May 07, 2008
Fareed Zakaria's Latest: "The Post-American World"Politics
Though I’ve often disagreed with Fareed Zakaria on specific policy questions, I’ve always been challenged and interested by his way of thinking about big issues. Like some of my colleagues here at Sepia Mutiny, I found his book The Future of Freedom stimulating, if imperfect. Zakaria seems to be especially good at synthesizing complex issues under the umbrella of a signature “big idea,” without choking off qualifications or complexities. He still may a little too close to the buzzword-philia of Thomas Friedman for some readers, but in my view Zakaria’s book-length arguments are a cut above Friedman’s “gee whiz” bromides. (Zakaria’s weekly Newsweek columns do not always rise to this bar.)
Zakaria’s latest big concept is The Post-American World, a just-released book whose argument he summarizes in a substantial essay in this week’s Newsweek. The basic idea is, the world is becoming a place where the U.S. is not a solo superpower, but rather a complex competitive environment with multiple sites of power and influence. Even as China and India (“Chindia”?) rise, it’s not clear that the U.S. or Europe will fall; rather, everyone can, potentially, rise together — or at least, compete together. Zakaria argues that despite hysterical anxieties figured in the mass media regarding the threat of terrorism and economic crisis, the world has rarely been more peaceful — and that relative peace and stability has created the opportunity for the unprecedented emergence of independent and rapidly expanding market economies in formerly impoverished “Chindia.”
There’s more to it (read the article), but perhaps that is enough summary for now. There are a couple of passages I thought particularly interesting, which I might put out for discussion. First, on India:
During the 1980s, when I would visit India—where I grew up—most Indians were fascinated by the United States. Their interest, I have to confess, was not in the important power players in Washington or the great intellectuals in Cambridge.
People would often ask me about … Donald Trump. He was the very symbol of the United States—brassy, rich, and modern. He symbolized the feeling that if you wanted to find the biggest and largest anything, you had to look to America. Today, outside of entertainment figures, there is no comparable interest in American personalities. If you wonder why, read India’s newspapers or watch its television. There are dozens of Indian businessmen who are now wealthier than the Donald. Indians are obsessed by their own vulgar real estate billionaires. And that newfound interest in their own story is being replicated across much of the world. (link)
This last insight seems dead-on to me, and it’s the kind of thing I think Zakaria appreciates precisely because he was raised in India (no matter how many times he says “we” when talking about American foreign policy, he still carries that with him). This is one of the spaces where Zakaria’s status as an “Indian-American” is a real asset, as it gives him a simultaneous insider-outsider “double consciousness” — he has the ability to see things from the American/European point of view, but also know (remembers?) how the man on the street in Bombay or Shanghai is likely to see the world. [Note: I did an earlier post on Zakaria’s complex perspective here]
(As a side note — for the academics in the house, isn’t the narrative Zakaria is promoting in the passage above a “pop” version of what postcolonial theorists have been talking about for years — what Ngugi called “The Decolonization of the Mind”?)
Secondly, another passage, which I think addresses what might be the biggest hindrance to the multi-nodal global society Zakaria is interested in:
The rise of China and India is really just the most obvious manifestation of a rising world. In dozens of big countries, one can see the same set of forces at work—a growing economy, a resurgent society, a vibrant culture, and a rising sense of national pride. That pride can morph into something uglier. For me, this was vividly illustrated a few years ago when I was chatting with a young Chinese executive in an Internet café in Shanghai. He wore Western clothes, spoke fluent English, and was immersed in global pop culture. He was a product of globalization and spoke its language of bridge building and cosmopolitan values. At least, he did so until we began talking about Taiwan, Japan, and even the United States. (We did not discuss Tibet, but I’m sure had we done so, I could have added it to this list.) His responses were filled with passion, bellicosity, and intolerance. I felt as if I were in Germany in 1910, speaking to a young German professional, who would have been equally modern and yet also a staunch nationalist.
As economic fortunes rise, so inevitably does nationalism. Imagine that your country has been poor and marginal for centuries. Finally, things turn around and it becomes a symbol of economic progress and success. You would be proud, and anxious that your people win recognition and respect throughout the world. (link)
Will resurgent nationalism turn out to be the biggest hindrance to the “smooth” globalization Zakaria is talking about? How might this play out? Will there be a new generation of wars, or will it be expressed in subtler ways (like, for instance, what happened with the nuclear deal within the Indian political system). In the Newsweek article at least, Zakaria doesn’t really explore the downside of emergent (insurgent?) Chindian nationalisms in depth; perhaps we can do so here.
amardeep on May 7, 2008 09:38 AM in Economics, News, Politics · T·r·a·c·k·b·a·c·k address · Direct link · Email post
As far as India has come in the last decade or two, India still has a lot of structural problems to become a real threat to the US global dominance any time soon. What could undermine the US position is self inflicted damage (see Iraq for example) rather than anything India or China does.
As an ABD, who also spent quite a bit of time in India as a kid, I am able to understand both perspectives. I went to India recently and let me just say that Bush has done a great job destroying our reputation across the world instead of trying to rebuild the country with the money wasted in Iraq and other misadventures.
