I wanted to briefly post these two talks, which I absolutely absolutely loved recently.

1. Shashi Tharoor, on India’s “soft power”

Click here to watch it (unfortunately TED won’t let me embed it for some strange reason).

Shashi Tharoor was elected to India’s parliament in May 2009, representing Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala as minister for external affairs. You can follow him on Twitter @shashitharoor - exciting if you’re a social media/politics nerd like me. In the past, Tharoor has worked with the UN as High Commissioner for Refugees, and on peacekeeping operations in the former Yugoslavia (he came in a close 2nd behind Ban Ki-Moon in nominations for Secretary General!). I think it’s immmensely exciting that people like him are entering the Indian political arena, and I’m looking forward to seeing how his career pans out.

This TED talk is funny yet eloquent and it really puts a new “face” to India: the country’s soft power. Indian culture - everything ranging from Bollywood and soap operas to it’s cuisine, yoga, tech and software genius, the magic of the “IITs” and ultimately, India’s democratic values and history of pluralism is what is defining the country around the world - not just it’s economic miracle, or it’s poverty.

2. Chimamanda Adichie, on the danger of a “single story.”

Adichie is a Nigerian novelist, and I really want to read her books at some point. To quote her profile:

In Nigeria, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s novel Half of a Yellow Sun has helped inspire new, cross-generational communication about the Biafran war. In this and in her other works, she seeks to instill dignity into the finest details of each character, whether poor, middle class or rich, exposing along the way the deep scars of colonialism in the African landscape.

Adichie’s newest book, The Thing Around Your Neck, is a brilliant collection of stories about Nigerians struggling to cope with a corrupted context in their home country, and about the Nigerian immigrant experience.

This talk is absolutely brilliant, talking about how assuming a “single story” of Africa - that it is a continent of poverty, war, and disease full of people needing to be “saved” by the kind White man - is so misleading. True, there is poverty and war in Africa, but this is only part of the story; stereotypes are not necessarily wrong but they are incomplete. By getting to understand all the stories behind a country, a continent, or a people, we gain a true appreciation of them and acknowledge our common humanity. One of the most brilliant talks I’ve seen and I’ve totally quoted it in fellowship applications already… Enjoy!

When I read Akhila’s e-mail about the possible opportunity to do a guest post about Being the Change, the first thing that came to mind was Palestine. I am a political blogger and a political individual, I will spare you all a fiery one-sided rant about who should be in the dock at The Hague and instead focus on why I think people need to wake up to this conflict.

I am constantly surprised when people are confronted with the question of Israel and Palestine, their responses to it and the utter changes that come across people’s faces when the conflict is given mention. People that are normally well-educated, socially and politically motivated and not in the least bit apathetic suddenly descend into a blathering mess of umms, errs and ‘why can’t they all just get along’-type cliches. The misconceptions about this conflict are staggering. People somehow imagine something like the flawed cartoon above, two crazed peoples butting heads until oblivion. The idea that this conflict exists because Jews and Muslims have always hated each other, or because the land has been hotly contested for thousands of years or because there must be something in the water make about as much sense as ‘they hate our freedom’ being touted as the reason for 9/11. Ie. not much at all.

In reality, the conflict’s roots can be traced to no earlier than the late 19th century, when the Zionist movement began and immigration of European Jews to what was then Ottoman-controlled Palestine gathered pace, and the modern phase began when the State of Israel was declared in 1948. The conflict has always been one over land, over national self-determination and over political power. The religious element was only injected later to whip up support on both sides. Whatever Qur’anic verses you may have heard lambasting Jews specifically, for example, are shady at best, and have only been seriously invoked recently. And while anti-semitism has long been a scourge globally, specifically anti-semitic political movements, such as al-Qaeda, and political figures, such as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, are recent additions that have come about in reaction to the political situation.

The “Palestinians” and their supposed Arab friends, as far as the conflict goes, are far from a monolithic entity. Within Palestine itself, there are two widely divergent and conflicting dominant political movements, of the Western/Israeli-supported Fatah (currently rather unpopular locally) that rules the West Bank and represents the Palestinian Authority, and the Western/Israeli-shunned Hamas that governs Gaza.

If I was to try to even barely sum up in dot points the main events of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, or the wider Arab-Israeli conflict which is inextricably linked, I would fill up pages and pages of Akhila’s precious web real estate and possibly bore many of you (it’s not something you could ever hope to understand in one sitting). We’re talking about a conflict that is roughly 150 years old, and yet entire university subjects are devoted to it as part of undergraduate degrees.

