Lessons from Australia’s election
By Wei Seng
A concern for Australia's voters
I tend to follow elections in major Western countries closely, if not because of my usual interest in the politics of these countries, then because the publications that I read such as The Economist and (to a lesser extent) The Straits Times have rather heavy coverage of the election, before, during and after. My platoon mate gets very excited about such elections and will often keep reminding me about the election day. But there are several factors that make the Australian election (that took place yesterday) so special this time round and also worth covering here on Erpz.net.
Firstly, the nature of which the current Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard attained power was rather unique. According to John McTernan in the Financial Times, the current ruling party Labour decided to "depose" ex-PM Kevin Rudd because of dips in popularity that were perceived as threatening to the party's cling onto power, a lesson learnt from Britain's Labour Party which held on to Gordon Brown despite his record-low popularity and ended up suffering in defeat during the elections. Gillard wanted a mandate for herself to rule, in view of the seemingly undemocractic circumstances in which she came to power, as well as her popularity just after she was selected as the new PM.
Her popularity dipped with time, however, as she stumbled and flip-flopped over the initiatives she wanted to push forward and her stand on various issues plaguing the country. Now that the election results are partially out, the initial lead over her rival Liberal party has whittled to the extent that the two parties have split the vote, with Liberal having one more seat than Labour but none with any majority significant enough to form a government. So ironically, the lesson that they learnt from Britain's Labour party appeared to be a wrong lesson. Maybe it was not time to depose Kevin Rudd yet.
The main harbinger of this Australian election for future Western elections is the hot topics that were thrown up during the election. Presiding over economic growth in a period where the world experienced a bad recession did not seem to benefit Labour at all. What was on the voters' radars, as McTernan suggested, were the environment, immigration and Australia's position on the global arena, topics which could highly likely be of significant influence in future elections in the West.
The most important topic was on the environment, and the importance of this will undeniably increase with time as the effects of climate change are unleashed upon the world. Rudd's popularity was supposedly a result of his green stance, from the signing of the Kyoto Protocol to his proposal for an Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) for Australia. His popularity was thought to have declined when he climbed down on climate change initiatives such as the ETS. When Rudd was deposed, he was the probably the first leader in the West to be unseated because of environmental issues, which seemed to indicate the growing importance of environmental issues amongst the populace.
What strikes me as weird, however, is how Tony Abbott, the climate change skeptic and leader of the Liberal coalition, actually fared better in the election despite his stand on the environment. This would seem to contradict the lesson learnt that the environment is becoming an issue politicians cannot neglect. This would very much be perhaps a failure on Gillard's part, as she has also been waffling with regard to environmental issues. McKernan claims that Abbott "mined middle Australia’s often conflicted feelings" about the environment, which resulted in his better showing at the polls. This certainly would be quite a terrible lesson to take home though, if politicians were to see being climate change skeptics as vote-grabbing.
Then there's migration and the concept of Big Australia. Voters were uncomfortable with Rudd's plans to expand Australia's population, as much as migration generally has been beneficial for Australia and Australia is very much a country made up of migrants. Australians are generally satisfied with their standard of living and they worry about whether Australia can cope with an increased population, especially one that is a result of immigration. This could also be seen as environment-related, since after all sustainable development needs to be built upon sustainable population growth and certainly an expanding population would place greater stress on the environment. The issue regarding migration that many Australians are most unhappy about, however, is the inflow of refugees to the country. Migration and refugees are issues that would become more significant with time as globalisation opens up access for more and more countries in the developing world to developed countries, and as climate change unleashes its wrath on impoverished populations that would flock to other countries for shelter and a living.
Lastly, the concern about what Australia is to the world. Australians seemed uncomfortable about taking the lead in the region or in the world. Rudd championed several initiatives Pacific-wide that would put Australia at or near the heart of policy and decision making, which made some countries and organisations in the Asia-Pacific uncomfortable at attempts to take away its influence (mainly ASEAN and countries in the region). The country's realignment closer to Asia and further away from its friends in the West (especially America and Britain) seemed to make some Australians uncomfortable as well, especially as rising power China taps into Australia's mineral wealth and has attempted takeover attempts of several Australian mining giants in the process.
