Asian Century Manifesto

‘…“I was born not for one corner. The whole world is my native land.” So said Seneca. I have always felt that connection and stewardship for earth and the universe…Material interests are not the only guiding light. Take the time to figure out how to get there. The quickest way may not necessarily be the best. The journey matters as much as the goal. Wishing you the best on your trek towards your dreams. Take good care of our fragile planet.’

Kalpana Chawla American Indian Astronaut killed on the Columbia mission (India Today interview February 17^th 2003)

Purpose

The purpose of this manifesto is to address some of the key questions facing Asia, the West and the world and seek to provide a programme of ideas and actions for the way forward for Asia, the West and the world.

Unlike the philosophy of the east and west never to meet (in Rudyard Kipling’s well-known lines quoted out of context)[1], this manifesto has a philosophy about the merit of the east and west meeting and working out new solutions to world problems. We think it is possible to begin to eliminate the distorting prism of racism and colonialism through a new understanding. Asia itself, still facing huge levels of poverty and underdevelopment, will have to change in fundamental ways to modernise its thinking and renew itself politically, socially, culturally as well as economically, without discarding the fundamentally good and essential aspects of its ancient and modern past. It can achieve this in co-operation with the West and by judging the West critically and fairly.

This is a manifesto that could not have been written at the year of the dawn of the new century. The processes underway, even then, were too invisible to most opinion formers and policy makers. There is substantial corpus of evidence and empirical data today several years later to show that Asia is likely to increasingly dominate this century in terms of population and economics.

I have used the term ‘Asian century’. This a term coined by a former Indian Prime Minister and former Chinese President. The term is valid in terms of countering the negative perceptions or marginalisation of Asia and its people still prevalent today. Asian philosophical strength is still necessary to create a positive image of Asia and its people and to correct the racist images of Asia and its people around the globe – even if they are becoming more nuanced in modern times.

The new crop of ‘Asian’ experts (in the world’s media, think tanks, international institutions and government bodies) are merely catching up, a posteriori, after the Asian century was clearly visible to the world. These ‘noveau’ Asian experts still make fundamental mistakes with perspectives based on cold-war and even colonial assumptions about Asia. A classical example has been Professor Jeffrey Sachs, who after having successfully proposed ‘the shock therapy’ in the former Soviet Union which resulted in a fall in the life expectancy of Russian people, has become an expert of Asian and international issues. God save us from such experts!

The ‘noveau’ Asian experts still look at Asia with outdated analytical tools. Asia’s development has not been the work of the Western left or Western right, but essentially of Asia itself with its ancient wisdom buried by imperialism on a temporary basis. Deng Xiao Ping and Manmohan Singh (both of them born during imperialist days) were the inheritors of this wisdom by combining Asia’s needs to grow with the Western capitalist needs for high return investments. Asia’s development has been based on ignoring many Western recipes – from those of the International Monetary Fund after the 1997 Asian crises to its materialist school of analysis and those in the international non-government organisations (NGOs) who argued that too much attention was paid to the Asian tsunami in 2004 and that the attention should have been devoted to Africa.

There was also a presumption that was still alive and kicking at the end of the C20th and in the first few years of C21st that Asians could not write about Asia and the world with authority. Asians could not make judgements about global trends and be right about them. Now that presumption is being challenged by facts and raw reality. Asian people can be leaders of the Asian century as well as defenders and champions of Asian perspectives and knowledge.

When I produced a Black Manifesto in the UK for 1997 and 2003 General Elections, most of its demands became government policies, laws and even key aspects of the new government agenda – influential and far-reaching.

I have no doubt about the importance of this manifesto in its first version in influencing international institutions, governments and movements in the east and west of the world and also the cultural and intellectual arena occupied by the youth and educated populations. Ultimately, I believe that the manifesto is addressed to poor people in the world and its views are on their side. Asia’s success will be in the interests of the poor of the world. They need champions in this century who are untainted by cynicism of Western left. They need champions outside of the cynicism of the Asian rich elites and their acolytes. In this sense, this manifesto is in the tradition of the Mahatma (Gandhi).

I write as a British and European citizen by my citizenship – and I see myself as a full citizen with equal rights to all other people in Britain and Europe, and not as some second-class immigrant, who is a ‘guest’ of the West. I am an inheritor of Western rights inscribed by the English, French and American revolutions with their progressive outlook on humanity.

Like John F Kennedy, I want to proclaim myself in solidarity. He said:”Ich bich ein Berliner” (I am a Berliner). He stood up against the division of the world created by the Iron Curtain.

I say: “I am an Asian”. I stand in solidarity with Asia and against the division of the world into the east and the west.

I was born in Asia – in a poor Asia arising like a phoenix from the ashes from European imperialism. My parents experienced brutal poverty and successfully rescued some of their children from the claws of early death. The manifesto is dedicated to them and their generation, who saw Asia at its lowest ebb.

I want to proclaim my opposition against the division of the world created by imperialism. I am Western and I am Eastern at the same time. I refuse to accept the historic division of humanity imposed by a temporary period of evil in human history known in the imperialist phase.

Above all, I am a human being. This planet is my planet.

The manifesto is a tribute to Asian progressives and their faith in Asia’s destiny and a tribute to the Asian ‘traditionalists’ who have defended the good in Asia when it was fashionable to deride Asia’s past achievements. It is also a tribute to the Western progressive and the Western traditionalist, who have defended the goodness of the West even when it was not fashionable. The Western crimes of colonialism and racism cannot blind the world to the tremendous progressive achievements of the West and the goodness of its past.

Asian Century

The manifesto is written in a world, where Asia, with approximately two-thirds of the world’s population, is in the midst of a historic industrial and technological revolution. The specific objective of this revolution is to take over two and half billion Asian people into the world inhabited by the advanced economies of the world.

Map 1: Population density in the world

It is a challenge of historic proportions: bigger than the successful challenge of the Industrial Revolution in Britain in C19th or the American Transformation in C20th into an industrialised global economy.

The first great Industrial Revolution during the C19th happened in Britain – with the help of an Indian Empire and other colonies – with its population estimated at barely 8 million in 1791 at the start of this process than the current vast scale of development in Asia.

The Industrial revolution produced a total transformation of Britain through the following key features:

the process of urbanisation as a result of large scale rural migration;
science and invention (of gigantic proportions);
big ideas and great execution;
a new national infrastructure including railway system, underground, bridges and other forms of world transport such as mass passenger ships;
social revolution to eliminate horrific levels of human exploitation and misery in the towns and factories through legislation and campaigns with healthcare provision and education established through state schools;[2]
world famous literature of the industrial revolution examining changes in the countryside such as Thomas Hardy, urban poor with Charles Dickens[3] and marginalised as well as the middle class winners of this early process such Jane Austen; and,
mass democracy giving ordinary people a sway over government and political philosophical change.

All of this transformed Britain and made it a global leader at all levels - economic, social, cultural, political and philosophical.

Graph 1 Relative share of world manufacturing output, 1750-1950. Data from: Paul Bairoch, "International Industrialization Levels from 1750 to 1980" JEEH 11

The USA was the second great economic transformation applied to a population of over a hundred million people:

It was accompanied by great transport links with the railway link of C19th stretching across the continent as part of the industrial revolution;
This saw the great Fordist assembly line production and the American management revolution;
It saw the infrastructure of the New Deal with the Hoover Dam and other gigantic construction projects;
In cultural terms, it saw Hollywood establish cinema as global cultural experience. In literature, it had its F. Scott Fitzgerald[4] and John Steinbeck[5] - the writers about the Jazz Age and the Depression;
English and USA music became global music – symbolised by Elvis Presley and the Beatles;
The USA black musical contribution led many trends in C20th;
USA changed with migration from nearly all corners of the world, but specifically Europe;
America saw its military power also expand to a superpower status. Post-Second World War America became firmly a global economic power – transforming its cities into skyscrapers and offering unprecedented consumer choice. America also conquered space (alongside Soviet Union);
On a social level, it abolished racial segregation, introduced quotas to eradicate racism, gave rights to women including the right to choose over abortion, gay and lesbian discrimination was outlawed and gay and lesbian ‘marriages’ were sanctioned;
There was also the student and youth idealism expressed in movement against the far-away war in Vietnam against the peasants fighting the most powerful military machine on earth;
The recent environmental movement on the question of climate change and consequences of global warming is beginning to have a dramatic impact on American consumerism and US corporate social responsibility; and,
The huge rise in the average living standards for its people, with a population of over one third billion, showed the scale of its achievement.[6]

Illustration 1 Picture of the Industrial Revolution in England (left); Photo of the Fordist Revolution in the USA (right) Source: www.sustainability.murdoch.edu.au/.../E12.jpg

The USA also saw a potential rival in the Soviet Union – but the Soviet Union had a lot more brutality in its economic growth as well as its political development. The Soviet Union was more to do with superpower status rather than an economic (consumer) or political democracy. The Soviet Union created many showcases of economic progress and social state advancement, but many of them disappeared overnight in the disintegration of Soviet state. It’s finest contribution was its role in the defeat of Nazism - its 20 million dead during this epic world struggle for humanity set the modern example for self-sacrifice.

Asia’s developments in the C21st will dwarf the magnificent achievements of the USA in C20th. They constitute a defining period in world history: the period of the transition of the globe from the situation where the majority of the world lives in poverty to a situation where poverty will have been conquered for the majority of the human race.

The Western accounts of post-WWII history place Asia either in the background or in discrete events such as the famines and floods of the Indian sub-continent, Vietnam and Korean wars, the tanks in Tiananmen Square of Beijing, the ‘Killing Fields’ of Cambodia, Asian Tsunami and other episodes of tragedy, death and helplessness. US Under Secretary of State for South Asia, Nicholas Burns, famously stated that ‘India did not register on our radar’.

Assumptions about Asia’s rise did not really exist amongst the top policy-making circles and think tanks of the West until fairly recently after the process had been underway for over a decade in India and two decades in China. Western assumptions were based on a world in which the military and economic dominance of the USA (under the title Project of the American Century) would hold sway - with a potential rival in the European Union on an economic level.

However, the outcome of Asia’s achievements in the 21^st century will determine the future of humanity. Human development on a new level is at the heart of the Asian economic dream – abolishing real poverty and underdevelopment by achieving average living standards similar to those in the West.

This process does not necessarily have to be resource heavy provided the world’s critical imagination is used to create viable solutions to real questions of economic development including the deployment of technological innovations, using Asia’s knowledge bank of environmental issues to protect nature, sensible open immigration policies and raising the purchasing power of Asian labour in real terms.

The prospects for humanity are brighter through these developments. We are in the epoch of the transition to the ‘Asian Century’ – the epoch when the wasted human talent latent within Asia will be utilised as happened previously in the West. This will see in our view Asia being added to the West in terms of the global area covered by advanced economic development.

Graph 2 The economic position of Asia 2005 Source: www. imf.com 2005

It is possible that Asia will become the more important global economic centre than the West. This is not as important as the fact that Asia is economically developed and its people are brought out of poverty through this process. This is not a competition between the East and West, although a positive competition for greater economic productiveness is good. This is a positive sum game, a win-win situation. It is simply a competition for Asia to enter the domain of economic advancement with the majority of its people enjoying Western style living standards. These standards would mean taking on board the progressive, pluralistic and personal pleasure aspects of these societies as well as making moral advances in the fields of non-violence and environmental conservation – advancing on the most modern aspects of society and not making the same mistakes that the West made in reaching those standards.

There will be many Asian billionaires and millionaires in this process.[7] They are not as important as the ordinary billions of people and their general living standards. The billionaires and millionaires are not a problem for Asia, they are part of the solution to the poverty and unemployment affecting the majority of the people in China and India at the beginning of C21st. The billions of ordinary and rural people have to be given economic and political choice by making them into effective consumers in the market place of Asia.

A way forward for Asia is probably a way forward for the whole of humanity and certainly a way forward for the majority of humanity. In the best sense of the word, it is not a minority interest. The marginalisation of the majority of humanity is coming to an end.

Asia’s industrial and technological revolution will add to the progress already made by mankind and will change the fate of humanity into the realm of human hope. For the first time, the realistic prospects exist that the majority of the world’s people will no longer live in absolute poverty.

This will prepare the way for the final onslaught against global poverty faced by the minority of mankind. This will create a more urbane and cosmopolitan world with most people living in developed urban areas. The democratic challenge will be to make this an educated world of individuals freed from poverty who then can make free consumer and personal lifestyle choices - opposite to the world of poverty with its collective nightmares of enforced personal, family and community subjugation.

The majority of the world will have a stake against war and violence – which retards economic progress. Peace amongst nations and a peaceful global moral majority will be the norm. Only a tiny minority of nations will engage in wars and only a tiny minority will subscribe to the use of violence to impose their views on other people through terrorism and other such means. A clash of civilisations (from the left and right, from religious majorities and minorities) will remain a theory suited to tiny political forces that will not make progress - in a world where the majority will see prospects to end poverty amongst people all over the world and will want to achieve this noble goal in human history.

A clear call to change – in a conscious and courageous way – is the second intention behind this manifesto. People all over the world need to readily embrace the Asian century, as it is going to be a progressive event and in all probability a fact. The manifesto should motivate engagement between different peoples of the world towards the realisation of the potential human triumphs of the Asian century.

The world will benefit – not just Asia. A true global virtuous cycle of economic growth is on the horizon driven by the two Asian giants of China and India. The vicious cycle of economic depression and recession with human misery will be reduced in scope. Global engagement with Asia will benefit the world. There should not be a false protectionist or politically-driven racist hostility to Asia – for the sake of economic prosperity in the world as well as for the sake of humanitarian internationalism.

A positive case of the Asian century needs to be made in an organised and systematic way for the good of all humanity and to make the transition to the Asian century a less painful process for those in the West. The Western monopoly over economic growth and good living standards amongst ordinary people will come to an end.

The ordinary people of the West are benefiting from increased purchasing power through cheap quality products and services provided by Asian roaring economies as well as from the global economic expansion in the world driven by Asia’s economic growth. The youth of the West are revelling in Asian culture as part of the world’s new cultural scene. The elites in the West are already participating in the new business environment of Asia’s economic rise as part of the modern economic world. The USA, through the Iraq war, has realised that there are limitations to its massive economic and military resources.

Acceptance of change is possible and is happening. Western people are not inherently racist and neither are its elites. We should not make that assumption in the C21st. On the contrary, economic progress has enabled enlightened values to be part of the pattern of the West. Asia will adopt enlightened values in this process in a new phase of political and social modernisation.

Peace, prosperity, progress, pluralism, pleasure (or happiness) : these are the five ‘Ps’ of the Asia century – opposed to its endemic poverty, the sixth ‘P’, and the seventh ‘P’ of ‘Protectionism’ that can be a dangerous barrier erected to ‘stop Asia’s economic growth’ by reactionary forces. A new Asia is being born. A new world is being created.

Defining Asian

Today the question of ‘what is Asia?’[8] is being defined by the economic dynamism of the continent.

Map 2 of Asia by United Nations’ regions indicated by colour.

Green = West Asia, Red = South Asia, Purple = Central Asia, Blue = North Asia, Yellow = East Asia, Orange = South East Asia

The antipathy towards India as a nation, expressed by the British statesman Winston Churchill (1874-1965) in his famous saying that ‘India is a geographical term. It is no more a united nation than the Equator.’ (Speech, March 18, 1931, in Royal Albert Hall, London) has also been expressed towards Asia. There are many sceptics today in the West and East against the very concept of ‘Asia’. Progress and events are proving them wrong in a dramatic way. Asia is becoming a personality in the sense that a new born baby develops a personality as a child on its way to becoming an adult. The adult is fully defined as a personality, so will be Asia when it realises its economic goal. It is not merely a geographic expression, but a potential example of human united front and a new philosophy of building a better future.

Asia is becoming a vision as well as a reality. ‘Asia is One’ in the famous phrase of the Japanese Okakura Okakuzo in his ‘The Ideals of the East’ (1904). It is engaged in a process of unification on a grand scale – in terms of the economic realities on the ground as well as on the ideological and political level through pan-Asian visionaries. [9]This is a challenge to all the weaknesses of Asia and an appeal to all of Asia’s strengths. Asia as a collective entity will make all Asians strong. It will be more than a sum of its parts. It will also benefit humanity.

India has the potential to be the bridge between east (e.g. Japan, China) and west Asia (e.g. Arab countries) in order to unite Asia. This is a strategic role for India - both at the level of trade, culture, philosophy and politics. India can unite Asia. It must be enabled to play this specific global role.

Equally, India can lead the battle for democracy across Asia by example - through a process of renewing its own democracy by getting rid of corruption and re-asserting meritocracy and technocracy in its system. China is a de facto leader of Asia – with its economic and military might – although it has a political weakness with a lack of democracy in the system and a philosophical weakness with a lack of pluralism in its ideological system, which is a constraint in a knowledge and creative industries-based global economy with ‘democratic choice’ in the lifestyles of people.

There is a modern and progressive pan-Asian nationalism that is developing in the corridors of power in Asian countries around the notions of a Pan-Asian Free Trade Agreement with its basic premise of peace in Asia. This is the new ‘Asia’ being created. This pan-Asia is being practically realised today.

Asians are the majority

The total Asian population of 4.030 billion, out of the total world population of 6.671 billion, constituted 60% of the world population in 2007[10]. Asians are the majority on the planet. At stake is the most fundamental battle on earth: the battle against poverty. If China and India defeat poverty, whilst constituting four in ten of the world’s population - with Asians the majority - so can the rest of humanity. If China and India do it, they will inspire the rest of poor humanity. The end of poverty will be in sight. From one moment in history to another, the world will have turned from upside down to the right way up – or back on its rightful axis. The majority will dominate the planet. They will not be marginalised people, as in the colonial times. The greatest blow will have been struck against racism.

Graph 3 China and India’s population in relation to other countries and continents 2005

Asian people as the majority of the people on the planet still operate as economic units on a national country basis. However, this is changing. Before the beginning of C20th, the nation state was developing as the normal political unit. After the beginning of C21st, the nation state will be succeeded by the regional bloc as the normal political unit. The European Union is the first of such regional blocs, but many more will arise during this century. Many will become stable political structures. Some will not succeed. This will be as dramatic a change as the construction of the nation state was from small city states or local kingdoms between the C17^th to C19^th as well as the construction of nation states as manifestations of independence from imperialist or colonialist rule in the second half of C20th.

Graph 4 1750-2005 Asia’s population lead in the world Source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population

Whilst the C20th saw population growth as a problem, in C21st Asia, population is seen as a key agent for its economic transformation. The law of a large population as driver of economic growth has been put in place. China and India as the largest populations (both above one billion people) have seen the largest economic growth rates in the late C20th and the first few years of the C21st. Economic growth above 5% keeps their heads above water; whilst 10% economic growth puts them into the realm of economic progress. India has reached 5.5% average economic growth in the period 1990-2005. India is heading towards 10% growth rates. China has reached 10% average economic growth in the period 1980-2005.

In the C20th, USA, Soviet Union and Japan as large nations witnessed prolonged periods of high economic growth rates. However, they were still smaller nations (individually or even collectively through aggregation of their population sizes combined together) than that of China and India (individually or collectively). Equally, in late C20th the smallest nations experienced major economic transformation through prolonged economic growth – such as the Asian ‘city states’ such as Singapore, Hong Kong and Abu Dhabi as well as those Asian nations with relatively small populations such as Taiwan, South Korea, Malaysia (of south east Asia). Similarly, European Union states such as Ireland and Spain have made major transformation of their economies in late C20th and have placed their societies into advanced economies with very high living standards.

The stage of the industrial and technological transformation of China and India in C21st would be the culmination of the modern trend of economic power gradually becoming located in the most populous countries of the world - since the time of the first establishment of the modern industrial revolution in Britain. In C21st, there will be a clear correlation between the greatest economic power and the most populous countries driven by prolonged economic growth in China and India. The process marks a turning point of modern world economic development began by Britain’s industrial revolution.

Equally, China and India are extraordinary nations: one a now quasi-communist state, the other a democracy. One was subject to pre-World War Two Japanese colonialism (for a short period of time), the other subject to British colonialism (for approximately two hundred years). Both are victims of two state theories – China with Taiwan, India with Pakistan (and also in a more distant way Bangladesh). Both face current demands for autonomy, if not separatism form their multicultural and multi-faith nations – for example, in Tibet and in Kashmir. It is likely any concessions to territorial disintegration could cause serious and possibly fatal prospects to economic growth. There could be a wider process of national disintegration and explosion – with a collapse of these gigantic societies as national states. The historical process of the tragic partition of India and Pakistan cost millions of deaths and tens of millions of refugees and major dislocation to its economy, with negative consequences of wars and poverty for the region of a wasted half-century of unnecessary conflict.

The late part of C20th saw a greater trend towards to new economic and regional blocs rising above the nation-state as a economic unit - such as the European Union and the free trade agreement such North America Free Trade Association. These are now spreading to all parts of the world including Asia. The cost to the former Soviet Union through its territorial disintegration has been huge and has damaged it economic prospects drastically, as indicated by the key social indicator of falling life expectancy. It confirms the need for such blocs through the negative consequences of disintegration.

China and India and Asia cannot afford territorial disintegration, as it will unleash centrifugal forces with tragic costs in proportion to the weight of these giant countries – and from a cusp of economic victory could result in a return to a situation of fragmented and weak states, warring with each other and shedding blood on religious, cultural, ethnic, linguistic and many other basis – on a scale involving tens of millions of people and possibly hundreds of millions, which those who understand China and India in their history will realise is a real danger. This is the key choice Asia has to make - to keep and enhance China and India as multicultural and multi-faith nations. Despite small and outside pressures to cause the disintegration of China and India, such a betrayal of Asia’s destiny has to be resisted by all those who seek the good of Asia and the good of humanity.

China and India are seeking to overcome the historical economic damage of territorial disintegration through Asian regional cooperation including economic free trade associations and the resolution of outstanding conflicts and disputes between neighbours. The European Union has taken serious institutional and integration measures including social legislation to constitute a world economic bloc. The United States (with its population of over one-third billion which is multicultural from a history of diverse migration as well as a federal democracy and a global superpower) is the only state to appreciate the size of a giant global multi-cultural democratic state such as India or the emerging giant multi-ethnic superpower of China. The only other nations with such disparate population entities are Indonesia or Russian Federation, albeit only a fraction of the size of China or India. Pan-African, Pan-Arab and Latin American entities are being created in the global economic structures of the new world. These are similar to the post-war, political pan-nationalist, third world entities such as those led by Nehru, Nasser, Nkrumah and Peron.

However, in C21st there is a narrow and focussed economic agenda for this regional cooperation rather than a negative rhetorical ideological and military agenda. The politics of C21st modernism are those based on cooperation rather than confrontation. Asia is participating actively in this new global agenda with its regional structures. It is facing the challenges of a new global economic imperative on a more pan-Asian basis, which can enable it to provide solutions to its competition to the European Union or USA or some new Western transatlantic economic cooperation. In C21st, China and India are key players (as semi-regional entities in themselves by virtue of their populations) in keeping Asia together and uniting it for the benefit of Asia and the world.

The ‘religious nationalism’ of last years of C20th is a backward medieval type of ideological politics based on the fantasy of the majority rural world and a false morality based on the poor middle classes as a majority. There is a new totalitarianism inherent in these ideologies that cannot survive the C21st developments. Hence, they resort to terrorism, violence and ‘political’ self-sufficient movements - seeking to create states within states. The resort to violence and force is an indicator of the core weakness of these movements, which are faced with much more powerful states. They offer no morality for C21st, only a fantasy of a morality based on the backward aspects of religion.

The inherently secular (i.e. in which state and public and commercial activity is not related to religious beliefs) character of economic progress defeats ‘religious nationalism’. The real question on the agenda is regional economic cooperation for economic development and not ‘universal’ mono-religious conquest over mankind. The religious views of individuals and different cultures should be able to exist on the basis of a secular public policy in contrast to a totalitarian anti-religions policy. The terrorism, violence and force associated with ‘religious nationalism’ has to be defeated as a matter of public and state policy.

The morality of C21st has to be based on universal humanitarianism, peace and non-violence, welfare of all people, individual choice, cultural and biological diversity, political pluralism, democracy, good health practices, psychological well-being: summed up in the principle of ‘do no harm’ to one self or others.

Religious modernisation is a pre-requisite of C21st. Modern religions have huge challenges and cannot base themselves on:

social prejudice (such as racism, sexism, the choice of lesbian or gay lifestyles, physical or mental disability);
moralism (no sex, no contraception, drinking of alcohol, smoking cigarettes, taking drugs, food restrictions - apart from restricting such activity on grounds of damage to health - with ultimate choice with individuals);
psychological or physical violence (being damned, going to hell, justifying violence against other people or even asking individual’s to do self-harm etc);
anti-individual choice (right to change one’s personal, political or religious beliefs);
religious totalitarianism (no punishment for ‘apostasy’, change of religion or rejection of religion, right to criticise religious practices, a right to challenge religious orthodoxy or literal translation of religious teachings, right to update religious practices etc);
religious terrorism (forcing a religion on society through violent means, denial of religious pluralism, seeking to have a religious imposition on state, public and commercial activity);
educational or economic backwardness (restrictions on the use of modern technology, science, health advancements, entertainment, etc).

Religious modernisation requires a major change of outlook for all religions - without having to abandon key positive principles of religious beliefs including, of course, the belief in God. C21st religions should be reformed to make them compatible with economic progress, pluralism, peace and prosperity, and the eradication of poverty, where they are not. C21st religions cannot become an embodiment of protectionism: social, cultural, political, economic, and specifically philosophical reactionary ideas and practice. They have to stop themselves becoming destructive entities and ideologies, which stand in the way of human future and freedom.

History of Asia’s Role in the World

Asia has been at the heart of economic development for much of its history. China and India are ancient civilisations. Asia was a pivotal part and parcel of civilisation’s development, not an adjunct to it. Asia was a key part of the advancement of mankind at an economic, political, cultural and philosophical-ideological level. This process continued right up to the period of the imperial conquest of Asia.

Graph 5 Fall and rise of Asia’s GDP, 1820-2001. Source: A Maddison OECD

Before the full onslaught of industrial revolution in Britain and Europe, in the first half of the C19th, Asia was the overwhelmingly dominant part of the global economy as well as its population. Angus Maddison has produced compelling data on the world economy prior to the full economic rise of the West. For most of last two thousand years, India and China were the leading global economies by a long margin - India more so than China, differing from current reality.

Graph 6 illustrating the ‘Pincer Movement’ of Asia’s fall and rise and the West’s rise and fall in terms of the share of the world manufacturing output 1500-2000. Asian century is not a new concept in this sense.

In one respect, Asia was left behind – it had failed in its political and philosophical path of enlightenment and progress – by not completing and winning its own process of internal modernisation through democratic revolutions. In the West, modernisation had happened through the English, French and American revolutions as well as the ideas of the age of enlightenment and the age of reason across the West. Asia had not fully carried out such scientific, enlightenment and democratic revolutions in modern times with the exception of Japan.

During the Meiji restoration in C19th Japan almost full-scale ‘westernisation’ was successfully adopted including through massive political reforms to overturn feudal Japanese structures.

On February 3, 1867, fifteen-year old Mutsuhito succeeded his father, Emperor Kōmei and a new era of Meiji, meaning "enlightened rule," was proclaimed. The Meiji Restoration of 1868 ended the 265-year-old feudalistic Tokugawa shogunate.

The first reform was the promulgation of the Five Charter Oath in 1868, a general statement of the aims of the Meiji leaders to boost morale and win financial support for the new government. Its five provisions consisted of

Establishment of deliberative assemblies
Involvement of all classes in carrying out state affairs
The revocation of sumptuary laws and class restrictions on employment
Replacement of "evil customs" with the "just laws of nature" and
An international search for knowledge to strengthen the foundations of imperial rule.

Implicit in the Charter Oath was an end to exclusive political rule by the ‘bakufu’ (‘tent government’ referring to feudal/military lords or ‘shogunate’) and a move toward more democratic participation in government. To implement the Charter Oath, an eleven-article constitution was drawn up. Besides providing for a new Council of State, legislative bodies, and systems of ranks for nobles and officials, it limited office tenure to four years, allowed public balloting, provided for a new taxation system, and ordered new local administrative rules.

Illustration 2 1877 painting. Saigo Takamori, the Last Samurai

the organizer of the political movement for a constitutional monarchy, is sitting in the centre during the Korean affair debate ("Seikanron", a cross-roads for Japanese political modernisation). He later sought to restore the Samurai order in the failed Satsuma rebellion and then committed ritual suicide as a mark of honour..

In the Meiji period (1868-1912), leaders inaugurated a new Western-based education system for all young people, sent thousands of students to the United States and Europe, and hired more than 3,000 Westerners to teach modern science, mathematics, technology, and foreign languages in Japan. The East and West dynamics were unleashed; instead of being suppressed.

The government also built railroads, improved roads, and inaugurated a land reform program to prepare the country for further development. To promote industrialization, the government decided that, while it should help private business to allocate resources and to plan, the private sector was best equipped to stimulate economic growth. The greatest role of government was to help provide the economic conditions in which business could flourish.

In short, government was to be the guide and business the producer. In the early Meiji period, the government built factories and shipyards that were sold to entrepreneurs at a fraction of their value. Many of these businesses grew rapidly into the larger conglomerates that still dominate much of the business world. Government emerged as chief promoter of private enterprise, enacting a series of pro-business policies, including low corporate taxes.

Rapid growth and structural change characterized Japan's two periods of economic development since 1868. In the first period, the economy grew only moderately at first and relied heavily on traditional agriculture to finance modern industrial infrastructure. By the time the Russo-Japanese War (1904-5) began, 65 percent of employment and 38 percent of the gross domestic product was still based on agriculture, but modern industry had begun to expand substantially. By the late 1920s, manufacturing and mining contributed 23 percent of GDP, compared with 21 percent for all of agriculture. Transportation and communications had developed to sustain heavy industrial development. The early post-war years were devoted to rebuilding lost industrial capacity: major investments were made in electric power, coal, iron and steel, and chemical fertilizers. By the mid-1950s, production matched prewar levels. Released from the demands of military-dominated government, the economy not only recovered its lost momentum but also surpassed the growth rates of earlier periods. Between 1953 and 1965, GDP expanded by more than 9 percent per year, manufacturing and mining by 13 percent, construction by 11 percent, and infrastructure by 12 percent. In 1965 these sectors employed more than 41 percent of the labor force, whereas only 26 percent remained in agriculture.

The mid-1960s ushered in a new type of industrial development as the economy opened itself to international competition in some industries and developed heavy and chemical manufactures. Whereas textiles and light manufactures maintained their profitability internationally, other products, such as automobiles, ships, and machine tools, assumed new importance. The value added to manufacturing and mining grew at the rate of 17 percent per year between 1965 and 1970. Growth rates moderated to about 8 percent and evened out between the industrial and service sectors between 1970 and 1973, as retail trade, finance, real estate, information, and other service industries streamlined their operations.

Illustration 3 Photo of Tokyo as a modern city built on new industrial and service sectors

Japan did pay a price for its strategic errors of ‘Asian imperialism’ in this period. Its conquest of other Asian countries was overthrown and left a bitter legacy for many decades. Equally, its industrial gains during the Meiji period and early C20th were wiped out during the Second World War and its militarization negated its role as leader of Asia when it became economically successful. Japan as a defeated power during the war was excluded from the permanent security members of the United Nations Security Council.

However, it did gain a democracy and enforced ‘peace dividend’. It began to be included in international economic institutions and gathering such as the G7.

Apart from the success in Japan, in other parts of Asia too there were very powerful movements for modernisation and democracy. Although these movements failed to modernise and unite Asia prior to the period of European imperialism, their contribution should not be ignored in discourses of the progressive development of the world and in humanity’s progress at the level of social, political, economic, cultural and philosophical-ideals modernisation.

The idea of Asian nationalism happened as far back as ancient times with the unification of China under the Qin dynasty in 221 BC and the almost complete unification of India under Chandragupta Maurya in 250 BC.

This unity lasted beyond these Empires through a cultural sense of the existence of these nations, but fragmentation resulted in weakening these societies specifically in the post-medieval period. Both Buddhism and Jainism attacked the caste system through its founder of Gautuma ‘Buddha’ and Mahavira (C6^th -5^th BC) as well as the humanism and meritocracy of Lao Tse and Confucius (through the concept of ‘Ren’-goodness or human-heartedness). These were replaced by the Law of Manu (rigidity of the caste system) in India and by Li (formalism and ritualism as part of social graces) in China – by the time of modernisation in the West.

Illustration 4 Photo Images: Buddha and Mahavir

India also had a major period of modernisation between the C8th -C17^ththrough the ‘Bhakti’ and ‘Sufi’ movements embrace of a universalism of humanity with major saints such as Baba Sheikh Farid Shakargang and Bhagat Kabir, Namdev and Ravidas with a democratisation of religion (for access to God for all through individual worship) through a challenge of ritualism and formalism in eastern (Asian) and western(Asian) religions. This led to the foundation of Sikhism in C15th by Guru Nanak Dev as a religion of ‘One God’ and ‘One Humanity’ with a rejection of the caste system and embrace of the equality of all human beings. Voltaire and Thomas Paine would have recognised their own beliefs and terminology in this phase of India’s enlightenment and age of reason. Religion was founded on ‘faith’ and ‘nature’ (i.e. a modern deist view of religion without contradiction to the age of reason).