I am unashamedly pro-Palestinian in my personal stance. I do not see this is a two-sided issue. I see that there is a dominant military power and a group of state-less people with no nation and no clear avenue to self-determination. Israel keeps the West Bank under occupation, bisecting its land with checkpoints and ever-growing settlements, and making daily life and economy very difficult for the locals indeed. And while Israel pulled out of Gaza in 2005 (a unilateral decision made for political considerations, not out of the goodness of their hearts, I assure you), it has turned the strip into an open-air prison, imposing a crippling land & sea blockade that keeps Gazans in abject poverty, lacking stable power, food and medication. I condemn Hamas’ constant rocket fire into Israel as deplorable, targeting civilians always is, but the population of Gaza did not deserve to lose 1400 of its number (mostly civilian) to a 3 week blitz known as Operation Cast Lead either. My opinion happens to be shared by several more prominent intellectuals than myself, and on Gaza specifically, has been confirmed by a recent UN fact-finding commission into the Gaza offensive which uncovered war crimes committed by both sides. Our hope is that one day the international community will see this for what it is: an apartheid comparable in scope to that of South Africa, not a namby-pamby two-sided game of ‘oh why don’t they just get along’

Well I had to rant a little… but what I truly encourage you to do is to educate yourselves on this conflict, starting form wikipedia, media, bloggers, intellectuals, wherever you’re comfy, and encompassing as many varied opinions as possible. If you need suggestions, feel free to hit me up via the avenues listed below in my bio.

Don’t get me wrong, I know the world has plenty of other problems. There’s Darfur, there’s Myanmar, there’s North Korea, there’s the Congo, there’s a whole lot of other places and people with issues incredibly deep and suffering that cannot be quantified or truly compared. But if you want to understand the widely disparate geographical area roughly termed the Middle East (the borders of which have never been agreed upon), from Morocco to Pakistan and further, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict holds the key.

Not only is this conflict one of the great moral questions of our time but without understanding this conflict, you will never understand the region, or its politics. And thus fail to understand a region that, apart from being an emerging market economically, polarises politicans, foreign policy wonks, pundits and intellectuals the world over. We saw the importance of the Middle East on 9/11 as we were glued in horror to our television screens, we saw it during the oil shocks and in global trade patterns, costly wars in Iraq & Afghanistan, and that’s just the last 20 years. The importance of this region in global politics today cannot be denied, and neither can the issue at its core: that of Israel and Palestine.

The Changemaker

Alex Lobov is a final year undergraduate student at the University of Melbourne in Australia, majoring in Spanish, Japanese and Accounting. Interested in literature, coffee, fashion, good food and beautiful things. Bored of the politics of his native Australia, he enjoys the never-a-dull-moment nature of Middle Eastern politics. After travelling throughout the region he still harks back to the cliched-but-fantastic shawarma & shisha of the Persian Gulf and beyond. Connect with him over at his blog dedicated to Middle Eastern Politics, The Zeitgeist Politics, his personal blog or his twitter @alexlobov.

The internet is awesome. I spend hours a week Googling and Twittering and Facebook stalking. The internet has brought us such gems as the “Hamster Dance” and full episodes of The Office. However, in this age of information, the internet can also make the world seem like a depressing place. It’s hard to miss the headlines on your Yahoo! Mail homepage every day: suicide bombers, poverty, global warming, war, and the like.

I know the answer for most of us is to tune out all the bad news. After being bombarded with information on a daily – if not hourly – basis, we can’t help but become desensitized. Even I admit to clicking on articles about celebrity gossip rather than reading about the latest news on the war in Afghanistan (yes, we are currently at war, remember?).

Many members of our generation (in America, at least) are rather apathetic about current affairs. Sure, we know who the President is, but we certainly don’t care what he thinks about healthcare or what is going on in the “outside” world. Or maybe we do care but we think, “Hey, I’m not Mother Teresa. I just want to be happy. I’ll let people like Al Gore worry about global warming.” There is nothing wrong with feeling that way. In fact, I derive a lot of my personal happiness through friendships and hobbies. However, we are all capable of being Mother Teresa – even if for only an hour out of our week.

You know the motto when it comes to recycling: “Every little bit helps.” It’s cliché, but it’s true: there may be mountains of rotting garbage in our dumps but if we collectively work to recycle and re-use, we can make a substantial change in our environment. Grass roots efforts do work, from recycling to Presidential elections – just look at President Obama! So why don’t more people make activism a part of their life? Whether it’s volunteering at your local pet shelter or blogging about gay rights, there are small and big things each of us can incorporate into our lives that WILL make the world a better place. And believe me, it will be less painful than those forty-minute elliptical machine sessions you’ve been forcing yourself to do three times a week.