So what lessons are there to learn, really? I quote this huge chunk which captures nicely how this election could be a harbinger for future Western elections: "The desire to enjoy growth while defending our lifestyles against outsiders, accepting climate change intellectually while rejecting its implications for our behaviour, and a nagging concern about the rise of China – all are issues which will quickly move up the agenda in Europe and North America".
Problems of an Elite Education
By Wei Seng
Through the hallowed gates of Yale... to a poorer future?
My friend posted a link on Facebook to an article titled 'The Disadvantages of an Elite Education' by William Deresiewicz. I decided to click and take a look at the article and it certainly did not disappoint, perhaps justifying why my friend just had to share the very long article on Facebook. I found many of the ideas communicated in the article quite pertinent to me, given that I was technically in an 'elite' school for the last 6 years of my education.
"The first disadvantage of an elite education": you become unable to talk to people who are not quite like yourself. The writer starts with an anecdote about how he was unable to talk to the plumber in his kitchen, someone presumably with a background totally different from the writer's. I can empathise, because I have encountered this same problem in camp. However while in Singapore the gap between the elite and non-elite is not as wide, that in America is much wider given that elitism not just self-perpetuates in the hallowed campuses of Boston and Ivy League colleges, there is a sense of contempt that is bred by the elite system.
Intelligence, as the writer discovers, is not just about the booksmart kind or the academic or analytic kind that is recognised in the elite education system. Intelligence could be in the form of social intelligence and emotional intelligence, and excellent performance in sports and other non-academic aspects appear to be not as recognised in the elite system.
"The second disadvantage of an elite education": inculcating a false sense of self worth. All the excellent SAT scores and A-level grades only indicate the ability to take tests and perhaps a measure of knowledge, but that does not reflect very much on how far one can succeed in life. Sure, life is a series of tests, but not of the paper-and-pen kind that one can score highly at by mugging away. I take pride in what I know and my academic performance, which the writer acknowledges is something worth being proud of, but so what? Sometimes I lament that I do not know things that many people of my age who went through a mainstream education know, such as cooking (which secondary school students pick up in Home Economics) and fixing of basic electronic devices.
After that feeling of smugness and self-back-patting, there's the idea that "measures of intelligence and academic achievement are measures of value in some moral or metaphysical sense". But humans are all equal, the worth of someone from an elite school is not more than that of someone who was not. As the writer illustrates, "Their pain does not hurt more. Their souls do not weigh more".
And there's the privileges of being in an elite school, that those not from an elite school might not get: exposure to "visiting power brokers" and "foreign dignitaries", scholarships and stipends, opportunities to travel overseas for various reasons ranging from community involvement to research symposiums. I have been very thankful for all the opportunities that my school gave me, and I often wonder what I would have become without all these opportunities. The uneven playing field becomes even less level.
The claims by the writer become more audacious, but echo horrifyingly. Those from elite schools are being pampered for the world they are poised to enter: plenty of opportunity to climb, freedom to pursue one's interests, high-flying careers and social lives. Those not from the elite schools then might be destined for a life of "few second chances, no extensions, little support, narrow opportunity—lives of subordination, supervision, and control, lives of deadlines, not guidelines". All these apply to Singapore quite strongly. But the next few allegations may or may not apply as evidently to Singapore, where the writer suggests that while the system is meritocratic to the point of entry into the elite system, once one gets in it is almost impossible for him to be kicked out for any misdemeanour.
And from there on the allegations lobbed against the elite education system become a bit less applicable to Singapore, though not any less irrelevant or banal. Those who come out from the elite education system may out of 'face' (I use a very Asian concept though the American concept would be pride) not want to pursue anything less than a high-paying job in a comfortable office, though that may not be one's true calling or passion in life. There's the fear of failure, and an obsession with failure even in the banal context of a class test in school. At least in my opinion, there are those from the elite education system who have taken risks and trodded the road less travelled to success (albeit measured in very material manners such as wealth and influence): Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Microsoft and Facebook respectively who both came from Harvard. But regarding the obsession with failure I must claim to be the epitome of this idea because I am so afraid of failure or losing at anything that I tend to restrict myself to doing things that I do well or that I would win, which certainly is not good for my personal development.
