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NAM Round Table
The NAM Round Table consists of news, insights, visions, ramblings and rants from the writers at New America Media.
[ filed under: asia california ] To Recall or Not Recall Madison Nguyen? by John Vu The wheel is in motion with the recall intention submitted by a group of Vietnamese-Americans belonging to a so called generation 1.5x. This is a generation that grew up in the US and carries neither memories nor the baggage of the Vietnam War. This is a stark contrast to the Little Saigon movement that was spearheaded by a much older generation of men and women who left Vietnam as refugees looking for freedom and a better future for their children. I wrote an article at the beginning of the struggle for Little Saigon questioning the logic and concerning about undesired consequences of the recall promoted by the San Jose Voters for Democracy. However, as the Little Saigon story unfold and the recall process is underway, what at stakes will forever change the political paradigm of the Vietnamese-American community in San Jose. And if the recall is successful, it will also mark a new political chapter in San Jose city itself. The Sentiment Except for a group of Nguyen’s supporters whom already has been discredited for their political ploy, there is no doubt in the Vietnamese-American community why councilmember Madison Nguyen has to be recalled. To the community, their single minded action is to remove an elected official who lied to protect her quid pro quo favor to a special interest group and who purportedly divided the community with her political tactics. Whether they can gather enough signatures is remained to be seen. The group website www.recallmadison.net lists a historical backdrop of the long simmering conflict between Nguyen and the community at large. Even though the barrage of accusation is overstated and overboard, there seems to be a powerful sentiment that she has not lived up to the ethical standard expected of an elected official. Accountability From the community’s perspective, the community leaders were lied to by Nguyen when asked about the naming. She told them it was a done deal and that the name chosen by the council was Vietnam Town Business District. She lied to the Mercury News when asked whether she had supported the naming of the area as Vietnam Town Business District (‘Councilwoman Nguyen in the middle of Saigon debate”, August 22, 2007). Subsequently, she also lied to a KQED reporter when she denied her involvement of naming the area Vietnam Town Business District. Records obtained through Freedom of Information Act showed that in early 2007, she secretly agreed to name the area Vietnam Town Business District at the behest of the Tang Lap, the wealthy developer who was also her biggest financial supporter. According to Nguyen, the whole ordeal of naming the area not Little Saigon but Vietnam Town Business District from the beginning was well aware by Mayor Chuck Reed. The mayor’s staff including his senior person on economic development was involved in the process of naming the area Vietnam Town Business District. E-mail obtained thru RDA showed that Tang Lap worked with Nguyen directly as well as with city deputy manager, RDA senior directors and even an RDA senior graphic designer. And per Nguyen again even though and agreement was reached with Tang Lap, the deal was stopped by the city attorney and RDA when Tang Lap offered to pay for the cost of the monument and banners. From her perspective, it was a moot point since the deal was terminated by the city attorney for fear of ethic violation. The Brown Act & Perception There are many turning points of Little Saigon but the defining one has to be with councilman Forrest Williams explaining how Nguyen asked him for his support. Any San Jose politician lived through the scandalous Gonzales administration knows that the threshold for Brown Act violation is very low. It was designed to prevent backdoor dealing by elected officials before a public outcome. The stunning disclose on television forced the council to rescind their previous vote against Little Saigon. This of course fueled more anger and now a complete distrust of Nguyen and her office. It did not help when her ardent supporter, Henry Le, caused an uproar by forging a list of signatures of business people against Little Saigon. Widely circulated in the community is the perception of Nguyen violating ethic rules of unbecoming an elected official with her backdoor dealing and her Brown Act violation. Also there are now rumors of her accepting gifts and donations without properly reporting it in the past two years. Unless there is concrete evidence, it is clearly a political ploy by the community to bring back the specter of Terry Gregory who was forced to step down by knowingly accepting a case of expensive wine. Realpolitik & The Silent Majority The political reality is that Nguyen’s reputation has been damaged by her ethics and her divisiveness. The realpolitik of the recall is whether she possesses the ethics required to hold office. Unlike the generation of their parents, the recall group is made up of professional people who grew up and educated in the US. In the past, they mostly stood by the parents and the older generation in silent and rarely expressed their opinions mainly because they did not have a cause of their own. Now, as they become successful and themselves doting with young children, they have found a political cause that will likely mark their generation’s political coming-out. This generation is not burden by the anti-communist politics and their views are mainstream and practical. Their expectation of local political leaders is to be ethical and representing the people and not special interest groups. The recall will no doubt either unite or divide the community. There will be people like Henry Le on both sides of the issue with their deceptive tactics to create further turmoil and false impressions. At the end of the day, despite all the posturing and rhetoric of the supporters of Nguyen and those opposed her, the recall will be determined by the silent majority. This is the majority that Nguyen and Reed often referred to in their argument against Little Saigon. More than a decade ago, a councilmember was recalled from office just because of her offensive behavior. Nguyen when proposed to have the Little Saigon on ballot for a public vote said:” Many people believe in democracy and so this is democracy at its best”. Nguyen deserves to have the same opportunity to clear her reputation and justify herself by allowing the silent majority to speak. [ filed under: asia environment ] As we learned during the tsunami of 2004, blogs can be particularly helpful in spreading information about major disasters. A group of Columbia Journalism School students who had spent almost eight months documenting the lives of Burmese refugees in New York for their Master’s Project [ http://FromBurmaToNewYork.com ], have now built a useful blog about the Burma cyclone – the death toll appears to have crossed 100,000 now. On the blog, you will find everything from the latest news to how you can contribute directly to the victims to information about candelight vigils (including one on Friday night at Union Square in NYC). Please visit: http://BurmaEmergency.wordpress.com – and spread the word. (they are looking for journalists and others to contribute items as well). You can contact the students, Divya Gupta, Karen Zraick, Lam Thuy Vo via divyagupta2@gmail.com Please let your friends know about the blog. Here’s what on their front page today: Interview: World Food Programme spokesperson flags immediate aid needs in Burma The World Food Programme’s main spokeswoman, Bettina Luescher, spoke to the Wall Street Journal about immediate needs in Myanmar. Also highlighted in the second half of the video is the impact of the global hike in food prices and how it is adding to the problems of delivering international aid in Burma. Lessons and Theory: Looking Back at Bangladesh cyclone, just six months ago American aid worker Nicki Bennett just posted from Bangladesh on Nick Kristof’s On the Ground blog on nytimes.com. She’s been doing reconstruction work in the aftermath of Cyclone Sidr, which ripped through Bangladesh six months ago. Here’s an excerpt: < What’s the difference? Poverty, exclusion, inequality and bad policies.>> She goes on to make the important point that due to climate change, floods and natural disasters of this magnitude seem likely to increase in frequency. With that in mind, Robert Kaplan had an interesting piece in the Jan/Feb ‘08 Atlantic Monthly, entitled “Waterworld” about how Bangladesh is dealing with climate change. – Karen Latest News: UK tops interntional aid contributions at US $ 10 million According to a Burmese online news magazine, The Irrawaddy, foreign governments have collectively pledged more than US $ 30 million for the Burma cyclone response effort. UK tops the list, assuming monetary responsibility for one- third of the amount by pledging US $10 million. The next pledge amount is a tie between the U.S. and the European Union at US $ 3 million. Surprisingly, Japan is way down on the list with a pledge amount of US $267,570. Of Burma’s two big neighbors – China and India – the former pledged US $500,000 in cash, plus supplies such as tents, blankets and food and India sent two naval ships containing food, tents, blankets, clothing and medicine sent to Rangoon. Two aircraft carriers with supplies are to leave for Burma on Wednesday. From the Field: Update from a Burmese refugee camp in Thailand My friends Justin & Zoe have been teaching photography to Burmese refugees in Mae Sot, Thailand, for the past few months. Mae