What kind of activism do I participate in? If you’ve read my blog, you’ll know that I am a feminist political blogger. I blog about a wide range of topics – from hot button issues like abortion and sexist double standards to lighter fare like relationships and book reviews. As for my personal life, I recycle and work actively to be as eco-friendly as possible. I hope to start a career in a meaningful industry – be it the government or a non-profit organization. I want the work I do in my lifetime to bring about positive change – however great or small.

Recently, I applied to write for a college fashion blog that had an opening for interns. I received an interesting response – while the editor of the blog thought I was a strong writer and displayed a good sense of fashion, she told me that she was rejecting me because she felt writing about fashion would bore me and conflict with my beliefs. She said, and I quote, “[my blog] is simply a fun, positive blog that covers the trends and provides style advice . . . There are plenty of places to find negativity online, but few places to escape it, and I want my site to be one such escape.” I was seriously taken aback. Sure, she could tell from my writing samples that I am not a fan of our consumerist culture; something that I had explained would not be a problem because I could easily advocate thrifting and other eco-friendly fashion tips while discussing the latest clothing trends. However, the real shocker to me wasn’t the fact that she felt I wasn’t right for the job because of my beliefs but because I had beliefs at all! My blog, by focusing on something more “depressing” than fashion, makes me too negative for fashion writing? I was surprised to find myself placed in that sort of category. See – I’m just like most young people in our generation. I go to college, I party hard on the weekends, I obsess over guys and I am a huge fan of clothes shopping. However, I happen to moonlight as a feminist blogger. Does that make me so different from everyone else? I hope not!

After thinking about the response I got from that fashion blogger for the past few months, I realized something – she saw me as one of those “special” Mother Teresa types who found it possible to look at all that is wrong with the world and try to change it, rather than just be a “regular” girl who enjoys having a good time. My friends, I beg to differ. I think there is a little “activist” in all of us. Sure, bloggers like Akhila and I might spend more time than the average person writing and thinking about depressing world issues, but we have other passions and interests as well. In fact, that’s the great thing about blogging – it’s a learning experience and I’m getting my voice out there – but, at the end of the day, if I’m too mentally exhausted to write a post, I just…don’t. I can sit in bed and watch the Hills to my content (and hey, it inspired me to write a post just the other day!).

So, what are your passions? Do you love to write and care about global warming? Why not start a blog. Do you enjoy sports? Why not volunteer as an assistant coach at a public school that might not have a lot of sports-related funding? There are fun and “easy” ways of incorporating activism into your daily life without feeling like you are sacrificing your own well-being and interests. Hey, we can’t all be Mother Teresa, but we can be better citizens, friends and members of the international community.

In what ways are you engaging in activism in your community and/or abroad? Do you have some suggestions for other people looking to make a change in the world?

The Changemaker

Dollface is a college student at a small liberal arts college in New England. She blogs anonymously about feminism and politics so that her future plans of becoming President of the United States aren’t compromised by her stance on abortion (…just kidding!). She enjoys long walks on the beach, poking fun at Twilight fans, and generally being a sarcastic @$$hole. She blogs at Rotten Little Girls (http://therottenlittlegirls.com) and you can follow her on twitter @rottendollface. Be warned, of course, that her twitter updates are horrendously boring and of little interest to anyone.

It’s a widely believed theory that the Internet, social media and other online tools and technologies can serve to undermine authoritarian regimes and help to spread democracies. As I wrote before, technology represents the ‘democratization of information’ - by which regimes no longer have a monopoly on knowledge. By reaching people who might never have known of other possibilities, the Internet and technology is opening people’s eyes and putting power in the hands of the people via the dissemination of knowledge. For sure, this is a powerful theory. But even beyond this more ‘general’ effect, we’ve heard stories of how Twitter has facilitated protests and organization by the people against the state - in places like Iran and Moldova. Twitter is truly revolutionary - in more ways than one.

Yet, these success stories are - perhaps - isolated incidents, and most of the authoritarian countries of the world are much less amenable to the spread of social media. A brilliant article by Foreign Policy claims that Twitter barely exists in most autocracies - many of these countries have their own versions of microblogging or have their own social networks. In many parts of the world, Orkut is far more popular. More likely, Internet in these countries is not widespread enough nor fast enough for people to be constantly logged on to Twitter. Moreover, Twitter is likely to be used by people with knowledge of English and some international exposure - it doesn’t necessarily reach wide swathes of the population, many of whom may be poor and non-English speaking. It mostly reaches the educated and the elite.

Another problem described in the article relates to the lack of anonymity on Twitter - incidents in the past have shown that individuals can easily be tracked down by government forces for their actions on Twitter. This isn’t exactly conducive to starting a revolution. If I were living in an authoritarian country, I doubt I’d use Twitter, a public medium, to voice my criticisms of the regime or to publicize protests I was a part of - it seems too easy to get caught!