The dollar purchasing power is down(though that is happy news for our exporters). But the big difference I notice is the aura is gone. Most of the immigration in my family happened until the 90s. This decade, not a single one of my cousins came over to the US with the intent to live here. In fact, one of them asked me why I wouldn't consider living in India if I could get a cushy job at a multinational company.
The U.S. still has a bit of residual superpowerdom left. But we need to watch out as a country.
I have been reading Zakaria for quite sometime now. I find him brilliant in that he is extremely nuanced and insightful. I have a Zakaria test now - if someone disagrees with Zakaria most of the time then that person is an extremist, either on the left or on the right.
Zakaria on NPR talking about this book.
This guy was for the war in Iraq. He agreed with those neocons, and look what happened. American leaders happened to be listening to Muslims like him, unlike the prototypical Muslim. Look in the Cold War, Reagan work with the typical Soviet (and understood the enemy a tad better than Bush II). Zakaria is a great writer (I read him a lot), but I don't understand how he was for the war in Iraq.
Resurgent nationalism is indeed going to be a problem (see this "Foreign Affairs" article also) but with increasing stakes in a globalized economy that stresses stability and professionalism, countries, and individuals in that country, who flirt with that idea too much will understand that they risk losing too much. The way I see it, the problem, of having suicidal regimes and/or corrupt ones, in less devloped countries, was because they were denied equal access in the world economy. This was either because of ideological barriers (and the collapse of communism, with its attendant system of economic control by the state of commerce & industry, ended the debate with the free market model, more or less, coming out the victor) or technological/logistical barriers. With the internet and vast improvements in the transportation industries, we might see tens of millions, if not hundreds, drawn into the global economy, reluctant to let it all slip away for demagogic calls, over ethnicities and religious affiliations, from cynical politicians.
If the jihadist in Basra had a regular job, and good economic prospects in the future, would he be so willing to spend his weekends fashioning an IED in his home/garage, or would he rather try and cram for the Series 7 exams (or the local equivalent thereof) so that he could show his ma-in-law that he's not all that useless?!
Rahul S, well, unfortunately, plenty of people -- including some very smart ones -- drank the Kool-Aid on the Iraq War in 2003.
Here is what Wikipedia has on Zakaria's positions on that event: While Zakaria initially supported using military force against Iraq, he argued for a United Nations-sanctioned operation and occupation with a much larger force (approximately 400,000 troops). He also called for a Bosnia or Kosovo-style occupation that was international, rather than American, in nature. He wrote a Newsweek cover-essay the week the Iraq war began entitled "The Arrogant Empire", which detailed the failures of the Bush foreign policy in the run-up to the war. He was an early and aggressive critic of the occupation, arguing against the disbanding of the Iraqi army and bureaucracy, which the administration accomplished under the guise of "de-Baathification". He predicted that accelerating the build-up of the Iraqi military would create a Shia and Kurdish army that would exacerbate the sectarian tensions in the country. Four months into the occupation, his columns bore such titles as "Iraq Policy is broken," and in September of 2003 he wrote a cover story for Newsweek entitled "So What's Plan B?" In February of 2005, the week before Iraq's elections, he wrote "...no matter how the voting turns out, the prospects for genuine democracy in Iraq are increasingly grim." In his October 2006 Newsweek cover essay, Zakaria called for a reduction in American troops in Iraq to 60,000 by the end of 2007.
I do give him credit for recognizing, even at the outset, that the Bush administration was doing it all wrong (see: The Arrogant Empire). If they had gone in with 400,000 troops & handled the post-invasion differently, the story on the Iraq invasion would probably be rather different. (Note: I myself was against it from the start & protested in New York on 2/15/03 along with millions of others.)
That calculus is also, I think, why so many Democrats in the Senate voted to authorize the war in the fall of 2002. They pretty much knew the WMD was propagranda (at least I hope they could see that for what it was), but presumed that the Bush Administration would handle the invasion at least as well as the first Bush administration had done (i.e., overwhelming force & so on).
Better execution would have changed the political calculus.
If the jihadist in Basra had a regular job, and good economic prospects in the future, would he be so willing to spend his weekends fashioning an IED in his home/garage, or would he rather try and cram for the Series 7 exams (or the local equivalent thereof) so that he could show his ma-in-law that he's not all that useless?!
One would think the apologists for jihadis would give up economic rationales for the behavior of jihadsts after the million or so articles in journals and newspapers which prove jihadists come from middle class and upper class backgrounds. In fact the process of globalization is the source of anxietes, anxietes about westernization as a threat to their way of life and culture, which drives some people in non-western countries to resort to violence to stop the process of globalization.
When the general consensus was for the Iraq war, this Huntington protege was for all for a great civilizing mission, but soon as things weren't going so well, he started cataloging all the reasons why it was such a bad idea.
What Zakaria is good at is sensing what the media circuit wants to hear, and then summarizing it with smart words, a photogenic smile, and a pleasant demeanor. Of course, since he is of a certain ethnicity and religion, he gets more attention for saying whatever everybody else is saying, and that (and Huntington's backing) hasn't hurt his career one bit.
