abiding the national law, CIA has done the opposite. CIA compiled data by torture, theft and luring foreigner to do an act of treason. Mixing and confusing these two agencies Scheuer argues, will make the matter worst.

Another reason why America is ineffective when the war with Afghanistan began, is the obsession of building coalition which delays the operation and dragged American feet. Although the coalition gave little impact on the overall operation.

At the end of the book, Scheuer concludes that American left with only two choices. The first, it changes its foreign policies towards the Muslim world, by withdrawal from their current aggression, stop supporting tyrannical regimes in the Muslim world, and do justice to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The second option, retain the status quo policies and prepared to shed more American blood and drain national treasures.

 

 

 

The Bible has many versions. We have King James Version, Revised Standard Version, New Revised Standard Version, Jerusalem Bible and a lot more others. Pelikan asked, what if a person want to buy the Bible, the whole Bible, and nothing but the Bible? Which one he should purchase.

To answer this question, Pelikan brought the readers back to the ancient time, to understand where does it all began, how it evolved and ended up as what we have today.

He started by introducing readers to the God who speaks. This is a crucial fact that the scriptures were based on spoken words, long before it was written down. This was a natural way even for us as human, as a child, we learn how to speak first, before we learn how to write. Pelikan cited the famous thinker Socrates, he was well known but never written any book. All of Socrates wisdom were spoken words, which later recalled and written by his disciples. This, Pelikan argues, is also true about Jesus. He speaks but never writes anything. His deeds were written “at least three or four decades” later.

The words were spoken by the prophets. The Jewish Tanakh carried a heading Nevi’im which means “the Prophets”. To explain this concept, Pelikan cannot solely depend on Judaeo-Christians tradition, he went to explain that in the tradition of the Quran, Allah declares that the message was brought through a man, Muhammad, which Muslims refer to simply as ‘the prophet’.

Pelikan reiterates the primacy of spoken words; “Modulating the tone of voice, speaking loudly or whispering, pausing, speeding up or slowing down, gestures, grimaces, and smiles – all of these are dimensions of oral communication and tool of persuasion” that no writing system can hope to reproduce.

Pelikan then drew attention to the question of language on his second chapter “The truth in Hebrew” from Latin translation of “Hebraica veritas”. “The Jewish Tanakh makes up at least three-fourths of the Christian Bible,” wrote Pelikan. Part of Jewish Tanakh, in Nevi’im, contained biographies which are not “idealized” according to Pelikan. Because it contained among others, the unexpurgated account of David’s adultery with Bathsheba and murder of her husband Uriah.

The Hebrew Tanakh consists of Torah or the Pentateuch which contain divine law and legislation. Followed by Nevi’im or the Prophets which contain historical background and setting of the prophets and formed a commentary on the history of Judah and of Israel. Then come to a section called Kethuvim or the writings which are a collection of sacred writings.

By the third and second centuries BCE, Jews has been dispersed throughout the Greco-Roman world, many younger generations did not speak Hebrew and only understand Greek, which was a fashionable language at that time. One of the cosmopolitan cities with significant Jewish population was Alexandria, Egypt. 72 Jewish scholars from 12 tribes of Israel were dispatched to Alexandria to translate the Tanakh to Greek. The translation was later called Septuagint, the Latin word for seventy.

This translation has a profound effect on the writing of the New Testament. For example, Hebrew Tanakh described the birth of Immanuel by a young woman without specifying any status. The Septuagint uses the word “parthenos” which later quoted in the Gospel as “virgin”.

Commenting on the cultural significance of the Septuagint, Pelikan wrote:

“..the creation of the Septuagint brought it about that the Bible became, willy-nilly, part of world literature. Anyone who could read Odyssey could now read the Book of Exodus, even though some of its Greek might seem rather quaint to a pagan Hellenistic reader (which was, of course, true of the archaic Greek of Homer as well). By contrast, the Qur’an would remain locked in Arabic for many centuries after it had been revealed and committed to writing, and would, therefore, continue to be inaccessible to friendly outside inquirers, not to mention all its enemies.”

Translation means that some meaning might be lost in the process. Pelikan noted that what is said in Hebrew does not have the same force when translated into another language. The Septuagint later acquired a special and inspired status in the Christian church, it became a Christian Bible. ‘The baptism of the Tanakh’ as Pelikan puts it, gave way for Christians to claim a long and distinguished lineage.

Commenting on the New Testament, Pelikan wrote that it was a work of several authors. The Gospels dealt with the life and teaching of Jesus, the Acts tells stories about early Christianity, the Epistles are letters by various leaders and the Revelation is an apocalyptic literature. The Epistle to the Philippians for example, was Paul’s personal letters. The second Thessalonians although said to be written by Paul, the authorship was disputed by biblical scholars. In light of the history of emancipation, in the Epistle to Philemon, Paul plead that a runaway slave, Onesimus, to be treated kindly, but does not demand him to be set free. Pelikan then wrote about how some Epistle such as Jude was appeared in some canon but rejected by others. Pelikan also questions evocative and anatomically explicit love poem in the Song of Songs. He asked, “what is such a book doing in the Bible?”.

At a later stage, having already been translated to Greek and called Septuagint, the Bible was translated to Latin by the work of Jerome (Eusebius Hieronymus), this Latin version was called the Vulgate. In the Reformation age, the call for the return to the primary source in Hebrew resulted in the access of Hebrew text such as the Jewish Kabbalah. The mysterious world of the Kabbalah, the ultimate mystery of Being now can be manipulated to support the doctrine of the Trinity.

Pelikan also mentions Erasmus in the Reformation age, where he omits several dubious lines which has no backing in Greek but creeps into Latin edition. After receiving protest, that this omission might undermine the concept of Trinity, he includes them back on the newer edition. During the Enlightenment critical examination was addressed to all form of authority, from political, intellectual, to religious authority. Commenting on the different level of militarism between old and new testament, Pelikan wrote that this is due to the different political setting. The new testament was written when there is no political power. This is the reason why Christ said, “Pay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and to God what belongs to God”. Which beg a question, what kind of things belong to Caesar without belonging to God first? The critical method also probing the question of authorship. Whilst this question is not so important to the faithful. How does one really explain Moses writing his own obituary by describing himself died in the land of Moab? In the concluding chapter, Pelikan noted the ‘contrary lifestyle’ which existed in the Bible. How one square militarism in the Tanakh with the message of peace.

This article is a book review of “Whose Bible Is It?” written by Jaroslav Pelikan. Published by Penguin Books in 2006.