One World, Many Peaces

Who's Protecting the World's Endangered Languages (All 7000)? These Guys

 

When an insect only seven people have ever seen goes extinct in a place you need a government grant to get to, more than just environmentalists feel a part of our world has gone forever. Understandably so. But what about when a language once used by thousands is down to its last speaker, and the universe of relations and ideas that language conveys will not survive them? Who protests, who runs worldwide campaigns or passes legislation against hazardous, toxic notions like "official languages" and "world languages" that creep onto and kill ways of understanding what it means to be human? A group of fifty linguists meeting at the first-ever Endangered Languages Information and Infrastructure Workshop, funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation, realize the tragedy but aren't superheroes.

In the last 500 years, half of the world's languages have become extinct. What is new is the accelerated rate of language extinction today. Linguists predict that in the next 100 years nearly 90 percent of the world's 7,000 languages will become extinct, with a best case scenario at only 35 to 50 percent surviving (Krauss,1992). "When we lose, say, 50 percent of languages, we're losing 50 percent of human cognitive ability," says linguist Lyle Campbell.  "Linguistics is a study of human cognition, what makes the mind tick, click, and work. It's our responsibility as linguists to do what we can." Unfortunately for Campbell and his colleagues, words difficult to pronounce just aren't as cute and cuddly as panda bears and Hollywood superstars have yet to milk endangered languages for their publicity value. Try asking a panda whether or not there is life after death. Unfortunately, while hundreds of groups protect species for biodiversity, none protect endangered languages for logodiversity.

The admirable work of these linguistics overlooks one major possibility based on a historical actuality: that as languages die, new ones can and are created not in their place, but in the space they leave behind. "A language is not just words and grammar; it is a web of history that binds all the people who once spoke the language, all the things they did together, all the knowledge they imparted to their descendants," says Anthony Aristar, professor of linguistics at Eastern Michigan University, in Science Daily. There is also such a thing as the languages of the future, beyond but also in between the lingua francas that are most likely to survive: English, Spanish, Chinese and Arabic. The languages of the future, whatever they may look or sound like, will be made from those of the present, which is why the study of multilingualism is at least as important as current event that can literally speak to the future.

Two Major Intellectuals, Levi-Strauss and Ayala, Die; What the World Has Gained

"Loss" is a word commonly heard when someone dies, as in "a loss to us" or "the world's loss." But what about what we and the world have gained because someone has lived? This may be the more inspiring and pragmatic question to ask of everyone, but especially in noting the passing of two of the great 20th century intellectuals today as centenarians: Claude Levis-Strauss at 100, the French anthropologist and a founder of the widely influential structuralist school of critical analysis; and Francisco Ayala at 103, the paradigmatic anti-fascists sociologist and novelist. The following is less of a tribute than a well-deserved acknowledgment.

Trained as a philosopher in France, Claude Levi-Strauss taught in Brazil from 1935 and came to prominence with his landmark Tristes Tropiques (trans. A World on the Wane), which has since become a classic. In it he proposed that so-called "primitive" mythologies are structurally analyzable in the same way as "civilized" ones, calling into question two centuries of "progressive" thinking. The work had a profound influence not only in anthropology, but also in sociology, philosophy, political science, history and literary criticism, among other fields. He became a member France's prestigious Academie, which rushed to pay homage to him today. Just recently, Levi-Strauss expressed contempt at dying in a world he "does not love," and remarked that the purpose of structuralism was a "search for unsuspected harmonies" by drawing parallels and analogies between otherwise unrelated thought and social systems.  The next-generation of French intellectuals (including Jaques Derrida and Michel Foucault) are often called post-structuralists because they focused on changes in structures over time, in deference.