I cannot recall him ever being insightful, or digesting ideas in a way that sheds new light on situations. Well, whatever pushes paper, I guess.
I have not read enough of Zakaria to comment on this
But is indeed what I have started feeling too about his view in time.
Which is not to say that he does not know what he is talking about. If he indeed has not come up with great new ideas but done a good job of promoting the ones that need attention, then he is a good journalist/analyst though I guess he is not a top notch intellectual unless he gives some fresh new ideas.
that was an unfortunate choice of words. i do not see how this analysis new or uniquely provocative. the only things which were refreshing about the essay were a conservative who:
1. calls out the American government and people in their vastly exaggerated fears of islamist terrorism (evidence: decreased public support of violence in islamic countries and localization violence rather than skirmishes dispersed all over the world) and points out the irrationality of increasing hysteria and xenophobia ("our is one of the safest epochs in world history" or some such).
2. argues that liberal immigration policies are the source of the US's technological edge.
3. agrees that the American health care system is actually underperforming quite a bit.
4. recognizing the much of the world is not obsessed with the US.
Zakaria's points have been around long enough to approximate truisms for many centrists and left-of-center folks.
I also think Zakaria is overly optimistic about global problems in general (he does a good job of evincing evidence against the common bogeymen), but he glosses over very significant ones. Nothing about how instability in capital and commodity markets can be catastrophic in the very intricate world economy, or about the fact that technological innovation has not yet dealt very well with energy issues. He vastly undermines poverty as a global problem, and fails to ground it historically (does not even call for reducing global military spending which seems to be automatic conclusion given the arguments he makes in this piece). Moreover, he continues to be enthralled by the American fairytale (while admitting himself that many countries (the US included) have built fantasies of grandeur that exaggerate their historical and global significance):
How such an allegedly sophisticated thinker believe in such deterministic accounts of history surprises me, to say the very least.
He is however far less annoying than the other know-it-all TV pundit
who pontificates on globalization, Tom Friedman.
9 · Rahul said
Neither the fact that Huntingon's prophecies (data? assertions?) are never borne out IRL(when subjected to empirical tests). He could be a contemporary Cassandra, but I think, well, he's an ass.
[Dizzzamn, how gutsy am I for trashing a Harvard prof anonymously on the net. But I do think that this particular gentleman has some particularly pernicious ideas, for which he hasn't received nearly as much flak as he should.]
13 · Yogi said
this is a very low bar you're setting, my friend. tom friedman is no ordinary chump (nevertheless, i didn't condone the pie that was thrown at him at brown u).
12 · portmanteau said
its a combination of burke and hegel in a attempt to overthrow marx. free will, or non determinism is embraced but limited by human nature as burke warned, so the extreme social engineering of marx or even Robespierre is frowned upon.
fukiyama's end of history thesis sums it up best: that liberal democracy and capitalism is the final stop in political evolution. history has a pattern, more like what hegel described than marx, that shows an evolution toward classic liberal freedom. it's not too far away from lockes state of nature argument, where man is free but still has a nature.
but i don't blame you lefties for fearing grand unification theories. once burned, twice shy.
It only proves that the the world is splat after all.
fareed zakaria nauseates me just a little bit more, esp. in his television appearances. and i do wonder why he appears so often on the daily show...
I think people like Fukuyama and Kristol exist to make people like Zakaria look smart.
18 · ak said
...each time i see him again...
PS: leftist =! marxist
i fear unification theories because i care about smart historiography. however, props to burke. discovered a totally new and awesome (nationalist) side of him in uday singh mehta's liberalism and empire.
Reading FZ, I think he is not coming out enough to make people sit up and take notice. I think each of his articles should be preceded by " i am a Muslim , from India, arrived in US at the age of twenty something, and I am the editor of NW intl ". I would love to see the reaction to his articles then. Until he lays down his identity in concrete terms, his voice will come across a little muffled.
19 · Rahul said
islamofascism hardly represents a legitimate ideological threat to liberal democracy. and as far as it being a reaction against american-style globalization, that's mostly leftists projecting their own grievences on the terrorists.
the only issue 9-11 brings up is how to keep wmds out of the hands of the new fascists. but civilization will always have its discontents, as Freud argued.
fuckiyama, friedman, and zakaria are aware of human nature. this is not your fathers (marx) determinism.
oh, rahul didn't say what i said he said. that was ak.
24 · Manju said
is and as far as it being a reaction against american-style globalization, that's mostly leftists projecting their own grievences on the terrorists.
Samuel Huntington would be astonished to lumped with leftists.
Zakaria is a brlliant communicator as you say, and please allow me to add that Thomas Friedman and Shashi Tharoor (whose public speeches and writings make him out to be more of a gossip columnist than a 30 year UN veteran) have nothing close to his abilities.
However, as brilliant an intellectual and communicator as he is, I will always remember him for lacking the courage to take a stand on the war - either for or against. His strategy was the argue for it (thus secure his public record for a possibly future candidacy as National Security Advisor) and then lob barbs at the administration as soon as the war began (so that if it turned out to be disastrous, he could always argue how much of a critic he was of the war). At least others, whether for or against, had the courage to stand by their convictions.