Illustration 5 Paintings of Guru Nanak with Bhair Mardana and Bhai Bala ; Sheikh Farid of Shakergang

It was also representative of a revolutionary unity of Islamic and Hindu forms of worshipping God as part of a universal religion embracing the traditions of West and South Asia. This was an early form of modernisation and democratisation of India through a new philosophical unity. This was prior to the colonial era in India.

There is substantial evidence that Chinese and Indian societies were involved in a struggle against conservative and reactionary attitudes for thousands of years. They did not succeed and therefore made China and India subject to internal weaknesses that enabled colonial conquest and humiliation. Both China and Indian became fragmented due to internal failures prior to imperialist conquest and humiliation. They had economic opulence, but social and political backwardness.

China adopted democracy under Sun Yat Sen as President in 1912 with his ‘Three Principles’ of nationalism, democracy and people’s livelihoods/welfare. However, this proved to be temporary and Japan colonised a weak fragmented China-in another phase of colonialism. Eventually, Mao Tse Tung was successful in defeating the ‘eastern’ imperialists of Japan and establishing an independent China – but under a dictatorial communist regime. Modern India did adopt a democratic constitution, after more than a century of imperialist rule, on January 26, 1950, to create the largest democracy in the world. This was after the success of its historic anti-colonial democratic revolution to get rid of British imperialist rule on August 15th 1947 led by the ‘eastern’ moral, social and political giant of history, Mahatma Gandhi, and the diverse independence movement much of it under the banner of the Indian National Congress.

The surprise in historical terms is not the rise of Asia in the C21st, but the downfall of Asia during the Western period of economic dominance in the C18 to C20th – with its lowest economic point in the first few years after independence – with the devastation of civil war in China and the civil war caused by partition in India.

The majority of world including the majority of Asia was ruled and governed by the tiny minorities in the West such as the British and European Empire at the beginning of C20th. This resulted in economic, social, cultural and philosophical-ideological ossification and backwardness of Asia until the late C20th. Only now at the beginning of the C21st is Asia beginning to awake at an economic, cultural and social level, despite its political independence in the mid-C20th. This was the price paid for its failure to modernise on a political, economic, social, cultural and philosophical level on the scale of the West in modern times, despite its huge progress in ancient times and its gigantic internal struggles even in early modern times.

In the beginning of C21st, an embryonic stage of Asian unity is being reached in the idea of a pan-Asia Free Trade Association (ASEAN plus China plus Japan plus India plus Australia and New Zealand), with the Shanghai Co-operation Pact with China, Russia and the central Asian republics and the idea of India-Gulf Free Trade Association (which links and unites south Asia with west Asia). ASEAN is the most serious inter-national Asian project, but there is a weakness in the fact that China, India and Japan are not driving it. Japan has too much history with its imperialist past in this region. This may be unavoidable. China and India are like ‘continents’ in their population size and characteristics, geographical diversity and ‘multi-national’ regional features. In some ways, they are regional entities as ‘nations’. However in many ways, they need to form regional and international entities and alliances with themselves as central actors to be successful players in the C21st world. The coming together of ASEAN (Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Phillipines, Brunei Darusslam, Vietnam, Lao, Myanmar and Cambodia) with South Korea, Japan, China and India as well as Russia, Mongolia, Australia, New Zealand, Pakistan, North Korea, Papua New Guinea, European Union, Canada and USA at the ASEAN Regional Forum is a major step forward towards a modern Asian unity.[11]

There is active consideration of the development of an Asian Economic Community (AEC) going on in the apex circles of ASEAN and other such bodies in Asia with consideration being given to feasible options based a model similar to the European Economic Community (EEC), former name of the European Community – with free movement of capital, goods and services – without internal customs or tariff barriers. This would be an ipso facto multi-faith and multi-cultural state on a gigantic basis – with a population of nearly three billion based on the ASEAN plus China, Japan, South Korea and India population – and even bigger to include west Asia, central Asia or Russia. The historical challenge will be to carry out such a project - which would easily constitute the most powerful global entity on the planet. This requires the combined vision of Asians from different countries and regions of Asia, who believe in economic progress, coming together to overcome political barriers to such a project. This project could create the champions of the Asian century through its successful implementation.

There is a vision that Asian Economic Community could ultimately lead to an Asian super-state on the model of the United States of America: comprising nearly two-thirds of humanity, with the six of ten largest population centres, with the many of the world’s resources and a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, multi-linguistic and multi-faith population, based on democratic, progressive, pluralistic, prosperous and peaceful constitution that has a key task to end poverty and fight protectionism in the C21st.

There would have to be a social state with social welfare and social protection - to ensure Asian people do not suffer from poverty and its effects and its economic growth equated to the interests of ordinary human beings and ordinary Asian people. Its moral philosophy would be a form of Mahatma Gandhi’s yearning for the ridding of poverty from the lowest level of every society in the world and “wiping away the tear from every face”.

Illustration 7 Photo of 12^th ASEAN Summit at Cebu Philippines

hosted by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo of the Philippines - Asian Presidents and Prime Ministers from 16 Asian countries representing over 3 billion people.

Section 2 The fundamental drivers of the Asian century

There are six fundamental drivers of the Asian century, which will become central agenda items of the C21st:

Demographics of the Asian population in the world;
Increasingly dominant role played by China and India in the world economy;
Globalisation of Asian Culture;
Lack of substantial progress in the Middle East peace process;
High value of Asian skills and education in the world market;
Rise of Asian agriculture and ecological imperatives in the world market.

Driver 1 Asian Demographics

The contrast between the population of the east and west could not be starker. Most of the world’s population is Asian, but specifically within the Asian continent. There is only a tiny Asian population in the West (USA has several million; Europe has much smaller Asian population, although a much larger Turkish population). China and India are the drivers of the Asian century, which correlates with their population of each over a billion – the only two countries to have bigger population than each of the other non-Asian continents such as Europe, Africa, North and South America.

The population imperative is easy to comprehend: a billion people need food, shelter, employment, health care, etc. There is no choice for China and India, but to develop rapidly and massively to maintain economic pace to provide supplies for their population. In the modern age of ‘democracy’, popular pressure exerts an influence and pressure on governments to deliver.

China and India with populations of over one billion face issues of economic delivery reaching all its population groups with dangers of social and national disintegration in failures to meet their needs. This becomes a moral and economic imperative putting pressure on policy makers. In another way, China and India offer potential gigantic markets for consumer goods – of over a billion people each, the biggest in the world, provided the people have purchasing power (even if this is done through micro-loans popularised by the Bangladeshi Nobel Peace Prize winner Mohammed Yunus or other market mechanisms for creating lending to very poor people or through state schemes to create rural and urban employment as put forward in the manifesto of the United Progressive Alliance in India’s 2004 general election). This is the central question for India and China. Economic delivery to the billionaires and millionaires of Asia will create political crises for governments. India has the most billionaires in Asia, but it also has the most malnourished people in the world. Asia’s popular will not allow poverty to exist when the possibility of eliminating exists.

There is a globalisation of democracy (a vision of the ‘democratic peace theory’ of Francis Fukuyama, the famous US-Asian philosopher as well as US India Amartya Sen’s theory of the correlation between democracy and famine prevention through public accountability), where people exercise political power through protest over public provision, consumer grievances as well as the electoral box with very powerful results.

Map 3 Highlighting China and India with a population over 1 billion, and in Asia, Indonesia, Japan, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Russia with over 100 million. Only USA, Mexico and Brazil in Americas and Nigeria in Africa have a population of over 100 million people.

The population is a bigger and better explanation of why China and India are rising economically than all other ideological accounts (both left and right e.g. China is communist therefore it has grown rapidly, but it did not do so for decades; India is capitalist therefore it will grow more, but capitalism’s strength can be an economic hindrance, when no long-term investment takes place). India’s high population growth rate accounts for its economic growth imperative, even much more than China. India has also enacted general liberalisation to attract capital, both domestic and international, to enable economic growth to take place at all. The ideologues have one factor in common: the left ones want India to fail and the right ones want China to fail. Both are wrong. The billions of Chinese and Indian people need to succeed – both of them. This is basic humanity. The people will have their final say in the Asian century.

India is a more closed economy than China, which specifically sought international capital (from the USA, Europe) to expand its economy. China has made concerted efforts since the 1980s to liberalise the economy - at the end of the cultural revolution, the Communist Party engaged in comprehensive reforms to liberalise sections of the Chinese economy that had become sluggish and inefficient and state controlled pricing mechanisms were failing to respond to shifts in demand. By engaging in this reform China avoided the crippling supply shortages that contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Regime. Important economic changes and milestones include:

· The 1979 Sino-Foreign Equity Joint Venture Law to allow foreign direct investment (FDI) and by 1990 the People’s Republic of China had attracted more FDI than any other developing country in the world;

· Special Economic Zones (SEZs) were set up in key regions based on economic development zones that Taiwan established in the 1970s;

· the Coastal Development strategy was implemented in the late 80's and proved successful in granting local officials greater autonomy in authorising local projects;

· FDI also saved many State Owned Enterprises (SOEs) through the zhuada fangxio reforms.

The gradual pace of the SOE reforms contributed to the PRC stability in contrast to most post-communist regimes, who applied the ‘shock therapy’, recommended by such eminent economists as Professor Jeffrey Sachs, and privatised state companies rapidly with devastating social consequences, including the actual fall in life expectancy in Russia and the dismantling of the social welfare mechanisms in eastern Europe.

China enabled capital to exploit its labour through special economic zones, cheap labour, special deals and political pampering of international capital, etc. The criticism of India that it should seek to attract international and national capital investment as somehow immoral is to deny India the right to follow the Chinese model of rapid economic expansion. It is specifically wrong of the Indian left to seek to stop this, whilst they welcome such a course in China. Stopping India’s expansion is to hurt the billions of its people by scoring the cheapest ideological points.

India will feel this pressure more and grow more because of its projected higher population growth. By 2050, it is projected to become the most populous country in the world, as the diagram below illustrates.

Graph 7: Predicted changes Asia’s population 2000 to 2050 Source: www.japanorama.com/images/Donut_2000_2050.gif

India’s demographics will play a large factor in its economic growth provided that it stays an open economy and the government and business sector invests in its people. Specific lending facilities for the rural and poor people have to be developed on a grand scale. In 2003 Goldman Sachs report, ‘Dreaming with BRICS’, demographics was taken into account to show that India could be projected to have a higher growth rate than other BRIC economies. India will also benefit from its much younger population, whilst China has succeeded in reducing its population growth rate through the one-child policy which may lead to a top heavy population.[12]India will also require a new phase of social and political modernisation on a scale of its past historic progressive reform movements to benefit from its population advantage. It will have to unite as a nation to create equality of opportunity for all people and to unite to wipe out poverty through capital investment on a scale beyond China’s achievements. They have history on their side.

Graph 8 Projected Growth of BRIC (Brazil, Russia, Indian, China) economies highlighting India’s potential.

Source – Goldman Sachs 2003 Report ‘Dreaming with BRICS’.

The overall population projections will strengthen the Asian position in the world in C21st in relation to the West.

Driver 2 Rise of China and India in the world economy

China and India’s position in the world economy has risen. From the last quarter of the C20th to the early years of C21st, China and India have played an increasing role in the world economy by sustaining economic growth of approximately ten and six per cent.

China and India’s share of the global trade is increasing: with China nearly five per cent and India two per cent in 2005. This is not yet of world shattering proportions as in 1760 or even 1820, but it is the harbinger of momentous change.

The old imperialist device of protectionism is the main right wing barrier to further growth of India and China in the world economy: through the European Common Agriculture Policy and the USA agricultural subsidies as well as loud noises over cheap labour (as if Chinese and Indian workers enjoyed better standards than these before this new economic rise), whilst the real Western concern is about relatively improved economic and labour conditions in these two giant countries.

The hypocrisy of the Western left such as trade unions is amazing: they do not want China and India to grow and challenge the West’s monopoly over good average living standards, which is what they are doing, forcing Western labour to compete – whereas previously Asia’s labour was earning approximately one fortieth of the earnings of Western labour and faced gigantic levels of unemployment and under-employment (and there was very little serious complaint about it from Western trade unions).

China and India are likely to become the largest and third largest economies in the world respectively by 2040. This will be closest economic correlation to population weight in the world economy for over a century.

The norm has been the smaller Western population controlling the majority of the world’s population (so-called 80:20 rule, with 20% of the world’s population in the West controlling 80% of the world’s economy).

Even by becoming two of the largest three economies in the world will not reflect the actual weight of China and India in population terms on the economic front. The C21st is the basis for an even more fundamental change that is needed: economic weight in the world to match population weight with two thirds of the world economy being Asian and one third of that China and India (i.e. 15% of the world trade each). This is the real scale of the challenge for China and India and for Asia (including its other impoverished major population centres such as Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Vietnam, etc).

Graph 9 Change in Top Ten economies from 2005 to 2040 Source: IMF; Goldman Sachs.

The route of China and India in terms of overall economic policy is very similar: liberalisation to invite internal and external capital. The only difference is that China implemented this policy without democratic debate through its political mechanism and state control. India rightly debates this policy as a democratic polity, enabling business and labour to settle their own disputes as a general rule without strong control in this area. India and China will have to implement a similar policy overall economic policy of liberalisation, despite the protests of the left, because it needs to grow enough to provide for a more than a billion people.

Driver 3 Globalisation of Asian culture

Asian culture is being globalised through an ever-increasing share of the entertainment, media and technology sectors in the world economy.

Graph 10 World music market shares 2005 Source: IFPI (London-based international music industry body)

The global market is still dominated by the US arts, entertainment and recreation industry. The above graph illustrating the domination of the world music industry by the big four groups highlights the current situation in one industry of this sector. However, Asia is beginning to challenge this status quo by a huge wave of a very dynamic Asian cultural renaissance and reinvention.

Illustration 8 Logo of Universal the world’s biggest group in the music industry.

In terms of entertainment, Bollywood in making increasing inroads in the European and North American market, it already had a substantial market in south Asia, China, south east Asia, Australasia, Middle East and parts of Africa (the only exception is Latin America, where there is no substantial Bollywood film audiences). In 2004 for the first time, more people in the world watched Bollywood than Hollywood films -3.8 billion as opposed to 3.6 billion, according to Paul Brett of the British Film Institute.

The Bollywood appeal is based on a multi-faith and multi-linguistic formulas that is inclusive of Muslims, Hindus, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, etc and inclusive of Hindi and Urdu ( through a hybrid Hindustani language), which is part of the character of the Indian nation, as well as using phrases in other languages such as English and other regional languages. Equally, its themes exist with the framework of family entertainment - with no nudity, low level of swearing and no attempts to portray ‘realistic’ violence – compatible to some extent with conservative societies. The audience figures for Bollywood films highlight the success of diversity in global success. In contrast, the European film industry is said to have less audience figures that 1910.

According to Amit Khanna, President of the Indian Film Producers Council, the Indian Film Industry could tap 12% of the global entertainment market by 2008. Shah Rukh Khan, the Indian film star has I billion fans worldwide - the same number as Tom Cruise, according to CNN (September 2005).[13]

Illustration 9 Shah Rukh Khan with waxwork Shah Rukh Khan at Madame Tussauds London

Whilst Bollywood has competed successfully with Hollywood on audience numbers, Hollywood earns over 75% of the global revenue for all films and has much greater financial income (as well as expenditure) worldwide than Bollywood by a huge factor. Bollywood’s earnings are hugely centred on the rising purchasing power of non-resident Indian (NRI).[14]

Bhangra (originally Punjabi country or folk music and dance) is becoming the urban music of the 21st century with popularity amongst global youth at a rate unpredicted by anyone. This has been mostly a product of the development of Western Asians and their new role as active and equal participants in Western societies as well as leaders of new ‘Western’ cultural and other trends.

Bhangra has transformed itself in two critical ways: it adapted itself to the urban street and nightclub dance culture of the West as well as keeping its raw rural energy of its rural lyrics and rhythms. For instance, in UK, Canada and USA, the Punjabi ‘immigrant’ communities started transforming Bhangra in the late 1970s and 1980s to Western Punjabi audiences and then in the 1990s and 2000s to Western and global audiences.[15]. Its fusion with rap, hip hop and other Western urban cultural genres was a critical phase in turning it into global youth music. Its success in the West led to it being exported to India and south Asian youth and society as an ‘Asian’ universal genre in new, youth and party dance music.

Bhangra music’s success is based on it being transformed from a regional music to ‘frontier music’ of Asian immigrant youth. The drum ‘dhol’ is becoming a musical icon of the C21st like the electric guitar in 1960s and 1970s music. It has become representative of the hard-edged urban music of Asian people with some fusion and overlap with the hard-edged urban ‘black’ music of the USA.

This has been possible because Punjab has been frontier territory of the ‘united India’ with wave after wave of invasions and varying significant levels of resulting cultural fusion resulting in ‘open’ (relative to other mono-cultural) attitudes to diversity amongst Punjabi people. This combined with its massive success in agriculture and general economic success (both in India and Pakistan, in all the parts of the ‘united Punjab’) and a large emigration from the Punjab to UK and North America (mainly Canada). Punjabi youth yearned for and created a distinct urban identity in the West through Bhangra music, which rapidly turned into an ‘Asian music’ product because it did not exclude fusion with other styles such as Bollywood, Qawalli (a major Islamic music form) or Black and White music and developed for modern youth audiences. In India, Bhangra rose beyond its regional ethnic style and became the musical representative of the dynamic and urban youth, when India has the largest youth demographics in the world. It also became a musical genre for south Asia as urban street and party dance music. It was enabled in this by its rural-urban mix, by its Westernised musical mixes as well as its Eastern lyrics.

Both Bollywood and Bhangra represent popular development of Asian culture in the west and on a global scale at the beginning of the twenty-first city.

The opening of Asian culture on a mass scale that is commercially on a Western scale still requires changes in the global entertainment industry and Asia’s positioning of culture in its global economic strategy. The big players (such as Japanese Sony, US EMI, Warner and Universal) still overwhelmingly control the vast economically profitable global production and distribution of culture.

This will require new strategies to make Asian culture a bigger commercial attraction in the Western markets and amongst the rising Asian, Latin American and African consumers. New technology through the worldwide web can play a large role in the distribution side of Asian culture.

Equally, Asia will have to compete on the development of cultural technologies from satellites to nano-technology. Japan has led in this area of high-tech cultural products. South Korea has one of the most developed computer games industry in the world. This shows how Asian culture can combine with cutting edge technology. Equally, it can learn from the West about constant innovation of culture and tapping the youth market to create ‘democratic’ culture.

Illustration 10 Sony’’s PSP handheld portable gaming console released in December 2004 in Japan

Politically, Asian culture can be projected to enhance pan-Asianism (Asian unity) and East-West co-operation (human unity). A post-imperialist global culture will contribute to the enjoyment and pleasure of people in a new humanism, a renaissance of human values above those of economic or military might and be a living testimony to human freedom and spirit. It will be a visionary era as rich as that of the 1960s, which created revolutionary movements everywhere.

Asian culture is part of the world revolution against the old values of Western imperialism and in the same tradition as the progressive culture of the West. By its success, it will be the death knell of racism in the world. It needs champions in all Asian governments and in all Asian boardrooms. It will also require champions amongst Western governments and Western boardrooms.

Illustration 11

Bollywood posters in India.(left)

Bollywood films have become more popular than Hollywood Films in the world in 2004.

Illustration 12 Bhangra

Vancouver, Canada in 2006 officially sponsored the International Bhangra Celebration, a reflection of East-West and rural-urban mix

(Left) A symbolic poster of modern Bhangra.

It is not yet reflective of its full potential as a culture of three billion plus people of Asia, even with several global waves of Asian culture expansion in the first few years of the twenty-first century (such as the wave represented by the ‘Indian summer’ of 2002). However, it is on a trend to become universally powerful. All global cultural forms are accommodating Asian culture. Culture and economy are mixing together.

Culture is also part of an Asian ideology - in a generic sense of reflecting Asian civilisation and heritage. It is also part of a softer Asian nationalism – pride in being Asian or its national component parts. Asian linguistic rights are inherent in any Asian culture and therefore in any Asian cultural nationalism.

The religious opposition and critique of culture as enjoyment and pleasure as well as to the social freedom and freedom of expression entailed in such culture reflects a poverty of their thinking. Enjoyment of life is not a sin; it is a duty. Young people should enjoy life as much as they can. The only religious/moral obligation is not to hurt anyone in this process. All great philosophies have a positive attitude towards living – and only a specific historical turn of elitism in philosophy has created a negative religious attitude towards culture, the vitality and energy of life.

The modern attitude towards culture is beautifully expressed in the lyrics of the song, ‘Aish Karo’ (‘Have Fun’), by A.S.Kang, one of the godfathers of modern Bhangra:

“Khao, peeo, aish karo, mitro;

Di,l par, kisae da dukhaeo na”

(translated as “Eat, Drink, Have Fun, Friends; But Do Not Hurt Anyone’s Heart”).

(Source: http://www.desimusic.com/music/pop/songs/1999/aish-karo-a-s-kang.html)

For instance, Mandarin is rapidly becoming a global business language, with Chinese written language having a unique structure in the world created thousands of years ago – increasingly taught in Western schools and colleges reflecting the importance of the global rise of Chinese culture as part and parcel of its rise as a global economic power. Chinese genre language films also have had mass audiences outside of China epitomised by ‘Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon’, whilst Jackie Lee has been a ‘representative’ of Chinese style acting (use of martial arts, phrases using Cantonese, etc) in Hollywood films such as ‘Rush Hour’. China has projected its global culture through Confucian institutes with some success.

Illustration 13 Jackie Chan

With co-star ChrisTucker of the successful ‘Rush Hour’ film series

It can be argued that the cultural is a progenitor of the economic rise of Asia or it reflects the economic rise and is its accompaniment in the global arena. In my opinion, it is both. The creativity of Asian culture through the east-west cultural intermixing is a reflection of globalisation; whilst the popularity of Bhangra, Bollywood and Chinese genre films was already in progress in the world and culturally through its popularity in domestic and international markets preceded the economic rise of Asia.

The breath and depth of Asian culture is reflected in a range of activity: high calibre films, paintings and photography, musical theatre and concerts, poetry and prose, architecture and furniture, jewellery and fashion, media and magazines, festivals and outdoor shows, historical anniversaries and annual celebrations, advertising and graphic motifs, etc.

In the literary world, an Asian Literary Prize has been launched by Mann of the Booker Mann group in 2006. The announcements of the establishment of Penguin India and Picador Asia reflect the rise of Asian literature in the world of publishing. In 2000 Gao Xingjian won the Nobel Prize for Literature and VS Naipul in 2001 – symbolising the Asian literary presence in the Asian century both representing East/West experiences. Kiran Desai won the Booker Mann prize in 2006. They are becoming the best through a new found imagination and creativity - as well as winning commercial awards for sheer utilisation of the three billion plus Asian market for new cultural products as well as other global markets. Contemporary paintings by Chinese and Indians are beginning to hit the auction houses. Tyeb Mehta 82 and the late FN Souza works have fetched more than $1 million, whilst Charles Saatchi, London’s big art collector, paid $1.5 million for a painting by Zhang Xioazhang at Christie’s auction house in 2006. At another level, the National Asian American Theatre Company, founded in 1989, has become part of the trend of specific Asian forms of culture being developed to highlight Asian cultural assertiveness in the West.

Asian culture is judged on its authenticity with its trueness to its historical predecessors as well as its excellence in composition and creativity and its market value in profitability and distribution.

In the world Asians are experiencing Western culture and the West is experiencing Asian culture on a mass scale for the first time in history. Asian people should not be anti-Western culture. On the contrary, they will only be able to save Asian culture by being pro-Western culture. Neither should Western people be against Asian culture. On the contrary, they have to be pro-Asian to save Western culture. This is irony of cultural nationalism of the C21st. Globalisation through new technology and migration has made this possible. Humanity has been enriched by this process. Let’s have more of it.

Driver 4 Lack of a Middle East peace process

The lack of substantial progress is a Middle East peace process is a major driver in destabilisation Asia and the world, not just west Asia. The Middle East is linked to central, south, east and south east Asia by Islam as a religion.

The majority of the Muslim population in the world is based in south, south east, east and central Asia (with Indonesia, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Malaysia and China as major centres), with huge economic and political developments taking place in the region. In contrast, the Middle East with only about one fifth of the Muslim population of the world is in a political crisis.

This crisis is negatively spilling over into the world arena. Through the use of international terrorism as a method of struggle by a tiny section of the Muslim population, a violent aspect of this crisis has created severe international tensions. The US neo-conservatives based on an ideological ‘Christianity’ have sought to use this crisis as a way of intervening in the Middle East on a military level. This is creating support by a much wider Muslim population support for ‘terrorist’ violence through the intermediary of the new ideology of ‘political Islam’ based on various ideas of the Muslim Brotherhood – which has risen as a political force through an electoral and terrorist orientation to exploit this crisis. The previous multi-religious and secular current of Arab nationalism, created by post-world war national independence movements in the Middle east, has been put on the defensive, although it is now beginning to express itself to ensure its political survival.

Political Islam exploits the Palestinian-Israeli conflict on an electoral and political level. It seeks to avoid a solution to this question, whereas the diplomatic basis of the settlement is in sight.

Most countries in the world have diplomatic relations with Israel as a legitimate state as a member of the United Nations. Equally, they have had and continue to have positive links with the Palestinian people and their right to statehood. The recognition has been based on the politics of acknowledging the de facto existence of Israel as well as the de jure recognition of a state through UN recognition of the two-state division.

Progress can be made on the Israeli-Palestinian question and a final comprehensive agreement reached to settle this major issue. The 1993 Oslo Accords, signed by President Yasser Arafat of the Palestinian National Authority and Chairman of the PLO and Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin of Israel (winners of the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize, alongside Shimon Peres Israel Foreign Minister) with the support of President Bill Clinton USA, created self-government in West Bank and Gaza for the Palestinians, was a step towards final agreement of the Palestinian-Israel question.

Illustration 14(left) Prime Minister Rabin, President Clinton and President Arafat at the signing of the Oslo Accord in Washington DC 1993.

The radicalising of Muslim opinion has been driven by the frustration at the perceived injustices and attacks against the Muslim populations in Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and extending to the whole world. Some of these are real and others are driven by ‘political Islam’ with its project of ‘Islamic states’ opposed to secular and multi-faith states.

Political Islam seeks to play an electoral role against non-democratic regimes in the Muslim world, whilst seeking to create ‘theocratic Islamic regimes’ which would eliminate democracy. At the heart of their political legitimacy and electoral credibility is an attack on ‘autocratic Islam’ (i.e. non-democratic as in Kingdoms, Emirs and Sultans, as well as secular nationalist ‘dictators’) to be replaced by a theocratic state, which may or may not turn out to be democratic (in the Western or pluralistic sense of the term). In Saudi Arabia, political Islam has its nemesis ad its strongest supporter. The alliance of the Saud family with puritanical ‘Wahhabi’ Islam creates a basis for Islam as a reaction to the modern world on an economic and social level including its multi-culturalism. However, the accommodation of Saudi Arabia to US military alliance and support (and pockets of Western and other ‘outsider’ residential enclaves in Saudi Arabia) creates a nemesis for political Islam. This analysis ignores and understates the dynamism of the secular economic process in the Middle east and elsewhere in ‘the Muslim world’. Countries such as Jordan, Egypt and Libya have created ‘secularist’ societies, even if they are not democratic. The small non-democratic emirates states are going through a radical economic transformation that accepts globalisation as a positive force for diversification of the ‘oil economy’.

Political Islam seeks the exploitation and radicalising of Muslim opinion in an almost a self-fulfilling theory of injustice and reaction, based on two creating two strategic errors with negative consequences for ‘Muslims’ and the world:

Failure to reach a mutual solution with Israel and the Palestinians based on the two-state solution - with mutual economic and security guarantees;
The notion of ‘Muslim’ democratic-theocratic states, through the application of an underlying Muslim empire (‘Khalifaat’ type) idea as a solution to the problems of 21st century Middle East or the modern ‘Muslim’ world, by countering and eliminating ‘Western’ and ‘other’ secular and non-Muslim differences and oppositions.

Map 4 The boundaries of the Caliphate Empire 622 – 750 AD

Political Islam is locked in a clash of civilisations paradigm. It does not have the democratic accountability that even the US has to limit or eliminate such a paradigm in its policy-making. In Gaza, political Islam in the form of an elected Hamas government carried out a coup against the Palestinian National Authority and created the biggest crisis witnessed within the emergent Palestinian state. Political Islam will face such issues through its electoral and democratic orientation. In Turkey, political Islam is part of the NATO ‘western’ military alliance and is seeking to join the ‘western’ European Union. The contradictions within the most European ‘Islamic’ secular state government are many and on a big scale.

The limits of this new phase of political ‘Islam’ has not been fully reached, although part of its limits have emerged through the collapse of the Taliban state through a combined external and internal pressure of different external and internal political actors with multi-national and heterogeneous interests. There is a limit being reached through the observation of the emergence of anti-terrorist ex-extremists, secular or even anti-Islamic former Muslims as a new trend in the West (e.g. Muslims for a Secular Democracy in the UK). These new ‘Islamic’ currents are also shaping the Islamic renaissance and reformation – not just the ‘Islamic puritans’ of political Islam.

Secularism had emerged as a trend within Islam in the 12^th century. Ibn Rushd ( known in European literature as ‘Averroes'), the Andalusisan-Arab philosopher argued for the separation of reason and religion in The Decisive Treatise. This provided a justification for the doctrine of separation of religion and state, thus Averroism (its European term for the idea) is considered by some writers as a precursor to modern secularism, and the founding father of secular thought in Western Europe. George Sarton, the father of the history of science, writes:

"Averroes was great because of the tremendous stir he made in the minds of men for centuries. A history of Averroism would include up to the end of the sixteenth-century, a period of four centuries which would perhaps deserve as much as any other to called ‘the Middle Ages’, for it was the real transition between ancient and modern methods."(A History of Modern Science). Science and Islam went hand in hand for most of its period; anti-science is an exceptional development in Islam through its anti-globalisation backward ‘luddite’ groups.

Although there has not been a massive wave of progressive secular nationalist forces because of the weaknesses and fatal anti-democratic flaws of these regimes (such as Saddam Hussein in Iraq), nevertheless it would be a mistake to simply equate secularism with dictatorial and anti-people’s regimes without understanding the great task they performed in uniting disparate religious, social and cultural groups in the Middle East countries to create ‘national unity’ and enabling economic and social progress to take place. Equally, it would be to under-estimate the driver of political modernisation and economic growth within the modern Muslim world as a force for secularism (that is, the focus of the role of religion to spiritual matters, separation of religion from government, economic, science, technology, culture and social development –from secular aspects of society).

There is a massive debate and struggle going on within Islam between modern and traditional wings, between secular and radical, between western and eastern orientations, between autocratic and democratic politics, between ‘globalisers’ and nationalists, between socially progressive and socially reactionary sides.

A new C21st Islam has to solve such contradictions in a complex way: based on science, modernism and freedom of critical reasoning as well as on the fundamental goodness of the original religion, based on secularist multi-faith societies and governments without relinquishing Islamic religious practises and worship, based on Western and Eastern ideas of social life and respect for individual freedom, based on democratic political pluralism without social chaos and anarchy to reaching such a goal and method of governing society, based on globalisation without negating the contribution of Islam and Muslim people to world civilisation and humanity and, finally, based on a socially progressive outlook on the C21st that values equality of all human beings. This is not a small agenda and nor is it impossible for Islam to transform itself in this way. The C21st will impose a similar challenge to all religions, although no other religion will go through such a process on such a vast scale. There are many modern progressive Islamic scholars that argue such a case. For instance, Reza Aslan in his new book is No God but God: The Origins, Evolution and Future of Islam calls to reform Islam away from its suffocating phase, and a proposal to end the religious battle between East and West, which will unleash a new dynamism with Islam.

The danger of implosion from within is a possibility with the rise of sectarian violence within Islam – as a facet of the developments, for example, in Iraq and Pakistan.

Iraq since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein’s regime by USA and the Western coalition is a model of mismanagement of change from a dictatorial society that oppressed majorities and minorities to one of democracy and freedom. Al Qaeda has entered into post-Saddam Iraq exploiting the deep divisions in the country. Civil war has erupted between different sections of society including different Islamic communities. The USA had not been able to manage the transition, despite a huge military intervention. The post-war state has not been able to function effectively in the field of law and order or in the economic reconstruction of society. Democracy has not brought about reconciliation, as it has been imposed from outside and is seen as a new form of sectarianism against the Sunni minority, who were secular leaders of an Arab nationalist Iraq. Here democracy has to be accompanied by security for the society as well as deploying the economic resources of Iraq for the benefit of its people.