The Spanish intellectual Francisco Ayala coincidentally followed a similar trajectory as Levi-Strauss, spendinghis early career in South America before return to his home country, where accolades eventually followed. After receiving his doctorate in law from Madrid University in 1930, he went on a lecture tour in Argentina, when the fascist Franco took power back in Spain (1936). In Buenos Aires, he taught sociology and founded the literary journal Reality, where the works of Jorge Luis Borges were first published, among other literati. After moving to Puerto Rico in 1950, he taught at several premier university in the U.S. (including Princeton and the University of Chicago) before returning to Spain in 1975, the year Franco died. His key works include The Usurpers and The Lamb's Head, each of which critically examines the relations between individual consciences, social consciousness and the state. He was awarded the prestigious Cervantes Award in 1991 and the Prince of Asturias Award in 1998.

While it is safe to say that Levi-Strauss' influence on Western intellectual history is more pronounced than that of Ayala, the latter was a catalytic figure in Latin American literature and thought as well as the epitome of anti-fascist writers in exile. It is also safe to say that the worldwide intellectual landscape of the 21st century, of which I and we are all a part, would not be what it is without them. In death as in life, Levi-Strauss and Ayala are turning point current events that have brought us to a better understanding of the past and present so as to create a better future.

Asian States Initiate EU-Like Bloc for Peace, Prosperity (and to 'Lead World')

 

Asian states have united to officially oppose the Euro-American formula for global dominance emphasizing "peace and security" with one based on "peace and prosperity" instead, and which has a much better track record historically.  The two focal points of their meeting in Hua Hin, Thailand, was on reducing China-India tensions over a dispute about commercial projects in Kashmir and capitalizing on Asia's relative and growing economic strength worldwide compared to others, like the U.S. and U.K., who continue to struggle with the financial crisis and downturn. This meeting marks a watershed moment in world power politics and world history that should not be underestimated.

The most vocal member of this group of states was newly elected Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, who has already shown clear signs of wanting to distance Japan from a half-century of U.S. dominance. The new bloc would build upon the existing 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) with additional regional partners including China, Japan, South Korea, India, Australia and New Zealand, Japanese officials have said. No mention was made of Pacific Rim organizations which include states like the U.S. and Canada. Pakistan was also conspicuously absent at the meeting and in mention. With the African Union, the European Union and other regional organizations in development, George Orwell's vision for 1984, a regionally fragmented world in which continents compete, may belatedly becoming true.

Another global, state-based movement also started with an effort to reduce tensions between China and India: the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), which sought to offer the world a third option to the Cold War superpower approach.  But NAM sought less to 'lead the world' as this new bloc explicitly does than to offer an alternative, and it included many Middle Eastern, African and South American states. The negative example for this new Asian bloc would be the pseudo-alliance Japan formed during World War Two as a public relations tactic to further it's imperial aims: The Greater East-Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere. In any case, whatever form it takes, just the idea of a strong pan-Asian organization on EU-lines is a significant current event that cannot help but shape the future.

NATO is 'A Corpse Decomposing' Says General, Should it be Revived?

Halloween seems to be coming early to the largest and most powerful military alliance in existence anywhere today, if not ever. The former head of Canada's armed forces, a longtime member of NATO command whose soldiers are still at the front line in Afghanistan, characterizes the organization as "a corpse decomposing and somebody's going to have to perform a Frankenstein-like life-giving act by breathing some lifesaving air through those rotten lips into those putrescent lungs or the alliance will be done." This is also a clear indication of more fundamental and yet unaddressed issues about NATO.   

General Rick Hillier criticizes NATO in no uncertain terms in his new book A Soldier First: Bullets, Bureaucrats and the Politics of War, out next week. He goes on write that, with its ailing mission in Afghanistan, "NATO had started down a road that destroyed much of its credibility and in the end eroded support for the mission in every nation in the alliance. Sadly, years later, the situation remains unchanged." However, he does not seem to directly address  the fact that NATO came into existence to defend capitalist countries against communist ones during the Cold War, and those conditions no longer exist. Instead, NATO is "dominated by jealousies and small, vicious political battles" and a "lack of cohesion, clarity and professionalism," according to General Hillier.