Still I wish him well with his new gig at CNN and will look forward to reading his new book.
Amardeep - has the "India After Gandhi", book group lapsed?
Saw Fareed plugging the book on Charlie Rose and in that interview he didn't just focus on the emergence of Ch/In, he talks about South America and even S Africa being big in this century. Plus he actually mentions talking to diplomats and policymakers who are involved in deciding what happens next, instead of the cab drivers and college students Friedman prefers to quote. Def FZ is not as rah rah as Friedman and comes off as a more involved and rational student of Asia. I placed a request on the book at my library and am sure it will be an interesting read.
India lacks the homogeneity that China has, and that would also explain the collapse of the nuclear deal also. The various pol parties couldn't even get together to work that one out. India's resurgence is good and all but what does it hold for the poorest? They should really so something fast before the gap widens even more.
27 · jyotsana said
well, you have that guy who's building his own private skyscraper in mumbai. mittal bought the most expensive house in london, and had the worlds flashiest wedding. wealthy biz-men are all over indian society pages, as opposed to the celeb and movie star exclusive amaerican gossip pages. so maybe that's what zakaria was getting at.
I am delighted to see that many agree with me here on Zakaria.
I find him a bit too slick, in the sense that I never see him take a controversial stance, he is always on the (so-called) foreign policy shows always saying some little trite litte tit-bit so that his face is always invited back again on the tube (or LCD today). It always sounds so right when he says it :-), he is a fabulous communicator an a lightweight intellectual.
On the other hand, I respect the ambition of a fellow mumbai-kar (I guess he would say "bombay-ite" :-)) and his uncanny ability to negotiate his way in that grey land of politics where the truth is hostage to the useful.
I haven't read anything by Fareed Zakaria. I've seen him on TV tho a few times. I'm unmoved by his talk. He goes whichever way the wind blows. He's IMO a self promoter and a social climber.
Desiriksha --
"Islamized" societies, for want of a better word, are perhaps different because, for reasons explicated by various commentators/journalists, Islam seems to rend itself quite easily to extremist interpretation, stuck in medieval thought-processes. Even then, if the US hadn't invaded and/or screwed up this invasion of Iraq, we could have, perhaps, seen a peaceful evolution of Iraq (amongst the most educated of the Middle Eastern nations) towards a model like Bahrain, Qatar, UAE -- secular Islamic societies, with dynamic economies and relatively freer political systems and peaceful intentions (Saddam's rule notwithstanding, which is not a cop out by me but is more an indictment of the UN's impotent role in the pre-9/11 world).
The "anxieties" of globalization certainly don't seem to stop the peaceful rise of China, India, Vietnam, the above Middle Eastern countries...there are problems, yes, in all these nations that have adopted the liberal, free market system (in varying degrees) but they don't seem too eager to rock the boat of globalization as they, and their citizens, easily see the vast advantages offered in their lives, materially and even emotionally, by being players in the globalized world as compared to whatever vestigial atavistic feelings they may get satisfied by retreating into communal/nationalistic ghettos.
24 · Manju said
ah, the tired conservative tactic of reductio et marxum.
friedman is not even aware of econ 101, leave alone an authority on human nature.
Jyotsana, DLF, Reliance, and Unitech (and various local regional players; on the order of Rahejas and lower) are aggressively buying land. There is a shortage of trained site supervisors, civil engineers, (I am talking about North India, and wherever some huge construction project like a flyover is happening) and skilled construction workers. These groups of skilled professionals are experiencing salary growth @ rates greater than average economic growth, I hear. So there is a lot of heat in the real estate sector (constructing malls, shopping centers, homes in metro satellites seems to be quite lucrative). i don't know what the scene is with the private sector and other more public infrastructure (like roads, ports etc).
I have no clue about the 80s whatsoever, except Duran Duran.
Nice! :)
If Fukuyama had lived in ancient Rome, he would have concluded that autocracy was the natural state of man, if he had been in medieval Europe instead, he would have argued that hereditary monarchies and feudalistic traditions would be the eventual state of the world. Of course, he makes his claims unfalsifiable by insisting that it is history that has ended, not actual episodes, and that even if there are periods of time where events happen contradictory to his theories, the world will eventually be the way he sees it, and musters a scant 300 years of conveniently viewed history as his evidence for his hypotheses. Since none of us will be around "eventually", I guess his claims are quite safe.
I must say that I nurse a perverse admiration for his ability to periodically and prolifically churn out 600 page chunks of horseshit with so much ease, and almost on demand. He would perform a much greater service to the world, though, if his books were printed on soft two-ply.
Anyone remembers Bombayites/ Mumbaikars obsessing about Donald trump in the 80s?
I agree with Jyotsana about her observation on Trump. Although the Ansals, Hiranandani, Rahejas and Lokhandwalas are primarly Real Estate businessmen they are no where as huge as DLF.
Dizzy,
May be Cathedral people had special place in their hearts for The Donald.