Sot is a small town just across the border from the Karen state of Burma. I had just sent them a worried email when I saw their latest blog post. They say Mae Sot was hit with heavy rains but there’s been no real damage, and no one has yet arrived in Mae Sot from the interior of Myanmar. Also of interest: their beautiful project, Unseen Mae La. Lessons and Theory: Does state sovereignty trump humanitarian intervention by international community? (via Sree Sreenivasan, Dean of Students, Columbia Graduate School of Journalism) The Carnegie Council for International Intervention has compiled a useful synopsis of some key lessons on humanitarian intervention in the wake of the Burma cyclone disaster. It draws comparisons to the Tsunami response and also one clear distinction: ” … in the case of the tsunami, the affected governments not only welcomed international humanitarian relief, they literally pleaded for it. Not so in Myanmar. What began as a purely natural disaster has quickly become exacerbated by the lack of cooperation–even the obstruction–of the country’s ruling Junta.” The news digest goes on to pose a critical question: “Does the sovereignty of the state trump the responsibility of the international community to take action when the peoples of a nation are at risk?” The think tank says it has been trying to answer the complex question by engaging some of ‘the brightest minds and most profound thinkers on this topic.’ The result is a comprehensive sampling of works from their journal – Ethics and International Affairs, that explore the boundaries (and beyond) of humanitarian intervention from a variety of perspectives. See a list of work samples below: ———————- Toward a Realist Ethics of Intervention The Moral Basis of Humanitarian Intervention [Abstract] Humanitarian Intervention: An Overview of the Ethical Issues [Excerpt] Intervention: From Theories to Cases [Full Text] ———————- Legitimizing the Use of Force in Kosovo [Full Text] Humanitarian Intervention: Which Way Forward? [Abstract] Special Section: The Politics of Rescue [Abstracts] ———————- Whither the Responsibility to Protect? Humanitarian Intervention and the Responsibility to Protect or Trojan Horse? The Crisis in Darfur and Redefining Sovereignty and Intervention [Full Text] – Divya
Donations: Contribute through Google checkout You can send money to UNICEF or Direct Relief International using Google checkout here: http://www.google.com/myanmarcyclone/index.html Event: Candlelight Vigil for Burma Cyclone Victims The New York Burmese community will gather in Union Square tomorrow night. Event: CANDLELIGHT VIGIL FOR BURMA CYCLONE VICTIMS Latest News: TOP OF THE AGENDA:Myanmar crisis devolves (via Ann Cooper, Columbia Journalism School Faculty) A U.S. diplomat said the death toll in Myanmar following a cyclone could reach 100,000 (WashPost), a number sharply higher than initial estimates. Myanmar government figures put the number of victims at 22,000, with another 40,000 missing. But al-Jazeera reports the situation on the ground has become increasingly grave and that many initial survivors of the cyclone now face life-threatening circumstances, particularly given a lack of clean water. Myanmar’s government has agreed to allow UN aircraft to fly in aid supplies (BBC). But relief organizations maintain that their efforts to assist the cyclone’s victims are still being hampered by the country’s military. France’s Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner yesterday invoked a UN doctrine called the “responsibility to protect” (IHT) as a way to possibly circumvent the military government. The 2005 doctrine says the international community has the right to intervene when a government could not or would not protect its civilians. Media: BBC reporter deported from Burma By Andrew Harding A fallen tree and damaged houses in Rangoon I flew into Burma on Monday morning from Bangkok. The smart new airport in Rangoon had finally reopened two days after the cyclone. Low clouds obscured the vast wetlands of the Irrawaddy Delta but, as we came in to land, I caught a glimpse out of the window. My mind flicked back to December 2004, flying into Aceh in Indonesia immediately after the tsunami, staring down at miles of pulverised coastline. At this stage on Monday, the size of Burma’s disaster was not yet clear. Over the weekend, the military authorities – safe in their brand new capital city far from Rangoon – appeared to be playing things down. A few hundred dead perhaps, the state newspapers still overwhelmingly preoccupied with plans to hold a national referendum the following weekend. The headlines full of the usual semi-threatening calls for a big Yes vote. But the cyclone’s impact was already looking ominous. There should have been a bright green jigsaw of rice paddies and villages below. Instead I saw a grey-brown smudge of water and ragged trees.