The most damning disadvantage of an elite education, the writer accuses after all the disadvantages trickle through, is that "it is profoundly anti-intellectual". I think I shall leave you to go read the article yourself to find out why the writer says this, despite the fact that the elite education is supposed to nurture intellectuals to their fullest potential.
I welcome some rebuttals from all, not just those from the "elite" schools.
Lights Out on Government Intervention?
By Wei Seng
Really?
Paul Krugman, an economics professor, self-proclaimed liberal and columnist for The New York Times, writes in a recent article about how government intervention has been misconstrued by those championing a small government and the disastrous results of the attack on government intervention. While he might be biased towards the government because of his liberal tendencies, his arguments in the article certainly make some sense and are worth reading considering the barrage of articles against government intervention in America these days.
He first describes the crumbling infrastructure of more and more places in America, from roads to education, which he alludes to shrinking state and federal budgets. "Tax increase" is the taboo word these days in an age whereby recovery from recession is still fragile yet "deficit reduction" is on everyone's (at least the Republicans') lips, both at the state and federal level. Even tax increments on the rich are lambasted as a crusade by the government against big business, and we learn in Economics that a disadvantage of high taxes on the upper-income brackets is the repulsion of rich businessmen towards lower-tax countries. But the tax increments could have gone to repairing and reconstructing infrastructure which the majority use, while at the expense of the happiness of "the richest 2% or so of Americans".
Krugman has all along been against withdrawing the stimulus against the recession early, warning that the recovery thus far has been fragile and it will take plenty of time and money for the economy to bounce back to where it once was. The effect of states cutting spending cancelled out the positive effect of federal government spending, and now with federal spending poised for cuts America "is going into reverse".
Krugman is especially angry with conservatives who believe that "a dollar collected in taxes is always a dollar wasted, that the public sector can’t do anything right". A balanced perspective of the economist should be one that allows the free market to operate, but with guidance from the government. It does certainly seem twisted if the government is alluded to be unable to do "anything right", especially for a government like America's, even if governments of many failed states such as Somalia and Afghanistan have seemed unable to really do anything right.
In essence, time to think about what the government can do right, and not what it can do wrong.
Green Roofs
By Wei Seng
A classical example of a green roof from Fukuoka
I have been trying to find inspiration about what to write for ERPZ.net, but did not manage to find something that really moved me from The Economist, so I decided to go back to The Daily Green to search for some green inspiration. This time I feature a photoessay on green roofs.
My write-up in June about vertical gardening is related to the theme of green roofs, the difference being green roofs in general need not be just for food. It could serve other purposes such as cooling the surroundings (whether of the building it is grown on or the surrounding urban heat island), absorbing rainwater runoff during storms, shielding against pollutant particles or just beautifying the surroundings. Do click through the photo slideshow to see how pretty green roofs can be and yet serve additional environmental purposes. And note that these are found in America, despite being a place which environmentalists often claim to be very un-green. Certainly Singapore can learn some lessons in terms of green architecture from America.
Origins of America’s White Anxiety
By Wei Seng
Cooperate, not fight!
I covered something in relation to America's white anxiety crisis a few months back, reviewed from a Time magazine article, but it seems like now there appears to be a source of which America's white anxiety originates.
Ross Douthat in The New York Times discusses an origin of America's white anxiety: the positive discrimination that America's elite schools practice, in the process excluding many white Christians, which then creates a gap between the liberal, multiracial elite and the conservative and white Christians middle-class. It is quite an interesting observation, that while quite a bitter pill to swallow for liberals and those who believe in multiracialism and affirmative action after decades of racism, it is necessary for governments to be careful with affirmative action because any form of discrimination, positive or otherwise, would create resentment as it is happening in America today.