Fareed for all his claims/affections to insider knowledge of India is very poorly read on the subject. He knows no Indian language, knows next to nothing of its history, culture etc., except what he has gleaned from the popular press - Nussbaum, Sen, here in the US. Even his knowledge of events around the world lacks the depth you would associate with a scholar of international relations. For a start he should read every report written by Saeed Naqvi, and then quickly browse through Gurcharan Das, Jerry Rao, Tavleen Singh, and Chandrabhan Prasad. And of course before he does that he should read his late father Dr.Rafiq Zakaria, and Syed Shahabuddin.
24 · Manju said
i agree. my only point was that people like huntington, fukuyama, and zakaria have to maintain their position (in the media, academic etc. spotlight) and so come up with ways to twist their own words so as not to appear 'wrong' - even if they end up being contradictory, redundant, illogical, and, well, wrong. my problem with somebody like zakaria, though, is that he's not wedded to any one theory and consistently contradicts himself, yet still wants us to trust his judgment and theories at every turn. at least huntington and fukuyama are duking it out old-school (journals, magazines etc) and limiting their exposure (and to some degree, not backtracking as much as zakaria). but zakaria (and e.g. friedman) wants to be all over the place in the hopes of making us believe that he is always right. i would really respect the guy much more if he just stuck to his editorials in newsweek and academic fora - but his need to be in even the popular fora (e.g. daily show) irks me to no end. i don't know, maybe he likes to hear himself talk more than write - but i do not at all enjoy his television appearances...
Anyone remembers Bombayites/ Mumbaikars obsessing about Donald trump in the 80s?
Duck yes, Trump no.
How can I believe you when you say you heard this from a former Cathedralite?
39 · jyotsana said
uh, clearly, i'm not talking about ambani personally, of course, but reliance and its aggressive pursuit of land/construction/real estate projects.
About Indian tycoons, probably the two most flashy ones in recent times, were the Sahara guy, Subroto Roy, and Chatwal, both of them had extremely grand weddings for their scions within the last 10 years or so. Subroto also had Christian Aguilera, Beyonce etc. over to promote his exclusive Amby valley development a couple of years ago, if I recall correctly. News about him seems to have died down now as suddenly as his mysterious rise to fame, has he had a falling out with some important politicians?
I meant extremely grand weddings in India.
this article had a decent lay of the land about desi real estate players. seriously, if i had money and the inclination, this is where i would be speculating.
I think there was also the wedding of someone related to Bharat Shah which was similar in scale.
Subroto Roy was close to Amar Singh/Mulayam and Amitabh Bachchan, the last I heard was when his airline was bought over by Jet and he made serious bank. I think he has a development called Amby Valley close to Bombay. I think there were also rumors that he was suffering from a life threatning illness sometime back.
Portmanteau,
I wish had the money to put in real estate in India three years back, I am not sure how much scope is still left to make money. An aside, a 3,000 sq. ft. apartment was recently sold on Altamount Road (Where Mukesh Ambani is building his residence) in Bombay for INR 90,000 per square feet.
39 · jyotsana said
taveleen singh and gurcharan das are not insightful. tavleen singh's india roday columns in the late 1990s were written in the same zakaria-esque polemical style, with very little depth. i still recall her annoying profile shot in her column :)
i haven't read rao or prasad. saeed naqvi is an above-average journalist and especially un-insightful when he used to be on the telly but it didn't take that much back in the day to distinguish yourself in indian journalism. this might be changing. do people here follow any contemporary commentators on india (esp. desi journalists who don't happen to be somini sengupta)?
19 · Rahul said
I think people like Fukuyama and Kristol exist to make people like Zakaria look smart.
At least Fuckiyama isn't a neocon, unlike Kristol. By the way, Kristol thinks McCain's camp is very interested in Jindal.
i think a couple of freidman columns and a few aishwarya rai you tube videos should suffice
scaryawe inspiring, at least to those who're more accustomed to a non-hindu (sic) rate of growth out here in the west.16 · Manju said
just like some righties (Juan) abandoned indentured servitude proposals when it became politically expedient (read: massive Malkin rage blogging), que no?
(i kid. lefties do not =He-Man and conservatives do not = Skeletor. Rather, lefties = dating pool and conservatives = severely limited access dating pool)
Rise of Nationalism Frays Global Ties ,in the WSJ,28Apr by Bob Davis (sub required) but full text is also here:
The "natives" ;-) are also re-colonizing the "world wide web" into their own languages.Portmanteau,
Your definition of insightful = something you understand. It's OK. That's what comes from reading too much of Zakaria. Saeed Naqvi has interviewed more heads of state than all foreign correspondents put together, and the only journalist to have interviewed every head of state of Israel and its neighbours for over 40 years now. Tavleen is great for her reportage and bluntness, and I can't imagine too many "analyst" airheads being impressed with it. Anyway the recommendation is for Fareed not his camp followers.
