World of Opinion
On governments and natural disasters: Even China’s communist leaders cannot look on indifferently at what is taking place in Myanmar. A cyclone and flood have created a calamity that has taken, as it now appears, some 150,000 lives. … The ruling junta’s inability and lack of desire to improve the situation could be regarded as fateful. Yet China’s communists have already offered political support to the neighboring country’s generals. …
The Chinese made a major problem for themselves once they decided to hold the Olympic games. The Olympic torch relay turned out to be a public relations disaster for the regime. And the moment when the world’s attention was turned to Beijing, a devastating hurricane in China-favored Myanmar and an earthquake in the central Chinese province of Sichuan occur.
The way state institutions reacted to the consequence of the cyclone in Myanmar, and how they were responsible for the consequences in Sichuan, clearly show that authoritarian regimes are ineffective in managing state affairs…
It would be hasty to predict that the Olympic games and the catastrophic inability to build safe housing not only for themselves for their own citizens will be the beginning of the end for China’s communists. Myanmar’s leaders could be swept away by the flood and their inability to react humanely to a hundred thousand deaths. The question is whether China’s communists will help bring an end to this regime, or let it remain, thereby further discrediting themselves.
On crime:
Coined by Gordon Brown, popularized by Tony Blair, the slogan “tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime” now has a hackneyed ring but it neatly encapsulated New Labor’s take on criminal justice when it was elected to power in 1997.
The powerful message was that unless the deeper social causes of criminality were tackled, crime would continue to rise.
The sloganizing has not, regrettably, been matched by action. The symptoms, not the causes, of criminal activity have been the focus of policy making in the subsequent 11 years. The result of this failure to live up to the rhetoric is exposed in todays independent study of youth offending by criminologists at King’s College, London. The study debunks government claims that there have been “significant improvements” and instead reveals there has been “no measurable impact”. …
In other words, the New Labor’s anti-crime slogan has remained just that, a slogan. … There is an opportunity here for the Conservative Party whose leader, David Cameron, has begun to construct a coherent approach to young offending that places the right emphasis on the root cause of the problem fractured families and social breakdown.
Concentrating resources and political energy in this area will prove far more effective in the long term than expensive, eye-catching “crackdowns” on young criminals which, on the evidence of the past decade, amounts to little more than sticking a plaster on the wounds.
On the al-Qaeda Threat:
Ever since the Twin Towers in New York went down on September 11, 2001 with the lives of thousands of people, in an unprecedented bombing masterminded by al-Qaeda, the condemnation of the group’s activities has remained overwhelming globally. The world is also united by the apprehension that goes with its threats – real and imagined. So, when the Inspector – General of Police, Mr. Mike Okiro, was widely reported to have alerted the Conference of Senior Police Officers at Obudu, Cross River State about the likelihood of a strike by the dreaded organization, many Nigerians had cause to fear. Okiro was said to be emphatic on the matter: “The al-Qaeda network has threatened to send time bombs to Nigeria.” We also note that shortly after the mass media went to town with that order, a release was purportedly issued by the police high command, dismissing it as “totally misleading and false,” and insisted that “for the avoidance of doubt, the Inspector General of Police’s only public pronouncement on terrorism was on 10th March, 2008 during the inauguration of the anti-terrorism squad when he said, ‘the creation of the new outfit is borne out of our mission to safeguard our environment against terrorism, even though the nation has not experienced terrorist attack; we don’t have to wait until it happens before we start to prepare.”‘
… It has since been proved that groups like al-Qaeda depend mainly on youths, especially those not adequately catered for by the social system, for their workforce. Sadly, in Nigeria today, a large army of uneducated, semi-educated, unemployed and disaffected young people exists. The restiveness now experienced in some parts of the country is traceable to this situation. And if no pragmatic steps are taken to positively engage such energetic Nigerians, they could easily be enticed and recruited for more sophisticated evil assignments. …
On the Sichuan earthquake:
The devastating earthquake in southwestern China is a calamity of unfathomable proportions. It is said there are still more than 10,000 victims buried under the huge swaths of rubble. The death toll may well surpass 50,000.
Also of unparalleled proportions are the rescue and relief efforts under way in China’s Sichuan province. The teams are fighting against time.
… In previous disasters, the Chinese government almost never accepted foreign relief teams; the decision to allow in foreign relief teams was an extraordinary one on the government’s part. In addition to Japan, China has decided also to accept teams from South Korea, Russia, Singapore and Taiwan.
… We laud the Chinese government’s decision to accept outside help, albeit belatedly.
For a country that has always dealt on its own with domestic disasters, seeking foreign help was a striking departure. …
If only a multilateral relief system could be created in which teams from various countries could rush to help immediately whenever and wherever a disaster strikes. What is most important is for neighbors to help each other.
We hope China’s decision to accept foreign relief teams will be the first step in Asia toward the creation of such a system.