The chasm between the liberals (quite a significant proportion of the elite, of which many come from the top American universities such as Harvard) and the conservatives (significantly white Christian and male) appears to remain as insurmountable as ever, or even widening, with the Obama administration in the White House. Key figures in the conservative sphere have complained that the liberal administration today is practicing "racism" (preference for the coloured) and its policies a form of "reparations" (for all the past misdeeds against the coloured). Most liberals (and as a self-proclaimed liberal) I find their arguments quite silly as many of the conservatives seem to be practicing their own form of racism (against the coloured) so who started what? But it appears as if there is a source of all this discontent against the elite: the practices of elite universities in America.
According to two Princeton sociologists, a study of the admissions process and affirmative action of "eight highly selective colleges and universities" shows that the admissions procedure "seemed to favour black and Hispanic applicants, while whites and Asians needed higher grades and SAT scores to get in". I do not quite understand why Asians would need better grades, as this seems to be a form of racism as well, but I guess it is meant to be a barrier to entry for hopeful students in Asia. But it seems as if affirmative action is well at work here when black and Hispanic applicants are favoured, given that historically these people were the disadvantaged and discriminated against. But now those most disadvantaged by this process are the (racial majority) white: especially the lower-income, "rural and working-class". It is possible that universities are trying to make their racial profile look multiethnic and reserve financial aid for these students.
"Cultural biases" seem to be at work as well: "most extra-curricular activities " would "increase your odds of admission" but apparently participation in activities like Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC), 4-H and Future Farmers of America would actually "jeopardise" your chances. Unknowingly or otherwise, these elite institutions seem to be "incline against candidates who seem too stereotypically rural or right-wing or Red America".
This creates an "underrepresentation" of working-class whites (particularly white Christians) in these universities and eventually in the "ranks these campuses feed into: in law and philanthropy, finance and academia, the media and the arts". According to Douthat this can breed "paranoia, among elite and non-elites alike", which is already evident from the "racially tinged conspiracy theories" against President Obama that conservatives are keen to perpetuate and exploit. Meanwhile the "highly educated and liberal", with minimal contact with "rural, working-class America" and especially with the rise of the Tea Party movement, imagine the Red American heartland to be full of evangelical theocrats and Ku Klux Klansmen.
When affirmative action backfires, are there alternatives? Singapore's practice of meritocracy might be an alternative. Even meritocracy has its own flaws, such as perpetuating inequality amongst the races (the black are, after all, still in general largely disadvantaged - poorer, less educated, more likely to be unemployed) and it would be quite impossible to be fully meritocratic (granted, these elite universities have been practicing quite a fair bit of meritocracy too). It is a tough balancing act for these elite schools, but arent these elite schools, with the cream of the crop, supposed to be able to find solutions to the problems in society? We need to challenge these schools to come out with a fair way that will allow affirmative action and yet ensure that it does not squeeze out the deserving majority.
Correlation between infectious diseases and IQ?
By Wei Seng
Eliminate poverty and stop the blight of human potential!
In the Science and Technology column of The Economist, I saw an article that proposed an intriguing correlation between the occurence of infectious diseases in countries and the IQ of the people in those countries. Sounds like a pretty audacious correlation to make, but it seems like the research done by these scientists from the University of New Mexico (which is, by the way, in America and not Mexico) seems to bear this out.
One's IQ might be genetically influenced, but why does IQ vary across places, being on average higher in certain places and lower in others? And apparently IC seems to be "rising in recent decades". The hypothesis of the researchers assert that the occurence of infectious diseases affect IQ variation. In other words, "places that harbour a lot of parasites and pathogens... have their human caiptal eroded, child by child, from birth".
This sounds scary and damning, but the link is not exactly impossible. From newly born children to adult, the brain uses a huge proportion of the body's metabolic energy far exceeding its weight within the body, from 87% in a newborn to "about a quarter of the body's energy" even as an adult, when your brain weighs "a mere 2%" of your body weight. When parasites and pathogens (that cause infectious diseases) reside in the body, they can damage the body tissue, provoke immune system reactions and / or compete for resources such as nutrients from food consumed.