Amardeep's post:
First of all, Amardeep, this is one of your most brilliant posts, and you have had many. Secondly, bilculturalization does not necessarily guarantee a 360-degree perspective. Oftentimes it has quite the opposite effect. The term "screwed up" comes to mind. So it is all the more remarkable when a Zakaria comes along and brings a refreshingly global perspective, albeit abridged for the sake of delivering the "big idea," on issues many would consider highly local. He has admittedly slipped a few times, the most shameful of which was his early endorsement of Bush's "shock and awe" in Iraq, a media circus that turned even the most hard-boiled journalists into Washington Redskin cheerleaders. (Sorry, another one of your brilliant posts.) So why blame this less experienced, young journalist?
In spite of his infrequent lapses on policy issues, Zakaria does understand today's world better than most - a world that is less and less top-down and more bottom-up, a world where power is not a zero-sum game (the rise of others is not a decline of America, as he puts it), a world where a much higher percentage of humanity is getting a piece of the pie. At this point, some of you may be googling the Gini coefficent tables simply to prove the optimists dead wrong, but the Gini, like all metrics, needs a lot of qualification.
Zakaria, for all his fine insight, alienates many Indians. He is sometimes viewed in desi intellectual circles as a panderer to America. But desi intellectual circles are notoriously iconoclastic, and if America was not such a freaking icon, we would have surely found China or someone else. The argumentative Indian, in my humble opinion, is no compliment to our race.
Zakaria's Achilles heel, to me, is that he is a fine thinker who does not particularly know, or claim to know, economics and business, and it is economics, including its many components such as business and technology, that is the biggest driver of change in the modern world that Zakaria makes his living explaining. His lack of economic education does not necessarily detract from the quality of his assessments. It just makes him an easier target.
I will continue to read him.
56 · jyotsana said
Christ almighty, Jyotsana, get off your high horse.
a. We can have differences of opinion regarding journalistic competence. There is no accounting for tastes.
b. All my comments have roundly criticized Zakaria (in no uncertain terms), and there no way any sane person can call me a
Zakaria's camp follower after reading those (I realize you might not have read my comments before spouting).
c. You can insult me civilly.
d. Since you haven't, my dear, f--- off!
e. Really, my god, Tavleen Singh. You're defending Tavleen Singh. I can't get over it. Her sentimental rhetoric is appalling.
Have any of you read Amy Chua's 'World on Fire'? Maybe I'm a rank amateur, but I thought it was among the more eye-opening books, with a rather wide array of events in recent history to back it up, that I've read recently. The basic thesis was that the rather wide presence of market-dominant ethnic minorities in many developing countries inevitably puts into conflict free markets and a majoritarian democracy. I find it somewhat unfortunate that the implications of this (having happened all over southeast asia, and many parts of africa) aren't being dealt with seriously in considerations of America and globalization.. though I suppose Zakaria himself has come around to understanding that promoting unrestrained laissez-faire capitalism and democracy in developing countries with serious social and economic divisions is a recipe for disaster.
58 · portmanteau said
Does India really have a tradition of nose-to-the-ground, investigative journalists or at least commentators who do not write while drawing exclusively from an ideological form book?
27 · jyotsana said
PS: you were completely wrong about this, and did not have the decency to retract. at least, i had the decency just gently directed you to evidence that proves otherwise instead of calling your bs out, but all you did was go ad hominem (a strategy you've adopted on several threads, i might add).
ooops, in my righteous rage i made more typos than usual:
I think that investigative journalism has taken off in the past 5 years or so, mainly starting with some pretty impressive exposes on cricket match-fixing and defense deals bribery by Tehelka. I don't get the sense that Tehelka is driven by political ideology, but I don't follow them closely, so I could be wrong.
There has been a real explosion of tabloid news channels though, which try to break news about the neighbor's adulterous affair, to some cinema star saying something about Nepal. As you can imagine, this has mixed effects, with some good results, like a recent hidden cam video of bribery in Indian hockey (although the player whose name was used was completely unaware of this scam, and he was unwittingly dragged into something which is probably fatal to his career), but with a load of sensationalism too.
Related to investigative journalism, I believe India had something like a freedom of information act signed into law about 5 years ago, if I recall correctly.
63 · Rahul said
yes, i imagine it might have been prohibitively difficult to get it done, prior to FOI. And was it really Azharuddin's downfall that marked the beginning of big-time investigative journalism in India? Sad hallmark for a classy player.
Back to Zakaria, I lobbed the same "unoriginal, not refreshing, not worthy of my time" criticism to a late 30s male cousin of mine and the level of shock at the other end was almost palpable--is there perhaps a generational preference for Zakaria-style neato, wrap-em-up-in-buzzwords, analysis?
This has become a slightly cliched concept, especially after Parag Khanna's latest book - The Second World.
You can also hear Parag Khanna's interview where he delves into the "rise of the rest" and many things that he says is so similiar to Zakaria's concept albeit Parag's style is totally different. Interestingly Parag Khanna dismisses India's rise as compared to China's in the book.
More on the rise of the rest is on Parag's website
Actually, there's a trio of books on this topic, as if to reaffirm Zakaria's fine instinct for a popular idea. Ian Buruma had a review of all three in the New Yorker, and rated Zakaria's book highly, but didn't seem to think much of Parag's book. The NY Times Magazine had featured a long excerpt from the latter a while ago, btw.