In Pakistan, the USA has supported a military regime in the context of cold war politics. The ‘Talibanisation’ of parts of Pakistan has created immense instability or its military establishment regime under General Pervez Musharraf that seeks to go in a secular direction, break-away from its ‘Mullah’ establishment and keep intact its alliance with the USA. Al Qaeda in Pakistan is an internal threat as much as an external danger. The absence of democracy makes it a greater danger, as it restricts the scope and scale of democratic and secular alternatives to a fall of the Musharraf regime. Pakistan has to go in the democratic direction and sustain this, despite temporary disappointments in democracy. It is quite feasible to reconcile Islam to democracy in such a situation, as has happened in Indonesia and Malaysia. In fact, there are multiple ‘Islamic’ perspectives of different states and populations, some of them combining with secular and multi-faith societies with a wide-range of official and unofficial opinions on specific political, social, economic and cultural issues. Indonesia and Malaysia as majority Muslim population do not officially define themselves as ‘Muslim states’. They also operate in the Asian environment, for example, as founders of ASEAN, the most important Asian regional organisation and currently constitute two of its core members.

The ‘Muslim world’ (as a broad term of different Muslim communities in the world) is failing and succeeding at the same time - out of the same process of economic globalisation. It is succeeding through the economically successful states such as those in east Asia (Indonesia, Malaysia, etc) as well as west Asia and north Africa (such as the Gulf states and some of the oil-rich states). Indian’s Muslim population is facing the challenge of being in an emerging multi-faith economic super-power as well as seeking to eradicate poverty. In the wider Middle East and ‘Muslim’ world, oil is a major asset and its successful use for the diversification and economic broadening of growth is a possibility, although it is not a reality yet. On the failure side is the development of Muslim ‘failed states’ through a process of civil wars and radical Islam attempted coups– such as Afghanistan, Somalia, Iraq, Gaza in Palestinian territories etc.

Illustration 15 The famous Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

There is the key issue of the overthrow of the Taliban state in Afghanistan by the West - with the support of the international community through the United Nations - against the notorious al-Qaeda and Taliban alliance and its reactionary development of Afghanistan into a backward state with social regression, whilst there was some Muslim popular sympathy for the Taliban in Pakistan. Iraq is perceived to have been attacked - without adequate international legal foundations through an explicit United Nations resolution - in a pre-emptive strike to remove the Saddam Hussein regime. Critics of the invasion note that more plausible reasons for the attack were cynical energy or military-strategic interests rather than democracy or the defence of humanitarian interests and avoiding the deployment of weapons of mass destruction. Iraq has become unstable with an internal civil war and failing as a state, despite the attempt to base the new state upon an electoral and democratic mandate. Islamic radicals will not accept the verdict of the electorate and the democratic mandate when it does not suit them. There is a false policy of Shia ‘majoritarianism’ in Iraq that threatens the unity of the country, with the Sunni minority already alienated and feeling its existence threatened. Both sides have armed and powerful militias. They all hide behind the cover of ‘anti-US and anti-colonialism’ politics and religion.

Iran is one of the remaining large Muslim states not to be under Western control or sphere of influence and neither does it engage with the West. It is in danger of becoming some sort of ‘hermitage’ state divorced from global realities on the basis of its assertion of sovereignty and its independence from the West. Equally, the adoption of holocaust denial and call for the destruction of Israel by its President was a moral and political disaster. Iran has moved away from the conception of itself as being part of the Asian century, as adopted by its previous President Akbar Heshemi Rafsanjani, by being open to global modernising economic and cultural forces from the east and is relying on its acquisition of nuclear technologies from having to make strategic choices of engagement with the world and international community.

It would be accurate to say that the Muslim population is not economically homogenous - it is not uniformly as poor as sub-Saharan Africa, nor uniformly as wealthy as the West (although it is both of these in some parts). There is an emerging globally advanced economic development amongst some significant Muslim populations and countries as well as deep poverty and economic under-development amongst most others. The globally-successful models of economic development (such as Dubai or Malaysia) may indicate a route map for the development of oil-rich Muslim states and maybe has a wider application to poorer ‘Muslim’ states. Dubai has the hallmarks of trying to win the game of economic enterprise and competition – with magnificent achievements such as the tallest structure in the world, Burj Dubai, and the Burj Al-Arab, as the only ‘seven star’ hotel (self-claimed because technically it is still a five star, although possibly the best in the world in that category), Jebel Ali as the largest man-made port in the world, a globally competitive ‘Emirates’ airline, international airport Dubai International, world class leisure and tourism facilities. It is possible to be internationally competitive without religion being a barrier. Dubai is also becoming outward-looking by establishing Hindu and Sikh places of worship for its vital migrant workforce. Equally, it is clear that economic success has not equated with democracy in Dubai; whilst it is legitimate to argue that the conditions for democracy to exist have been created here, through its economic and cultural successes and freedoms.

Illustration 17 Photo images: Burj Al-Arab Hotel and Media Centre, Dubai City

It is clear that ‘Muslim’ states that have an exclusivist outlook and have obsessive anti- globalisation attitudes (whether in relation to Western or Eastern globalisation) and are antithetical to multi-cultural or multi-faith relationships have failed e.g. the Taliban regime of Afghanistan. In my view, the notion of a Muslim-only world is a mistaken strategic notion and orientation - as much as an idea of Christian or any mono-religious state (Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh, Jewish, Shinto, Confucian, etc) or world. Mono-religious states adopt an ‘internalisation’ syndrome – with a state and its people turning inwards rather than outwards. There are examples of states within which an intra-Muslim civil or external conflict develops as a result of trying to establish a mono-religious state entity, such as Iraq today, Pakistan in the late c20th, Afghanistan, Iran as a war with Iraq as a neighbouring state.

Economic development may assist a more secular or multi-cultural and multi-faith outlook or it may be one of the many requirements of it, such as in Malaysia, Gulf States, Indonesia, India, China, USA etc. In either case, there is compelling evidence to support this correlation.

Philosophically and historically, Islam is not incompatible economic modernisation and neither is it incompatible with a broader secular multi-cultural and multi-faith outlook. For instance, it has a philosophically progressive attitude towards women’s property rights – which like many ideas of original religions are lost in the period after its foundation, empty formalism and institutionalisation. Strategically, Islamic states and people should not see themselves as a collective victim or actor in the ‘clash of civilisations’ narrative and instead should regard themselves as participants and seek to be beneficiaries of multi-cultural and multi-faith globalisation.

Muslims can argue that globalisation economically should be more progressive, as all good people, because of the imperative of tackling poverty and its negative impact on human growth. However, to argue that globalisation is regressive in social attitudes and culturally negative is a strategic mistake by all religions, as far as I am aware. Globalisation is democratic in a sense of opening up access to opportunities to all people around the world.

The solution of Palestine and Israel issue is a real test of the Middle East as a driver of the politics of C21st. The parameter of the solution to this conflict is clear to most diplomats: a two-state solution with a security guarantee for Israel and an economic guarantee for Palestine. The third element is mutuality of a negotiated settlement.

Only a narrow segment of Middle Eastern states or organised political movements believe in the destruction of the Israeli state as a solution to this issue. Equally, Israel has recognised the need to withdraw from some of the ‘occupied’ territories to create a new state of Palestine – as yet without settling the question of the status of Jerusalem and the ‘right of return’. There is only a very small minority in Israel and even less in the Western world that does not recognise the need to withdraw territorially to enable a Palestinian state to be created. A solution is emerging to this bloody and painful problem - and not necessarily in the most ideal way. The complaint that the world has not sought to alleviate the plight of the Palestinians is valid, but also valid is the mistakes made by Palestinian leaders such as the ‘terrorist tactic’ as part of its national struggle. At the same time, there is a weak recognition of the real threat to the survival of Jewish people that existed (after all six million Jewish people were slaughtered in an almost unimaginable way with utter brutality and violence) before the creation of the state of Israel as a safety net for Jewish people, which was exceptionally a legitimacy recognised by the United Nations in 1947.

The radical Hamas political party is a C21st Maoist-type solution-mistaken strategic failure based on mass mobilisations. While they earned popular support in elections, their continuing refusal to recognise Israel has led the US into talks with the more moderate President, Mahmoud Abbas. Deng Xiao Ping corrected Mao – through economic liberalisation and positive globalisation. Equally, the Palestine Liberation Organisation, with its secular Arab nationalist ideology, is following an Indian nationalist-type strategic path such as happened to Congress Party - when its nationalist forces exhausted their political capital through mistaken economic policies. Manmohan Singh dealt with this through his policy of economic liberalisation and positive globalisation. The Palestinians have a fortunate position (amidst all the suffering) of being able to call in some capital from around the world including from Western, Eastern and Islamic countries in order to construct its state - as an initial step towards removing the widespread poverty amongst the Palestinian masses. It is possible to argue that the economic potential of Palestinian people is being squandered through delays in the rapid negotiation of a peace agreement, even from a position of military and economic weakness. To ensure the viability of the Palestinian state, it is necessary to enter into proper negotiations for its economic requirements to be viable.

Driver 5 High value of Asian skills and education in the world market

The Asian Century is based on the extraordinary ‘knowledge revolution’ in Asia. Ancient historical knowledge and innovation in China and India has been employed for the age of the silicon. The Chinese have been responsible for great innovations in science and knowledge including the great government manager, the ‘mandarin’, whilst the Indians gave the world the numerical zero and other amazing scientific and intellectual tools ( including concepts such as ‘Ahimsa’ – non-harm). This firm foundation of learning has now been deployed on a massive scale involving tens of millions of people and expanding all the time.

Asian knowledge and skills are being applied on an industrial and intellectual scale. The industrial factory and the software service centre are the twin hallmarks of this revolution. The industrial revolution had a practical application for science and its outlook through gigantic industrial projects across Britain and the globe. The US invented business science with its application of management and creative techniques on a continental scale through new mass production lines and marketing levels with several hundred million people as direct beneficiaries. This current revolution in Asia has the context of a few billion people, although there are several hundreds of millions without any real level of formal education and only very basic levels of agricultural or labouring skills - indicated by 4 in 10 illiteracy of India’s population.

The sheer weight of operating in a dynamic market of such numbers – encapsulated in the notion of three billion capitalists – creates entrepreneurial, managerial and managerial skills on a grand scale. At the same time, the entry into the industrial and service labour market of millions and millions of people creates a new vibrancy amongst the industrial and intellectual labouring classes of Asia. Both China and India are in the midst of a knowledge revolution and its practical application on a scale greater than ever before – on a global demographic and geographical basis.

Asia is producing high value skills and education in the world market. This is typified by the sheer scale of its engineering and science graduates: China and India has half a million a year; whereas US has only 60,000 a year. In life sciences, projects the McKinsey Global Institute, the total number of young researchers in both nations will rise by 35%, to 1.6 million by 2008. The U.S. supply will drop by 11%, to 760,000. American business isn't just shifting research work because Indian and Chinese brains are young, cheap, and plentiful. In many cases, these engineers combine skills -- mastery of the latest software tools, a knack for complex mathematical algorithms, and fluency in new multimedia technologies -- that often surpass those of their American counterparts.

Graph 11 Global comparison of university graduates rates in science and engineering Source: Morgan Stanley

Asian universities are emerging as world class players.

Asians are also generating world class entrepreneurial, management and leadership skills, as emerging economic giants with new global businesses. The conceptual terrain of this new groups of Asians is not merely east but also west, not only one country but countries across all continents and not being second best but the best. This is the driver behind the national and international acquisition and mergers phase of Asian companies and businesses.

The initial competitive aspect for the use of Asian skills was low cost, now it is becoming quality even at relatively rising costs. Within India, the free labour market has led to rising salaries in the IT industry, whereas China’s manufacturing industry is based on controlling labour from the countryside and discriminating against the countryside in this matter.

Driver 6 Rise of Asian agriculture and ecological imperatives in the world market

‘Asia has three billion ecologists’ is a necessary logo for C21st. Most of Asia’s rural population and even urban populations have an intricate knowledge of ecology. Asia’s farming is still based on small scale units of producers, in a similar fashion to French rather than US farming. It is based on an ecological philosophical belief-system that has a spiritual regard for all nature. This gives them the skills to renew ecological and biological diversity. The modern urban planners and agricultural industrialists should utilise this immense resource

Asian contribution to world agriculture is increasing becoming dominant. Asia’s ecological imperatives are central to the future of the planet. Asia has an enormous contribution in both. In some ways, Asia has over three billion farmers and three billions ecological champions. This is because it urbanisation has been very recent. China and India still have a rural majority. The historical memory of ecology in Asia is huge. Equally, the current knowledge of agriculture and ecology amongst Asians is a vast reservoir waiting to be tapped by the new science and research institutions of the world. On the fundamental question of the balance between ecology and economic growth, Asia have over three billion ecologists willing to pursue ecological goals – provided they are not being used as a recipe for the monopoly of economic growth and good living standards in the West.

The only thing that keeps the West as a key player in the global agricultural field is the enormous level of Western subsidies. The World Trade Organisation (WTO) Agreement on Agriculture domestic support system currently allows Europe and the USA to spend $380 billion annually on agricultural subsidies alone.

It is often still argued that subsidies are needed to protect small farmers but, according to the World Bank, more than half of European Union support goes to 1% of producers while in the US 70% of subsidies go to 10% of producers, mainly agri-businesses. The effect of these subsidies is to flood global markets with below-cost commodities, depressing prices and undercutting producers in poor countries – a practice known as ‘dumping’. The bloc of ‘developing’ nations (including India and China) have argued vigorously for a fundamental change to this system of subsidies to create global free trade. The previous political position of third world for protectionism and first world arguments for free markets has been reversed - on the fundamental issue of agriculture – which still plays a major role in the economies of the developing world especially China and India.

Despite this inequity on agricultural subsidies, Asian agriculture is moving forward in the world market. China and India ($264 billion, $151 billion respectively) in 2005 were the top two countries in terms of the value of their agricultural production in the world ahead of the USA ($128 billion) and individual European countries. Japan was the four largest at $64 billion – far behind the leading three. However, the European Union total figure as opposed to individual countries was $293 billion, making it the largest regional agricultural producer.

Map 5 World Agricultural GDP 2005

From 1804 to 1999, the world population has risen six-fold - from one billion to six billion. ( http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/sixbillion/sixbilpart1.pdf ).

Yet, world agricultural production has increased substantially faster--at the very least, tenfold in the same period. Nowadays, people are better fed than in the past: each person in the world has, in theory, 2,800 calories available, with a minimum of some 2,200 in sub-Saharan Africa. Famines, which haunted pre-industrial times, have disappeared from most of the world.

The latest survey by the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) estimates that 800 million people (i.e., some 10-15% of the world population) are still undernourished--but this may be an overestimation, and the proportion has drastically fallen by about a quarter since 1970.Furthermore, undernourishment and famine are caused much more by the skewed distribution of income and by political events (international wars, civil wars, terrorism), than by sheer lack of food.Actually, many OECD countries have, since the 1950s, been struggling with an overproduction of food.

The achievements of agriculture appear even more remarkable if one looks at employment. Agriculture employed more than 75 percent of the total workforce in traditional agrarian societies, and, as late as 1950, about two-thirds throughout the world. Nowadays, in the advanced countries, the share is about 2.5 percent--eleven million people out of 430.In the rest of the world, agricultural workers still account for almost half the labor force, with a world total of some 1.3 billion workers (775 million in China and India alone).

Whilst the current system is of agricultural subsidies is generally unsatisfactory, the need to protect small farmers is necessary for ecological and consumer choice reasons. The French small farmer contributes to the health of the French population and the quality of French cuisine. Similarly, the Chinese, Indian and Japanese cuisine benefits from the role of its small farmers and this can contribute to the production of healthy food.

There is a ‘green’ aspect of small farmers’ role with local production for local markets through ecologically and biologically diverse range of products that should be promoted. This should be alongside the mass production of global agricultural products shipped from one end of the world to another within a couple of days through modern refrigeration technologies. There needs to be an element of consumer-led specialist markets for foods, which favours the small farmer.

It can also be argued that leaving a field fallow for a period of time can deserve an agricultural subsidy (for non-production), as it is a vital form of the renewal of the soil and the sustenance of ecological diversity. ‘The three billion ecologists of Asia’ plus the agriculture consumers all over the globe should be consulted on this issue.

Agricultural festivals, such as harvest times, have been adopted as religious and national festivals in every corner of the globe throughout history. Urbanisation as a majority human phenomenon has not reduced the need for such celebrations. These celebrations should be continued in the modern urban and rural worlds – of being thankful for food (which most of the world now takes for granted – although hunger still haunts some nations some of the time) and for conveying the message of the need for a healthy diet with a healthy lifestyle. The need to defend ecological and biological diversity should be specifically celebrated at such festivals.

The new moral universe in the Asian Century

During the 21^st century, there is a new morality – concern about global poverty, concern about the planet’s ecology, repugnance at wars, uphold the advancements in the standards of living of ordinary people, wish to maintain a welfare state etc.

This morality has two aspects: the fundamental aspect is the impact on global morality of the economic change going on in Asia; the secondary one is the concern expressed by Western pressure groups about these issues. The fundamental aspect is based on the fact that through China and India, the real prospect exists for reducing global poverty for hundreds of millions of people ( possibly over a few billion) – which lies at the heart of morality - for the first time in history only a minority of the world’s people will be poor!

Asia by its economic development is not only theorising about, but actually implementing a new moral order. The mission to end poverty has not been fulfilled in Asia, but Asia has discovered the light at the end of the tunnel. It can see a possibility of this incredible change through the momentous growth of the Chinese and Indian economies. This is in addition to the development of Japan, the east Asian tigers economies and other parts of Asia in the post - Second World War period.

If China and India can reach the level of the east Asian tiger economies or Japan or the West (including the outcomes in terms of the living standards of ordinary people and the establishment of an embryonic welfare system such as retirement pensions, adequate to public health care systems, access to unemployment benefits for those out of work, access to basic and higher education for the average person, etc), then for the first time in history the majority of humanity will have escaped from poverty. My view is that this realistic possibility within Asia is driving the global wave of a new universal morality based on ending global poverty.

Equally, Asia’s economic drive and the resulting effects, both real and potential on the environment are driving the new concern about the environment – a serious issue for Asia and a fake cover for protectionism by some in the West to stop Asia succeeding economically. The repugnance of wars is a genuine concern in Asia and the moves towards peace through diplomatic efforts to resolve conflicts e.g. between India and Pakistan, between North and South Korea, etc. Peace and diplomacy are the key ingredients towards economic success in Asia.

Equally, the instability and wars in west Asia such as the Iraq war, the concern about a conflict in Iran and the lack of a full peace settlement in Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a major cause of the split being the old Western order and a desire to create a better world. The anti-war movement in the West is sectarian in its approach by not using the examples of the peace process in Asia (such as the one between India-Pakistan, North-South Korea, Japan and South Korea, USA and Vietnam etc) as models of the process of conflict resolution. It falsely believes in its own moral superiority and has a vested interest in Asia not being a bigger moral example that the Western peace movement follows. This could make it seem racist because it cannot accept Asian aspirations and imperatives for peace in the world supported by Asian philosophical and moral schools as legitimate and major examples. A peace process between India and Pakistan involves a combined population of over one and a third billion! It is highly significant. Maybe the West needs to learn from the East about peace rather than arrogantly preach to the East on this subject.

Finally, the economic success in Asia will impact on relative living standards – the West’s living standards will fall relatively to Asia’s – through hundreds of millions of ordinary people in Asia catching up to Western living standards. The differential between the Western wealth and Asia’s poverty in terms of ordinary people will reduce – not necessarily by reducing the standards of living of people in the West ( certainly by reducing the level of their rises) but by raising the living standards of people in Asia ( in dramatic terms from a position of general absolute poverty, etc).

One of the concerns about living standards of people (in the West) is about seeking to maintain this differential - through protectionism by trade and competition barriers, maintenance and expansion of the post-war welfare state, etc. This is a so-called ‘moral’ driver in the West, which is not fully moral.

The worst aspect of this negative ‘Western’ morality is the growth of racism and support for extreme right parties, as the real expression of the logic of protectionism in the West, for example the cases of Dubai Ports and Mittal Steel – at its worst with the construction of political fortresses against the free movement of labour from third world countries and its reactionary agitation against multi-cultural and multi-faith societies.

The rise of the Asian century is a painful process for generations and peoples, who have been brought up in ‘the natural and eternal dominance’ of Western white imperialist societies ruling the whole world with virulent racism and violent superiority based on the morality of ‘the Bible in one hand’ and the power of ‘the Bullet in the other’. This is a shock to the system of the past 500 years of expanding European colonialism. The world of white superiority is being turned upside down.

Map 6 British Empire in 1921

In Europe, the rise of neo-Nazi parties, the onslaught against immigration by left and right governments and the popular media and the renewal of racism is the reaction to the world changing against the old order of white colonialism. This has had a profoundly negative global impact on Europe as a cultural and economic player – both losing out in dynamism to Asia and USA.

Electoral Results of Extreme Right Parties in Western Europe

Country

Party

Most recent national election

% vote.

Seats

Situation

Germany

Republikaner

September 2002

0.6

0/603

Marginal

Germany

Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands (NPD)

September 2002

0.4

0/603

Marginal

Germany

Deutsche Volksunion (DVU)

September 2002

Marginal

Austria

Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs (FPÖ)

November 2002

10.0

18/183

Governmental participation

Belgium

Vlaams Blok (VB)

May 2003

11.6

18/150

Blackmail potential

Belgium

Walloon Front National (FN)

May 2003

2.0

1/150

Marginal

Denmark++

Fremskridtspartiet (FrP)

November 2001

0.6

0/175

Marginal

Denmark++

Dansk Folkeparti (DF)

November 2001

12.0

22/175

Coalition potential

France*

Front National (Le Pen)

April 2002

May 2002

16.9

11.1

Presidential

0/577

Blackmail potential

France*

Mouvement National Républicain (Mégret)

April 2002

May 2002

2.3

1.1

Presidential

0/577

Marginal

Great Britain

British National Party (BNP)

June 2001

Marginal

Italy+

Lega Nord (LN)

May 2001

3.9

30/618

Governmental participation

Italy+

Alleanza Nazionale (AN)

May 2001

12.0

99/618

Governmental participation

Italy+

MSI-Fiamma Tricolore

May 2001

0.4

0/618

Marginal

Norway

Fremskrittspartiet (FrP)

September 2001

14.7

26/165

Coalition potential

Netherlands

List Pim Fortuyn (LPF)

January 2003

5.7

8/150

Marginal

Sweden

Sverigedemokraterna

September 2002

1.4

0/349

Marginal

Graph 12 Far right electoral results in Europe (data collated January 2004)

The defeat of Nazism and far right forces in Second World War and the rise of nationalist movements leading to freedom in third world countries was not the defining change on these questions. The Asian century will be the profound change.

A new universal morality will incorporate the best of Asian values including its contribution to world morality. Asia’s great philosophies and religions teach many things, (as exemplified by Mahatma Gandhi amongst others) including:

The future of humanity belongs to all people on this planet and not one people, colour, caste, race, religion or culture;
Human diversity and difference is a strength and not a weakness;
A true morality recognises the good done to the world’s people- in a more upwards levelling of global living standards - with the age-long desire of ending the poverty and suffering of people;
Democracy is not a luxury, but a basic requirement of moral governance through the participation of ordinary people and their exercise of political sovereignty;
A true moral world will have a right of the free movement of people throughout the world as well as goods, services and capital;
Non-violence and peace should be the bedrock of basic morality and practice of states, movements and ordinary people of the world;
Ecological diversity and strength truly starts with respect for all life;
In another sense, true concern for the environment only starts when the needs of the poorest in the world have been fulfilled; and,
The planet’s resources belong to its people - should be used for their needs and not for anyone’s selfish greed.

Illustration 18 Mahatma Gandhi with Charlie Chaplin London 1931

Illustration 19 Gandhi with Lancashire Mill Workers in Darwen 1931

Section 3 Four themes of the Asian Century

The Asian century has several themes. I want to classify them into four simple categories called the four ‘P’ – Prosperity, Peace, Pluralism and Progress. All these themes have to address two more themes: eliminating Poverty and countering Protectionism – the other two ‘P’s of the Asian century.

Theme 1

PROSPERITY

“It is, generally, in the season of prosperity that men [and women] discover their real temper, principles, and designs.”

Edmund Burke (1729-1797)

‘Chinindia’

There are two fundamental foundations of the Asian century: China and India. ‘Chindia’ as it has been called. Three out of eight people in the world are from these two countries (more like continents than nations).

Graph 13 World population distribution 2005 showing the significance of China and India Source: UN

China is a continent in population terms. So is India. The Indian sub-continent is a colonial misnomer. Both China and India are ‘super-continents’ in terms of people and humanity.

Illustration 20 Photo Image: China’s President Hu Jintao and India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh; Image: Flags of the Indian and Chinese nations.

This is not to belittle the contribution of Japan, east Asia or West Asia with the economic development of the Gulf and oil-rich states - with their much smaller populations. They are essential, but still in a minority.

The motor-force of the Asian century is the gigantic population of China and India of nearly two and a half billion people and the outcomes for their livelihoods. China and India is a test for human productive capacities.

It is not only a market of only several hundred million people or even of over several billion people. China and India are the most representative states in the concentration of humanity. The economic outcome in these two states is a moral question for humanity. Success will mean a more moral economic outcome in the world.

This is the axis on which the Asian century rests. This is in a positive sense – the two most populous countries by far ought to constitute the centre of Asia and the centre of the global order.

There are also many basic similarities arising from the populations of these two countries, which are the engines of their growth and the challenges which they must meet urgently:

majority of the population are poor peasants and farmers in rural areas;
an increasing urban population with a large scale urban slum dwelling;
an environmental and resource scarcity crises arising out of the economic growth for hundreds of millions of people;
development of an economic elite that drives economic growth, which is inevitably divorced from the poverty of the people;
endemic corruption within the bureaucracy of the state and in the general life of the nation;
need to engage in global economic trade and competition;
need to improve the living standards of ordinary people including in primary health, education, employment, consumer goods, etc;
need to develop the country’s infrastructure to world class standards in order to improve and carry out basic economic development;
need to sustain cultural diversity against mono-cultural nationalism to retain national cohesion

These create a common interest between India and China, which is increasingly being expressed in terms of increasing trade and the common pursuit of the economic and social goals. In 1999, trade between China and India stood at $2 billion. This has risen to $18 billion in 2005. They have set a target for $20 billion by 2008. China is India’s third largest trading partner and India is China’s largest trading partner in south Asia. This creates mutuality between China and India. Cooperation between two poor societies with over a billion people each, who have in common experienced the negative effects of under-development and conflict, is a fundamental requirement of C21st.

The Asian century is a century of China and India in fundamental terms – not of only one and not another or of one against the other. This is at the heart of the Asian question – not historic and colonial division; but mutuality, economic and national freedom.

China and India have governments with responsibility for the fates of a billion plus populations each. Economic success can begin to turn these population giants into stable societies on a normal basis. Without a massive and sustained economic success, these societies face catastrophe – including economic domination to destroy their national sovereignty (i.e. colonialism), internal national disintegration, return of mass scale famines and natural calamities without the resources to ameliorate or manage them without millions of deaths (which has happened in the last century and periodically in their pasts), educational and cultural failure (destroying economic and national innovation and pride), economic backwardness of rural areas without access to global success, political decline (corruption, dictatorship, internal political conflicts, no proper governance, legal systems without any norms of justice, mafia or warlord rule in regions, prevailing conditions of crime and violence in the political system).

Economic growth is the biggest problem solver for nearly all of the ills of these two societies. The magnitude of economic growth has to be very high for a long sustained period. China has shown that 10% plus GDP growth for a quarter of a century generates serious results. China’s economy has ‘taken off’[16], which is one of the most significant historical events, considering the fact that it is most populous and one of the poorest countries in the world per head of population.

Graph 14 China’s economic take-off process

India has not reached those peaks after nearly two decades of the first steps towards liberalisation and globalisation with only an average of around 6%. As a democracy, it is heading towards the magical double digit GDP growth level in the first few years of C21st, which it will need to sustain for a decades. This is the first stage of China and India’s take-off.

Graph 15 India gross domestic growth rates in percentage term 2002-2006 Source of data: Indian Central Statistical Organisation (http://www.business-in-asia.com/countries/india1.html)

Graph 16 Per Capita (thousand US dollars) GDP growth rates forecast for China, India and USA taking into account purchasing power parity, growth trends and demographics by Dr Gunjan Gupta. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_India

For the moment, the exciting global picture is only the beginning of the transformation of these two population giants – with comparisons with USA, Europe and other regions as important. However, this is not the same as fundamentally changing the living standards of the average ordinary Chinese or Indian person. This must come in the second phase and ‘politically willed’ in the first phase – quicker for India as a democracy the channels of people’s dissatisfaction will be expressed earlier.

The second phase has to be reach average living standards of a mid-level economically advanced country (over $10,000 per annum) for all people in these countries – with a clear emphasis on its rural population as well as the urban poor and marginalised groups. This is horizontal growth (for how many people? how many hundred of millions of people?) as well as vertical growth (GDP % or total country product expressed in financial values). Ironically, Mahatma Gandhi had a famous phrase of knocking the metropolitan elites as being unrepresentative of a country – in his case India under the colonial system- and stating that the real India was in the rural areas. So it today: the real China and India is in rural areas, even after half a century later.

Even with decades of economic growth, the rural areas of China and India have failed to benefit at all or very little – which is a critical problem to be tackled by its political and economic leadership. There will have to be a radical restructuring of the country:

This phase must include generating hundred of millions of jobs.
This phase would seek to economically empower people with real spending power.
There would have to be hundred of millions of homes with all the services to go with these.
There has to be raised education standards – with the majority achieving good secondary education and a bold target of about a hundred million with higher education qualifications.
The average mode of transport will be accessible public transport reaching national destinations within a day from any part of the country and a car for at least a tenth of the population – almost one per family.
There will have to be thousands of new towns and population centres amalgamating the urban and suburban concepts, with transport systems including roads, metro-railway systems, inter-city services, regional and national and international airports;
There will have to be environmental and waste management systems including the production of energy for the economic functioning of society, good food and fresh water available to all the population, sewerage and industrial waste management systems and their recycling of large quantities of products;
There will have to be new communication systems with a computer and a mobile phone for every family; etc.

This second phase will require the vision, industrial and technological innovation, economic planning and political management, ideas and imagination on a scale of a thousand times (to use a very Asian expression incorporating the reality of the new scale of the tasks). It can be done. Britain in the first phase of the industrial revolution saw life expectancy decline in the country. Yet the excitement of economic development led C19th Britain to propose bold and massive social development to counter the negative aspects of industrialisation.

Social and moral outrage (as expressed by social reformers such as Shaftesbury and authors such as Dickens and even politicians such as Disraeli and Gladstone) led to a national change – where problems such as poor housing were overcome, healthcare innovations introduced, sewerage system built, social laws introduced to protect vulnerable people such as children working and dangerous conditions at work outlawed, education introduced, local government systems introduced with powers to carry our municipal works, ‘lungs of cities’ built through allocation of huge green spaces of hundreds of acres for public parks etc.

With a much smaller population and gigantic innovation through capital made available from the Empire’s exploitation of the world as well as ideas of productive human work through the Protestant work ethic and the ideas of legal freedom and laws inherited from the English revolution, it was much easier. However, change on a small or big scale requires bold ideas, democratic weight to implement them and revolutionary economic growth to make them feasible.

China and India have to tackle the social issues on a much grander scale – such as the USA did in the 1920s and 1930s, when it had less than a fifth of the population that China or India has today. Indian speaks of ‘inclusive economic growth’ and China speaks of ‘all-round well-off society’. However, only the debate has begun – from the top politicians and ‘mandarins’ and ‘babus.’ It needs the relationship with the bottom of society to make it real through the ‘panchayats’ (local village Indian democratic unit) and local ‘communes’ (local Chinese village level organisation).

There are also some major and fundamental differences between China and India:

Multi-party state versus one-party state;
Multi-cultural, multi-faith, multi-linguistic and ethically diverse society versus a more mono-cultural, mono-faith, mono-linguistic and ethnically uniform society;
Illiteracy versus basic literacy;
Democratic elections versus a system of party appointments and selections;
Free press and media versus state control of press and media;
Open society versus a closed society;
Property ownership and rights versus theoretical ‘communal property’;
Rule of law versus political dictatorship;
Inalienable human and individual rights versus collective ideology and force;
Free labour versus forced labour.

China is more unequal than India in terms of income between the top and bottom ten and twenty per cent of the population, according to the Gini inequality co-efficient measurement – with China’s UN Gini index at 44.7 (2001) and India’s 32.5 (1999-2000).

These are differences between the two societies and states. They define the internal discourse within these societies and the means and values by which these societies are governed. India, in our view, is specifically morally superior in this area than China as a society and state. The means matter as much as the ends, according to the philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi. To paraphrase Mahatma Gandhi: the answer to the question of ‘which is the way to democracy’ is ‘democracy is the way’!

This is not to attribute some innate superiority of India to China as a race or people or its policies, but a relative and philosophically specific superiority. It is to distinguish between the right means to the noble ends and not using the morally wrong and cynical means to achieve noble ends. In this sense, India is the philosophical global leader by pay lip-service to such a notion of Mahatma Gandhi. Equally, India cannot ask its people to subsist on the thin air of philosophical and moral superiority – it has to implement social equality to turn it into reality and provide powerful leadership to remove the obstacles to turning policies into realities on the ground.