Statistically plotting infectious disease burden on life years lost against average IQ, the more developed countries with "relatively low levels of disease" have a higher average IQ and vice-versa. Singapore features prominently as the country with the highest average intelligence with relatively low infectious disease burden. "Correlation is not causation", certainly, and the researchers have considered some alternative causes for lower IQ but these seem to diminish in importance when measured vis-a-vis the consequences of disease.
The importance of this study? If further research validates this groundbreaking postulation, the onus upon developing countries to develop economically and improve healthcare becomes even greater as the consequent health problems from low levels of development damage the country's potential. These countries may be stuck in a vicious cycle, but then the onus is also upon the developed countries to provide aid and assistance to the developing countries to break out of this disease-potential trap. Indeed, as the writer valiantly suggests, it is time for policymakers to recognise that "one of the main aims of development" would be to eliminate disease, instead of doing so as "a desirable afterthought".
Asia’s disturbing urbanisation
By Wei Seng
This is not Fear Factor!
In The Economist, their Asian correspondent in the Banyan column wrote about the "alarming" developments of Asian cities and how Asia (in particular, China) is urbanising in an unsustainable manner.
Urban living need not necessarily be more pollutive, since in cities one travels about less to go to work, to marketing and so on (I shudder when I think of the suburban sprawl of America and the need to drive anywhere and everywhere, an anathema for someone like me who likes public transport). However, ill-planning has resulted in cities in China frequently tearing down recently-built buildings and rebuilding them, which is a waste of energy and resources. Also, even if environmental concerns are recognised by urban planners, "many new buildings are designed first, greened later", which is recognised to be "cheaper but less effective". It seems as if greening cities come as an afterthought rather than as part of a comprehensive, holistic design of a city. Urban planners need to include and increase green features in the cities they plan and build right from the beginning. It appears as if there needs to be a breakthrough in thinking among developers (in China, but elsewhere too) before green urbanisation can move forward.
Considering my personal experiences, I must say that it is not just China that has cities that are not very well planned and not green. I visit Kuala Lumpur (KL), the capital of Malaysia, frequently and find that while I like the shopping there, it is quite an un-green city in terms of environmental friendliness and greenery. There is not very much greenery around and the city is rather heavily concretised. The roads are not very well-planned and traffic jams are a constant feature of the streets of KL because of the poorly-planned road system that makes driving in KL traffic a headache. There are some green lungs within the city, such as at the Lake Gardens near KL Sentral and Bukit Nanas forest reserve around KL Tower, but it would be better to create more green lungs in and around the city, and even along the streets. At least Singapore's Orchard Road feels more comfortable because of the trees and shrubs along the shopping street.
Talking about Singapore, while I cant say we are the greenest city, our government is certainly doing a bit on its part to export its expertise on urbanisation. The Sino-Singapore Tianjin eco-city is a good example of how Singapore can help countries like China that are rapidly urbanising to urbanise greenly.
For those interested in urbanisation in China, the Go West Project website is worth reading for the case studies and news compilations.
Time to focus on palm oil
By Wei Seng
How is this not as disastrous as the Gulf oil spill?
As the oil spill in the Gulf continues unabated, environmentalists and activists are interested in targetting another source of fuel that may be an alternative to crude oil but is probably also as controversial in terms of its sustainability: palm oil.
The Economist reports late last month about how plam oil, "a popular, cheap commodity" is being targetted because of the damage to rainforests and ecosystems as a result of the encroaching oil palm forests, especially in our neighbouring countries Malaysia and Indonesia. Palm oil may be considered an alternative source of fuel as biodiesel, but the deforestation that takes places to plant oil palm trees is certainly far from environmentally friendly or sustainable. And at a time when "oil (continues) to spill into the Gulf of Mexico, companies' environmental responsibilities have never been more public", which makes this period a prime time to target companies that use palm oil as well as palm oil producers (mainly in Malaysia and Indonesia).