[ filed under: foreign-policy middle-east ] I nearly broke into tears watching CNN coverage of Sami al-Hajj embracing his son after six years of captivity in Guntanamo Bay. The way he held him, a son too young to remember his father, and a father robbed of six years of his son’s life. As a father, watching this reunion hit me like a ton of bricks, and makes me ashamed for my country. Al-Hajj was working as a reporter for Al Jazeera covering the war in Afghanistan when he was taken captive by Pakistani intelligence before being handed over to US forces. He was held captive without charge for six years in Guantanamo, despite the fact that he was carrying full credentials from Al Jazeera. Upon his return he spoke of his treatment, saying, “rats are treated with more humanity.” I watch this and I wonder what justification we have to vilify China, or Iran, or any other country we deem to be morally deficient. On what grounds can we claim the mantle of human rights when our own government is destroying innocent lives? What’s more, Al Hajj represented the media, which lies at the core of democratic values. I am inclined to believe him when he says it was a deliberate attempt to silence free media. Of course there is a bigger picture than just this one man, whose life was torn apart by American fear and anger following 9/11. Maybe I take my own role as a father too seriously, that I personalize the scene of al-Hajj and his son. But in the end this is, to me at least, the big picture. It is the destruction of families, the loss or separation from loved ones, that is fueling much of the anger running through both America and the Middle East. – Peter Schurmann [ filed under: media technology ] I read the NYT Sat, op ed page last night. Every piece strikes a note of urgency, as if lives depend on how effective the media are in raising awareness, advocating relief, spotlighting distress. Gail Collins’ piece about McCain’s compassion tour—one of the best I’ve read by her—argues that he’s less intelligible than Bush and hard of feeling, if nothing else. The court rejects workers’ right to seek compensation for wage disparities, and McCain opposes a bill designed to give women relief. Sichan Siv, a Cambodian-American diplomat I knew nothing about until now, writes of his escape from the killing fields, his return home for the first time to find that Cambodia today reminds him of Cambodia just before the Khmer Rouge took power—divided between rich and poor, fearful, restless. God help us. Nobel laureate Norman Borlaug who helped create the “green revolution” strains of wheat that were immune to stem rust, the most feared of all wheat diseases, says a more virulent form of the fungus is back and threatens deeper hunger and chaos than the present food crisis. He writes that the Bush administration reversed funding of agricultural science, and has closed down our worldwide research into new strains that could resist stem rust. Bob Herbert writes that “you can almost feel the air rushing out of the Obama phenomenon.” He’s shown “a strange reluctance to fight”. Herbert urges him to hit what he’s going to do on jobs and the economy like a jackhammer. I’ve been thinking about why traditional media seems increasingly flat, remote, deenergized, and how much journalism now is indeed about conversation (Jonathan Alterman’s phrase). We don’t just have to do good reporting and thinking, we have to disseminate it in a way that literally sucks people into the conversation, we have to transform our one way reporting into an exchange. I know the answer is how we present ourselves on the Internet. I see the limitations now of a newspaper and any website that just resembles a newspaper more than I ever have before, although I also believe the convenings we’re doing are important, like that of black, Hispanic and Asian(Vietnamese) media leaders in New Orleans. All of which is to say—we’ve got to let people post directly on our site to create more of a 24/7 news cycle; we’ve got to turn our site from a web-based newspaper into a hub for exchange; we’ve each got to blog as well as report and SEOUL—While the protests that have dogged the Olympic torch around the globe have been focused on Beijing’s handling of Tibet, little has been said about China’s treatment of North Korean refugees. But with the torch now on its way to Seoul before heading to Pyongyang the issue will hopefully garner more attention, though I’m skeptical it will outlast the news cycle. North Koreans, it seems, are truly isolated. And aside from Pyongyang’s nuclear activities in Syria, their plight continues to fall under the radar. Experts are now predicting another food crisis in North Korea similar to the famine that struck in 1997 and sent waves of refugees across the Yalu River into China. For its part, Beijing continues to maintain these individuals are ‘economic migrants’, a term which opens a legal loophole allowing their return to North Korea. With the Olympics approaching it isn’t inconceivable that human rights groups working with North Korean refugees may, like Tibet, take advantage of the games to highlight their plight. Pressure has already been put on South Korea’s president Lee Myung Bak to follow through with his promise to press the North on its human rights abuses. An article on the Human Rights Watch website calls on Lee to take China to task for its handling of North Korean asylum seekers. Yet while several Korean torchbearers have recently declined to carry the torch, I’m skeptical Lee will use the event in this way. Still, it does highlight the fact that the many political fault lines that run through Asia intersect in China. Whether it’s Tibet or Taiwan, North Korea or Myanmar, China has truly become the “Middle Kingdom” when it comes to the region’s political turmoil. The other day I asked an acquaintance of mine about her thoughts on the Olympics. She’s a young Chinese woman who grew up in Hong Kong, and is now studying Korean here in Seoul to bolster her job prospects back home. She said at first she was excited about the games, but that over time she’s grown more frustrated with their politicization. “The Olympics are supposed to bring people and nations together, but instead they are creating more division.” I tell her it sounds a lot like the Hillary – Obama presidential race and she breaks into laughter. Then she lowers her voice and casts a quick glance at the other students in the room, half of whom are from Mainland China. “When China made its bid to host the 2000 Olympics a lot of us in Hong Kong felt it wasn’t ready. I think it still isn’t ready… but maybe they think otherwise,” she says, referring to the others. — Peter Schurmann |
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