India has not shifted from its ‘inferiority complex’ against the West on the international stage. It falls into a trap of weak negotiations and hesitancy in negotiating with the West to enter into diplomatic alliances to deal with practical realities of the international balance of forces and sending weak signals to other third world countries and neighbours who threaten its interests.

China rightly entered into an alliance with the US during the days of Mao and Nixon – as act of extreme realpolitik in modern international relations. It rightly enabled Western businesses to come into China on a free ticket into special zones. It has entered into global trade at a blistering pace.

China also has the means to realise philosophical superiority through its Buddhist, Confucian and Taoist philosophy. These reflected a profound humanism far superior to a banal materialism of the dominant capitalist and communist philosophies of the West during the C18th and C19th, which came pervasive to C20th thinking and analysis. Buddhism originated in India, but became the adopted philosophy of Chinese people across China and Asia. Confucianism introduced meritocracy, which is the idea of the C21st, based on a great humanism and goes against notions of birth determining social status (such as in the Indian caste system, notions of inheritance of racial or social position or government as in royal lines of blood). Similarly Chinese martial arts are one of the great forms of discipline for young people in the modern world to counter the abuse of violence in society. There are many common denominators between the philosophies of the two countries that can become a unifying force.

Communism as a philosophy of Karl Marx and capitalism as a philosophy of Adam Smith had too much emphasis on the moral ends and too little on the moral means to be philosophies of the C21st. Certainly, there is no space in the modern world for ideological rigidity when it goes against humanism or individual freedom.

Asia is philosophically superior in this respect – expressed most profoundly in the recent historical times by Mahatma Gandhi and his fundamental view of non-violence and social reform to achieve equal opportunities for all, without any type of social discrimination. A modernised Eastern (Hindu in his case) moral and philosophical framework created one of the most powerful progressive waves in human history, represented by the Indian freedom movement and its supporters around the world.

A modern Asian revolution is needed to change India and China from partial socio-economic successes to complete socio-economic successes incorporating every single person in their societies. This can happen from a new idealism and vision for these societies going beyond immediate economic successes for the few hundred million.

A single poor person or a single person facing discrimination and injustice is an indictment of that society. So China and India with their great successes in recent years (and they are genuine successes) are also great failures because of the injustice, poverty and discrimination still remaining in those societies. No ideology, political or diplomatic rhetoric can change this fact.

An Asian and Global Meritocracy

Education should be at the heart of the development of C21st. Confucius introduced meritocracy into Chinese civil service nearly two and half thousand years ago. So the idea is not new to Asia. It was a great step forward for society based on the superstition of ordained inequality (by religious clerics or some other conservative forces). Socially hierarchies and prejudices should not determine the outcomes to employment and social advancement. Government jobs should be provided on the basis of education rather than political favouritism. People should earn their positions rather get them on the basis of favouritism.

Career, public service and business advancement should not be based on anything, but the ability to do the job based on qualifications, skills and achievements.

The worst sort of social hierarchy and prejudices were those based on birth or blood. For instance, royal lines of succession led to kings and queens inheriting the throne, irrespective of merit or abilities in terms of qualifications, skills and achievement. The underlying career philosophy of democracy is meritocracy and good actions.

This type of social hierarchy extended to a wide variety of social roles and occupations all determined by birth. The other sorts of career advancement was based on the family, clan or social ‘connections’ – being within a certain social circle or network – with differing degrees of openness or closed entry points to this. Being a member of the governing political party has been deemed a qualification to get positions in government bodies – without reference to individual qualifications, skills or achievements. This has been one mechanism for offering poor, costly and biased government services – through incompetent ‘politicised’ administrators.

In India, the caste system was another such model with a total lack of social mobility. A democratic system cannot be built on anything but a meritocracy - with maximum social mobility based on education. The real disappearance of the caste system will come through the process of educational performance of excluded caste children – with a revolution of the educational system to achieve results and education, instead of a failed area of government performance.

This challenge takes out the ‘political’ route to dealing with caste-based societal failure with its symbolic initiatives and political-social engineering. There should accompany educational meritocracy a high level of judicial activism challenging caste barriers – with very heavy fines on the exemplary level, prison sentences over criminal activities.

However, in my view, any system that gives favouritism in education will become a bankrupt and discredited system for providing education for the skills of the nation’s needs and knowledge for a global class education system. A political stunt does not create educational success, however benign it seems.

Philosophically, meritocracy defeats historical prejudices such as birth or blood discrimination, gender discrimination, ethnic discrimination, social class discrimination, religious discrimination, discrimination based on disabilities, etc. However, for meritocracy to exist, it is a basic requirement for individuals to have equal access to quality education in order to acquire the knowledge and skills for employment and social advancement.

This requires that education is placed as a priority for public and private expenditure. Equally, education should prepare students for life in a society, which will require creativity and innovation. This requires critical and imaginative thinking – as opposed to rote learning and a passive memorisation of bits of knowledge – to be able to contribute to the dynamism of society and its economic growth.

India should compete to be the best educated society in the world – from its lousy situation – with some achievement through the internationally competitive character of the top management schools and IT institutions (nearly becoming the world’s best) to the damning statistics of illiteracy, corrupt lower layers of education, poor inspection and sanctions for failure/ rewards for success, no district level leadership and state pride in reaching basic standards. An education revolution is required with educational plans at a national, state and district level – with technocrats in charge or those visionaries of the modern world – to achieve these within a period of the next decade.

Every top level of educational in India should develop into global level institutions with rewards of achieving global status through greater investment by the national state into global-level research and expansion of the best facilities towards a global level. These should be celebrated as glories of the modern Indian nation.

Asia’s ecology and battle for animal, plant and environmental diversity

The next phase of the global economic growth necessitates a certain responsibility. The preservation of the earth’s global ecology requires a shift in government, business and consumer thinking. The maintenance and expansion of the earth’s species and biological diversity is essential – ecological pluralism. Equally, there are some signs of the earth ecological balance being permanently damaged through the process of climate change affected by the amount of pollution – carbon and other emissions. On the other side, there are ecological dangers affecting the poor rural and urban masses of Asia – with shortages of basics such as clean fresh water, electricity, lack of basic transport facilities, lack of housing and educational infrastructure and a lack of basic health care against virulent diseases and epidemics. This is the responsibility of international agreements through governments, to clean up rivers and create fresh water availability through the appliance of science on a grand scale. Equally, the water tables going down need to replenished through policies of resting the soil. Infrastructure requires investment on the scale of the USA New Deal – if not bigger – with its technological features to reduce carbon emissions and to expand facilities to people who live on the edge of human existence or are merely surviving.

The real needs of the ordinary people of Asia have to be answered. Western ecologists have to avoid hypocrisy with their middle class lifestyles of high average incomes per capita of advanced societies living comfortable lives after their own countries have damaged the earth for decades if not for a period of over a hundred years, whilst poor people in the third world desperately need food, education, electricity, housing, jobs, health, etc. People in the third world go through pollution-full traffic to get to work, see work provided by factories blowing out hazardous materials, lucky-ones with old cars value them as luxury items, polluted water surrounds them (in cities as well as in the rural areas) with their daily agriculture living depending on higher use of fertilisers and herbicides to increase productivity in a world market with little for small farmers and rural workers.

In the worst days of the ecological movement, there were loud screams about over-population in the third world. This racist presentation of the developments in the third world did not go down well – as if third world people were lesser human beings. The modern ecology movement of the West has too few Asians in major positions. Asians are seen now as victims – not as bad as the previous racist views, but still antiquated. The ecology movement can enter serious debates with Asia – on the basis of understanding that to reach the average comfortable living standards of the West – may take another one hundred years in Asia – if Asia carries on at its current rates of growth.

If the ecology movement is seen as a cover for Western protectionism – with only opposition to Asia’s growth and no technological and practical help including financial resources for green investment, then Asians are going to write off the ecology agenda as a Western anti-Asian agenda and reject it. The very products of Asia’s over-population, who are the next generations in Asia, might argue that Western living standards and exorbitant waste should be sorted out first before the Western neo-imperialists in the cloak of environmentalists can start moralising against Asia’s ecological problems. Asia can figure out its own ecological solutions – which are on a different scale to the West and involve basic industrial and economic development to create jobs and provide a basic structure for billions of people ( whilst the Western cities of a few million cannot resolve basic resource issues because of conflicts over cost and inconvenience). Ecological thinking has to be sharper in the West than its current level and attuned to Asia’s needs before it can be seriously listened amongst the Asian masses. At the moment, Western environmentalists come across as anti-development and ‘back to nature’ fundamentalists, who oppose technological solutions and want to erect protectionist barriers against the third world through ‘local [national] produce’ ideas.

Theme 2

PLURALISM

‘Let a hundred flowers bloom; let a hundred schools of thought contend.’ Mao Tse Tung

"What sets worlds in motion is the interplay of differences, their attractions and repulsions; life is plurality, death is uniformity." Octavio Paz Mexican Poet and Writer

Pluralism is fundamentally about individualism. It is against the idea of collective uniformity. It is against the notion that individual thinking has to conform to a general ideology and an ideal metaphysical construction.

Each human being on the planet is unique through their own specific set of relationships, experiences and thinking. This is the basis for individual freedom. This uniqueness is also represented in many individual or personal beliefs – not only one set of beliefs, as represented by political dogmas and ideologies or nominally ‘closed’ philosophical systems such as religions – but many layered beliefs including individually specific ones. This is the basis of the notion of the freedom to make choices in society and in politics. It is at the root of a liberal democratic society. A pluralistic democracy accepts choices made by individuals including the right to change one’s mind on different issues in one’s own life. It is part of the richness of life and at the root of a dynamic society, as in the quotation of Ocatvio Paz above.

The ancient philosophy and heritage of China on the question of pluralism, in Mao’s famous phrase above, is an essential part of the eastern philosophical schools of south and east Asia. China has a pluralistic philosophical tradition that is part of the Chinese mindset today, unleashed by Deng Xiao Ping is his policy of economic pragmatism to unleash economic growth in China.

The US philosopher William James wrote that: “Pragmatically interpreted, pluralism or the doctrine that it is many means only that the sundry parts of reality may be externally related. Everything you can think of, however vast or inclusive, has on the pluralistic view a genuinely ‘external’ environment of some sort or amount. Things are ‘with’ one another in many ways, but nothing includes everything, or dominates over everything. The word ‘and’ trails along after every sentence. Something always escapes. "Ever not quite’ has to be said of the best attempts made anywhere in the universe at attaining all-inclusiveness. The pluralistic world is thus more like a federal republic than like an empire or a kingdom. However much may be collected, however much may report itself as present at any effective centre of consciousness or action, something else is self-governed and absent and unreduced to unity.” (A Pluralistic Universe http://www.expo98.msu.edu/people/james.htm

The philosophical luddites are those who try to force people into the straight-jacket of an ideology. Reality cannot be put into one box or one philosophical system. Even with globalization, the world of difference cannot be unified by one eastern or one western ideology. The cyberspace has created unfathomable explanations of realities. And the true nature of reality is much more complex, as it rests on specific and unique experiences – in which each individual is indeed ‘king or queen’ of their own destiny and interacts with the world in their own specific way. We can watch many of the key moments of C21st politics on the stage through the new technologies of the mass and media (both telephonic and televisual). We must construct a world in which difference is not seen as a threat and the other stops being the enemy. Indeed, the wonder of the world is in the interplay of differences. Vive La Difference!

Majorities and Minorities

The fundamental nature and progressive nature of the C21st is going to be determined by how it treats minorities, according to the sayings of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.

Thomas Jefferson, the US President is his 1800 Presidential address put this matter in the right terms:

“All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.”

This sacred principle will be a test for the progressive nature of C21st. Minority rights must be protected. Asia has a good example to set and must not give in to ‘majoritarian’ pressures – whether in the name of religion, ideology, culture or languages.

In this respect India, will come out triumphant to set an example by its dynamic pluralism. As a nation, it has significant minorities. It is diverse in linguistic, cultural, religious and ethnic terms. This diversity is a bridge builder with the rest of the world. To the north and east Buddhism is a common denominator. To the West and north, it is Islam. With Pakistan, there is a common language root – both Punjabi and Hindi/Urdu. To the South, it is Tamil linguistic group as well as Buddhism. To the south East, it is Islam and Hinduism. In a broader way, India is linked to the French, Portuguese and UK, Europe and USA through linguistic and religious common denominator of Christianity. India has a significant population in Africa and Caribbean and Latin America. There is a substantial Indian non-resident population spread all over the world – with its multiple identities.

The victory of a pluralistic India will be a victory for its ancient Indian religion and culture in its broadest and most pluralistic sense. This is in a ‘Gandhian’ sense – not as an anti-philosophy, but as a pro-philosophy; not an anti-religion, but a pro-religion; affirmative and not negative. Indian or ‘hindu’ (in a very specific sense of relating to the ancient Indus civilisation from which India acquired its name) as different pluralistic forms of worship and anti-worship as a name for India’s philosophy does not require moral enforcers, in the any legitimate sense, but requires exemplars of human morality in a Gandhian way which is humane and non-harming in any physical or mental violence.

The critics of China or India’s economic development and political unity (whatever their motivation) seek to harm the interests of billions of people. In the sense, they are the enemies of vast numbers of global humanity.

China, despite its political system, has made progress in its distribution of goods and services to its population. India has to be genuinely democratic to do the same thing. If India achieves the same economic goals as China, it will have proved the superiority of its political system. This is a worthwhile competition. In India, it is a diverse range of people in charge, not one political party or one group of leaders without pluralistic elections.

There is a need to create political and economic democracy within Asia: India has operated a political democracy (with only a minor lapse), whilst China and India have sought without fulfilment the goal of economic democracy, where in theory each person has access to the basic needs of life including food, clothes and housing (‘Roti Kapra Aur Makam’ in the famous Urdu/Hindi phrase), access to necessary levels of healthcare in case of illness, access to necessary levels of education (3 Rs -‘read, write and arithmetic’), access to necessary levels of employment to earn a living, etc.

Economic democracy is based on creating a society in which basic economic needs are satisfied and people enter into the realm of consumer choices. It is about the pluralism of economic goods and services normally described as ‘economic competition’. This pluralism can be about those who provide goods and services as well as about consumer choices. Private and public providers can be monopolistic in their provision and deny consumer choice. Equally public and private providers can offer consumer choice. For instance, a public and private school can provide different options for study for students.

China’s economic growth reduces China’s reasons to deny democracy to its people. Neither China nor India have reached economic democracy.

Political democracy is the ability of people to vote in multi-party elections to be able to remove the ruling political party from a position of governmental power. Economic democracy is defined as reaching economic empowerment of the people beyond the basic necessities of life (such as healthcare, clean water, food, basic housing, education to a basic level), where they can become consumers with an ability to make choices in the market place.

Real democracy arises out of the people of as a sovereign entity and cannot be imposed by an external imperialist power. The people cannot be substituted for an external agency or military power of an outside country or super-power. An imposed democracy is a contradiction of the worst order. Without the hearts and courage of a free people, there cannot be just rule. Jean Jacque Rousseau was right: the act of the creation of a sovereign political power is given through voluntary consent as ‘men are born free’.

Cultural growth does not require democracy as a rule of the majority, but does require diversity with the rights of minority cultures and languages.

Hinduism is both a majority and a minority – minority at a global level and a majority at an India level. Christianity, Islam and Buddhism are majority religions – with many states affiliated to it and with over a billion or several hundred million adherents each. Judaism has one state – in this sense and in terms of numbers of adherents, it is a minority religion. Shintoism is a minority religion – with only one state, but a significant majority presence in that state. Confucianism and Lao Tse are non-state religions, but with very significant adherents across East and South East Asia. Sikhs are a minority religion in every country, although its largest concentration is in India. Zorastrianism was an ancient state religion, but it is not anymore. Baha’is are a minority modern faith with the largest concentration in Iran (where they are persecuted) and India. Rastfarianism has the largest concentration in Jamaica. There is also a significant non-theist and anti-theist atheist population across the world – even in the most fanatically religious states.

Religion, Secularism and Modernism

Religious imperialism is a model of religious growth that has significant opposition across the world. The heyday of religious imperialism was the middle ages with the Christian crusaders and Islamic empire. Nowadays, religious imperialism is a dangerous formula because of the presence of the weapons of mass destructions such as nuclear weapons. Equally, basic education has given every person the power to resist religious imperialism and enables them to uphold their own beliefs. ‘The Bible and the Bullet’ colonial formula cannot succeed in the modern world. The Asian century is a fundamentally a secular century, despite temporary appearances of religious fundamentalism in governments across the East and West, North and South. There is a strong relationship between low economic growth and religious fundamentalism in C21st. In addition, there is the rise of religion as a temporary factor against monolithic and uncaring globalisation.

Modern religion requires pluralism and empathy for difference (e.g. ‘love for all divine natural creations’, etc.) as well as freedom to choose for people with different beliefs and cultures. There is no greater model of this than Mahatma Gandhi with his basic position of non-violence (or ‘ahimsa’ in the Jain religion). Mahatma Gandhi preached a message of diversity of religious beliefs and the co-existence of religions. On this fundamental question, he was right. On specific questions, Mahatma Gandhi did make mistakes – which a positive secular mind will naturally criticise. Religious plurality and freedom must include a fundamental right to reject the religion of the majority or any state religion. Humanism must be the basis of all such religious activity without exception – with a freedom to choose to reject elements or all aspects of any religion.

Equally, there should be no overt or covert threats to the existence of any religious groups – through phrases such as wiping out ‘x y z’ religious group or religious state, framework for a clash of civilisations. Instead there should be frameworks for the co-existence of religions and secularism. Societies that attempt some ‘pure’ or ‘pure – tyrannical’ reformations will hit the buffers of economic and social reality in a globalised world very soon, as did the Taliban. There should be recognition that modern development requires secularism and that religions require a confluence of civilisations (with their religious and secular contents - with the secular dominating). Globalisation, new technology, modern communications, social progress, individual choice: all require secularism in the public sphere.

Religious diversity cannot exist if there is suffering of groups at the hands of any religion. For example, women are one of the most oppressed groups at the hands of a medieval variety of ‘religious’ morality. This is neither religion nor morality, but a mask for institutional violence and totalitarianism against women. Threats of violence or force to create fear to impose ‘moral’ rules cannot be at the root of modern day religions.

Modern sectarian views reject the religious viewpoints of pacifism - through its macro-ecumenism. Guru Nanak had captured the essence: ‘No-one is my enemy and no-one is a stranger’. It is incompatible to seek social progress and believe in a ‘holy’ war. The defence of religious viewpoints will not be war and violence, but peaceful outcomes and methods through dialogue of faiths and modernisation of religions. The right to religion freedom can only survive by a strategic pacifist and modernist choice by different religions - against forcible and violent conversion by a faction of modern religious imperialists, using terror tactics. The only fight against those real butchers of religious freedom and pluralism will be within religious communities – and not with religion and secularism, which secularism won through economic progress and refusal to compromise technology to religious ‘politics’.

All religions should be pacifists and non-violent in their normal day to day outlook and adopt the tough Gandhian principles of ‘ahimsa’ – and seek strength from it - because Gandhi’s philosophy is universal. Gandhi revealed that all religious communities could use non-violent methods without compromising their fundamental philosophical imperatives – even if it requires the rejection of literalism to achieve this. Mahatma Gandhi’s biggest contribution to modern religious thought was his adoption of a metaphorical interpretation of ‘battles’ in the Bhagavad Gita. This was contrary to the literal interpretation given by his assassin. [Payne Biography of Mahatma Gandhi]. Literalism can become a hindrance to religious modernisation and pluralism. A common humanity with a belief in One God can accept different methods of religious practice and different religious concepts - against religious totalitarianism and the use of religious violence and force. Religions argue that they are offering free choice, when they use all the practices of ‘political’ propaganda and marketing for their own vindication. They ought to be free to criticism – specifically in relation to discrepancy between their notions of humanitarianism and pacifism and their practices that contradict these notions.

Gandhi was probably wrong in philosophically denying the right of self-defence, using arms as an evil necessity, to those facing annihilation and ‘genocide’ such as the Jews in Nazi Germany. However, this exception has to be extremely limited and qualified in all circumstances – and not used as an open-door excuse and justification for disgruntled ‘religious’ zealots or those who want to justify war. There is no modern-day religious justification for war. It is evil in all circumstances and religions should not deviate from such a morality. The justification for self-defence is humanitarian – no political or religious group has the right to exercise any form of totalitarian behaviour to do violence to humanity or any constituent group of it. The notion of religious ‘monopoly’ is a version of totalitarianism at the level of a philosophy of ideas. Philosophical pluralism - the right to have different beliefs – is a fundamental part of the progress of humanity. Let a billion schools of thought contend and let each human being have the right to be different in their thoughts and beliefs – without a resort to psychological or physical violence.

Religious Totalitarianism

A battle for the supremacy of specific religions will be a very costly exercise for humanity. This could be done only through a violent attempt at suppressing religious diversity and attacking secular views. It is a version of the clash and warfare of civilisations with a Hobbesian outcome of life becoming ‘nasty, short and brutish’ – a clash of barbarisms rather than any noble or life-enhancing principles of sacrifice for the benefit of good and positive outcomes. Religion cannot mask a return to some sort of Luddite movement with the smashing of machines or a neo-Nazi version with the principle of persecution and genocide as its driving force. Religion must change for the sake of the modern world – however it changes (through textual revisions which is the hardest, textual new interpretations, reading text as metaphor or simply accepting some religious texts were time specific in which they were morally progressive but require modern time morally progressive thinking and guidance). Secularism must not gratuitously ridicule, offend or belittle religious beliefs, but it must be the dominant force in the modern world through persuasion and progressive outlook. There is no such thing as ‘secular fundamentalism’ – as the separation of the state from religion is part of the progress of society and humanity. The attempt to introduce religious laws is part of a reactionary and backward current that seeks to revert back to pre-modern social ideas of the choice of individual or the rights of minority and excluded social groups.

Mono-faith societies are the cause of social regression and usually open up to the logic of internal civil war in the country through a cycle of more and more extreme fundamentalism. Such societies pose threats to peace in their region through the acts of militarism and escalation of aggression and export of internal violence. There are internal processes of mono-faith re-assertion by different religions ( as in the USA with Christian fundamentalism in a secular state or by Hindu ‘majoritarianism’ in a secular multi-faith India or Sikhs wishing to create a mono-faith Sikh state called ‘Khalistan’ in some location in northern India or Islamic ‘totalitarianism’ amongst a clerical group in the Middle East). The state of Israel is facing Jewish mono-faith tendencies within a state, which is still partially multi-faith and secular. The concept of Zionism, which was designed to provide protection for the exceptionally persecuted Jews of Europe and the world, is a global exception. Even then Judaism as a religion cannot be interpreted to allow justification for any violence used by Israel or Jewish people. It has to be a pacifist religion. Indeed, for religions to be fit for the C21st, they have to become ‘pacifist’ religions in practice - through reinterpretation of religious text as a metaphor or through reinterpreting the practical application of religious injunctions to the norms of the modern world. As Gandhi said: ‘An eye for an eye and the whole world goes blind’.

Islam has been debating the idea and realities of mono-faith societies. The example below is part of a debate within Islam: secular or mono-faith societies with some in Asia discussing the question of mono-faith (Islamic) or pluralistic societies. To quote the worst example below is as a warning rather than an evaluation of Muslim states today or in history, which have displayed religious pluralism and interaction with secular progressive and modern perspectives or have combined a constitutional ‘Islam’ with other secular, plural, liberal, socialist and progressive views as in the ‘Arab nationalism’ or ‘Palestinian nationalist’ views.

A closing down of the outward outlook of Islam can become not just a political blunder but a fatal mistake. The Taliban became morally and politically as well as economically bankrupt. It was not the whole of Islam that failed, but one version of it did fail and failed without any moral or political justification. It does not negate Islam. On the contrary, learning the lessons of this failure may reveal how Islam can have a comfortable existence as a religion of a substantial part of humanity without entering into a mindset of universal conflict – which would be a destructive path for Islam as a religion, for existing Islamic majority combined, secular or pluralistic states as well as states in which Islam is in a minority (however big or small). All the best Islamic majority or minority societies have been more humanitarian and tolerant of secular and other religious outlooks than the worst Islamic societies. Modern day Islam has to be a pacifist faith.

The Taliban was the expression of Islamic fundamentalism – with its agenda of anti-prosperity, progress, peace and pluralism as well as leading to poverty and protectionism – with a result of a civil war and a danger to world peace through the al-Qaeda. It carried out a multi-fold repression and brutal violence against Christian, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus and Sikhs, women’s movement, different traditions in Islam, etc. There was no rule of any civilized kind or constitutional democratic norms. Torture and capital punishment was widespread. The banning of televisions was an expression of the economic and cultural backwardness of such a society. There was a violation of nearly all universal human rights. Girls were forced out of education. Women were forced out of employment and politics. This was Islamic clerical rule at its worst level. Al-Qaeda as an expression of Islamic terrorism found a home in this state and society and carried out an international campaign of terrorism against different multi-cultural societies and nations (disguised under an anti-Western rhetoric).

The international community was right to intervene to overturn the Taliban and such a social and political order with its intrinsic link to terrorism and violation of fundamental human rights. This was reflected in the multilateral support for such an intervention through the internationally legitimate apparatus of the United Nations. No section of any religion has the right to plunge a society into such a condition. A strategic turn of Islamic religion towards fundamentalism is a recipe for its defeats in the modern world, which is a secular world ( with the separation of the state from religion as well as a world based on ‘secular’ economic growth and technology as opposed to ‘ideology’ and rejection of biological and other sciences).

Subsequent, expressions of Islamic fundamentalism similarly exacerbate civil tensions in a society rather than create a way forward for those societies. For example, Hamas is creating a situation of civil war within the already beleaguered and badly weakened Palestinian state and society. In Turkey, the Islamist party is unleashing violence against the secular institutions of the Ataturk Republic. In Iran, the rhetoric of anti-semitism is disturbing as is the persecution of women not wearing the ‘hijab’ and other religious clothing. The more secular and humanitarian aspects of Islam are drowned out. The winners of the battle between Islamic secularism and radicalism are the more secular societies such as Dubai, as a city state, and larger nations such as Indonesia and Malaysia, which are showing economic success rather than ‘ideological war’.

Economic success is opposed by religions on the basis that they support the poor. They oppose globalization on the basis of ‘religious nationalism’. However, the critique of globalization - with its analysis of the so-called limited distribution of the benefits of globalization – misunderstands globalization as a process of economic development with its absolute benefits for the poor as well as relative extravagant enrichment of the few ( with billionaires of C21st as well as hundreds of millions of millionaires). The envy of the rich is a motivation of religious extremism. It is right to champion the poor - not by leading them up another dead-end through religious ‘totalitarian’ fundamentalism and its puncturing of religious pacifism and social/state stability.

The world is getting richer, poverty is being reduced (with absolute poverty within reach of being abolished) and urbanization is a reality of C21st. This is a recipe for social peace. Urbanisation on a global basis is the beginning of a more cosmopolitan world - with modern infrastructures being constructed on a gigantic level. Humanity has come together with TV and radio almost universally. Continental communications happens on a mass basis. Migration and travel across countries and continents is becoming common. 82% of the people in the world are literate[17] – and becoming more so. The religious axis of opposing modernisation and social progress is becoming more difficult to sustain - without seeking a review of religious literalism.

Religions try to create ‘ideological communities’ across state barriers. They become states within states. It is modern day utopias. Ideologies have come to an end through globalization. Although Francis Fukuyama is fundamentally right about ‘the end of history’ (the title of his famous essay), he seems to be wrong because there are some seemingly powerful manifestations of ideologies. There is still some space for right wing, left wing and religious nationalist ideologies: right wing neo-fascist nationalists in Europe, left wing nationalists in Latin America and Islamic and other religious nationalists across Middle East, North Africa and South Asia and even the Christian right in the USA. However, the power of the Christian right seems to be waning after the failure of the Christian right Republicans in USA mid-term Congressional elections. The neo-fascists seem to be on the decline with the massive failure of the National Front in the 2007 Presidential election to sustain their previous levels in the Presidential bid. Even the left wing nationalist are in some ways on the decline with Brazilian Workers’ Party moving to centre ground and in Pakistan the Islamic state alliance of the Mullahs with the Military breaking up and Hamas loosing out to Fatah in the Palestinian National Territories despite their electoral victory. It is true to say that Islamic nationalism or left wing national has not disappeared – but it is much weaker than the forces of pragmatism driving the Chinese and Indian economies or the forces of pragmatism driving the EU or USA mainstream political agenda of a government such as Angela Merkel, Nicholas Sarkozy or Gordon Brown as well as the Democratic and Republican Party centrists in the USA. Pragmatism is the rule of the day with very few having a stake in upsetting social/state stability. The Asian century is a pragmatic century - with only a few ideological anchors around pacifism, ecological balances, cultural creativity through the interacting of pluralistic cultural traditions, technological innovation, personal choice, social progress challenging age-long prejudices to create a more humanistic world, etc. A global ideology of C21st has to embrace modernisation - as a positive creative energy.

Religions must incorporate humanitarianism and humanism as part of their outlook to be forces for good in the future. Equally, they must respect the freedoms and choices of diverse people in the modern world including the modern day consumer to enable economic and social success. In one word: they have to be more progressive than before and reject any regressive notions.

Theme 3

PEACE

‘An eye for an eye and the whole world goes blind’ –Mahatma Gandhi

India’s exclusion from the international system

India, unlike China, is not a permanent member of the UN Security Council. This is gross discrimination by the international community against over one billion people of India, constituting one in six of the world’s population. Japan despite being a world economic power is not a permanent member of the UN Security Council. Europe has two members - UK and France, whilst it’s most powerful economy Germany is not represented. USA is a member, so it Russia. Africa with nearly a billion people is not represented and neither is the half billion people of Latin America. The UN has lost its post-World War II role and not found one for the C21st. It is in its weakest position since its foundation.

G7 (Group of Seven) includes Germany and Japan as well as USA, France, Britain, Italy and Canada. This is being changed due to international pressure with Russia as permanent invitee and China and India as ‘observers’ and South Africa, Brazil and Mexico too. Again on the critical issue of the round of talks on free trade, there is deadlock between Europe, USA, Brazil and India leading to the collapse of Doha trade rounds talks in Potsdam, Germany on cutting agricultural subsidies and goods tariffs.

The entire UN structure has been based on the outcome of the Second World War – with little recognition of the democratic changes in Japan and Germany as well as the emergence of independence from colonial rule throughout the world including in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Britain and France have a weight far in excess of their population based on their colonial power in 1945. There is a clear need to modernise the UN and international financial and security institutions. Asia needs to be fully included. There is case for Asia to have at least three if not four members – Indonesia (as an Asian state with the largest Muslim population in the world and one of the most populous countries in the world) as well as Japan and India as well the current permanent member, China.

India is the most excluded state – with its population (and economic power) being the least recognised on an international basis. This is despite it being the largest democracy in the world. This typifies a large degree of failure to support democracy in the international community and international system and is a scar against the sovereignty of ordinary people represented by multi-party free elections.

The largest democracy in the world ought to occupy a pre-eminent position in the international community and the international system: as a permanent member of the UN and in international economic gatherings such as the G7. Pro-democracy organisations throughout the world should stand up for India’s place in the world.

Illustration 21 President Bush with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh (left) in New Delhi

Illustration 22 President Putin with Prime Minister Singh in New Dehli (left)

Illustration 23 Prime Minister Singh with Group of Four for UN Security Council Bid- Japan, Brazil and Germany.

Illustration 24 Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh with the King of the Saudi Arabia

King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, in New Delhi on January 25, 2006.

Peace and diplomacy towards Asian unity

The dynamics of an Asian century requires ‘peace’ amongst Asian nations and the healing of divisions created by colonial powers in the region.

Asia has been divided many times since the post-war period. These divisions stretch across many parts of Asia. The Asian century will be a century of healing and reconciliation across Asia and across the world.

Peace between Pakistan and India

The first major division was the division between India and Pakistan in 1947. Although Pakistan has been a secular state since its independence in 1947 until General Zia –Ul Haq’s rule in 1977, it has had a crises of constitutional and political stability ever since its adoption of the first democratic constitution of 1956, when it was suspended in 1958 by Ayub Khan’s coup d’etat. India has maintained its democratic and constitutional secular rule almost intact since 1947 – with the exception of the 1977 emergency by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and the exceptions of the slight temporary incursions into religious impartiality of the state in recent times.

Equally, India and Pakistan have made too little economic progress with large state spending going towards belligerence and war between the two countries. This has resulted in widespread poverty and illiteracy as well as little progress on health and other basic indicators of social development.

It is our view that economic progress by the two countries is predicated on a peaceful means and goals of the relationship between the two countries. This has been borne out by the evidence since the Kargil dispute - in much higher economic growths within India and Pakistan. Furthermore, the diplomacy of peace is bearing fruit at the renewing of the economic, cultural, tourist and other links between the two states and its people.

In particular, East and West Punjab the frontline states of the conflict, is seeing a flourishing of its common cultural heritage and re-establishment of relations amongst the two people, divided through the negative cycle of religious violence in 1947 causing the ugly deaths of hundreds and thousands of people and millions of refugees. A future of positive relations and the celebration of the common culture is a requirement of the realisation of its economic future. The opening of the transport and tourism links is the initial element of a flourishing trade relationship between the two.