Tehelka captured Manoj Prabhakar on video, and it definitely impacted the investigation into that scandal. I think that entire mess roughly coincided with the emergence, or slight maturity, of many privately owned media channels as a consequence of liberalization.
Indeed. Especially since he consistently generated so much frustration in me every time he managed to close the face of the bat just a tad too early while playing his trademark wristy dab to leg, and lobbed the ball off the back of the bat for a simple catch to the bowler. Little did I realize it was just a finely honed example of his impeccable timing.
27 · jyotsana said
Or Bill's ;)
I haven't read it, but heard interviews when the book came out a few years ago. I've been meaning to read it, though, because I had heard good things about it. The major criticism of that book, if I recall correctly, is that violence against prominent minorities has been a feature through all of history, and is most simply explained by racism and the idea of the nation-state, not necessarily globalization. (A simple and topical example is the widespread violence against the dominant Kikuyu minority in Kenya, when their hold on power became weak). I have no idea if that criticism is justified based on the exposition in the book though, did you feel that way?
To sell, these books need to emphasize "change" rather than continuity. It's way too fashionable, I think, to write off Japan these days, but--it's still the world's second largest economy (or, third, if you count the EU as a nation). Many will point to the moribund demographic situation, but the robots are coming!!
I will truly believe that "rest have risen" when
(a) security council cease to be the club of ww-2 winners
(b) head of world bank and imf is not a privelage of US and Europe respectively
(c) npt/ctbt is implemented uniformly
and I guess there are many other such real metrics
till then, all these books and talk show are for keeping the the intellegensia and the chattering class in every country occupied or may I say distracted ?
boy, how times have changed. i remember the old days, when the intellingensia was beginning to realize Reagan was right, and the only solace they could take was to say: "the cold war is over and japan won."
I think she paints a pretty nuanced picture, and certainly acknowledges latent racism etc. I think her argument is about how certain features of contemporary globalization exacerbate existing tensions, and introduce new ones (specifically free markets+democracy). She's not anti-globalization at all, but basically argues for heavy redistribution and other things to soften rough edges. Her examples, particularly the case of the chinese in Indonesia and the Phillippines are pretty convincing. For example, in Indonesia you had Suharto, an authoritarian member of the ethnic majority, collude with Indonesian Chinese businessmen (who passed on lots of kickbacks of course) to such an extent that something like 1-3% of the population *utterly* dominated the economy. The riots that followed the crisis in 1998 basically turned into a pogrom against the chinese there.. who subsequently fled (though some later returned) causing even more economic chaos.
Her argument is that free markets in such societies, if completely laissez-faire, will largely benefit the existing economically dominant ethnic minority.. and a democracy would cause the majority to resent this and retaliate legislatively or otherwise. You could even view Rwanda through this lens, or the Indians in Kenya, the Lebanese in Sierra Leone..
One of her larger arguments is that, in a sense, America is an 'economically dominant minority' in the world.. and that you can at least understand some anti-americanism through that lens. I thought her work was convincing because she didn't necessarily claim that this was a problem everywhere, or the only source of instability in these countries, but rather an important thing to consider. Briefly: the world's complex and reductionist prescriptions and statements usually fail to see the reality of the country you're trying to "help".
Fareed Zakaria is a journeyman. He'll continue to be around for a long time because he knows which way the wind turns.
Check out TPMCafe for a pretty dialogue amongst him and a few other people.
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/
71 · Bridget Jones said
(a) security council cease to be the club of ww-2 winners
(b) head of world bank and imf is not a privelage of US and Europe respectively
(c) npt/ctbt is implemented uniformly
and I guess there are many other such real metrics
why would brazil, russia, india or china want to be a part of this declining international arrangement? perhaps there are other arrangements that reflect their society and its aspirations better?
Seriously, after Friedman's book and McKinsey/CIA report I am kind if overstuffed seeing these books on the bookshelf -
Elephant and the Dragon, Robin Meredith
Elephant, Tiger and Cellphone, Shashi Tharoor
Planet India, Mira Kamdar
Inspite of Gods, Edward Luce
India Arriving,Rafiq Dossani
Chindia, Engardio
India Unbound, Gurcharan Das
India's century, Kamal nath
and now FZ book touching the nose from behind the head !
75 · No von Mises said
No new arrangement will arise without first shaking up the exisiting management/monopoly structure . In the intervening period the existing structure will have to morph/acomodate before it gives to a radically new order.
Great point! Yeah, I remember Paul Tsongas saying that. It's the perfect illustration of how this line of analysis for some reason falls into herd behavior/trendiness/fashion-like swings up and down.
66 · Rahul said
And one more latest one by Nina & Mona - Next American century: How the U.S. Can Thrive as Other Powers Rise, Seriously if these people were in academia then under the rules of citation they would be referencing such similar stuff that their works would probably be rejected as "more of the same".
