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.

The Return of U.S. Big Stick and Dollar Diplomacy with Olive Branch to Sudan

The "comprehensive strategy to confront the serious and urgent situation in Sudan" President Obama outlined yesterday was far from anything new in American diplomatic affairs, which is not to say ineffective. Actually, the shift in policy marks a sharp return to diplomatic tactics the U.S. perfected during its expansionist phase in the 19th and early 20th centuries: 'big stick' and 'dollar' diplomacy.  Here is how the two policies worked then and are intended to now.

Dollar diplomacy works like dangling a carrot on a stick in front of a donkey, providing a motivation to move in any direction the dangler sees fit. The U.S. did this with Caribbean and South American nations throughout the 19th century to great effect, and is generally associated with Theodore Roosevelt, who also won a Nobel Peace Prize. The Sudan plan outlined by Obama  will hold out "incentives" for Khartoum if it improves its record on human rights and the advancement of peace. Dollar diplomacy incentives generally include generous aid packages and industrial development. Sudanese President Ghazi Salahadin calls this a policy of "engagement not isolation," euphemisms about which he would do well to seek critical historical scrutiny.

Big stick diplomacy generally tends to be used after dollar diplomacy fails, and its effectiveness lies in a threat and/or its actualization: do what we tell you to, or we'll beat you with our bigger stick. The U.S. has done this numerous times, most recently in Iraq under the pretext of eliminating weapons of mass destruction that were never found. While Obama did not explicitly mention the big stick diplomatic tactic, it is implied in affirmation that "Our conscience and our interests in peace and security call upon the United States and the international community to act with a sense of urgency and purpose." These words are remarkably similar to those uttered by George W. Bush and his father before attacking Iraq.

The original U.S. big stick and dollar diplomacies were put into effect because American could not, at the time, dictate terms to other countries because the global empires of the British, French and Spanish were still too strong. In our stage of globalization, the same holds true for different reasons. This is why Alex de Waal, Sudan expert at the Social Science Research Council, rightly states that "It is not as if the US can dictate the terms, let alone bring along Russia, China, and the Arab world." As current events,  President Salahadin is right to think these diplomatic moves are "new" in terms of U.S.-Sudan relations, but they are far from it as historical forces that have shaped the future in which we live.