It is possible to see the healing of the division between the two countries on a distant horizon with a distant hope of the unity of the two countries through a process of reconciliation and peaceful persuasion. India and Pakistan was once part of a common state, albeit a colonial state. Division created by colonialism should be healed and not be used as a basis for the future of the people on the so-called Indian ‘sub’ continent. South Asia can create a future for itself through a process of reversing this colonial division.

The economic framework of the development rests on a South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) and the development of a South Asian Free Trade Agreement, which came into force on 1^st January 2006, in the region as a basic element in the functioning of the economic unit of this part of the world. This will require a concomitant cultural functioning, which has been artificially punctured by the political division of the region. The region has common cultural threads – Kashmiri, Punjabi, Urdu/Hindi, Sindi, Bengali, Tamil as well as common religious threads of Islam, Sikhism, Buddhism and Hinduism. The choice is sharp and simple: economic, cultural religious and political reconciliation and growth of the South Asian region or economic, cultural, religious and political conflict and decline of South Asia in the global arena.

The question of Pakistan’s relationship with India has to be seen at a strategic level. Pakistan has a choice of abandoning military rule and going towards a strategic re-orientation to unity with India and the South Asia – with free trade agreements (already incorporated in SAARC SAFTA deal), settlement of the Kashmir question that is based on peace, recognition of the cultural unity of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Afghanistan, Maldives, Nepal and Mauritius as the basis of its people’s cultural commonness, strategically to avoid the trap of a nuclear and weapons race in the region, unity and secularism of the Pakistan and Indian states. Eventually, India and Pakistan will reunite at one timer in the future of the C21st. Fundamentally, the dynamic economic forces of US will enter into great trade with India and modernise Pakistan into the C21st era. Both Pakistan, India, Bangladesh will jointly solve questions of poverty and economic growth in the region and reap its huge rewards.

A different option is possible: fragmentation of Pakistan and taken over by ‘Islamic fundamentalist forces’, Indian society fragmented and states in crises and an underground civil war taking place with Naxalite (old Maoist guerrilla-tactic supporters), Bangladesh will enter into a civil war between Islamists and democrats causing the paralysis of government institutions. Nepal could go back to civil war and Sri Lanka can spend the rest of the century fighting with Tamil minorities.

I am putting my bets on the eventual re-unification of Pakistan and Bangladesh with India and then Sri Lanka and Nepal coming into this new state in the Asian Century and then the rest of South Asia into building itself into a new powerful state that may incorporate Afghanistan, Maldives, Mauritius and Maynmar. This will reap massive peace dividends. I am happy to take the up and downs of putting my head on the chop for such a prediction. Government strategic planners, powerful nations and a mass pan-South Asian movement should launch themselves on a strategy to win this goal.

South Asia can contribute South Asian unity and then towards pan-Asian and humanity unity.

South and North Korean Reunification

The division of Korea along the 38^th Parallel occurred in 1948 – after 35 years of Japanese colonial rule, prior to which had existed a thousand years of a united nation on the Korean peninsula. This was the worst aspects of the United States and the Soviet Union carving up Asia into their mutual cold war camps. Since that time, militarisation of the Korean peninsula remained a fact – with the North and South having militarised regimes without any democracy, until free elections in 1988 resulted in a multi-party civilian democratic regime in the South.

Whilst the South embarked on the famous policy of export led growth becoming one of the world’s top ten economies reaching the ‘trillion dollar club’ in 2004 with living standards equalling the west and a technologically advanced digital global economy; the North has lived in a hermitic existence heavily reliant on military production at the cost of the living standards for its people with an estimated 1/12^th the economic size of its southern cousins.

North Korea has also experienced famines in the 1990s resulting in the death of between 600,000 to 3.5 million people. It is one of the most closed societies in the world without a free media or multi-party free elections. It is one of the worst manifestation of the so-called philosophy of ‘self-reliance’ in Asia – by economic, cultural, political and philosophical isolation from the world. North Korea has had a very limited experiment in ‘capitalisation’ of its economy. The economy has grown at less than 2% since 2000, according to South Korean estimates.

In June 2000, as a part of South Korean president Kim Dae Jung's ‘Sunshine Policy’ of engagement, a historic first North-South summit took place in North Korea's capital Pyongyang. Kim won the Nobel Peace Prize that year for his work for democracy and human rights and efforts at reconciliation between the two Koreas. Since then, regular contacts have led to a slow thaw in relations and economic ties through trade and investment have increased dramatically.

There has been concerted international diplomatic efforts to stop North Korea embarking on a nuclear weapons programme and re-affirmation its support for the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NNPT) with a six-party agreement in 2005 on its ‘peaceful use of nuclear energy’ in exchange for economic assistance and trade - in a history of a poor track record in this area.

The cultural commonality between south and north Korea and its common heritage are the basis for peace, progress and prosperity in the peninsula. Korean culture is a unique culture –with its own unique culture. Its achievements have been subsumed and need to be greatly highlighted.

The North has wasted its economic potential and created misery for its people through the pursuit of the wrong means towards its goals - without full reference to humanitarian needs and political and cultural freedoms for its people. Its sole bargaining counter in the globe is nuclear weapons. It has lost its moral authority.

North Korea has a possible salvation with the reunification with the South on the basis of multi-party democracy, free media and economic engagement with the outside world to uplift the living standards of its people. South Korea is a real model for the North. Otherwise, millions of Korean people in the north will be condemned to a life of ‘communist misery’ in the least successful tradition of Marxian totalitarianism – a bleak life of poverty and no rights. There is a different option available – as proved across Asia and by Korean people in the South – to take the whole of Korea into C21st as the Asian century.

The hosting of the 2002 FIFA World cup, jointly by South Korea and Japan, is one of the great steps towards reconciliation in Asia in C21st putting behind the brutal realities of colonialism and celebrating a great success story of cooperation through a world event being hosted in Asia. The images of the Japanese and South Koreans as friendly and exemplary hosts, who welcomed different people all over the world into their hearts, will last for generations in the football and wider world. It was Asia and humanity as its best.

Illustration 25 2002 FIFA World Cup Final

Hosted by Japan and Korea, first to be hosted in Asia (photo left)

“The Korean people came together at this unprecedented triumph, rallying en masse in the streets (City Hall and Gwanghwa Gates were two of many gathering points) with the Red Devils at their center, showing their support. Streets flowed red from the sheer number of supporters who donned 'Be the Reds' t-shirts, throwing the World Cup Stadium and City Hall into the world limelight.”

Terrorism

Terrorism is neither a new phenomenon nor is it a weapon of the poor and excluded. Terrorism is basically the use of violence by non-state actors, who do not have the legitimate right to use force as a means of defence or the enforcement of a legal authority. Terrorism of the C21st cannot be equated with the right of nations to use force to attain independence from colonialist powers, as in the post- World War II period.

In an era of global power blocs and multi-national entities (including federal states), the use of violence by non-state entities is futile and usually targets civilians. The use of terrorism to support nationalist demands is not legitimate. Small nationalist states are neither viable nor desirable. The use of violence to further such ends is even less justified, as it creates a source of regional instability and tension.

There is a natural concern about Islamic terrorism. There is such as a phenomena, although by calling themselves ‘Islamic’ these groups cannot claim legitimacy nor be treated as religious victims of oppression. These groups, base their demands on the existence of the so-called ‘right of Muslims to live separately from multi-religious or secular states’ such as Russia, India, China, USA, Thailand, Philippines, Nigeria, Horn of Africa or the right to kill civilians and politicians to punish Western people, as enemies from the ‘Book’ - Bible. This right only has legitimacy in the eyes of the world community because of the temporary adoption of ‘the clash of civilisations paradigm’ by policy-makers in the White House of the USA and by political Islam carrying out spectacular and gruesome acts of terrorism around the world (in African countries such as Kenya, Middle East countries such as Egypt, Jordon, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Algeria, Morocco, Iraq, etc in south Asian countries such as India, Afghanistan, Pakistan, in East Asian countries such as Indonesia, in Russia, in USA, in European countries such as UK, France, Spain, etc) disguising themselves as fighting a war against ‘imperialism’.

The aim of these groups is to establish some Muslim fundamentalist state – along the lines of the Taliban ‘failed’ state in Afghanistan or eliminate anyone who disagrees with Islam in any form or shape – including other religions and modern, secular, socialist or liberal Muslims or non-conformist Muslims. The underlying belief of these terrorist groups is a philosophical ‘totalitarian imperialism’ by force – no opposition or difference is tolerated and all the earth is a sphere for the rule of these terrorists. There is a dream of the historical ‘Muslim’ Empires that were brought down by secular Islamic forces as well as other religious or secular forces. It is brought to ‘anger’ by a multi-faith and multi-cultural world with progressive values and economic prosperity. Many Islamic people were part of the leadership in the creation of secular and multi-faith states – without the exclusivist character of ‘Islamic fundamentalism’

The Islamic radicalist agenda is: conform to the diktats of the clergy, however outrageous or hypocritical (e.g. don’t watch TV), to eliminate people and states with other religions or secular beliefs, to force women out of the public and employment sphere without any ability to express themselves freely, to reduce economic progress by halting enterprise and innovation and creativity, by destroying democracy in the political and economic (as consumers or producers) or cultural sphere, by using violence and terrorism to frighten and drive out opponents or critics, to reduce sexuality and sex to the level of procreation etc. It is to drive down every aspect of the historical gains made by democrats and progressives as well as advocates of religious dissent and pluralism and equal rights for oppressed sections of society.

The term ‘Islamic fascism’ is an appropriate description to describe this specific very socially and economically reactionary group that seeks to twist Islam’s message of equality and peace and turn it into a totalitarian ideology. It is ‘fascism’ of an elite educated middle class sub-group using metaphysical idealism, language and people to gain power by violent means. The result has been to divert the Muslim community’s best instincts into an introspective retreat rather than a creative search for economic and social progress as equals in a new emerging globalised world. Islam’s greatest periods have been its innovation and creativity as well as inter-faith and community co-existence – even the creation of a ‘syncretic’ Islam mixed together with other religions to produce a state religion, ‘Din-il-Ilahi’ under Mogul Emperor Akbar.

Dubai is the exact polar opposite of Taliban-ruled Afghanistan by seeking to become an outward looking dynamic economic entity by using leisure and tourism in a cosmopolitan way to become an international player on the global stage. It is attracting people from across the world. There are too many Muslim economic success stories (from many countries Western and Eastern) to believe that Islam and economic prosperity and social progress are contradictory. The contradiction is between religious exclusivity and economic prosperity and social progress. The Asian Century is likely to be a success for Muslims as well as other religions. At the same time, the dead-end of radicalism has to be defeated by progressive and outward-looking Muslims and non-Muslims alike.

A good model for Islamic integration is secular India.

It is the land of the famous verse:

“Koi Bole Ram Ram Koi Khudia

Koi Saye Gosain Koi Allahe..

Koi Kare Puja Koi Sis Nabahe..

Koi Nave Tirath Koi Hajj Jae”

(Translation : ‘Some Say Ram Ram, Some Say Khuda; Some Say Gosain, Some Allah;..Some Do Puja, Some Bow Heads [in Prayer]; Some Bathe During Pilgrims, Some Go and Do the Hajj’).

This song of religious co-existence through Hindu and Muslim forms of worship has been sung by the likes of the great Pakistani qawali singer Ustad Nusrat Ali Fateh Khan of Pakistan and the great film singer Mohammed Rafi of India as well as Sikhs and Hindus. Religious exclusivity is not the only not the best option for religious people in the C21st.

Illustration 26 Nusrat Ali Fateh Khan

An Asian and global Mastro of Qawali and many other great musical traditions.

His great hits included ‘Mast Kalandhar’. He also sang ‘Koi Bole Ram Ram’.

Theme 4

PROGRESS

‘Na koi bairi

nahi begana

sagal sangh hum ko ban aie’

Guru Nanak Dev

Translated Version

‘No one is my enemy

No one is a foreigner

With all I am at peace

God within us renders us

Incapable of hate and prejudice.’

The Asian Century has to be a century of human progress and advancement. It cannot be a philosophical or moral regression. The true progressives of the C21st cannot be anti-Eastern or anti-Western: without critical thinking about its progressive content off the specific actions and thoughts. Not every anti-Eastern and pro-Western movement is progressive and neither is every anti-Western and pro-Eastern movement. They have to be in favour of the periods and moments of progress in Eastern and Western societies. They have to understand the context of the achievements in such periods and moments. The progressive of the C21st century has got to combine progress in the East and West and weave them into a powerful modern philosophy and programme of progress.

Morality cannot be defined by the ancient texts of the religions of the world. The distillation of that wisdom has to be combined with the modern morality of social progress and respect for individual freedoms and inalienable human rights.

Buddha taught about the importance of the importance of ending violence against all living things and the necessity for society through his concept of the ‘sangha’(community of equals). Jesus Christ protected the social outcastes such as the prostitute with the great words: “Let them without sin cast the first stone”. He also taught about forgiveness: ’Forgive them O Father for they know not what they do”. Mohammed taught about not harming innocents even during wars. He taught about the rights of women to own property. Guru Nanak taught about the One God and One Humanity with many names of the same God by people taking different paths to praise God and the different colours of an equal humanity. He taught about the pluralism of paths for a shared God and the pluralism of humanity without inequality of anyone in the sight of God except on the basis of actions taken in life.

Illustration 27 Lotus - a symbol of Asia and its ancient wisdom, religion and philosophy

Equally all religious texts can be interpreted (or misinterpreted). Buddhists have fought violent struggles. Christians have practised vengeance and revenge. Muslims have violated the rights of women. Sikhs have closed their hearts and minds to those taking a different path to God and keep caste and gender distinctions alive in the C21st. Religions try to deny the validity of modern rights of the individual such as the rights of sexual choice and consumer choice.

The Asian Century will be the most progressive century in human history, if it is to achieve its goals of ending poverty and bringing a decent prosperity for many billions of people. It will be the enlightenment age with scientific advances applied to the whole of humanity and not for one section of it. The C21st will have to be another Age of Enlightenment and Age of Reason with science and individual freedom advocated by its thinkers and dominating the world of public discourses.

Map 7 ‘Freedom in the World 2007’ Source: Freedom House (www.freedomhouse.org )

Colours: Green = Free; Light Orange = Partly Free; Red = Not Free

Progressives Movements in the East

Progress will have to be made – without any clouds of irrational thinking and religious and ideological dogmas. Chinese genius for invention, Indian brilliance for human and scientific progress and Arabic splendours in rational thinking are essential Asian requirements for the world that is going to push forward the frontiers of progress to an unprecedented level to meet the needs of C21st world. European enlightenment in C18th would have to be re-asserted in the West again. In addition, we will have to add the advances of the 1960s period of individual freedom including on the question of personal rights in the sphere of sexual freedoms and criminalisation of sexual violations. It will have to battle against religious backwardness, clerical authority, current institutions that are structurally opposed to equality of political and economic opportunity, nationalist forces that seek a new politics of religious nationalism opposed to a new universalism of humanity and so on.

There is a paradox in the thinking and development of C21st and Asia: homogenous and heterogeneous directions in different fields. Whilst equality of political and economic opportunity is fundamental to human progress; rights to cultural, belief and personal differences are vital to human freedom. Equality and diversity are features of the Asian century. They are also the mottos of the USA and the European Union with its famous Latin ‘e pluribus unum’ and ‘unity in diversity’ respectively. Whilst the USA represents a unity of the immigrant culture, the European Union represents a unity of the different European cultures. The Asian century has to champion not only Asian unity in diversity, but also global unity in diversity. The two key philosophical principles of these positions are : first, rights of the individual to cultural, religious, sexual, philosophical, social, economic, linguistic and political freedom; and, second, all human beings, on an equal basis, to have full access to political, social, economic and cultural opportunities on the basis of merit and not on the basis of birth or sectarian affiliation.

Homogenisation of culture, belief and personal values and differences would be detrimental to human progress. It is the worst sort of materialist view of the world. This rests on the sort of industrial power struggles of the past at the level of culture. There should not be an automatic levelling of everything in the world in an era of globalisation. Whilst economic goods such as fridge or telephone can be equally invaluable around the world and there should be more of them; a similar levelling or attempted cancelling of culture, beliefs and personal differences and diversity can only cause pain and distress, if not wars and violence.

Diversity is important not only at the level of economic goods and services in the economic sphere; it is also important at the level of the diversity and richness of the human race. People are rich in their differences – from the micro to the macro global level. This is a wealth of humanity – at an individual and personal level away from the material level.

The creative force lies in the resolving of these paradoxes for the benefit of human enlargement through peace and the clash of different ideas without the totalitarian impulse of monolithic ideology, monotone culture or religious exclusivity.

Asian culture, as a pan-Asian product based on Asian languages, Eastern philosophy, Asian geography, Asian social practises and the ‘Other’ space outside of Western cultural imperialism, is a fundamental element in challenging the monopoly of Western culture or the global hegemony of US culture in the world that existed in the last years of the twentieth century. It is the key route to multi-cultural globalisation for all of humanity. This requires a reconstruction of Western culture as fully inclusive of Asian culture rather than a destruction of Western culture. This is the application of pluralism and progress to the East and the West.

How can this be done? This has to be an issue addressed at the level of government and at the level of the cultural industries.

Black and Jewish culture has been included in USA cultural through government policy, through industry change and through relentless pressure by Black and Jewish communities. The Canadian government has heavily promoted a multi-cultural and multi-lingual policy with an astute immigration strategy resulting in economic and social benefits. The UK has adopted an incremental multi-cultural policy that is danger of disintegrating under pressure from the xenophobic press and far right electoral pressure – by moving towards a ‘generic’ British culture policy. Europe has retreated heavily from multi-cultural development in a false clash between regressive non-European and progressive European cultures by seeing these developments through a mono-religious prism. Its motto is ‘Unity in Diversity’. Its covert policy of ‘White Diversity’ is a strategic dead-end.

Western governments have to promote Asian culture in the mainstream and popular culture as official policy, robustly formulated and implemented. There has to be government funding available out of public taxation to pay for the expansion and development of Asian culture and its institutions. Asians are taxpayers too. They have to tackle the institutional discrimination against Asian culture and promote a multi-cultural policy specifically and overtly inclusive of Asian culture. Incidentally, the recent trend to write out multi-cultural development, through ‘internal cultural imperialism’ pressure, has to be reversed.

Western cultural industries have to promote Asian music and take on board Asian artists and Asian distribution networks. After all, they want Asian consumers to increasingly buy their products in the Asian century.

At the current moment, the powers in the cultural industries including the global cultural companies treat Asian culture as peripheral and marginalised.

Many aspects are purely legal and technical aspects and can be changed without any substantial costs: for example, to monitor the actual sales and volumes of Asian music – through Asian distributors as well as the existing mainstream ones. This can be done through taking on board Asian distributors of Asian music through marketing, branding, installing monitoring technical systems, etc.

Why are Bhangra and Bollywood musicians treated as outside of the mainstream, when they have strong followings in the West and in Asia? I can only suggest that there is an institutional racism and monopoly, based on previous black, and now, anti-Asian racism in this industry.

Music charts should regularly feature Asian music, which never really happened with the former Top of the Pops (TOTP). It is good that the BBC took initiatives to have Asian music on Radio 1 through employing top name Asian DJs.

Western films such as Hollywood hardly feature and Asian themes or actors and actresses. Jackie Chan and Jet Li are incredible, but they alone cannot represent all the talent of three or four billion people – many of whom can act. Why are Asians not as heroes and heroines in Western movies. There is case for an Asian quota, as there was a black quota in American films to boost numbers and enable entry into mainstream roles in movies. Why can’t Hollywood accept Asians in the same way as it has accepted black and Jewish actors and actresses as the main roles in films rather than as marginal, occasional or marked more by absence than presence? They could collaborate with Bollywood or the Hong Kong movie industry on a wave of new productions. Asian films should be supported by governments and the film industry (production and distribution).

The European Commission needs to look at its cultural policy to ensure inclusion of Asian culture including Asian languages, Eastern philosophy, Asian geography, Asian social practices and the Asian non-Western ‘Other’ in the immigrant identity. At the moment, European culture is synonymous with ‘Christian’ culture and its languages are ‘European’ rather than ’Indo-European’ and its ethnicity is ‘White’. This is an inward and backward looking European culture based on the notion of European cultural imperialism. The combination of East and West European culture does not solve the fundamental problem of European cultural imperialism – apart from the welcome inclusion of Roma people in European culture with their Indian ancestry and Indo-European languages and culture as an East-West global cultural fusion.

The cultural industry funded by the public and private sector sees an occasional Asian success as satisfactory. However, what is required is a cultural revolution in the ‘Asian century’ in the West – with everything done to mainstream Asian culture – so that it treated at the same level as Western culture. Asian music should be boosted through government supported programmes and adoption of Asian artists by global music companies. Asians should be given mainstream roles as heroes and heroines in films – not only the brilliant Jackie Chan and Jet Li. Punjabi, Hindi, Urdu, Gujarati, Bengali, Tamil, Mandarin, Arabic, Persian, Cantonese, Japanese, Turkish, Kurdish, Vietnamese, Korean, Cambodian, Thai, Malay, Tagalog, Indonesian, Javanese and other Asian languages should be considered as European official languages as much as English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Polish, etc in a multi-cultural Europe as much as English, French, Portuguese are languages of India alongside ethnic ‘Indian’ languages in a multi-cultural India.

Ancient Asia, pre-modern Asia, post-World War II Asia and Asian today went through such struggles for individual rights – from Buddhism to Sikhism to the Indian Independence movement to today’s pluralistic, individualistic and democratic Asia.

A European, American, African, Arab, Latin American or Asian nationalism is not progressive in the modern world. In C21th, a dynamic combination of the Eastern and Western cultures is really progressive.

Progress cannot be built on revenge or the rehearsal of past grievances and anger. Mahatma Gandhi caught the essence of this moral progress. The Asian Century has a moral dimension in this sense – it can teach humanity to embrace each other. India is a fundamental fault-line state in this respect. Each conqueror of India tried to eliminate Indian culture and philosophy. The embrace of India defeated each such attempt. A cultural construction of a multi-layered society is the modern India. To deconstruct it is to see the failure of cultural interaction. De-construction of societies is the biggest reactionary fallacy to have emanated in reaction to globalisation. Diversity can be defended by progress and not by exclusivity.

Mahatma Gandhi tried to embrace all the constituent elements of India – Muslim and Sikhs, Buddhists and Jains, Hindus and Christians – the rural masses as well as the urban elite – the so-called social ‘outcastes’ ( harijans ‘children of god’ or Dalits ‘crushed’ or ‘oppressed’) as well as the Brahmins- the colonisers as well as the colonised – speakers of English as well as the mother tongues of India – above all to stop the horror of a division and separatism with communal carnage and genocide. He could not celebrate the birth of India – with an amputation through the division of its people on the basis of religion – and neither did he believe in force above moral example – to achieve the right outcome. Real progress is defined not only by the ends, but the means.

Mahatma Gandhi was asked ‘What is the way to peace?’ He replied that ‘Peace is the way.’ What road is there to democracy? Democracy is the road. What is way to individual freedom? Individual freedom is the way.

Peace, democracy and individual freedom are preconditions for a modern society that is pluralist, prosperous and progressive. The roads matter as much as the goals. The ways matter as much as mountains that we want to conquer such as poverty and women’s oppression.

An Asian Century can only be dynamic if the Asians are fully involved not as spectators, but key players in the game – not based on any hints of the subservient colonial mindset, but as free agents capable of becoming leaders of the world alongside other people of the world, not nationalism but internationalist, not sectarian but humanitarians of the highest kind, not afraid and not seeking to create fear in others, revolutionary in their outlooks and fierceless in their temperaments, historical in their ambitions and humble in their relationships to other human beings. An internal modern and socially progressive Asian transformation comparable to Gandhi’s leadership of the Indian freedom movement in its humanitarianism is required for this Asian century revolution to become a revolution of humanity as a whole.

Graph 17 Rise of democracy in the world 1800-1998 Number of nations scoring 8 or above on the Polity IV democracy measurement scale Data source: The Polity IV project. http://www.cidcm.umd.edu/inscr/polity/

Progressive Movements in the West

W E Gladstone, the Liberal Prime Minister of C19th Britain expressed his era, as ‘Liberty for Ourselves, Empire for the Rest of Mankind’. Whilst the C19th expanded the concept of liberty to embrace the majority of Britain, the C20th the majority of the West, the C21st must see liberty for the majority (and hopefully for all) of mankind. This progress cannot only be defined by the British or Western perspectives, it must be defined by global perspectives. Asia (East, South, Central, North and West), Africa and Latin America must be free. The freedom to choose is the start of progress.

C21st freedom for all cannot be based on a new colonialism of the left or the right or of the centre. It cannot be a repeat of British or European imperialism, where whole countries were slaves of the British and the European. Equally, it cannot be based on the freedom of some in society and not for all. It cannot repeat slavery that existed in USA after the revolution or the division between free people and slaves as in Ancient Greece and Rome. To have a progressive Asia, there cannot be a new Asian imperialism. Neither can a new free Asia be based on Asian forms of ‘bondage’ such as the caste system that still exists in India as a shame on Asia and the world. The Asian century cannot be a swap from a Western form of imperialism to an Asian form of imperialism. Neither can it be an Asian form of exploitation instead of a Western form of exploitation. Communist totalitarianism in Russia and Eastern Europe came to an end because of its denial of freedom to its people. Progress is not a repeat of such a failure.

C21st liberty is based on individual rights, human rights, freedom from torture and grading punishment, end of the death penalty (as campaigned for by Amnesty International), right to elect governments and dismiss them by the ballot box, freedom from colonialism, freedom to choose or deny religious and other beliefs, freedom from hunger and poverty, freedom to retain and mix cultures, right to pursue happiness, freedom from sexual violation and the right of sexual choice, etc. It is based upon the accumulation of historical freedoms to create a new free society.

It is a combination of political, social, economic and cultural freedoms. These freedoms do not deny social provisions. Indeed freedom for all requires the worldwide rights to education and healthcare by public provision (or sufficient funding by individuals out of income and other personal financial resources) to ensure that there is true freedom from want. Similarly, freedom from fear and violence has to be ensured by the collective public will – a modern day Gandhi philosophy that stands up to ‘lynch-mob’ anarchy through a moral will of non-violence.

The pursuit of happiness is our right – to enjoy life and live it to the full.

Cromwell and the English Revolution defined the right of Christian dissent at the level of the State; the French defined it through the enlightenment of free thought and the Rights of Man; and, the American Revolution defined it through freedom from colonialism and the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. These democratic revolutions created a space for people’s rule over the despotism of monarchy and over the despotism of religion. They also created individual rights against despotism.

Illustration 29 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen 1789 by the French Revolution

Illustration 30 First page of the constitution of the United states of America 1787

The very notion that no person or groups had absolute right to rule was a gigantic break with ancient and medieval society. Arbitrary and unquestioned rule was put to an end. They created the concept of giving consent to be ruled to individuals in society. All individuals had to have the same rights and be equal as human beings and as citizens. They enabled the individual to criticise and reject their own rulers. It created individual freedom as opposition to a society with no space for individuals and absolute powers for an individual or an elite.

Revolutionary and democratic Europe and USA opened themselves up to the world – and challenged injustice everywhere. The French revolution led to the Haitian revolution for the freedom from slavery by Toussaint L’Ouverture, the ‘Black Napoleon’. The Englishman, Thomas Paine became a citizen of two revolutions and became the great participant in the French and American revolutions. So the Asian century will challenge injustice everywhere and Asian citizens will become participants in modern change across Asia and the world.

The C18th, C19th and C20th were periods of the realisation of these human and individual rights within Western societies through legislation in a period of the industrial revolution. Economic growth was insufficient without an increase in social welfare and increases in political and individual freedom. For instance, in the UK education legislation (such as the 1870 Education Reform Act) created compulsory schooling for children, political legislation (such as the 1920 Woman’s Suffrage Act) created electoral rights for wider sections of society and secular rights were extended (instead of swearing a religious oath, an affirmation was allowed by the Speaker of the House of Commons following the Charles Bradlaugh case of the an elected MP not being able to take his seat for his atheist convictions in 1886) to enable individuals to have different beliefs.

This phase is important for Asia, where in many countries constitutional theory of equality exists, without specific measures (both legislative and administrative) to implement it. This has been one of the great failings of India, Arab, Indonesian and other ‘progressive’ nationalism as well as in the ‘communist’ regimes.

However, the next revolutionary break of the progressive wave in history came in the west and in the world in the 1960s to affirm personal freedom in the sphere of sexual freedom, criminalisation of sexual violation without consent with new specific criminal offences and creating the right to choose personal relationships.

The 1960s led to legal changes including the availability of reliable contraception and legal abortion.

The 1960s changes were based on the sovereignty of the individual over their own bodies. This was based on consensual sexual relations and precluded any forced or violent sexual relations. In my view, the legal and moral idea of ‘child sexual abuse’ through the crime of ‘paedophilia’ was a logical progression of the 1960s assertion of the rights of the individual. The child cannot consent to sexual relations. Until they become an adult, they cannot give consent to sexual activity. They have to be protected by society from any assumption of sexual consent through making the adult liable for a harsh criminal penalty and clearly sending the message that any sexual activity between an adult and a child amounts to sexual abuse. This is a progressive and modern view of children’s rights.

Equally, the concept of rape within marriage, date rape and other such developments - recognises that the individual can deny sexual consent within any adult relationships. The individual is sovereign and they have a right to deny sexual consent and not have a presumption of consent imposed upon them. The state should strongly support those victims of the violation of rights of where sexual consent is overridden by the perpetrator as in rape, in child sexual abuse (when children cannot give consent because of their pre-adult ages and the state has a special obligation to protect their rights), in rape within marriage, etc

The development of the rights of gays and lesbians - including their right to be free from discrimination and equal rights in society through ‘a right to marriage’ etc – is social progress. Sexual choice resides within individual rights and is part of the freedoms of a modern society.

Illustration 31 Photo: Women’s March Washington DC 2003

The religious rights’ position, of seeking to overturn the sovereignty of the individual over their own bodies with an individual’s freedom to choose their sexual relations, is a reactionary position.

There is a wider issue about whether sex is used is an exploitative way e.g. through advertising. It is legitimate to use sex in advertising – as sex is part of the human make-up and advertising seeks to use an array of messages relating to human psychology to highlight a product or service. However, it is clear that there ought to be limits on this. Too much sexualisation of advertising, films and the public sphere can become a hindrance to the positive development of human relationships. This does not require a censor, but a maturity and positive creative abilities on the part of the advertisers.

The Asian century cannot adopt a Victorian morality. It is more likely that it can adopt a philosophy of freedom to make sexual choices as well as adopting a morality of explicit consent for sexual activity to criminalise sexual violation.

Victorian morality cannot be adopted by an Asia that wants to move beyond sexual repression and into adult and mature debates about sex. The Asian century has to be about Asia growing up on the question of sexual morality – more in line with Kama Sutra and the Perfumed Garden and less about covering up table legs to stop ‘impure’ thoughts. This will be progressive.

Asia has a large number of sex-related public issues such as dealing with the growth of HIV/AIDS, population growth and use of contraceptives and birth control devices, gender selection and female infanticide, use of shame to cover up issues of rape and child sex abuse and silencing the victims, domestic violence, criminalisation of pre-marital or extra-marital sexual relations, etc. A progressive side of Asia has to achieve success on sexual freedom as well as other freedoms for the individual.

The Asian Century will have:

the basic modern freedom to dissent from religious dogmatism (of whatever religion); or,
the freedom to reject religion;
enlightenment of free ideas and developing scientific methods ;
rights of man (and, of course woman),
freedom from colonialism,
right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

In addition, it will support:

the right to linguistic freedom (without the imposition of one language),
freedom of different cultures,
freedom of different religions and beliefs,
freedom from hunger and fear (amongst Roosevelt’s famous four freedoms)[18],
creativity and innovation (freedom to invent and design new things and ideas).

It will be freedom for women, freedom for the workers, freedom to pursue different sexual preferences, freedom from racism and freedom from all forms of human and animal exploitation.

Freedom of human movement across the earth without the boundaries of national borders will be another achievement of this century of globalisation and internationalisation.

To be a truly historic century, it should be free from all forms of human violence and cruelty including psychological violence.

The combination of prosperity, peace, pluralism and progress and the tackling of poverty and the struggle against protectionism are the fundamentals of the Asian Century.

Pleasure could also be added to this list of fundamentals – as the Asian Century will also include the right to pursue happiness.
This will be underlined by democracy - of the freedom to choose your rulers and reject them through the will of the majority (which can still be mistaken, hence the entrenched right to have regular elections – for the people to change their minds).

India has made a big contribution in this regard with its electronic and technically efficient voting for many hundreds of millions, in which the poorest and illiterate participate in free and fair elections with the whole of state and political culture backing this process. The sovereignty of the people can be technically delivered even in a poor country with many languages and huge geographic challenges of the millions of villages, shanty towns and with large scale illegal settlements in a country of one billion people. This is the greatest democratic show on earth.

India has answered the critics of those who believe that democracy only belongs to small states or Western society. If it can be done in India, democracy can be built in many other places. There will be a greater equality of opportunity, which will have become real through the eradication of basic life-and-death poverty and real access to information through the mass media and technological progress.