Is it possible to swear off palm oil usage? Firms being targetted for palm oil use, from Unilever to Nestle, are investing their supply chains to make sure that the palm oil they use comes from sustainable sources and of industry standard, though it is hard to control whether the palm oil obtained comes from sustainable sources as even palm oil certified as sustainable will be "mixed in with the rest" by processors and traders, the middlemen in the palm oil trade. Possible (but costly) alternative could include coconut oil which Lush, a British cosmestics company, is using. Otherwise, adopt the strategy of food companies such as Marks & Spencer and Mars: reduce palm oil content for health and "nutritional reasons".
The article in The Economist, in particular, also focuses a lot on environmental activists' approaches to appeal and petition industry, commerce and government. It is worth reading about all the environmental activism and the different tack activists take with time as the public, with a maturing and more sophisticated view about the environment, expect more from companies and industries. This article comes as a timely reminder that we should scrutinise how clean our sources of fuel are, even those supposedly considered as alternatives. A razed forest is certainly not any less disastrous as an oil-polluted sea.
Right to Information – Empowering the Poor?
By Wei Seng
At least the law can help get my pavement fixed
India might be a country saddled with plenty of bureaucracy and laws that are controversial (such as the Women's Reservation Bill, which I covered in March), but there is one that appears to be especially popular amongst the poor in India, and this law while not a huge success has managed to give the poor a "lever" to demands for a better livelihood.
Lydia Polgreen of The New York Times writes about how the right to information law (also known as right-to-know law) has created an "information revolution" that has enabled the poor access to much that would not have reached them had they not filed requests to information of their concern. Plenty of anecdotes illustrate how the right-to-know law, which penalises bureaucrats unless they ensure "speedy compliance" to requests for information from their constituents, has expedited services and infrastructure that the people deserve that disappeared in the quagmire of bureaucracy and corruption.
The law "has given the people the feeling that the government is accountable to them", and while the law has not done much to reduce corruption, it has at least allowed much faster delivery of services and infrastructure as bureaucrats fear investigations and divulgence of information that might be damaging to them. There are critics though, and they believe the law is a "pressure valve that allows people to get basic needs addressed, without challenging the status quo". Attempts to expose corruption by invoking the act has not had the desired effect activists wanted, but nevertheless I think this is a good start. But it seems like having access does not automatically mean really accessing it, as this writer from The Maharashtra Herald complains about.
In essence, at very least the poor are more able to have their "basic needs addressed". A much tougher law needs to be developed to deal with corruption, since this law is more about giving individuals rights rather than dealing with corruption.
Individualism: the source of America’s recovery?
By Wei Seng
I + You = US
In The Straits Times, the chairman of the board of trustees of Singapore Management University (SMU), Ho Kwon Ping, writes about his belief that "American individualism" will allow America to recover from its current situation and rise again, just as this same individualism has helped propel it to the forefront of the global arena.
So what is this individualism that makes America so special? While the writer finds that "excessive individualism" has this "corrosive impact" that can be damaging to both individuals and groups (companies or societies), what makes America's individualism so special is that the spirit cherishes "the sanctity of the individual and thus, meritocracy". In other words, "at its best... every person matters". There's the gung-ho of chasing one's dream, there's the respect for each and every individual no matter his race or wealth, there's the constant drive to improve oneself, through DIY. And because of this DIY spirit, Americans believe that everything has a solution, even if it seems quite "naive" to believe as such.
The writer recognises that this has its flip side, of course, but let us focus on something positive for once: using the positive aspects of American individualism to help America slowly recover from the ills currently plaguing it, such as the current oil spill in the gulf. I dont have any inkling how it could possibly be solved quickly at this stage, but with the American DIY attitude and the openness to new ideas (of which there doesnt seem to be enough of, given that the government is pulling BP along by its ears and forcing it to come up with solutions) maybe there could be a breakthrough. Maybe.