The notion that Asian Americans are model minorities originated in the 1960s, mainly in reference to the socioeconomic gains of Japanese and Chinese Americans in particular. It did not take long, however, for that very idea to be applied to Asian Americans as a whole, especially as it continues to be perpetuated by the mainstream […]
Geography Archives: Philippines
The Uses of Aid
“[T]he aim of aid is to ‘corrupt’ the governing classes. Apart from the financial appropriations (which, alas, are well known and for which we are led to believe that the donors are in no way responsible), aid has become ‘indispensable’ as it is an important source of financing budgets and fulfils a political function. . […]
A Warning for Egyptian Revolutionaries: Courtesy of People Power in the Philippines
Much like Mubarak, the former democratic reformer turned long-serving US dictator for the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos, demonstrates what can happen to even stalwart defenders of capitalism when they are opposed by their citizens en masse. Like Mubarak, Marcos previously provided a ray of hope for Western elites intent on quelling popular resistance within their own […]
Is There a Tahrir Square in Washington?
Egyptians are celebrating the ouster of Hosni Mubarak, as I write. Inshallah they will celebrate for a long time to come. But leaderless crowds are not well placed to govern. The triumph of the Egyptian people leaves the military in control. Let us hope that Egyptians will find no reason to share the complaint of […]
Crisis, Chains, Change: The American Exception to Marxism
A Plenary Address at the American Studies Association Presidential Panel, San Antonio, Texas, 18 November 2010 For Ruthie Gilmore. I am an imposter here: not a real American Studies scholar. I went to graduate school in the late 1980s to study History and Anthropology. My interest was in the contemporary history of India. When I […]
Playing the Currency Blame Game
The slanging match over currency and monetary policies at the annual Fund-Bank meetings, held over the second weekend of October, points to the disarray in global economic governance. While the US sought to mobilise IMF support for an effort to realign exchange rates and ensure an appreciation of the renminbi in the wake of China’s […]
For Colored Boys Who Speak Softly
For colored boys I will crucify myself like Christ let my blood purify and sanctify these words create a doctrine and go knocking door to door letting the people know that messiahs are here that we are messengers even though we embody the word queer that we are a reminder of how colonization has […]
Remittances, Migration, and Other Panaceas: The End of Outward-looking Development Strategies?
In a 1965 essay, the great development economist Albert Hirschman bemoaned the tendency of those in his profession to look for the next panacea. Unfortunately, various panaceas have come in and out of fashion since Hirschman wrote. During three decades of neo-liberalism, development economists and policymakers have celebrated three inter-related strategies: (1) free markets, […]
The Seduction of Feminism
Hester Eisenstein. Feminism Seduced: How Global Elites Use Women’s Labor and Ideas to Exploit the World (Paradigm 2009). xv, 293pp. The 20th century is often called the American century because of the US’s advance during that time to become the single greatest power in the world — economically, industrially and militarily. The century’s story […]
What Difference Does a Revolution Make? A Preliminary Contrast of India and China
I. Commonalities At the time of their casting off of colonialism — India gaining independence from Britain in 1947, China putting an end to a century of imperialist domination in 1949 — the two largest countries in Asia shared many common characteristics. Each possessed an enormous continental landmass with a population in the hundreds of […]
Thailand: It’s about Democracy, Stupid!
In a democratic society, when there is a deep crisis, it is customary for the government to dissolve parliament and call elections in order for the people to decide. This happened in Britain and France after mass strikes and demonstrations in the 1960s and 1970s. After mass Yellow Shirt protests against the government in Bangkok […]
American Police Training and Political Violence: From the Philippines Conquest to the Killing Fields of Afghanistan and Iraq
“In the police you see the dirty work of Empire at close quarters. The wretched prisoners huddling in stinking cages of the lock-ups, the grey cowed faces of the long-term convicts, the scarred buttocks of the men who had been flogged with bamboos.” –George Orwell, Shooting An Elephant and Other Essays “. . . the […]
The Travails of a Client State: An Okinawan Angle on the 50th Anniversary of the US-Japan Security Treaty
“It is incredible how as soon as a people become subject, it promptly falls into such complete forgetfulness of its freedom that it can hardly be roused to the point of regaining it, obeying so easily and so willingly that one is led to say that this people has not so much lost its liberty […]
Poverty Reduction in China and India: Policy Implications of Recent Trends
China and India are generally regarded as the two large countries in the developing world that are the “success stories” of globalisation. This success has been defined by the high and sustained rates of growth of aggregate and per capita national income; and the substantial reduction in income poverty. Further, both China and India are […]
Can We Ever Get Equal Care for All?
Can we ever get equal care for all? We can’t — at least, not by going down dead-end roads. A year ago hope was alive for equal health care for all. Bush was defeated, and the Democrats won control of both houses of Congress. Throughout 2009, though, every week brought a slap across the face […]
History of US Rule in Latin America: Resistance to the Coup in Honduras
The United States has had four presidents who received the Nobel Peace Prize. I haven’t checked, but I presume that’s a record for heads of state. All four have left their imprint on Latin America, “our little region over here that has never bothered anybody.” That’s how Secretary of War Henry Stimson described the hemisphere […]
Gaza Freedom March: Palestinian Non-violence and International Solidarity
I’m going to discuss the utility of non-violent resistance as it applies to resolving the Israel-Palestine conflict and, specifically, the occupation and blockade of the Gaza strip. Even more specifically, I’m going to discuss the Gaza Freedom March (GFM), of which I’m one of the organizers. But before discussing Palestinian non-violence, several things must be […]
The Impact of the Crisis on Women in Developing Asia
Introduction: As developing Asia is the most “globalised” region of the world in terms of both trade flows and financial flows, it was expected that the global crisis would adversely affect the region. However, while the impact has indeed been strong, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth has, as of yet, not been negative; rather, the […]
End Monopoly Capitalism to Arrest Climate Change
Human societies have created the bases of our survival, sustenance and advancement through the use of our natural resources in production with rudimentary tools and rising levels of science and technology. Yet in no time in history has environmental destruction been systematically brought about in most parts of the world. The people of the […]
Electoral Gore: Warlord Violence, Oligarchic Decay, and US Neocolonial Domination in the Philippines
The mass slaughter of 57 civilians in Maguindanao, the Philippines, on November 23 by a local warlord may seem a minor incident compared with the much more heinous destruction of whole villages in Afghanistan and Pakistan by US drones. In the Philippines, however, it acquires symbolic density by the resonance of contextual historic factors linked […]