The ideas of the Asian enlightenment from the basic philosophies of non-violence to its highest ideals of selfless service for the human good – these are the essential parts of the change brought about by the Asian century.

The notion that the Asian century will be defined by some sort of ‘holy wars’ or ‘clash of civilisations’ under-estimates the progress made by humanity and is a false view of the progressive and overwhelming Asia of C21st. It underestimates the progressive fundamentals of Asian history including the rebellion against injustice and inequality. Neither Christian fundamentalism nor Islamic fundamentalism nor any other religious fundamentalism can derail this progress. Trying to deny the advancement of science or the right of women to education and work or the right of people to watch TV or listen to different types of music – very few people on earth can accept such a reactionary future.

China and India are trying to make progress for several billion people – with the terrifying power of hundreds of millions of people to ensure that this happens whatever the elites may want. Cooperation, not conflict, drives this progress. The growth is horizontal as well as vertical, broad as well as high, distribution as well as production. Both the governments of India and China recognise this – the democracy and the autocracy.

The West has to review its own progressive past and reaffirm it. The West cannot go back to some neo-reactionary agenda. Neither can it re-introduce mass scale racism and the horrors of the Nazi past, which was defeated by the left and democratic forces of the world. It cannot hope to survive by building fortress societies.

On the contrary, it should welcome a new world of hope generated by higher expectations of C21st generation in every nook and cranny of the world. The 1960s was a good era for the West. The welfare state was a step forward in the protection against poverty. Immigration and multi-cultural are gains for the West as well as for the East. There is an intrinsic shift to a more multi-cultural world through a more multi-polar world brought about by the Asian century.

The West of the European empires or of the rise of the American century with its respective ‘white supremacist’ ideas of colonialism or segregationist notions are rightly being buried in the dustbin of history.

Engagement with the Asian century would be the most progressive step taken by the West since the English, French or American revolutions. The industrialisation and scientific advancement of Britain and Europe and the USA, which generated innovation, enterprise and cultural creativity is being played out on a grander scale involving billions instead of tens of hundreds of millions of people.

Section 4 CONCLUSION

The Asian Century will be a progressive century through its defeat of poverty – by its moral example to humanity – by its faith in non-violence as a method of achieving outcomes. Asians and the people of the world have to discover their best natures with its goodness and the milk of human kindness – and fight the moral battle against its worst natures of greed, egotism, hatred, anger and violence.

East and West Relations in the C21st

Asia has to construct new relationships with the West – European Union and USA as global power blocs. The general Asian strategy is a defensive strategy of peaceful co-existence, developing trade and economic relationships against a Western strategy of maintaining its strategy of global hegemony including the use of war.

The Asian strategy also rests on assumptions about maintaining national sovereignty and independence. This may require a construction of deepening of Asian co-operation towards economic and political unity on a geo-strategic level – East Asia, China, India, Japan, West Asia – specifically to bring in West Asia for strategic needs such as energy needs as well as stopping Western military intervention and bringing it into an Asian Free Trade Association or Asian Economic community. This may be seen as the way of signing up to mutual protection from any Western predatory aggression in the framework of maintaining national sovereignty and independence.

Equally, there are strategies to ensure political and strategic advantage for the construction of global blocs. This may lead to the development of strategic alliances e.g. India and USA over the Civil Nuclear Co-operation Deal. There may be a European strategy to construct an enlarged European Union through the East European entry as well as seeking to bring in new countries of the former Soviet Union. There are those proponents of the American Century and the new European Century, who regard other parts of the worlds as theatres of war and legitimate spheres of ‘influence’ i.e. have an agenda of conquest and dominance.

Asia wants a non-aggression engagement with the West based on trade, investment, access to open markets and mutual exchange and celebration of culture to promote people-to-people contact. It wants resistance to protectionism by Western governments, liberal immigration rules, rejection of extreme right racist parties and rejection of racial discrimination.

Role of Asian People in the West

The West has too few Asian people – in Europe or North America. In the USA, 14,907,198 were Asian Americans, constituting 5% of its population, according to the US Census Bureau. Canada has 2,908,314 Asian Canadians, constituting 9.7% of the population, according to the 2001 census. In UK, there were 2,331,423 Asian people, according to 2001 Census, constituting 4% of the population. There are no census figures on Asians in Europe, but the figure is less than 1% based on estimates of Asian population.

There is data from official statistics in the USA, Canada and UK to indicate that Asian indicators are higher than average in the educational and economic fields. However, the record on Asian representation in public bodies yield a varying degree of progress: Europe has very poor Asian representation amongst its elected Parliaments with the only exception being the UK, USA has had a handful of Asians in the US Congress or White House staff ( despite their economic success); UK has a large number of Asians in the unelected House of Lords and fewer in the House of Commons with Asians still at the lowest rungs of the government ladder with no Asians in the UK cabinet and Canada with the highest population level has the highest levels of success at a Federal and Provincial parliamentary levels with achievements including Federal Cabinet and Minister levels as well as Provincial Prime Ministers and other Ministerial achievements.

Illustration 32 Ujjal Dosangh and Raminder at the Raj Ghat,

Mahatma Gandhi Samadhi New Delhi (monument erected to remember him).

They are paying respects to his memory and contribution to humanity.

Ujall Dosangh has held many posts including 33^rd Premier of the British Columbia Province, Canada, Member of Parliament for Vancouver South and Federal Health Minister in Paul Martin’s Cabinet. He is a role model for Asia at a political level in the west.

The low level of Asian people in the West poses dangers for the West.

In Europe, it creates a false sense of insularity represented at its worst levels by the presence of the far right as an electoral level and leading to strategic mistakes on immigration policy. There is some evidence that this is has an effect in disorienting relationship with Asian countries. The only major relationship Europe has with an Asian country has been with Turkey (a country which is both European and Asian) with its question of entry into the European Union, which is helped by the presence of 2,637 million Turkish German constituting 3% of its population.

In the USA, there is evidence that although Asian American are portrayed in ‘model minority’ perspective but this has some negative effect in Asian public and creative sectors by presenting a one-dimensional and passive stereotype of Asian American to negate their legitimate citizenship grievances. In addition, the USA has protectionist tendencies that cannot be countered from the outside without strengthening the political weight of Asian Americans. The US Congress India Caucus, whilst formidable in its membership, was not able to intervene to support the US-India Nuclear Co-operation Agreement with poor Indian representation on Capitol Hill of only 1 Congressman.

In the UK, the progress of British Asians into getting elected into the elected House of Commons in the 1980s and 1990s was undermined by diverting Asian energies into appointment to the House of Lords. As a consequence, there was only one Asian of Minister rank, who was forced to resign over the ‘Hinduja Affair’, and Asians only got the most junior Minister positions subsequently. Furthermore the British Asian population was quickly politically divided into unproductive ‘Muslim’, ‘Hindu’ and other religious identity camp (as it was previously subordinated to ‘Black’ politics) precisely during the period of the emergence of the Asian century. This has led to the undermining of the British Asians including in the professions such as law and health.

Canada has had the highest proportion of Asians in the total population in any Western country. Asian parliamentary representation has been won by the Chinese and Indian population groups with some breakthroughs into the centre of political power in the country-with close links to the Premier (through his Asian wife), appointment to the Federal Cabinet and election to the Provincial Premiership. This has also been backed up by a theory of cultural diversity inclusive of Asian culture that has not been watered down to any great extent. It also led to basically good relations between Canada and Asian countries without the menace of protectionism, racism and cultural xenophobia characterising movements and influencing governments in Europe and USA.

Asia needs to have a strategic orientation to further open the doors of Europe and USA to Asian immigration. This can only be done through working with the settled Asian populations and strengthening their political movements and representation. It cannot be done through bilateral relationships against or outside the wishes and knowledge of the domestic opinion in the West. A pan-Asian political and cultural movement and grassroots organisations in the West led by Asian people is the only way to achieve this goal.

India and China have over two and a half billion people and Asian has nearly four billion people. There is a simple equation: West needs people – who are young, skilled and qualified – to assist in its impending demographic crises with a higher proportion of non-working pensioner population. India and China and Asians are good migrants – having prospered in the USA and becoming modern citizens. It may be possible to create a strategy for a specific layer of Asian to become immigrants in Europe and the USA to contribute their skills and professionalism and wealth contribution to the West: by setting an India and Chinese immigration target of 10% or 20% into the USA and Europe. This would be a bold move to solve the demographic crisis as well as creating an adequate level of Asia people in the West, who could make the transition to the Asian Century easier.

A new age of progress: enlightenment and economic revolution

The first and foremost issue is about people’s choice captured in the concept of democracy. Asia and democracy go hand in hand. Democracy is not a secondary, but a primary question for Asia. In the monumental choices about economic development, it must be the people who decide: they are rulers of 21st century, the sovereigns of the modern world. In the notion of democracy, there is a fundamental idea of the equality of human beings exercised through the ballot box to determine the priorities of any society.

The number one demand for Asians in the C21st must be that of the freedom of Asians to make their own political choices – to have democratic governance as the hallmark of 21^st century decision-making of the people, by the people – hopefully for the people.

There can be no philosophical or political justification for development for the ‘elites only’ or ‘middle class growth’ in Asia or in the West. Absolute rights of the monarchs and clerics have been abolished in the West. The East cannot accept such rights in C21st. No religious schools and on royal families have rights above those of a sovereign people with equal worth of each individual being.

Manmohan Singh has the right to proclaim himself an elected Prime Minister because of democracy in India (although technically he was not), whilst Deng Xiao Ping (through the Chinese politburo, exercised dictatorial powers, as exampled by Tiananmen Square massacre) could not. Deng Xiao Ping failed in this respect. India will succeed more than China in many different respects because of this vital difference. The Manmohan Singh government apologised for any massacres carried out in India under Congress governments as well as condemning such massacres under the BJP governments. The rejection of the absolute rights of leaders (whatever their ideological basis) is an important democratic principle of the C21st in Asia, in the West and in the rest of the world.

The Indian electorate repudiated the limits of ‘middle class’ growth by voting out an economically successful government, which had not reached the reservoir of poor people of India. It was only shining for a few people – whilst there were many poor people who had not yet benefited from economic growth. The government is seeking solutions for rural empowerment and growth. China too is beset by land grabs by ‘Party bosses’ in collaboration with urban capitalists. Communal property is a myth for many in rural areas, when these properties are taken away – without any capitalist ‘property rights’ for the poor. A Mahatma Gandhi is required alongside the economic side of Deng Xiao Ping or Manmohan Singh to be the soul and champion of the poor of Asia.

Another aspect of democracy (freedom to choose one’s political rulers) is the freedom of individual’s to make choices about their own lives (sovereignty over the self and one’s own body). This is a very eastern concept. The victory over the self is a victory over the world. Choice of personal paths lies within the individual.

This is second most important demand in the Asian century: the right of individual’s to make their own choices in their lives and lifestyles in the east and the west. The rights of the individual are inalienable rights and bestowed on the individual by nature with the gift of thinking and imagination. This is a fundamental issue against the role of religion in trying to create a modern ‘medieval’ morality, whereby individual choice is defeated by collective ‘morals’ (mediated by religious, tribal or family network authorities). Religion cannot over-rule individual choice. Any concession to religion in this area is a concession to a reactionary social order. It is also similar to fascism or communism, where the individual has to subordinate themselves to the diktats of the state including in personal and private matters. Individual choices and individual differences result in a dynamic society in the political, social, economic and cultural spheres.

In eastern philosophy, this is bound in notions of self-control and mastery of the self (even negation of the self) - with its critical idea of the individual winning their own personal battles over their minds leading to the conquest of the world. (‘Man jeete jag jeet’ translated as ‘victory over the mind is a victory over the world’). In eastern philosophy, there is a real belief that the individual can master their own destiny by control over their own minds and bodies. By definition this extends to mastery over one’s sexual urges. Sexual control is part of Eastern philosophy. However, recently this has only been seen in a negative way: freedom to abstain from sex (e.g. the celibacy of Mahatma Gandhi). This is reactionary. Sigmund Freud was right.

Illustration 33 Photos of Sigmund Freud Founder of modern psycholo-analysis

The western notion of individuality has its notion of moral choice. In its ancient form, it was the moral dilemma: freedom to salvation or freedom to hell. The modern idea of freedom lies in the enlightenment notion of the nature bestowing gifts on the individual. ‘We are all born free’ – shouted Rosseau. As we are born free, we can make our own choices – over our own lives. The fundamental choices include a sphere in which the state ought not to interfere – freedom of belief, freedom of expression, etc – where the individual is sovereign. Recent extension of this concept has included sovereignty over own bodies (making choices about how we use own our bodies and how we have the right to refuse others to use our bodies). These rights are expressed as women’s right (our bodies, our selves), lesbian and gay rights (to engage in same sex relations) as well as the rights not to be violated (rape, the right of children not to be abused, etc).

A fundamental part of individual freedom is sexual freedom, which should be the essence of modern and progressive Asian morality. Sexual freedom means sexual choices as well as the freedom to reject sexual violation by the individual, which are translated into state laws such as rape, child sex abuse, rape in marriage as well as freedom to exercise choice in adult sexual activity and adult relationships.

There is a notional eastern philosophy of sex as pleasure (e.g. Kama Sutra, The Perfumed Garden, etc). In reality, the core of Asian sexual morality is based on the social rejection of sexual freedom – disguised as sexual violation-whilst there has been slow progress on transparency about sexual violation - including hiding the rape of women and child sexual abuse. In the name of ‘honour’ and ‘shame’ (very feudal concepts), rape is accepted and child sexual abuse is being de facto accepted. This is mistaken. Questions of sexual violation have to be ruled upon by modern states based on the right of the individual to reject sexual violation and make adult sexual choices. To put it in starker terms, it should not be religious authorities using only a specific interpretation of religious texts and contexts that are used to create sexual repression by denying sexual freedom and by condoning the social sexual violation of the individual. Sex has to be based on consent and the sovereignty of the individual over their own bodies.

The third demand of the Asian century is to abolish poverty from this planet forever through wiping out poverty in Asia as a defining event in history of the planet - the obligation of society to provide the means of basic human existence – which means adequate food, health care, education opportunity, equal opportunity in the labour market to reach the top on the basis of merit – without these rights being denied by any clique, elite, class or caste of society.

Individual mega-wealth (with many billionaires) has not equated yet to progress for hundreds of millions (if not the billions) in Asia. In fact there is no difficulty with individual mega-wealth as long as the billions are lifted out of poverty at the same time (as a reflection of the overall world economic growth). The UN inequality indexes point to a partial failure with indicators of the Gini-coefficients used to measure inequality signalling a growing gap. It is not the rich that have to be pulled down. It is the poor whose economic standards have to be raised.

Economic progress has to be based on two principles: globalisation and modernisation of economic production. The two giants of the twentieth century have been Deng Xiao Ping and Manmohan Singh. Both adopted a globalisation and modernisation strategy on production. By doing this, they set off the dynamics of economic take-off in China and India. They were not great the leaders of political struggles at the level of Mahatma or Mao Tse Tung or Ho Chih Minh. However, they have made the most spectacular difference to modernisation of China and India – showing that they can be global players only, if they allowed unfettered economic growth - without politicised choices for vested interest groups. Deng Xiao Ping and Manmohan Singh are the true giants of the Asian century, despite their modest political credentials, oratorical skills or charisma. They succeeded in improving more lives in China and India than any other Asia leader has done.

On an economic level, there is a dangerous diversion based on the worst of ‘communist’ politics and the worst of ‘religious reactionary’ politics. In China, there was an old fashioned utopian ‘distributionist economic theory’ in the 1960s (e.g. with Maoist notions of de-urbanisation based on romantic ruralism motivated by political mobilisation for a cult of the individual in the cultural revolution resulted in millions of deaths). In Cambodia, the Khmer rouge killed millions in a similar ‘ruralism’ campaign. On the religious reactionary politics side, the worst modern example has been the Taliban with its anti-modernist production, exclusion of women from the labour market and education, its anti-modern culture in the banning of televisions and music as well corresponding reactionary attitudes to globalisation expressed by the attacks on other religions and the West. This was the educated class (the Taliban means students) that carried out such a backward ‘economic regression’. Neither ‘communism’ nor ‘religious reactionary rule’ should be allowed to stop the wheels of economic modernisation and economic progress.

Illustration 34 Killing field of Cambodia under Pol Pot when his khmer Rouge killed 1.7 million people – one fifth of its population.

Illustration 35 Poster during Mao’s Cultural Revolution in China.

It is estimated that in rural Chin 36 million Chinese were persecuted during this period and between 750,000 and 1.5 million were killed.

Illustration 36 Poem against the Taliban and their brutal policies against Afghani women. 60 women died as a result of public flogging.

Bedi Begum was murdered by flogging at the order of the Taliban in July of 1999 and the poet is about her and other women suffering at the hands of the Taliban – so-called educated students with their barbaric theories of rule.

Source: http://www.edu.pe.ca/montaguehigh/grass/socialstudies/genderequality/cult3.htm.

I Stand by Your Ear Unseen

I stand by your ear unseen.

Before the flogging they buried me to my waist in mud

One hundred times and one, they beat me with a cane

Because I was wearing a burqa

the mullah was spared the sight of my blood

When my family took me home I was unconscious

They were forbidden to seek treatment

When I died the next morning no one was surprised.

It was three days after my 18th birthday.

I stand by your ear unseen.

When I was 14 I wanted to be a teacher. I remember

laughing with my friends on the way home from school

I remember writing poems about the future

daydreaming at the window into velvet sky

Impossible, then, to believe what would come

after the Taliban took our town.

I stand by your ear unseen.

When I was 15 they came. The wide world choked shut

Collapsed to a point of fear, hunger. Constant

My sisters and I ate what brothers left. Little. They

could leave the house for classes, for work

My mother's office job was taken away

When my uncle would accompany her

she took her turn wearing a neighborhood burqa

so she could look for food. She sold our books

I stand by your ear unseen.

Three years. My youngest sister sickened

My father carried her to the hospital but

they told him to throw her away. She died at the door

That's when my anger endangered all of us

In her name I started a secret school. To read

to write, five little girls and I risked our lives

I would do it again. It was a way for ghosts

to have hands and voices for awhile.

I stand by your ear unseen.

When another decree was issued, that houses with women

have all windows painted black, we had no funds

My father was gone, forced into the militia

My mother had nothing left to sell

They marched in to bully us

found the hidden school slates behind my bed

Hauled to the mullah, I told nothing

He shut the door and raped me.

I stand by your ears unseen

Famine and depression make periods scant

I didn't know about the baby at first

My aunt had the right herb in a hidden pot on her roof

She stayed while my baby bled out

A new decree, forbidden to make sound when we walk,

caught her when she left. She didn't have shoes that were silent

They beat her on the street until her accompanying son

in his panic tried to shield her

by sacrificing me. The mullah learned everything.

I stand by your ear unseen.

He announced my offense of having an abortion

which proved I was promiscuous

My crimes cloaked his and no one

could do anything but pray I might survive

That prayer was not mine. I was ready to depart

I do not ask for personal mourning. Twelve million living

women and girls require your outrage

Lift your veil! Open your ear.

Seeking to end poverty in China and India is the revolutionary part of the Asian century agenda. All the Western talk about abolishing poverty pales into insignificance. Asia is beginning to do this – and it seems it will go all the way.

The fourth demand of the Asian century is based on the realisation that a modern society will inherently and consciously reject the ancient order of inequality and exclusion on the basis of birth ( absolutely), blood ties or familial lines, on the basis of hereditary orders, race, colour, creed, gender, etc. This is based on the equality of opportunity for all human beings.

The economic strategy of globalisation and modernisation has been a big success in China and India. India has democracy. China has an autocracy. .Both have over a billion people. Both deserve to succeed. Ultimately, free people making free choices, even it they are difficult at times, win and deserve to win.

India deserves to succeed because it wants to use democracy. As India’s population expands to be bigger than China’s, India will deserve to do it on moral grounds also. On a philosophical level, the means matter.

A modern day Mahatma would want to create a new political, cultural, social, economic and religious modernisation of India – to show a path of economic development with the maximum humanity, caring for nature and all life, love for all people and using honest means to show the weaknesses in its ruling elites. It has to modernise its philosophies and create individual choice as well as political choice. It has to make the individual sovereign as well as the people sovereign. There cannot be any unchallenged hierarchy or ideology-an end to absolutism. All people have rights in the modern world-of equal worth and inalienable.

The fifth great demand of the Asian century is diversity in cultures, creeds, calligraphy and colours. Because democracy is the way (to paraphrase Mahatma Gandhi), it is important to emphasise the importance of pluralism of society, based on the inalienable rights of each of its citizens or inhabitants-without having to surrender their personal beliefs or cultural inheritance and creativity.

What role does culture play in the modernisation of Asia play? Fundamentally, the pro-globalisation lobby is completely wrong in its position on culture, religion, minorities, etc. Globalisation cannot mean conformity. If globalisation becomes cultural imperialism, it will have failed on this ground alone – whatever its economic successes. On the contrary, the starting point of a new moral global order has to be to respect minority cultures, religions, ethnic and linguistic groups, etc.

Western imperialism at its height had committed genocide against many people: US native Indians became strangers on their own soil, with their languages, cultures, histories and philosophies all disappeared from US mainstream; Aborigines became minor players in Australia with their ancient lifestyles, depths of knowledge, intricate ceremonies, languages and culture all sidelined from Australian mainstream. This is the wrong model of globalisation.

Asian ‘majoritarianism’ has to be rejected. Minority rights are not secondary rights. They are fundamental rights in a modern society. The politics of ‘majoritarianism’ diverted India. ‘Muslim’ states are in a crisis. Christian fundamentalism is on the decline. There has to be plurality. Religion cannot replace communism as a new totalitarian ideology that has to be defeated by democrats.

Today, an economic argument is used to try to marginalise Asian and other cultures in the world including Western cultures such as the French. English is the language of the world trade and commerce. English is the language of the modern youth in their cybercafés using micro-soft computers produced by Bill Gate’s monopoly. McDonalds is the global quick food outlet. Wal-Mart is the global retail store. This is merely one model of globalisation.

There are two serious and critical challenges to this way of thinking: (1) a monotonous world will end of losing the rich treasures accumulated across the many microcosms of this world and (2) the principle of diverse cultural, linguistic, religion and minorities’ people has to be ingrained in a truly democratic and modern world, where the tyranny and imperialism of the majority is denied its space. A multitude of cultural identities is the essence of the modern global citizen. A modern citizen is not a machine – trying to erase difference, de-constructing complexity and layered realities. The richness and individuality as the essence of humanity is part of its future. Freedom requires an ability to express such differences and not their suppression or repression.

Both for the sake of the richness of the human race with its infinite diversity and with the need in the modern world to combat ‘imperialist’ tendencies of the majority, we need alternative models of cultural development and creativity in the modern world based on these two fundamental principles.

Let’s construct this world ‘tower of babel’ on the cyberspace.

The sixth demand of the Asian century is to share our humanity as human beings with each other. There is only one human race. It’s richness and variety is not the problem; it is the solution. The 21^st century will see a greater sharing of cultures between the East and the West than happened even during the heyday of the Empires with its requirements of administrators and military men to have some cross-cultural education. Now in the age of the satellite and the internet, cross-cultural sharing has a great future. Governments should encourage this in the West and the East. Let’s have multi-cultural festivals on a grand scale and throughout the year.

The neo-Nazi policy of keeping the East out of the West is a recipe for racism and disaster. Popular politicians who adopt this for their mass politics are probably going against the trend. Even it they aren’t, it is possible that Asia may need to construct its own Asian community of over a three billion people into a globally organised political force. This could be an inevitable necessity: a response against a closed Europe or USA that had given up on globalisation.

On the other hand, if the West did adopt a diversity philosophy and policy approach - supporting a global trading system with access to global markets and with relatively soft border and respect for different cultures (especially the minority ones); it could witness a modern cultural renaissance on an unprecedented level in history. Protectionism will end the dynamism of the West on an economic and cultural level (as it has done in Europe in the period of the Neo-Nazis electoral triumphs).

East and West will fuse cultures as well share cultures in one of the greatest gathering in the world and set the world alight in a dynamic creative explosion. This would be a modern tribute to the history of the West and East – with a multi-civilisational approach across the world based on nurturing cultures rather than destroying them. There will be new cultures created in this process.

Protectionism has to be overcome – without forgetting our obligations to people, as precious fragile beings, and to nature and not to the empty shells of ideology.

The promise of the Asian century is pluralism, progress, peace as well as prosperity and the tackling of poverty. This century needs to have the motto: ‘people’.

In the words of the great Chinese sage, Lao Tzu:

“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” (Tao Te Ching)

Section 5 RECOMMENDATIONS

Prosperity

Peace

Pluralism

Progress

Prosperity

Support for the process of liberalisation and globalisation within Asia - to create high levels of sustained economic growth across the region driven by China and India.
Support for Asia’s engagement with the West through trade, investment and skills.
High level priority given to Asian infrastructure development including basic services and transport systems.
Development of the Asian Economic Community through a strategic process taking fully into account the general and specific views of Asian people within each Asian country and region.
A strategic development of an Asian welfare state through the fruits of rapid and high economic growth.

Peace

Support for Asia’s peace process in south Asia on the Korean peninsula and in west Asia through a two-state solution between Israel and Palestine.
Endorsement of the philosophy of non-violence of Mahatma Gandhi across Asia through the award of Nobel Prize to MG, declaration of MG Peace Day across Asia and the world,
Promotion of peace through public and private support for totally pacifist religious bodies.

Pluralism

Support for multi-cultural and multi-faith states.
Reject of cultural and religious imperialism.
Support for tourism, cultural and educational between the West and Asia
Support for Asian languages including the international mother tongue language day.
Support for twinning and partnerships between Asian and Western government and private sector institutions and NGO bodies using Asian populations in the West as a bridge builder in such an exercise.

Progress

Support for progressive social policies across Asia.
Exchanges of ideas between the West and Asia on socially progressive legislation and practice.

1. We recommend the righting of a wrong of the Nobel Committee, who failed to honour one of the greatest people in history and the greatest person of C20th by awarding a posthumous Nobel Prize for Peace for Mahatma Gandhi and asking the United Nations to make a global declaration of a Mahatma Gandhi Peace Day on his birthday anniversary.

2. To request all countries to support a global campaign for the Asian Century as a partnership between governments, official bodies, political parties, private industry, NGOs and people’s organisation in Asia.

3. In Europe and USA, there should be a campaign led by Asian people’s organisations as well as representatives of Asian embassies and High Commissions supported by European and USA governments as well as sponsored by private industry and NGOs. These campaigns might not subscribe to the Asian century, but encourage a strong people-people interaction between the west and east through a major national programme of cultural events and educational activity.

4. There should be an intellectual and political case made for global organisations to represent all constituents of the world’s population e.g. by ensuring that India with over a billion people should be a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council as well as Japan, Indonesia, Germany, Brazil and an African member in addition to its current members. All other world’s organisations should reflect the global diversity of population with members from each continent with extra weighting to Asia reflecting its population weight.

5. Additional Asian languages should be brought into the United Nations such as Hindi and Punjabi, which are world languages.

Campaigning on global strategic changes

e.g. UN Change – 100 million petition for change –biggest in history.

Changing Institutional and Corporate Discrimination Against Asian Culture

e.g George Bush on Hindi as an international language.

Celebrating Asian History

e.g. pay tribute to Gandhi’s statute in Tavistock Square

Teaching History of Colonialism in Schools in Western Schools

Celebrating Asian Culture as Part of World Culture

e.g. Establish Gandhi National Remembrance Days as National holidays;

Teach Asia languages, cultures, religions, geography and history in schools and in higher education in Europe and America

Recognise Migration from Asia as Free Movement of People

e.g Campaign for increased migration into Europe and USA from India and China. The strategic percentage of Indian and Chinese in Europe and USA should be in the proportion of ten per cent – mainly in the professional, educational and business areas.

Establish Global focus on Making Poverty History in Africa

Develop Free Trade Links between Asia and Latin America

Mahatma Gandhi’s birthday to be celebrated as Mahatma Gandhi Peace Day - to be observed in all schools and as a day of non-violence and pacifism across the world at official and non-official level.

Asian History is taught in schools

Democracy Day – sovereignty of the people day.

Children’s thoughts and projects on the Asian century – including prizes, books published, posters and cultural projects.

Top 1000 Asian lists –government and civil servants

Top 1000 Asia business people

Top 1000 Asian

Then books to include top 10,000 of each category

Then by major city – top 1000 etc.

‘New Indian Summers’- New waves of Asian culture

Ask government, institutions and private companies to get involved.

Asian cultural celebrations take place in every city –

Asian Days

Twinning and partnership cities – school and college trips -

Project for the Asian Century is supported to build a powerful pro-Asia, pro-world message.

Set up National Council for Asian Affairs across the world as a lobby group for Asian representation in Western and international institutions, Asian culture and Asian philosophy, to create and sustain engagement between Asia and the West

Build Asian institutions and organisations led by Asian people committed to Asian unity, with secular, democratic, progressive, peace and equality values.

New Asian immigration targets across Europe and US:

10% of the population from India and 10% from China – 50 million in Europe.

10% of the pop from India and 10% from China – 70 million

USA Hispanics a majority

Religions of Asia such as Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Zorastrianism ( West Asia), Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Jainism( South Asia or India ),Shintosim (east Asia) to be taught as part of a religious and belief diversity curriculum. This is the essence of freedom: to recognise the legitimacy of fundamental differences of belief as valid. This can incorporate wider beliefs.

Section 6 READING LIST ON THE ASIAN CENTURY

Section 1 Introduction

Industrial Revolution

The Victorian Web.

http://www.victorianweb.org/history/legistl.html

This gives a list and description of the major legislation introduced during this period.

Gladstone was the great liberal reformist of the C19th with his great attempts at the expansion of the democratic franchise, separation of the church from the state, home rule for Ireland, support for public education and support for the free trade.

Disraeli on the other hand enacted much of the great social legislation on reform, health and workers’ conditions within the conservative institutional framework of the monarchy, established church and the empire.

The extracts of the major Disraeli/Gladstone speeches can be obtained from the above website in a different section www.victorianweb.org/history/polspeech

Novels by Charles Dickens include ‘Hard Times’

Novels by Jane Austen include ‘Pride and Prejudice’

Novels by Thomas Harding include ‘Far from the Maddening Crowds’

All these can be obtained through bookshops or on the internet at the wonderful major books site www.gutenberg.org by Project Gutenberg.

American transformation

US Speech of Frank Delano Roosevelt President 1933-45

www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/ FDR Library

The famous speeches of FDR have an emphasis on challenging the vested interests to create the great society based on the four needs, new deal of employment and public works.

The most famous book of the US 1920s Jazz Age with its extravagance and emptiness is, of course, Fitzgerald’s ‘The Great Gatsby’, one of my favourites. The parallel with modern Asian high society is very close. Asian high society is living life on the fast lane with a burst of public glamour and a lot of carefree attitudes. This book can be obtained online at the following website of Adelaide University as we as in most bookshops http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/f/fitzgerald/f_scott/gatsby .

On the other side, the books by John Steinbeck describe the hardship and brutality of life for the poor and the unfortunate. The most famous work is ‘The Grapes of Wrath’. This book is available in most bookshops. I have not been ale to find a copy of it on the net.

Historical Data About Asia’s Economic Position

Angus Maddison is the most renowned global writer on world economic history spanning the last two thousand years and his information gives a perspective of Asia. It is a possible deduction from this information that Asia is merely returning to its natural position as the centre of the world economy rather than as some new phenomenon specific to C21st. The exceptional period was the period of European colonialism and its short-term legacy..

Angus Maddison www.angusmaddison.org

‘The World Economy: A Millennial Perspective’ OECD Centre for Development Studies (University of British Columbia Press) July 11 2005 ISBN 9264186085

http://www.ggdc.net/maddison/

(P263 Table B–20).

Shares of World GDP, 20 Countries and Regional Totals, 0–1998 A.D.

(per cent of world total)

Year 0 1000 1500 1600 1700 1820 1870 1913 1950 1973 1998

Total Western Europe 10.8 8.7 17.9 19.9 22.5 23.6 33.6 33.5 26.3 25.7 20.6

Eastern Europe 1.9 2.2 2.5 2.7 2.9 3.3 4.1 4.5 3.5 3.4 2.0

Former USSR 1.5 2.4 3.4 3.5 4.4 5.4 7.6 8.6 9.6 9.4 3.4

Total West (US, Canada etc) 0.5 0.7 0.5 0.3 0.2 1.9 10.2 21.7 30.6 25.3 25.1

Total Latin America 2.2 3.9 2.9 1.1 1.7 2.0 2.5 4.5 7.9 8.7 8.7

Japan 1.2 2.7 3.1 2.9 4.1 3.0 2.3 2.6 3.0 7.7 7.7

China 26.2 22.7 25.0 29.2 22.3 32.9 17.2 8.9 4.5 4.6 11.5

India 32.9 28.9 24.5 22.6 24.4 16.0 12.2 7.6 4.2 3.1 5.0

Other Asia 16.1 16.0 12.7 11.2 10.9 7.3 6.6 5.4 6.8 8.7 13.0

Total Asia (excluding Japan) 75.1 67.6 62.1 62.9 57.6 56.2 36.0 21.9 15.5 16.4 29.5

Africa 6.8 11.8 7.4 6.7 6.6 4.5 3.6 2.7 3.6 3.3 3.1

World 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0

These figures are unique as they are global figures for the world economy for over two thousand years. These figures are sub-divided by continents, regions and major countries. One of the highlights of these figures is the predominant position of Asian in the world prior to 1820. The weakest position was just after the time of the freedom of China and India in 1950. The second highlight of these figures is the position of India as the leading world economy for most of history until 1500. The under-estimation of India is purely a temporary phenomenon.