And then CFR organizes a debate between Parag and Mona !!
the point i was trying to make was that the "rest can rise" with or without the institutions you mentioned, whether they morph or not, thereby expediting their path to irrelevance. if you're an asean country and 5-10 years into the future, you find yourself in sudden financial trouble, why wait for austere IMF/WB conditionalities when your chief trading partner has copious cash and does not want to see you fail?
btw, DC residents, zakaria is going to be at politics and prose on may 15, so go there, and ask him some uncomfortable questions. if you hear a diminutive short-haired brown shiksa cheering, that'll be me.
also, matt taibbi, journalist and author of this brilliant friedman parody is going to be there tomorrow. looks like taibbi will be in business a long time because friedman appears to be unstoppable in his prolific waste of newsprint.
Portmanteau said :
Incidentally in the movie "Vastav", the madam of the brothel is called "Akka" by the other vaishyas.
The brothel is in Bombay, so one would expect "didi" or "chachi" instead.
Anybody care to comment about this cultural anomaly. Sorry to low-brow this intensely technical discussion, But Namrata Shirodkar was a total babe in this movie and far easier on the eyes than Zak.
80 · No von Mises said
I mentioned those "institutions" just as an indicator of there being real metrics of rise and monopoly in the international order and not just some rosy cliches that probably keeps the normal layman and media pundits distracted. And it would be interesting if FZ discusses those monopolies in high-end trade & technological restictions instead of harping on something like now everybody is "consuming products" from all the over the world and producing many "cheap low end stuff" that I can go buy in Walmart or outsource their production to another country as a cause celebere of decline of US. And what about social and infrastructural developments in those other competitors ?
If Basra was occupied with a foreign power no amount of regular job and good economic prospects would stop him from being a jihadist.
‘No people exists that would not think itself happier even under its own bad government than it might really be under the good governance of an alien power…’ - M K Gandhi.
27 · jyotsana said
Yeah the dlf guy is the wealthiest real estate mogul in the world but there are a few Indian real estate players who are wealthier than Donald Trumph, most don't have the high profile. Also lot of them have diversified portfolios. Godrej is one of the largest land owners in Bombay but when you think of Godrej you think of Locks, Soaps, Cupboards etc. The Ruias of Essar are big real estate players but again you think of them as Telecom, Shipping and Steel guys. Palonji Mistry (He became an Irish citizen last year) is a major real estate construction tycoon, but when you think of him you think of Vacuum Cleaners, Water Purifiers and Tata Group.
There are very few pure real estate players in the country.
6 · Purush said
It's interesting that the very globalization you celebrate helps deprive that very resistance fighter in Basra of a job rebuilding her/his country because that very globalization makes it cheaper for the American-taxpayer-funded construction firms to hire labor from India and the Philippines than "those jihadists in Basra."
I'd also like to take issue with your painting anti-occupation resistance fighters with the dismissive and reductive "jihadist" brush. Don't believe the hype. Iraqi resistance does not equal Al Qaeda.
8 · desiriksha said
Define "western" and "non-western." Do you think that English/US/Japanese/whatever-you-call-western culture developed in a vacuum, free from the corruptive influence of "eastern" cultures? When you're done with that, can we talk about all of the "west's" peaceful methods of colonization over the past 500 years and how colonial apologists like to blame their own brutality on those uppity natives' tendency to resist exploitation.
I have not read a lot of Fareed Zakaria's opinion pieces. From what I have read, he sounds more like Thomas Friedman. He picks up a few pieces here and there and then tries to paint a picture that is not the entire TRUTH.
I don't know much about the 80s. I knew about Donald Duck and not Donald Trump, just because I was a kid. If he is claiming that people in India used to know and talk about Donald Trump in 80s and not talk about Bill Gates in 200s it's a lie. Bill Gates is a big hero even now not just for the IT crowd, but the arts / politics crowd too.
60 · Nayagan said
Yes, but not in the regular press. The financial press seems to throw up a lot more such commentators. Sucheta Dalal springs to mind.
its important to note that zakaria is lean. this guarantees an invitation to davos, or more importantly, oprah.
90 · Manju said
Manju, is that you throwing up in the bathroom after lunch? Seriously, I am getting worried that you have an eating/body-image disorder. And contrary to what Rush says, self-medication is not a great idea. I know real conservatives have the self-reliant-marlboro-man thing going, but really, get some help if you think something's wrong.
I'm saying this only because my heart bleeds for you. And the earth. And post-modernists.
Manju said :
You may have something there Manju. I remember that Oprah was the spring-board for another desi : Dr. Deepak Chopra.
I think we need to cool off the "Zak Attack". I am sure a lot of his colleagues think that the only reason he gets invited to CNN etc. is because of the color of his skin. Maybe he appears superficial, but remember TV is the medium of the sound byte, and how erudite can you be in 30 seconds.
Brilliant and very true. I studied at a school in Kolkata that was akin to Cathedral. Same rules applied. There was one guy on the debate team who would always start by saying....The great Chinese Sun Tzu said "blah blah blah". We all knew he was making it all up.
It is amazing that you brought this up. Now that I re-read FZ's column, it reminds me of the college application essays that were floating around in high school.