Ironically, NATO (for North Atlantic Treaty Organization)-- an exclusively military alliance-- has carried out more peacekeeping than military missions since the end of the Cold War. NATO's arch nemesis, the Warsaw Pact Organization (WPO), was created by the Soviet Union soon after NATO as a counterbalance and was disbanded soon after the communist bloc collapse in 1989. Again ironically, NATO and the WPO never fought a direct conflict with each other, and their member forces actually served as peacekeepers together. Yet NATO has persisted as if the Cold War was still in effect, without ever formally redefining itself or its purpose, and with as or more mixed results. The question General Hillier raises is: Should NATO be revived?

The U.N. has no permanent peacekeeping or other forces with which to enforce its conventions and treaties. NATO is often criticized by scholars and activists alike for reporting to no one except itself, meaning the military heads of its 28 member states, who are often at odds in terms of troop commitments, funding, purposes and so on. I propose that NATO be put under U.N. command, though I cannot say I am the first to do so. Noting that U.N. conventions and treaties are binding only insofar as members want them to be because of sovereignty issues, transferring NATO to the U.N. would bolster our only world government in ways that current events require and the future merits.

Che Who? Obama's Global Cult of Personality Begins

President Obama has now reached a pinnacle of global popularity cults matched only by Che Guevara. Cults of personality are a constant throughout human history, but in recent times they have been primarily based on nationality, race and/or ideology, a powerful propaganda machine and a perception of merit (think Nelson Mandela, Adolf Hitler, George Washington and Mao Zedong). Obama has now earned himself a place among them and others, and has bettered them in certain respects.

Obama was limited to the national, racial and ideological cults until late last week, when the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to him for, as his campaign rhetoric went and acceptance speech acknowledged, "change" and "hope" that have yet to turn into any actual results, national or global. And in this too he has a lot in common with Che, but that is not my point here. There are much bigger problems and possibilities than Obama talking the talk but not walking the walk yet. Literally and for only 10 months.

As the New York Times reports: "A CD of President Barack Obama's inaugural speech has sold a half million copies in Japan, leading publishers to flood the market with over a dozen language-learning titles centered on his oratory." The worldwide market is about $8 Billion dollars annually. Then there is the infamous Obama Chia Pet, not to mention the innumerable  T-Shirts, posters and other thingamabobs meant only to make money by capitalizing and so perpetuating Obama's cult of personality.

Thanks to mass media and the Internet, the scope of the scope and speed of the spread of Obama's cult of personality is beyond anything Castro could have imagined in plastering Havana with Che posters after his victorious revolution in the 1950s. Obama too has brought about a unique global revolution, as previously reported on One World, Many Peaces, but it has yet to bear any fruits worth saving the seeds for future generations, as he would have us believe. Kings and queens never had it so sweet. Liberalism has not had a comparable cult since Adam Smith, but he put forth some powerful ideas at least.

So this is a warning to the world now and in the future: Obama's global cult of personality is just beginning, and there may be no stopping it even if he his killed tomorrow. He would actually then become the martyr that all long-lasting cults of personality depend on:  religious (i.e. Jesus), philosophical (i.e. Socrates), racial (i.e. Dr. Martin Luther King) and political (i.e. Gramsci). Cults, of personality and otherwise, tend to inhibit their members ability to think, let alone participate in constructive critical dialogue. Therein lies the danger that only Obama himself can temper.

Because Obama's global cult of personality is in its infancy and has done nothing (and so nothing wrong), it is all the easier to become an unknowing, unthinking member. I, for one, still want to believe that he will be an agent of change towards peace and prosperity worldwide that would equal his cult of personality.  But I will not sacrifice constructive critical dialogue in his or anyone else's name (including my own), and deeply fear for those who do and will, and what can happen at their mercy. As a current event creating the future, Obama's global cult of personality cannot be a neutral force.