India’s ancient culture has very broad and refined range of thinking without artificial moral or philosophical limits, which enabled it to be a culture of enterprise and a dynamic trading economy.

Equally, one must ask why Asia and India failed to maintain their position. Part of these may be circumstantial or accidental. However, part of this did relate to its inability to resist outside invaders. This was a failure to construct its own decisive democratic revolution and religious reformation movement to thoroughly change the impediments to the construction of liberty, equality and human rights in its governance and society. India became too conservative and rigid in its society and too weak and ceremonial in its governance.

FUNDAMENTAL DRIVERS

UN Population

World Population Prospects: 2004 Revisions

These are the most significant statistical data in relation to a pattern of economic development based on the population as a driver of economic growth.

The highlight of these figures is that China today is the largest and most rapidly developing world economy.

However, the projected population figures for the world are based on population growth rates and that it is projected that by 2050 that India will have the largest population of any country in the world. There is also an attached ‘youth premium’ attached to the population figures of India that indicates potentially higher economic growth rates for India.

PROSPERITY

Goldman Sachs

Global Economics Paper No: 99 ‘Dreaming with BRICS: the Path to 2050’ by Dominic Wilson and Roopa Purushothaman 1^st October 2003

This is a paper that did what I call ‘simple but profound’ projections on the basis of the current growth trends. They have been subsequently been vindicated by actual economic growth figures. They specifically included per capita figures. These highlight the enormous gap that will still remain between the West and East, between North and the South at the end of their projected period, despite profound and historical changes to the national gross domestic product figures for countries.

I believe that these figures under-state India’s position and this is being born out by the dramatic leaps in the growth rates of the Indian economy recently. If population is the key driver of economic growth, then I believe India will begin to catch up to China’s economic position earlier than many expect and then overtake China in the later part of this century. I would hate to be wrong on this point, as I would not want to see another phase in human history where economic growth was not closely related to population size.

Technically I would call the current phase of history as the ‘Age of Humanity’ when human population saw economic growth come to the majority rather than the minorities as in the previous phases of history. I believe that we are entering this phase and have not addressed all the issues required of this age such as wealth reaching the billions of the poor in China and India and their needs being adequately met through their own purchasing power – including through capital being made available to them through different credit systems (including micro-credit) as well as through the creation of wage economy in these two country involving the majority of the people.

Equally, I believe that education and skills for employment needs have to created in these two societies for over a billion people. In addition, I believe that social legislation in these two societies have to be constructed to create a basic welfare state from a national healthcare system to pensions and benefits for the elderly. Finally, I believe that to protect framers’ private property from appropriation by the state, apart from exceptional circumstances for infrastructure needs, when the market rate for the property should be paid as well as some compensation level. China and India have failed on this critical ground and acted as enemies of the people in this regard in some instances. These were the great reforms of the industrial revolution and the democratic revolution.

PEACE

www.mkgandhi.org

The contribution of Mahatma Gandhi to India’s unique freedom movement is immense. He turned a Western outlook of the freedom movement to Indian-thinking and acting freedom movement. He evoked all the symbolism and characteristics of India in his actions – from clothes to the spinning wheel to ahimsa (no-harm to living things) to fasts. His critics (who went so far as to assassinate him) were many, but they were mostly threatened by his carrying out a social and democratic revolution in India. His ‘satyagraha’ (the truth struggle) is a far cry from any cynical political ideas of today – it is in its core the fundamental basis of India and of humanity.

Those who struggle for truth also know the limits of their own perfections and actions, but they cannot stop trying to reach those ultimate goals.

Mahatma Gandhi should feature in every curriculum in the world. His influence would change the future for the better and his message of non-violence is in perfect synchronicity with the C21st.

www.worldpeacenewsletter.com

The world peace newsletter is an excellent tool providing all sorts of practical suggestion about creating peace through personal example and through living a life of non-violence (including by positively dealing with negative emotions). There are thousands of acting non-violently and leading better lives.

Guru Nanak stated that by conquering the mind one conquers the world. This profound truth is the Eastern way of dealing with violence. Leaders have to be trained to deal with situations in a non-violent way. Non-violent tactics have to be developed as instruments of diplomacy and of action by individuals, groups, communities and nations. Leaders have to stand up and start denouncing violence and war as a solution to global problems.

PLURALISM

The other good website is ‘poet seers’(www.PoetSeers.com) which presents the great giants from different religious traditions (including Sufis, Hindus, Christian, Buddhist, Zen and Jewish) with their common existential explorations. These are all pluralists who see their relationship with a God as an individual relationship. They do seek to impose their model on others through the creation of religious states.

Peace Pledge Union including site on religions and war (www.ppu.org.uk/learn/infodocs/st_religions.hmtl)

This is a good starting point for looking at ideas of peace and war in religions included are small sections on Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Sikhism, Hinduism and Buddhism. The site is good at highlighting the peaceful and humanitarian natures of different religions. They also highlight the textual portions of religious dogma that enable ‘wars’ to be justified. The Mahatma Gandhi method was to believe that violence in religious scriptures and texts is, at best, a metaphor and not an endorsement of the use of violence. I believe that C21st conditions do not justify violence and the context of the religious texts was completely different to modern societies with democracies and human rights to protect the rights of different religions and rights against different religions.

Criteria for judging successful democratic societies

I believe it is good to assess the health of democracies and freedoms in societies. There has been a number of indexes developed to monitor developments in these areas. Although some of these are based in the US, which I regard as one of the most successful democratic societies, nevertheless I believe in critically assessing these indexes so that they don’t artificially discriminate against developing countries or paint an over-simplistic picture of these complex areas. My conclusion, having examined these indexes, is that they fair and useful.

Amartya Sen

Amartya Sen, the Nobel Laureate, former Master of Trinity College Cambridge and former Professor at Harvard University, is an authority on the economics of democracy and choice. His famous thesis on the importance of democracy in preventing and stopping famines in developing societies is a classical masterpiece of C20th. It should be read by all democrats of C21st.

Transparency International

This is the best index on corruption, which is a major problem in developing countries including Asia. Corruption weighs the odds against the ordinary person and removes rights to public services on an efficient and effective manner. Corruption in the private sector distorts the free market and wastes the efficient distribution of scarce resources.

Corruption eats away at the fabric of openness and good governance in society. It is a cancer on democracy or equality of opportunity. It indirectly places a role in starving people and keeping them in abject poverty in developing countries. It is a moral and juridical crime.

The answers to corruption have to be found through new structures and systems to prevent corruption as well as appropriate punitive measures, including harsh financial penalties for all those supporting the system of corruption, of those found guilty through a range of investigative tools as used in mature customer satisfaction surveys.

Freedom House

http://www.freedomhouse.org

Index on democracy and freedom of the press.

These are two critical means to assess the health of pluralism in society – the state of democracy through its conduct of multiparty elections in a fair and free way as well as having a free press without state interference and subject to any forms of censorship except in highly exceptional circumstances of war and national security for a very limited purposes and duration. Both the Maps ( one of democracy and one of freedom of the press) offer a good indicator of the state on the world on these two criteria. This organisation was founded by Eleanor Roosevelt, the wife of the former President.

International PEN on writers’ freedom

World Writers Association

Freedom of expression in books and media

Minority rights

www.minorityrights.org

Thomas Jefferson caught the essence of this issue when he stated that minorities have rights in societies and, if the rights of minorities are violated, then that society loses its moral legitimacy and becomes oppressive. In eastern philosophy, harming one living being is seen as a moral violation and seen as an internal sin. Mahatma Gandhi said you judge a civilisation by the way it treats its minorities. This was echoed by Martin Luther King jnr.

Ultimately, the disappearance of minority languages and cultures and peoples starts making it a poorer world. There is no great virtue in monolithic societies, apart from some efficiency of communication and so-called cohesiveness, championed by bureaucrats and economic control freaks. If human beings are the starting point, their variety is part and parcel of the richness of life. Let diversity reign. E pluribus unum- ‘Out of the many, one’ (Diversity).

PROGRESS

Dictionary of the History of Ideas:

Article on the Enlightenment and its age incorporates the early enlightenment period to the later period of it with a vast range of writers embodying the ideas of rationality, progress, science and human rights including the great revolutionaries and constitutionalists of this period.

There is no collected writing on the Asian progressive movement. Instead, one is left to start the progress to define the progressive movement and incorporate its history and ideas. Below one is offering a flavour of the key ingredients of the Asian progressive movement through some websites:

Jainism is a philosophy of non-violence with its central concept of ahimsa (non-harm to any living thing). It is a philosophy of ecological and biological diversity as well as non-violence against humans.
Buddhism was an impressive and progressive force with a non-violent and a democratic philosophy. Its humanism went as far as atheism. Its moral principles were not predicated on the existence of God. The democratic philosophy in the concept of the ‘sangha’ (democratic community) resulted in Buddhist parliaments where leaders of the faith/ philosophy were elected. Emperor Asoka adopted Buddhism as a philosophy of the state and renounced violence from his reign. He sought to spread the Buddhist philosophy to the West through the Middle east and to the East through China. He was very successful, although not everywhere. Buddhism is a cross-cultural religion between South Asia and East Asia.
Emperor Akbar was a great statesman, who tried to create a fusion and tolerance for different religions in his court. He abolished oppressive taxes such as the tax on non-believers (jizya) and on pilgrims. This endorsed religious co-existence and fusion to create ‘din-i-ilahi’ – a new type of state religion instead of mono-faith one. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akbar is a good site for the main elements that constituted this experiment in faith. Akbar was regarded mainly as a successful ‘imperialist’ ruler as he did not seek to oppress his subjects in terms of religion and sought wider welfare measures.
Sikhism as a progressive movement can be seen through the philosophy of Guru Nanak as in the Japji Sahib. A good English translation can be found at www.sikhnet.com/sggs/translation. Equally, Sikh egalitarianism and progressive notions are revealed in the traditions of the Bhagats (Saints) and Sufi pirs included in the Guru Granth Sahib (Sikh holy book) with their universal rejection of the caste system and being from different castes themselves. Finally, Guru Gobind Singh created a revolutionary democratic army that was similar to European enlightenment forces and revolutionary democratic forces including Cromwell’s Parliamentary Army as reformist and non-conformist in character; the fifth and ninth Sikh Guru’s were martyred on the principle of religious freedom and pluralism and refusal to forced conversion to the point of giving one’s life for the principle; equally, Guru Gobind Singh sacrificed his four sons and mother and father for equality, liberty and national freedom. Maharajah Ranjit Singh as a first Sikh King of a Sikh Empire (in some contradiction to Sikh ideas of equality) was nevertheless a very humane ruler including rejecting the death penalty and taxes based on religious beliefs as well as supporting mixed religion administration, a humanism reflected in support for arts and education, professionalism in the military and moral capacity to reject British rule (which only took hold in the Punjab after his death and was the last place to fall to the British). Maharajah Ranjit Singh inherited some of the legacy of Sikhism’s revolutionary democratic character, given to it by its founder, to make his legacy progressive for India and he was termed Sher-E-Punjab (lion of the Punjab and one of the three lions of India).
All India Congress Committee site, www.aicc.org.in, with a brief description of the Indian National Congress as the freedom movement of the India which was the biggest progressive movement in Asia history embracing almost 40 million people or approximately 10% of its population; Congress also is the largest democratic party in the world in the largest democracy of the world because of this inheritance. The principles of democracy, secularism as the co-existence of many religions in one nation with a secular (non-religious) administration, equality and socialism (as the idea of creating equality through state action) are the hallmarks of trying to create a civilised Indian polity. This is also part of the contribution of the India’s independence movement to the modern progressive character of the Indian state. Today, Indian coalition government of the United Progressive Alliance has a manifesto that seeks to address crucial question including the creation of mass employment for India’s rural poor, creating an infrastructure for India’s rural economy and villages, etc. as well as seeking to increase economic growth and national prosperity. This is an ambition to have a nation of people outside of poverty and into the developed economy – a very great ambition and a very noble goal that will determine whether India goes forward together as a nation in the C21st.
Similarly, www.mkgandhi.org site offers a vast range of information about Gandhism. Mahatma Gandhi’s philosophy of non-violence was based on the notion of not making the oppressors into enemies, but using tactics to re-awaken their humanity and make them into good people. This philosophy, with its concept of forgiveness, is at the heart of creating a modern humanity. Equally, important is Gandhi as a social reformer and a democrat who regards people as equal beings.

CONCLUSION

Asia Society New York

An invaluable range of work being carried out including a lot of invaluable contemporary internet resources.

[1] “OH, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,

Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great Judgment Seat;

But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,

When two strong men stand face to face,

tho’ they come from the ends of the earth!”

The Ballad of the East and West

Rudyard Kipling 1865-1936

(Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. A Victorian Anthology, 1837–1895 published in1895).

[2] “I think public attention as regards these matters ought to be concentrated upon sanitary legislation. That is a wide subject, and, if properly treated, comprises almost every consideration which has a just claim upon legislative interference. Pure air, pure water, the inspections of unhealthy habitations, the adulteration of food – these and many kindred matters may be legitimately dealt with by the legislature…instead of saying ‘Vanity of vanities, all is vanity’- Vanitas vanitatum, omnia vanitas-the wise and witty king really said:’ Sanitas sanitatum, omnia sanitas’ [Sanitary of sanitations, all is sanitary]”.Benjamin Disraeli British Prime Minister

[3] It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.” Charles Dickens ‘A Tale of Two Cities’. This could also be said of the ‘Asian Century’ in relation to superlatives about the period.

[4] F Scott Gerald’s famous novel on the roaring twenties of the Jazz Age, ‘The Great Gatsby’, highlighted the loss of substance and the appearance of superficiality amongst the ‘noveau riche’, which was a metaphor for decadence and moral failure of rich people in USA in this period.

[5] John Steinbeck famous novel ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ highlighted the terrible destitution caused by the Great Depression on the urban working class forced to go back to the countryside in search for work.

[6] http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/coolhtml/ccpres01.html where the figure of 22% rise in the living standards of the average worker is given despite increasing disparities in wealth in society from 1922-28.

[7] In 2007 there were 946 billionaires in the world, according to the annual Forbes magazine survey. Asian billionaires comprised 36 Indians, 24 Japanese, 21 Hong Kong and 20 for China.

[8] Asia can be defined narrowly or broadly. The general definition of Asia as a geographic continent corresponds with our usage of the term. There is a specific point of the definition to be inclusive of different cultures, languages, religions, colours and civilisations. In this sense, the desire of Australia and New Zealand to be included as part of Asian, should be received positively. West Asia with the Arab and other nations are part of Asia. Similarly, Israel as a Jewish nation is part of Asia. Most of Russia and Turkey are geographically part of Asia. They can also choose to be part of Europe as part of the Council for Europe or the European Union respectively without contradicting their membership of Asia. Of course, Japan is part of Asia as are countries of south east Asia, south Asia and east Asia. The definition of Asia in the context of the Asian century should be culturally broad and not a narrow nationalistic one. Asia is in a real sense a major part of the human race. Definitions should not seek to culturally restrict those who can be Asians. Both Eastern and Western civilisations have religious origins in Asia.

[9] Okakura Okakuzo wrote that: “ASIA is one. The Himalayas divide, only to accentuate, two mighty civilisations, the Chinese with its communism of Confucius, and the Indian with its individualism of the Vedas. But not even the snowy barriers can interrupt for one moment that broad expanse of love for the Ultimate and Universal, which is the common thought-inheritance of every Asiatic race, enabling them to produce all the great religions of the world, and distinguishing them from those maritime peoples of the Mediterranean and the Baltic, who love to dwell on the Particular, and to search out the means, not the end, of life.” The Ideals of the East (1904)

“What problem does Pan-Asianism attempt to solve? The problem is how to terminate the sufferings of the Asiatic peoples and how to resist the aggression of the powerful European countries. In a word, Pan-Asianism represents the cause of the oppressed Asiatic peoples. Oppressed peoples are found not only in Asia, but in Europe as well. Those countries that practice the rule of Might do not only oppress the weaker people outside their continent, but also those within their own continent. Pan-Asianism is based on the principle of the rule of Right, and justifies the avenging of the wrongs done to others. An American scholar considers all emancipation movements as revolts against civilization. Therefore now we advocate the avenging of the wrong done to those in revolt against the civilization of the rule of Might, with the aim of seeking a civilization of peace and equality and the emancipation of all races.” Sun Yat Sen ‘Pan-Asianism’ 1924 speech in Kobe Japan.

[10] Source: Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations Secretariat (2007).

[11] For more information about ASEAN see http://www.aseansec.org

[12] Unlike much of the West, India is cashing in on a ‘demographic dividend’ whereby its young population will add 71 million people to its workforce in the next five years constituting 23% of the increase in the world’s working-age population.

[13] http://www.sheeraz.com/ambassador/bollywood-stats.php

[14] http://mutiny.wordpress.com/2007/02/01/bollywood-vs-hollywood-the-complete-breakdown/

[15] “I remember going to discos and you heard was reggae, reggae, reggae. Asians were lost, they weren’t accepted by whites, they drifted into the black culture, talking like blacks, dressing like them, and listening to reggae. But now Bhangra music has given them ‘their’ music and made them feel that they do have an identity. No matter if they Gujarati, Punjabi, or whatever –Bhangra music is Asian for Asians.” Quote from Komol of the Bhangra Band Cobra ( as reported in Popular Culture, A Reader Ed Guins and Cruz Sage Books 2005).

[16] In the phrase of WW Rostow who argued that a ‘take-off’ stage was necessary in developing advanced economies in his famous book The Stages of Economic Growth: A Non-Communist Manifesto (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1960), Chapter 2, "The Five Stages of Growth--A Summary," pp. 4-16.

[17] Over two-thirds of the world's 785 million illiterate adults are found in only eight countries (India, China, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Indonesia, and Egypt); of all the illiterate adults in the world, two-thirds are women; extremely low literacy rates are concentrated in three regions, South and West Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, and the Arab states, where around one-third of the men and half of all women are illiterate. (CIA Factbook).

[18]“ In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms.

The first is freedom of speech and expression — everywhere in the world.

The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way — everywhere in the world.

The third is freedom from want — which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants - everywhere in the world.

The fourth is freedom from fear — which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor — anywhere in the world.

That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation.”

Speech by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt of the USA

The Annual Message to the Congress January 6^th 1941

( source: http://www.feri.org/common/news/details.cfm?QID=2089&clientid=11005)

‘Action is eloquence’ William Shakespeare

Contents

Asians are the majority. 17

History of Asia’s Role in the World. 22

Section 2. 29

The fundamental drivers of the Asian century. 29

Driver 1 Asian Demographics. 29

Driver 2 Rise of China and India in the world economy. 33

Driver 3 Globalisation of Asian culture. 35

Driver 4 Lack of a Middle East peace process. 41

Driver 5 High value of Asian skills and education in the world market. 51

Driver 6 Rise of Asian agriculture and ecological imperatives in the world market. 53

The new moral universe in the Asian Century. 56

Section 3 Four themes of the Asian Century. 61

Theme 1. 61

PROSPERITY. 61

‘Chinindia’ 61

An Asian and Global Meritocracy. 69

Asia’s ecology and battle for animal, plant and environmental diversity. 71

Theme 2. 73

PLURALISM.. 73

Majorities and Minorities. 75

Religion, Secularism and Modernism.. 79

Religious Totalitarianism.. 81

Theme 3. 85

PEACE. 85

India’s exclusion from the international system.. 85

Peace and diplomacy towards Asian unity. 88

Terrorism.. 92

Theme 4. 95

PROGRESS. 95

Progressives Movements in the East. 98

Progressive Movements in the West. 103

Section 4 CONCLUSION.. 112

East and West Relations in the C21st. 112

Role of Asian People in the West. 113

A new age of progress: enlightenment and economic revolution. 115

Section 5 RECOMMENDATIONS. 125

Section 6 READING LIST ON THE ASIAN CENTURY. 130

List of Maps, Graphs and Illustrations

MAPS

Map 1: Population density in the world_ 8

Map 2 of Asia by United Nations’ regions indicated by colour. 15

Map 3 Highlighting China and India with a population over 1 billion_ 30

Map 4 The boundaries of the Caliphate Empire 622 – 750 AD_ 43

Map 5 World Agricultural GDP 2005_ 54

Map 6 British Empire in 1921_ 57

Map 7 ‘Freedom in the World 2007’ Source: Freedom House (www.freedomhouse.org ) 97

GRAPHS

Graph 1 Relative share of world manufacturing output, 1750-1950. 9

Graph 2 The economic position of Asia 2005_ 12

Graph 3 China and India’s population in relation to other countries and continents 2005_ 17

Graph 4 1750-2005 Asia’s population lead in the world_ 18

Graph 5 Fall and rise of Asia’s GDP, 1820-2001_ 22

Graph 6 illustrating the ‘Pincer Movement’ of Asia’s fall and rise and the West’s rise and fall in terms of the share of the world manufacturing output 1500-2000.. 23

Graph 7: Predicted changes Asia’s population 2000 to 2050_ 29

Graph 8 Projected Growth of BRIC (Brazil, Russia, Indian, China) economies. 30

Graph 9 Change in Top Ten economies from 2005 to 2040_ 32

Graph 10 World music market shares 200) 33

Graph 11Global comparison of university graduates rates in science and engineering_ 50

Graph 12 Far right electoral results in Europe (data collated January 2004) 56

Graph 13 World population distribution 2005 showing the significance of China and India_ 59

Graph 14 China’s economic take-off process 62

Graph 15 India gross domestic growth rates in percentage term 2002-2006 62

Graph 16 Per Capita (thousand US dollars) GDP growth rates forecast for China, India and USA_ 63

Graph 17 Rise of democracy in the world 1800-1998 100

ILLUSTRATIONS

Illustration 1 Picture of the Industrial Revolution in England (left); Photo of the Fordist Revolution in the USA (right) Source: www.sustainability.murdoch.edu.au/.../E12.jpg_ 10

Illustration 2 1877 painting. Saigo Takamori, the Last Samurai 24

Illustration 3 Photo of Tokyo as a modern city built on new industrial and service sectors 25

Illustration 4 Photo Images: Buddha and Mahavir 26

Illustration 5 Paintings of Guru Nanak with Bhair Mardana and Bhai Bala ; Sheikh Farid of Shakergang_ 27

Illustration 7 Photo of 12^th ASEAN Summit at Cebu Philippines 30

Illustration 8 Logo of Universal the world’s biggest group in the music industry. 37

Illustration 9 Shah Rukh Khan with waxwork Shah Rukh Khan at Madame Tussauds London_ 38

Illustration 10 Sony’’s PSP handheld portable gaming console released in December 2004 in Japan_ 40

Illustration 11_ 42

Illustration 12 Bhangra_ 42

Illustration 13 Jackie Chan_ 43

Illustration 14(left) Prime Minister Rabin, President Clinton and President Arafat at the signing of the Oslo Accord in Washington DC 1993. 46

Illustration 15 The famous Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. 50

Illustration 17 Photo images: Burj Al-Arab Hotel and Media Centre, Dubai City 53

Illustration 18 Mahatma Gandhi with Charlie Chaplin London 1931_ 64

Illustration 19 Gandhi with Lancashire Mill Workers in Darwen 1931_ 64

Illustration 20 Photo Image: China’s President Hu Jintao and India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh; Image: Flags of the Indian and Chinese nations. 67

Illustration 21 President Bush with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh (left) in New Delhi 91

Illustration 22 President Putin with Prime Minister Singh in New Dehli (left) 91

Illustration 23 Prime Minister Singh with Group of Four for UN Security Council Bid- Japan, Brazil and Germany. 92

Illustration 24 Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh with the King of the Saudi Arabia_ 92

Illustration 25 2002 FIFA World Cup Final 96

Illustration 26 Nusrat Ali Fateh Khan_ 99

Illustration 27 Lotus - a symbol of Asia and its ancient wisdom, religion and philosophy 101

Illustration 29 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen 1789 by the French Revolution_ 110

Illustration 30 First page of the constitution of the United states of America 1787_ 111

Illustration 31 Photo: Women’s March Washington DC 2003_ 113

Illustration 32 Ujjal Dosangh and Raminder at the Raj Ghat, 118

Illustration 33 Photos of Sigmund Freud Founder of modern psycholo-analysis 122

Illustration 34 Killing field of Cambodia under Pol Pot when his khmer Rouge killed 1.7 million people – one fifth of its population. 124

Illustration 36 Poem against the Taliban and their brutal policies against Afghani women. 60 women died as a result of public flogging. 125

Illustration 35 Poster during Mao’s Cultural Revolution in China. 125

Section 1 INTRODUCTION

Advice to Indian children

Kalpana Chawla American Indian Astronaut killed on the Columbia mission (India Today interview February 17^th 2003)

Purpose

Like John F Kennedy, I want to proclaim myself in solidarity. He said:”Ich bich ein Berliner” (I am a Berliner). He stood up against the division of the world created by the Iron Curtain.

I say: “I am an Asian”. I stand in solidarity with Asia and against the division of the world into the east and the west.

Above all, I am a human being. This planet is my planet.

Asian Century

Map 1: Population density in the world

The Industrial revolution produced a total transformation of Britain through the following key features:

the process of urbanisation as a result of large scale rural migration;
science and invention (of gigantic proportions);
big ideas and great execution;
a new national infrastructure including railway system, underground, bridges and other forms of world transport such as mass passenger ships;
social revolution to eliminate horrific levels of human exploitation and misery in the towns and factories through legislation and campaigns with healthcare provision and education established through state schools;[2]
world famous literature of the industrial revolution examining changes in the countryside such as Thomas Hardy, urban poor with Charles Dickens[3] and marginalised as well as the middle class winners of this early process such Jane Austen; and,
mass democracy giving ordinary people a sway over government and political philosophical change.

All of this transformed Britain and made it a global leader at all levels - economic, social, cultural, political and philosophical.

Graph 1 Relative share of world manufacturing output, 1750-1950. Data from: Paul Bairoch, "International Industrialization Levels from 1750 to 1980" JEEH 11

The USA was the second great economic transformation applied to a population of over a hundred million people:

It was accompanied by great transport links with the railway link of C19th stretching across the continent as part of the industrial revolution;
This saw the great Fordist assembly line production and the American management revolution;
It saw the infrastructure of the New Deal with the Hoover Dam and other gigantic construction projects;
In cultural terms, it saw Hollywood establish cinema as global cultural experience. In literature, it had its F. Scott Fitzgerald[4] and John Steinbeck[5] - the writers about the Jazz Age and the Depression;
English and USA music became global music – symbolised by Elvis Presley and the Beatles;
The USA black musical contribution led many trends in C20th;
USA changed with migration from nearly all corners of the world, but specifically Europe;
America saw its military power also expand to a superpower status. Post-Second World War America became firmly a global economic power – transforming its cities into skyscrapers and offering unprecedented consumer choice. America also conquered space (alongside Soviet Union);
On a social level, it abolished racial segregation, introduced quotas to eradicate racism, gave rights to women including the right to choose over abortion, gay and lesbian discrimination was outlawed and gay and lesbian ‘marriages’ were sanctioned;
There was also the student and youth idealism expressed in movement against the far-away war in Vietnam against the peasants fighting the most powerful military machine on earth;
The recent environmental movement on the question of climate change and consequences of global warming is beginning to have a dramatic impact on American consumerism and US corporate social responsibility; and,
The huge rise in the average living standards for its people, with a population of over one third billion, showed the scale of its achievement.[6]

Illustration 1 Picture of the Industrial Revolution in England (left); Photo of the Fordist Revolution in the USA (right) Source: www.sustainability.murdoch.edu.au/.../E12.jpg

Graph 2 The economic position of Asia 2005 Source: www. imf.com 2005

Defining Asian

Today the question of ‘what is Asia?’[8] is being defined by the economic dynamism of the continent.

Map 2 of Asia by United Nations’ regions indicated by colour.

Green = West Asia, Red = South Asia, Purple = Central Asia, Blue = North Asia, Yellow = East Asia, Orange = South East Asia

Asians are the majority

Graph 3 China and India’s population in relation to other countries and continents 2005

Graph 4 1750-2005 Asia’s population lead in the world Source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population

Religious modernisation is a pre-requisite of C21st. Modern religions have huge challenges and cannot base themselves on:

social prejudice (such as racism, sexism, the choice of lesbian or gay lifestyles, physical or mental disability);
moralism (no sex, no contraception, drinking of alcohol, smoking cigarettes, taking drugs, food restrictions - apart from restricting such activity on grounds of damage to health - with ultimate choice with individuals);
psychological or physical violence (being damned, going to hell, justifying violence against other people or even asking individual’s to do self-harm etc);
anti-individual choice (right to change one’s personal, political or religious beliefs);
religious totalitarianism (no punishment for ‘apostasy’, change of religion or rejection of religion, right to criticise religious practices, a right to challenge religious orthodoxy or literal translation of religious teachings, right to update religious practices etc);
religious terrorism (forcing a religion on society through violent means, denial of religious pluralism, seeking to have a religious imposition on state, public and commercial activity);
educational or economic backwardness (restrictions on the use of modern technology, science, health advancements, entertainment, etc).

History of Asia’s Role in the World

Graph 5 Fall and rise of Asia’s GDP, 1820-2001. Source: A Maddison OECD

During the Meiji restoration in C19th Japan almost full-scale ‘westernisation’ was successfully adopted including through massive political reforms to overturn feudal Japanese structures.

Establishment of deliberative assemblies
Involvement of all classes in carrying out state affairs
The revocation of sumptuary laws and class restrictions on employment
Replacement of "evil customs" with the "just laws of nature" and
An international search for knowledge to strengthen the foundations of imperial rule.

Illustration 2 1877 painting. Saigo Takamori, the Last Samurai

Illustration 3 Photo of Tokyo as a modern city built on new industrial and service sectors

However, it did gain a democracy and enforced ‘peace dividend’. It began to be included in international economic institutions and gathering such as the G7.

Illustration 4 Photo Images: Buddha and Mahavir

Illustration 5 Paintings of Guru Nanak with Bhair Mardana and Bhai Bala ; Sheikh Farid of Shakergang

Illustration 7 Photo of 12^th ASEAN Summit at Cebu Philippines

hosted by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo of the Philippines - Asian Presidents and Prime Ministers from 16 Asian countries representing over 3 billion people.

Section 2 The fundamental drivers of the Asian century

There are six fundamental drivers of the Asian century, which will become central agenda items of the C21st:

Demographics of the Asian population in the world;
Increasingly dominant role played by China and India in the world economy;
Globalisation of Asian Culture;
Lack of substantial progress in the Middle East peace process;
High value of Asian skills and education in the world market;
Rise of Asian agriculture and ecological imperatives in the world market.

Driver 1 Asian Demographics

· Special Economic Zones (SEZs) were set up in key regions based on economic development zones that Taiwan established in the 1970s;

· the Coastal Development strategy was implemented in the late 80's and proved successful in granting local officials greater autonomy in authorising local projects;

· FDI also saved many State Owned Enterprises (SOEs) through the zhuada fangxio reforms.

Graph 7: Predicted changes Asia’s population 2000 to 2050 Source: www.japanorama.com/images/Donut_2000_2050.gif

Graph 8 Projected Growth of BRIC (Brazil, Russia, Indian, China) economies highlighting India’s potential.

Source – Goldman Sachs 2003 Report ‘Dreaming with BRICS’.

The overall population projections will strengthen the Asian position in the world in C21st in relation to the West.

Driver 2 Rise of China and India in the world economy

Graph 9 Change in Top Ten economies from 2005 to 2040 Source: IMF; Goldman Sachs.

Driver 3 Globalisation of Asian culture

Asian culture is being globalised through an ever-increasing share of the entertainment, media and technology sectors in the world economy.

Graph 10 World music market shares 2005 Source: IFPI (London-based international music industry body)

Illustration 8 Logo of Universal the world’s biggest group in the music industry.

Illustration 9 Shah Rukh Khan with waxwork Shah Rukh Khan at Madame Tussauds London

Both Bollywood and Bhangra represent popular development of Asian culture in the west and on a global scale at the beginning of the twenty-first city.

Illustration 10 Sony’’s PSP handheld portable gaming console released in December 2004 in Japan

Illustration 11

Bollywood posters in India.(left)

Bollywood films have become more popular than Hollywood Films in the world in 2004.

Illustration 12 Bhangra

Vancouver, Canada in 2006 officially sponsored the International Bhangra Celebration, a reflection of East-West and rural-urban mix

(Left) A symbolic poster of modern Bhangra.

The modern attitude towards culture is beautifully expressed in the lyrics of the song, ‘Aish Karo’ (‘Have Fun’), by A.S.Kang, one of the godfathers of modern Bhangra:

“Khao, peeo, aish karo, mitro;

Di,l par, kisae da dukhaeo na”

(translated as “Eat, Drink, Have Fun, Friends; But Do Not Hurt Anyone’s Heart”).