Twitter is also prone to misinformation. After all, how much detail can you put in a 140 character tweet? During the swine flu outbreak, there was certainly misinformation all around - sometimes certain issues or breaking news stories spread like wildfire, and just as likely these stories can cause mass hysteria. Twitter simply isn’t a tool meant for informing people completely, and it becomes even less useful when we begin dealing with complex political situations. That’s just not something you can easily break down on Twitter, and such sensitive information is prone to misunderstanding.

Ultimately, Twitter’s an excellent tool for many of us - it helps us keep up to date with the latest issues and debates, generates fantastic conversation, and helps drive traffic to our sites. It’s gaining a cultish following by some who understand it’s true power - it helps us create a network, an audience far greater than what we’d have otherwise. Some people claim that Twitter is stupid — I’ll be honest and say that it makes me smarter. And you know why? It’s because I follow smart people. There is intellectualism to be found on Twitter, and those who find it are hooked.

Despite all the hype, Twitter isn’t going to be spreading democracy anytime soon. Sure, it may facilitate protests in certain areas, but there are still many obstacles stopping Twitter from being embraced within authoritarian regimes, especially poor ones.

But I’ll still be holding on to some hope. And in the meantime, I’ll be tweeting.

Picture credit: here

Recently, I’ve been reading a really great book — In Spite of the Gods: The Strange Rise of Modern India, by Edward Luce. I was born in India but moved to the U.S. at a young age - and yet, I recently felt that I didn’t know enough about my birthplace’s political scene. So I decided to pick up this book, and it has provided me with valuable insights into the country’s political and economic development since the time of Gandhi’s independence movement.

Strangely though - much of what it describes are things I’ve already known intuitively after my summer visits to the country. When you go to India, you see stark disparities. It’s a country of contradictions. You see bustling technological complexes and advanced software research coupled with beggars on the street, trash on the side of the road. It seems ridiculous that squalor can co-exist with incredible intelligence and innovation - India’s top government-funded colleges, like the IITs, churn out some of the world’s most intelligent minds. These men and women go on to become true leaders in science, technology, and business. And more recently, India has been achieving remarkable economic growth. From the 1980s to 2001, the percent of Indians living below the poverty line fell from 40% to about 26% - not an insignificant drop. The government clearly has more than enough money and resources to ensure basic living standards. The question is not one of its financial capacity. So why does a country that is a technological and intellectual leader, with a legacy of peace and a burgeoning economy - fail to meet so many of its’ citizens basic needs? The conditions seem ripe - yet the change isn’t coming fast enough.

To me, the biggest problem in India always struck me as corruption. Luce cites that an estimated 85% of all development spending is pocketed by bureaucrats. And in the state of Bihar, India’s second poorest, more than 80% of the food is “stolen” due to corruption. The state loses so much money in development and infrastructure projects that at the end of day, little actually gets done - even when it is done in the name of the poor. As more money comes in, officials are pocketing more while the poor are getting the same - or even less. I saw this with my own eyes in India. Bribes are a regular way of life, and often are necessary for daily activities to occur. People have accepted that corruption is ingrained into the country’s culture and politics. In the book, Luce writes how government jobs are coveted by so many in India. Working for the government means that one has generous “benefits” - and can make vast amounts of money on the side by taking bribes. This shocked me at the time, and saddens me now.

Secretary Clinton recently visited India, focusing on relations between the two countries and India’s leadership on environmental issues, defense, and nuclear energy. Yet, I believe that there are so many more underlying factors that she could have discussed. Corruption, economic development, inequality, discrimination - these are the issues that make daily life a challenge for the billion people in India. Why does the international community always look at India in terms of 1) it’s tenuous relationship with Pakistan, and 2) nuclear power? Sure, these issues are important, but they are not going to change the lives of the millions that live in poverty. I understand that Secretrary Clinton was there to focus on foreign policy. But like President Obama did in his Ghana speech, she could have done well to bring up issues like corruption.

India is also constantly praised for being a democracy. Yes, it’s a democracy, but one component of true democracy - I believe - is lack of corruption: transparency, accountability. Unfortunately, corruption is a daily reality for Indians, but international leaders rarely allude to it, instead willing to ignore the problem while covering it all up in the name of “democracy.” True, there are many wonderful aspects of Indian democracy which have endured to this day, such as Nehru’s intelligent legacies of secularism and equality under the law for all citizens (despite so many caste- and religion-based cleavages). Yet, there remains much to be desired. If corruption is implicitly accepted by Indians and passed over in international debates - how will things ever change?

(This is just a brief snapshot of one issue that matters to me. I strongly recommend the book, which also talks about caste politics, the legal system, and many other cultural and religious factors that impact India today.)