The year that was

When the dust and smoke clears, the sight will not be as ugly as some like to make of  2007 in the Philippines. Indeed, it will be something to behold. True there were ruins in the political scene but what remained standing up despite unrelenting assault is precious and more valuable than those that have been destroyed. I am referring to institutions that in the long term will reinforce our capacity to govern ourselves. It is a quiet victory of sorts and not immediately recognizable. But once appreciated it is something to savor until it sinks deep in our national consciousness. You may not like President GMA but it was her government which held its ground for whatever reasons despite the assaults of a formidable alliance of foreign and local political operators bent on bringing it down by unconstitutional means as these have done other administrations before her. That to me was the achievement of the year.

We may not appreciate it now being too close to the politics in season but in generations to come, the Arroyo administration will be remembered as a turning point, a time when a Filipino leader held her ground and refused to be taken in by machinations designed to prove who runs this country.

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Generally, there is an unwritten rule that dead leaders are beyond criticism, but as general rules go, there are exceptions. Although there was a flood of adulation for Benazir Bhutto when she was assassinated, there were others who knew her well enough and were more restrained about praise.

One of those was Jemima Khan who writes for a London newspaper. Going against all those who praised her fearlessness for returning to Pakistan, Khan says the opposite. In her view, Benazir lacked political bravery because even if she wanted to boycott the upcoming elections in January because she knew it would be rigged she turned her back to this strategy.

If she had been truly brave she would have gone against the military rule that Ms Khan writes “has blighted Pakistan’s history and which was responsible for the death of her own father.” She goes on to add that Benazir did not dare defy those in Washington who were said to be intent on “arranging a political marriage between herself and Pervez Musharraf as America’s allies in the so-called War on Terror.”

“In the aftermath of her brutal murder, it’s tempting and more comfortable to whitewash her flaws and focus only on the obvious strengths: the charisma, the fortitude, the tenacity. But it would be wrong to allow her record in government to be obscured by the fact of her death.” Khan writes but who in turn is criticized for saying these things because she comes from a rival political family.

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Whether it is in the Philippines or in Pakistan, contemporary events are bound by the phenomenon of American intervention. It may be useful to connect the dots and view these events with America’s own struggle for being the only superpower in the world. Richard Haass, vice president, director of Foreign Policy Studies, and Sydney Stein Jr., chair in International Security at the Brookings Institution has written an article which can help us find the link to seemingly disparate conditions in different countries: “The only certainties in today’s world are that geopolitics are becoming more multipolar and that America will not stay on top forever. But the United States can protect its interests by embracing and defining the new multipolarity — rooting it in norms of state behavior rather than just a balance of power. This means fostering international cooperation (so as not to do too little) and developing a set of guidelines for intervention (so as not to do too much).” That means trading some American power for a more stable international system.

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Some books I got for Christmas. Umberto Eco’s Turning Back the Clock, Hot Wars and Media Populism. He writes about the time from 2000 to 2005, the years of neoconservatism, terrorism, the 24 hour news cycle, the ascension of Bush, Blair and Berlusconi and the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Eco leads us along the trail of this age of hot wars and media populism, and how it was sold to us as progress. He discusses  racism, mythology, the European Union, rhetoric, the Middle East, technology, September 11, medieval Latin, television ads, globalization, Harry Potter, anti-Semitism logic, the Tower of Babel intelligent design, Italian street demonstrations, fundamentalism, the Da Vinci Code magic and magical thinking.

Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner. The book flap (haven’t got down to reading it yet) says it tells the story of the friendship between two boys growing up in Kabul. Raised in the same household and sharing the same wet nurses, Amir and Hassan nonetheless grow up in different worlds. Amir is the son of a prominent and wealthy man while Hassan is the son of Amir’s father’s servant who is a Hazzara, a member of a shunned ethnic minority. Their intertwined lives and their fates, reflect the eventual tragedy of life in the world around them. When the Soviets invade and Amir and his father flee the country for a new life in California, Amir thinks that he has escaped his past. And yet he cannot leave the memory of Hassan behind him.