(Source: http://www.desimusic.com/music/pop/songs/1999/aish-karo-a-s-kang.html)

Illustration 13 Jackie Chan

With co-star ChrisTucker of the successful ‘Rush Hour’ film series

Driver 4 Lack of a Middle East peace process

Illustration 14(left) Prime Minister Rabin, President Clinton and President Arafat at the signing of the Oslo Accord in Washington DC 1993.

Failure to reach a mutual solution with Israel and the Palestinians based on the two-state solution - with mutual economic and security guarantees;
The notion of ‘Muslim’ democratic-theocratic states, through the application of an underlying Muslim empire (‘Khalifaat’ type) idea as a solution to the problems of 21st century Middle East or the modern ‘Muslim’ world, by countering and eliminating ‘Western’ and ‘other’ secular and non-Muslim differences and oppositions.

Map 4 The boundaries of the Caliphate Empire 622 – 750 AD

The danger of implosion from within is a possibility with the rise of sectarian violence within Islam – as a facet of the developments, for example, in Iraq and Pakistan.

Illustration 15 The famous Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Illustration 17 Photo images: Burj Al-Arab Hotel and Media Centre, Dubai City

Driver 5 High value of Asian skills and education in the world market

Graph 11 Global comparison of university graduates rates in science and engineering Source: Morgan Stanley

Asian universities are emerging as world class players.

Driver 6 Rise of Asian agriculture and ecological imperatives in the world market

Map 5 World Agricultural GDP 2005

From 1804 to 1999, the world population has risen six-fold - from one billion to six billion. ( http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/sixbillion/sixbilpart1.pdf ).

The new moral universe in the Asian Century

Map 6 British Empire in 1921

Electoral Results of Extreme Right Parties in Western Europe

Country

Party

Most recent national election

% vote.

Seats

Situation

Germany

Republikaner

September 2002

0.6

0/603

Marginal

Germany

Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands (NPD)

September 2002

0.4

0/603

Marginal

Germany

Deutsche Volksunion (DVU)

September 2002

Marginal

Austria

Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs (FPÖ)

November 2002

10.0

18/183

Governmental participation

Belgium

Vlaams Blok (VB)

May 2003

11.6

18/150

Blackmail potential

Belgium

Walloon Front National (FN)

May 2003

2.0

1/150

Marginal

Denmark++

Fremskridtspartiet (FrP)

November 2001

0.6

0/175

Marginal

Denmark++

Dansk Folkeparti (DF)

November 2001

12.0

22/175

Coalition potential

France*

Front National (Le Pen)

April 2002

May 2002

16.9

11.1

Presidential

0/577

Blackmail potential

France*

Mouvement National Républicain (Mégret)

April 2002

May 2002

2.3

1.1

Presidential

0/577

Marginal

Great Britain

British National Party (BNP)

June 2001

Marginal

Italy+

Lega Nord (LN)

May 2001

3.9

30/618

Governmental participation

Italy+

Alleanza Nazionale (AN)

May 2001

12.0

99/618

Governmental participation

Italy+

MSI-Fiamma Tricolore

May 2001

0.4

0/618

Marginal

Norway

Fremskrittspartiet (FrP)

September 2001

14.7

26/165

Coalition potential

Netherlands

List Pim Fortuyn (LPF)

January 2003

5.7

8/150

Marginal

Sweden

Sverigedemokraterna

September 2002

1.4

0/349

Marginal

Graph 12 Far right electoral results in Europe (data collated January 2004)

The future of humanity belongs to all people on this planet and not one people, colour, caste, race, religion or culture;
Human diversity and difference is a strength and not a weakness;
A true morality recognises the good done to the world’s people- in a more upwards levelling of global living standards - with the age-long desire of ending the poverty and suffering of people;
Democracy is not a luxury, but a basic requirement of moral governance through the participation of ordinary people and their exercise of political sovereignty;
A true moral world will have a right of the free movement of people throughout the world as well as goods, services and capital;
Non-violence and peace should be the bedrock of basic morality and practice of states, movements and ordinary people of the world;
Ecological diversity and strength truly starts with respect for all life;
In another sense, true concern for the environment only starts when the needs of the poorest in the world have been fulfilled; and,
The planet’s resources belong to its people - should be used for their needs and not for anyone’s selfish greed.

Illustration 18 Mahatma Gandhi with Charlie Chaplin London 1931

Illustration 19 Gandhi with Lancashire Mill Workers in Darwen 1931

Section 3 Four themes of the Asian Century

Theme 1

PROSPERITY

“It is, generally, in the season of prosperity that men [and women] discover their real temper, principles, and designs.”

Edmund Burke (1729-1797)

‘Chinindia’

Graph 13 World population distribution 2005 showing the significance of China and India Source: UN

China is a continent in population terms. So is India. The Indian sub-continent is a colonial misnomer. Both China and India are ‘super-continents’ in terms of people and humanity.

Illustration 20 Photo Image: China’s President Hu Jintao and India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh; Image: Flags of the Indian and Chinese nations.

This is the axis on which the Asian century rests. This is in a positive sense – the two most populous countries by far ought to constitute the centre of Asia and the centre of the global order.

There are also many basic similarities arising from the populations of these two countries, which are the engines of their growth and the challenges which they must meet urgently:

majority of the population are poor peasants and farmers in rural areas;
an increasing urban population with a large scale urban slum dwelling;
an environmental and resource scarcity crises arising out of the economic growth for hundreds of millions of people;
development of an economic elite that drives economic growth, which is inevitably divorced from the poverty of the people;
endemic corruption within the bureaucracy of the state and in the general life of the nation;
need to engage in global economic trade and competition;
need to improve the living standards of ordinary people including in primary health, education, employment, consumer goods, etc;
need to develop the country’s infrastructure to world class standards in order to improve and carry out basic economic development;
need to sustain cultural diversity against mono-cultural nationalism to retain national cohesion

Graph 14 China’s economic take-off process

Graph 15 India gross domestic growth rates in percentage term 2002-2006 Source of data: Indian Central Statistical Organisation (http://www.business-in-asia.com/countries/india1.html)

This phase must include generating hundred of millions of jobs.
This phase would seek to economically empower people with real spending power.
There would have to be hundred of millions of homes with all the services to go with these.
There has to be raised education standards – with the majority achieving good secondary education and a bold target of about a hundred million with higher education qualifications.
The average mode of transport will be accessible public transport reaching national destinations within a day from any part of the country and a car for at least a tenth of the population – almost one per family.
There will have to be thousands of new towns and population centres amalgamating the urban and suburban concepts, with transport systems including roads, metro-railway systems, inter-city services, regional and national and international airports;
There will have to be environmental and waste management systems including the production of energy for the economic functioning of society, good food and fresh water available to all the population, sewerage and industrial waste management systems and their recycling of large quantities of products;
There will have to be new communication systems with a computer and a mobile phone for every family; etc.

There are also some major and fundamental differences between China and India:

Multi-party state versus one-party state;
Multi-cultural, multi-faith, multi-linguistic and ethically diverse society versus a more mono-cultural, mono-faith, mono-linguistic and ethnically uniform society;
Illiteracy versus basic literacy;
Democratic elections versus a system of party appointments and selections;
Free press and media versus state control of press and media;
Open society versus a closed society;
Property ownership and rights versus theoretical ‘communal property’;
Rule of law versus political dictatorship;
Inalienable human and individual rights versus collective ideology and force;
Free labour versus forced labour.

An Asian and Global Meritocracy

Career, public service and business advancement should not be based on anything, but the ability to do the job based on qualifications, skills and achievements.

Asia’s ecology and battle for animal, plant and environmental diversity

Theme 2

PLURALISM

‘Let a hundred flowers bloom; let a hundred schools of thought contend.’ Mao Tse Tung

"What sets worlds in motion is the interplay of differences, their attractions and repulsions; life is plurality, death is uniformity." Octavio Paz Mexican Poet and Writer

Majorities and Minorities

The fundamental nature and progressive nature of the C21st is going to be determined by how it treats minorities, according to the sayings of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.

Thomas Jefferson, the US President is his 1800 Presidential address put this matter in the right terms:

China’s economic growth reduces China’s reasons to deny democracy to its people. Neither China nor India have reached economic democracy.

Cultural growth does not require democracy as a rule of the majority, but does require diversity with the rights of minority cultures and languages.

Religion, Secularism and Modernism

Religious Totalitarianism

Theme 3

PEACE

‘An eye for an eye and the whole world goes blind’ –Mahatma Gandhi

India’s exclusion from the international system

Illustration 21 President Bush with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh (left) in New Delhi

Illustration 22 President Putin with Prime Minister Singh in New Dehli (left)

Illustration 23 Prime Minister Singh with Group of Four for UN Security Council Bid- Japan, Brazil and Germany.

Illustration 24 Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh with the King of the Saudi Arabia

King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, in New Delhi on January 25, 2006.

Peace and diplomacy towards Asian unity

The dynamics of an Asian century requires ‘peace’ amongst Asian nations and the healing of divisions created by colonial powers in the region.

Peace between Pakistan and India

South Asia can contribute South Asian unity and then towards pan-Asian and humanity unity.

South and North Korean Reunification

Illustration 25 2002 FIFA World Cup Final

Hosted by Japan and Korea, first to be hosted in Asia (photo left)

Terrorism

A good model for Islamic integration is secular India.

It is the land of the famous verse:

“Koi Bole Ram Ram Koi Khudia

Koi Saye Gosain Koi Allahe..

Koi Kare Puja Koi Sis Nabahe..

Koi Nave Tirath Koi Hajj Jae”

(Translation : ‘Some Say Ram Ram, Some Say Khuda; Some Say Gosain, Some Allah;..Some Do Puja, Some Bow Heads [in Prayer]; Some Bathe During Pilgrims, Some Go and Do the Hajj’).

Illustration 26 Nusrat Ali Fateh Khan

An Asian and global Mastro of Qawali and many other great musical traditions.

His great hits included ‘Mast Kalandhar’. He also sang ‘Koi Bole Ram Ram’.

Theme 4

PROGRESS

‘Na koi bairi

nahi begana

sagal sangh hum ko ban aie’

Guru Nanak Dev

Translated Version

‘No one is my enemy

No one is a foreigner

With all I am at peace

God within us renders us

Incapable of hate and prejudice.’

Illustration 27 Lotus - a symbol of Asia and its ancient wisdom, religion and philosophy

Map 7 ‘Freedom in the World 2007’ Source: Freedom House (www.freedomhouse.org )

Colours: Green = Free; Light Orange = Partly Free; Red = Not Free

Progressives Movements in the East

How can this be done? This has to be an issue addressed at the level of government and at the level of the cultural industries.

At the current moment, the powers in the cultural industries including the global cultural companies treat Asian culture as peripheral and marginalised.

Progressive Movements in the West

The pursuit of happiness is our right – to enjoy life and live it to the full.

Illustration 29 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen 1789 by the French Revolution

Illustration 30 First page of the constitution of the United states of America 1787

The 1960s led to legal changes including the availability of reliable contraception and legal abortion.

Illustration 31 Photo: Women’s March Washington DC 2003

The Asian Century will have:

the basic modern freedom to dissent from religious dogmatism (of whatever religion); or,
the freedom to reject religion;
enlightenment of free ideas and developing scientific methods ;
rights of man (and, of course woman),
freedom from colonialism,
right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

In addition, it will support:

the right to linguistic freedom (without the imposition of one language),
freedom of different cultures,
freedom of different religions and beliefs,
freedom from hunger and fear (amongst Roosevelt’s famous four freedoms)[18],
creativity and innovation (freedom to invent and design new things and ideas).

It will be freedom for women, freedom for the workers, freedom to pursue different sexual preferences, freedom from racism and freedom from all forms of human and animal exploitation.

Freedom of human movement across the earth without the boundaries of national borders will be another achievement of this century of globalisation and internationalisation.

To be a truly historic century, it should be free from all forms of human violence and cruelty including psychological violence.

The combination of prosperity, peace, pluralism and progress and the tackling of poverty and the struggle against protectionism are the fundamentals of the Asian Century.

Pleasure could also be added to this list of fundamentals – as the Asian Century will also include the right to pursue happiness.
This will be underlined by democracy - of the freedom to choose your rulers and reject them through the will of the majority (which can still be mistaken, hence the entrenched right to have regular elections – for the people to change their minds).

Section 4 CONCLUSION

East and West Relations in the C21st

Role of Asian People in the West

Illustration 32 Ujjal Dosangh and Raminder at the Raj Ghat,

Mahatma Gandhi Samadhi New Delhi (monument erected to remember him).

They are paying respects to his memory and contribution to humanity.

The low level of Asian people in the West poses dangers for the West.

A new age of progress: enlightenment and economic revolution

Illustration 33 Photos of Sigmund Freud Founder of modern psycholo-analysis

Illustration 34 Killing field of Cambodia under Pol Pot when his khmer Rouge killed 1.7 million people – one fifth of its population.

Illustration 35 Poster during Mao’s Cultural Revolution in China.

It is estimated that in rural Chin 36 million Chinese were persecuted during this period and between 750,000 and 1.5 million were killed.

Illustration 36 Poem against the Taliban and their brutal policies against Afghani women. 60 women died as a result of public flogging.

Source: http://www.edu.pe.ca/montaguehigh/grass/socialstudies/genderequality/cult3.htm.

I Stand by Your Ear Unseen

I stand by your ear unseen.

Before the flogging they buried me to my waist in mud

One hundred times and one, they beat me with a cane

Because I was wearing a burqa

the mullah was spared the sight of my blood

When my family took me home I was unconscious

They were forbidden to seek treatment

When I died the next morning no one was surprised.

It was three days after my 18th birthday.

I stand by your ear unseen.

When I was 14 I wanted to be a teacher. I remember

laughing with my friends on the way home from school

I remember writing poems about the future

daydreaming at the window into velvet sky

Impossible, then, to believe what would come

after the Taliban took our town.

I stand by your ear unseen.

When I was 15 they came. The wide world choked shut

Collapsed to a point of fear, hunger. Constant

My sisters and I ate what brothers left. Little. They

could leave the house for classes, for work

My mother's office job was taken away

When my uncle would accompany her

she took her turn wearing a neighborhood burqa

so she could look for food. She sold our books

I stand by your ear unseen.

Three years. My youngest sister sickened

My father carried her to the hospital but

they told him to throw her away. She died at the door

That's when my anger endangered all of us

In her name I started a secret school. To read

to write, five little girls and I risked our lives

I would do it again. It was a way for ghosts

to have hands and voices for awhile.

I stand by your ear unseen.

When another decree was issued, that houses with women

have all windows painted black, we had no funds

My father was gone, forced into the militia

My mother had nothing left to sell

They marched in to bully us

found the hidden school slates behind my bed

Hauled to the mullah, I told nothing

He shut the door and raped me.

I stand by your ears unseen

Famine and depression make periods scant

I didn't know about the baby at first

My aunt had the right herb in a hidden pot on her roof

She stayed while my baby bled out

A new decree, forbidden to make sound when we walk,

caught her when she left. She didn't have shoes that were silent

They beat her on the street until her accompanying son

in his panic tried to shield her

by sacrificing me. The mullah learned everything.

I stand by your ear unseen.

He announced my offense of having an abortion

which proved I was promiscuous

My crimes cloaked his and no one

could do anything but pray I might survive

That prayer was not mine. I was ready to depart

I do not ask for personal mourning. Twelve million living

women and girls require your outrage

Lift your veil! Open your ear.

Let’s construct this world ‘tower of babel’ on the cyberspace.

Protectionism has to be overcome – without forgetting our obligations to people, as precious fragile beings, and to nature and not to the empty shells of ideology.

The promise of the Asian century is pluralism, progress, peace as well as prosperity and the tackling of poverty. This century needs to have the motto: ‘people’.

In the words of the great Chinese sage, Lao Tzu:

“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” (Tao Te Ching)

Section 5 RECOMMENDATIONS

Prosperity

Peace

Pluralism

Progress

Prosperity

Support for the process of liberalisation and globalisation within Asia - to create high levels of sustained economic growth across the region driven by China and India.
Support for Asia’s engagement with the West through trade, investment and skills.
High level priority given to Asian infrastructure development including basic services and transport systems.
Development of the Asian Economic Community through a strategic process taking fully into account the general and specific views of Asian people within each Asian country and region.
A strategic development of an Asian welfare state through the fruits of rapid and high economic growth.

Peace

Support for Asia’s peace process in south Asia on the Korean peninsula and in west Asia through a two-state solution between Israel and Palestine.
Endorsement of the philosophy of non-violence of Mahatma Gandhi across Asia through the award of Nobel Prize to MG, declaration of MG Peace Day across Asia and the world,
Promotion of peace through public and private support for totally pacifist religious bodies.

Pluralism

Support for multi-cultural and multi-faith states.
Reject of cultural and religious imperialism.
Support for tourism, cultural and educational between the West and Asia
Support for Asian languages including the international mother tongue language day.
Support for twinning and partnerships between Asian and Western government and private sector institutions and NGO bodies using Asian populations in the West as a bridge builder in such an exercise.

Progress

Support for progressive social policies across Asia.
Exchanges of ideas between the West and Asia on socially progressive legislation and practice.

5. Additional Asian languages should be brought into the United Nations such as Hindi and Punjabi, which are world languages.

Campaigning on global strategic changes

e.g. UN Change – 100 million petition for change –biggest in history.

Changing Institutional and Corporate Discrimination Against Asian Culture

e.g George Bush on Hindi as an international language.

Celebrating Asian History

e.g. pay tribute to Gandhi’s statute in Tavistock Square

Teaching History of Colonialism in Schools in Western Schools

Celebrating Asian Culture as Part of World Culture

e.g. Establish Gandhi National Remembrance Days as National holidays;

Teach Asia languages, cultures, religions, geography and history in schools and in higher education in Europe and America

Recognise Migration from Asia as Free Movement of People

Establish Global focus on Making Poverty History in Africa

Develop Free Trade Links between Asia and Latin America

Mahatma Gandhi’s birthday to be celebrated as Mahatma Gandhi Peace Day - to be observed in all schools and as a day of non-violence and pacifism across the world at official and non-official level.

Asian History is taught in schools

Democracy Day – sovereignty of the people day.

Children’s thoughts and projects on the Asian century – including prizes, books published, posters and cultural projects.

Top 1000 Asian lists –government and civil servants

Top 1000 Asia business people

Top 1000 Asian

Then books to include top 10,000 of each category

Then by major city – top 1000 etc.

‘New Indian Summers’- New waves of Asian culture

Ask government, institutions and private companies to get involved.

Asian cultural celebrations take place in every city –

Asian Days

Twinning and partnership cities – school and college trips -

Project for the Asian Century is supported to build a powerful pro-Asia, pro-world message.

Build Asian institutions and organisations led by Asian people committed to Asian unity, with secular, democratic, progressive, peace and equality values.

New Asian immigration targets across Europe and US:

10% of the population from India and 10% from China – 50 million in Europe.

10% of the pop from India and 10% from China – 70 million

USA Hispanics a majority

Section 6 READING LIST ON THE ASIAN CENTURY

Section 1 Introduction

Industrial Revolution

The Victorian Web.

http://www.victorianweb.org/history/legistl.html

This gives a list and description of the major legislation introduced during this period.

The extracts of the major Disraeli/Gladstone speeches can be obtained from the above website in a different section www.victorianweb.org/history/polspeech

Novels by Charles Dickens include ‘Hard Times’

Novels by Jane Austen include ‘Pride and Prejudice’

Novels by Thomas Harding include ‘Far from the Maddening Crowds’

All these can be obtained through bookshops or on the internet at the wonderful major books site www.gutenberg.org by Project Gutenberg.

American transformation

US Speech of Frank Delano Roosevelt President 1933-45

www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/ FDR Library

The famous speeches of FDR have an emphasis on challenging the vested interests to create the great society based on the four needs, new deal of employment and public works.

Historical Data About Asia’s Economic Position

Angus Maddison www.angusmaddison.org

‘The World Economy: A Millennial Perspective’ OECD Centre for Development Studies (University of British Columbia Press) July 11 2005 ISBN 9264186085

http://www.ggdc.net/maddison/

(P263 Table B–20).

Shares of World GDP, 20 Countries and Regional Totals, 0–1998 A.D.

(per cent of world total)

Year 0 1000 1500 1600 1700 1820 1870 1913 1950 1973 1998

Total Western Europe 10.8 8.7 17.9 19.9 22.5 23.6 33.6 33.5 26.3 25.7 20.6

Eastern Europe 1.9 2.2 2.5 2.7 2.9 3.3 4.1 4.5 3.5 3.4 2.0

Former USSR 1.5 2.4 3.4 3.5 4.4 5.4 7.6 8.6 9.6 9.4 3.4

Total West (US, Canada etc) 0.5 0.7 0.5 0.3 0.2 1.9 10.2 21.7 30.6 25.3 25.1

Total Latin America 2.2 3.9 2.9 1.1 1.7 2.0 2.5 4.5 7.9 8.7 8.7

Japan 1.2 2.7 3.1 2.9 4.1 3.0 2.3 2.6 3.0 7.7 7.7

China 26.2 22.7 25.0 29.2 22.3 32.9 17.2 8.9 4.5 4.6 11.5

India 32.9 28.9 24.5 22.6 24.4 16.0 12.2 7.6 4.2 3.1 5.0

Other Asia 16.1 16.0 12.7 11.2 10.9 7.3 6.6 5.4 6.8 8.7 13.0

Total Asia (excluding Japan) 75.1 67.6 62.1 62.9 57.6 56.2 36.0 21.9 15.5 16.4 29.5

Africa 6.8 11.8 7.4 6.7 6.6 4.5 3.6 2.7 3.6 3.3 3.1

World 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0

India’s ancient culture has very broad and refined range of thinking without artificial moral or philosophical limits, which enabled it to be a culture of enterprise and a dynamic trading economy.

FUNDAMENTAL DRIVERS

UN Population

World Population Prospects: 2004 Revisions

These are the most significant statistical data in relation to a pattern of economic development based on the population as a driver of economic growth.

The highlight of these figures is that China today is the largest and most rapidly developing world economy.

PROSPERITY

Goldman Sachs

Global Economics Paper No: 99 ‘Dreaming with BRICS: the Path to 2050’ by Dominic Wilson and Roopa Purushothaman 1^st October 2003

PEACE

www.mkgandhi.org

Those who struggle for truth also know the limits of their own perfections and actions, but they cannot stop trying to reach those ultimate goals.

Mahatma Gandhi should feature in every curriculum in the world. His influence would change the future for the better and his message of non-violence is in perfect synchronicity with the C21st.

www.worldpeacenewsletter.com

PLURALISM

Peace Pledge Union including site on religions and war (www.ppu.org.uk/learn/infodocs/st_religions.hmtl)

Criteria for judging successful democratic societies

Amartya Sen

Transparency International

Freedom House

http://www.freedomhouse.org

Index on democracy and freedom of the press.

International PEN on writers’ freedom

World Writers Association

Freedom of expression in books and media

Minority rights

www.minorityrights.org

PROGRESS

Dictionary of the History of Ideas:

Jainism is a philosophy of non-violence with its central concept of ahimsa (non-harm to any living thing). It is a philosophy of ecological and biological diversity as well as non-violence against humans.
Buddhism was an impressive and progressive force with a non-violent and a democratic philosophy. Its humanism went as far as atheism. Its moral principles were not predicated on the existence of God. The democratic philosophy in the concept of the ‘sangha’ (democratic community) resulted in Buddhist parliaments where leaders of the faith/ philosophy were elected. Emperor Asoka adopted Buddhism as a philosophy of the state and renounced violence from his reign. He sought to spread the Buddhist philosophy to the West through the Middle east and to the East through China. He was very successful, although not everywhere. Buddhism is a cross-cultural religion between South Asia and East Asia.
Emperor Akbar was a great statesman, who tried to create a fusion and tolerance for different religions in his court. He abolished oppressive taxes such as the tax on non-believers (jizya) and on pilgrims. This endorsed religious co-existence and fusion to create ‘din-i-ilahi’ – a new type of state religion instead of mono-faith one. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akbar is a good site for the main elements that constituted this experiment in faith. Akbar was regarded mainly as a successful ‘imperialist’ ruler as he did not seek to oppress his subjects in terms of religion and sought wider welfare measures.
Sikhism as a progressive movement can be seen through the philosophy of Guru Nanak as in the Japji Sahib. A good English translation can be found at www.sikhnet.com/sggs/translation. Equally, Sikh egalitarianism and progressive notions are revealed in the traditions of the Bhagats (Saints) and Sufi pirs included in the Guru Granth Sahib (Sikh holy book) with their universal rejection of the caste system and being from different castes themselves. Finally, Guru Gobind Singh created a revolutionary democratic army that was similar to European enlightenment forces and revolutionary democratic forces including Cromwell’s Parliamentary Army as reformist and non-conformist in character; the fifth and ninth Sikh Guru’s were martyred on the principle of religious freedom and pluralism and refusal to forced conversion to the point of giving one’s life for the principle; equally, Guru Gobind Singh sacrificed his four sons and mother and father for equality, liberty and national freedom. Maharajah Ranjit Singh as a first Sikh King of a Sikh Empire (in some contradiction to Sikh ideas of equality) was nevertheless a very humane ruler including rejecting the death penalty and taxes based on religious beliefs as well as supporting mixed religion administration, a humanism reflected in support for arts and education, professionalism in the military and moral capacity to reject British rule (which only took hold in the Punjab after his death and was the last place to fall to the British). Maharajah Ranjit Singh inherited some of the legacy of Sikhism’s revolutionary democratic character, given to it by its founder, to make his legacy progressive for India and he was termed Sher-E-Punjab (lion of the Punjab and one of the three lions of India).
All India Congress Committee site, www.aicc.org.in, with a brief description of the Indian National Congress as the freedom movement of the India which was the biggest progressive movement in Asia history embracing almost 40 million people or approximately 10% of its population; Congress also is the largest democratic party in the world in the largest democracy of the world because of this inheritance. The principles of democracy, secularism as the co-existence of many religions in one nation with a secular (non-religious) administration, equality and socialism (as the idea of creating equality through state action) are the hallmarks of trying to create a civilised Indian polity. This is also part of the contribution of the India’s independence movement to the modern progressive character of the Indian state. Today, Indian coalition government of the United Progressive Alliance has a manifesto that seeks to address crucial question including the creation of mass employment for India’s rural poor, creating an infrastructure for India’s rural economy and villages, etc. as well as seeking to increase economic growth and national prosperity. This is an ambition to have a nation of people outside of poverty and into the developed economy – a very great ambition and a very noble goal that will determine whether India goes forward together as a nation in the C21st.
Similarly, www.mkgandhi.org site offers a vast range of information about Gandhism. Mahatma Gandhi’s philosophy of non-violence was based on the notion of not making the oppressors into enemies, but using tactics to re-awaken their humanity and make them into good people. This philosophy, with its concept of forgiveness, is at the heart of creating a modern humanity. Equally, important is Gandhi as a social reformer and a democrat who regards people as equal beings.

CONCLUSION

Asia Society New York

An invaluable range of work being carried out including a lot of invaluable contemporary internet resources.

[1] “OH, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,

Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great Judgment Seat;

But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,

When two strong men stand face to face,

tho’ they come from the ends of the earth!”

The Ballad of the East and West

Rudyard Kipling 1865-1936

(Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. A Victorian Anthology, 1837–1895 published in1895).

[7] In 2007 there were 946 billionaires in the world, according to the annual Forbes magazine survey. Asian billionaires comprised 36 Indians, 24 Japanese, 21 Hong Kong and 20 for China.

[10] Source: Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations Secretariat (2007).

[11] For more information about ASEAN see http://www.aseansec.org

[13] http://www.sheeraz.com/ambassador/bollywood-stats.php

[14] http://mutiny.wordpress.com/2007/02/01/bollywood-vs-hollywood-the-complete-breakdown/

[16] In the phrase of WW Rostow who argued that a ‘take-off’ stage was necessary in developing advanced economies in his famous book The Stages of Economic Growth: A Non-Communist Manifesto (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1960), Chapter 2, "The Five Stages of Growth--A Summary," pp. 4-16.

[18]“ In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms.

The first is freedom of speech and expression — everywhere in the world.

The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way — everywhere in the world.

That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation.”

Speech by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt of the USA

The Annual Message to the Congress January 6^th 1941

( source: http://www.feri.org/common/news/details.cfm?QID=2089&clientid=11005)

Summary:

This book seeks to understand China and India's economic rise in the late 20th and early 21st century using a historical and current macro-economic point of view, in its own current space as well as by making comparison with Western and Japanese economic history of take-off. The book examines the failed statist strategies prior to the take-off in China and India and their mistaken political and economic philosophy.

The implications of this change are global. They may even represent a major historical phase of modern global development. Hence the use of the term 'Asian Century'. Furthermore, the economic take-off has a powerful global cultural dimension. There are likely to be immense political implications too.

Globalisation and political economy has been radically re-shaped by Asia's economic take-off. Prosperity, anti-poverty, pluralism, peaceand progress (5 Ps) are themes addressed in this book. For example, Western and Eastern progress is examined as part of the new thinking required in the 21st century.

The book is a manifesto with a pasionate embrace of this change. It appeals to those willing to think about the world in a new way by thinking about Asia in a new way. It is rhetorical and controversial. It's real purpose is to go beyond basic economic facts - to start a journey of modern thinking about Asia as the new dynamic centre of the world economy with multi-level global implications for the story of the 21st century.

‘Action is eloquence’ William Shakespeare

Contents

Section 1

INTRODUCTION

Purpose

Asian Century

Defining Asian

Asians are the majority

History of Asia’s Role in the World

Section 2

The fundamental drivers of the Asian century

Driver 1 Asian Demographics

Driver 2 Rise of China and India in the world economy

Driver 3 Globalisation of Asian culture

Driver 4 Lack of a Middle East peace process

Driver 5 High value of Asian skills and education in the world market

Driver 6 Rise of Asian agriculture and ecological imperatives in the world market

The new moral universe in the Asian Century

Section 3 Four themes of the Asian Century

Theme 1

PROSPERITY

‘Chinindia’

An Asian and Global Meritocracy

Asia’s ecology and battle for animal, plant and environmental diversity

Theme 2

PLURALISM

Majorities and Minorities

Religion, Secularism and Modernism

Religious Totalitarianism

Theme 3

PEACE

India’s exclusion from the international system

Peace and diplomacy towards Asian unity

Terrorism

Theme 4

PROGRESS

Progressives Movements in the East

Progressive Movements in the West

Section 4 CONCLUSION

East and West Relations in the C21st

Role of Asian People in the West

A new age of progress: enlightenment and economic revolution

Section 5 RECOMMENDATIONS

SECTION 1 INTRODUCTION

Advice to Indian children

Kalpana Chawla American Indian Astronaut killed on the Columbiamission (India Today interview February 17^th 2003)

Purpose

Like John F Kennedy, I want to proclaim myself in solidarity. He said:”Ich bich ein Berliner” (I am a Berliner). He stood up against the division of the world created by the Iron Curtain.

I say: “I am an Asian”. I stand in solidarity with Asia and against the division of the world into the east and the west.

Above all, I am a human being. This planet is my planet.

Asian Century

Map 1: Population density in the world

The Industrial revolution produced a total transformation of Britainthrough the following key features:

the process of urbanisation as a result of large scale rural migration;
science and invention (of gigantic proportions);
big ideas and great execution;
a new national infrastructure including railway system, underground, bridges and other forms of world transport such as mass passenger ships;
social revolution to eliminate horrific levels of human exploitation and misery in the towns and factories through legislation and campaigns with healthcare provision and education established through state schools;[2]
world famous literature of the industrial revolution examining changes in the countryside such as Thomas Hardy, urban poor with Charles Dickens[3] and marginalised as well as the middle class winners of this early process such Jane Austen; and,
mass democracy giving ordinary people a sway over government and political philosophical change.

All of this transformed Britain and made it a global leader at all levels - economic, social, cultural, political and philosophical.

Graph 1 Relative share of world manufacturing output, 1750-1950. Data from: Paul Bairoch, "International Industrialization Levels from 1750 to 1980" JEEH 11

The USA was the second great economic transformation applied to a population of over a hundred million people:

It was accompanied by great transport links with the railway link of C19th stretching across the continent as part of the industrial revolution;
This saw the great Fordist assembly line production and the American management revolution;
It saw the infrastructure of the New Deal with the Hoover Dam and other gigantic construction projects;
In cultural terms, it saw Hollywood establish cinema as global cultural experience. In literature, it had its F. Scott Fitzgerald[4] and John Steinbeck[5] - the writers about the Jazz Age and the Depression;
English and USA music became global music – symbolised by Elvis Presley and the Beatles;
The USA black musical contribution led many trends in C20th;
USA changed with migration from nearly all corners of the world, but specifically Europe;
America saw its military power also expand to a superpower status. Post-Second World War America became firmly a global economic power – transforming its cities into skyscrapers and offering unprecedented consumer choice. America also conquered space (alongside Soviet Union);
On a social level, it abolished racial segregation, introduced quotas to eradicate racism, gave rights to women including the right to choose over abortion, gay and lesbian discrimination was outlawed and gay and lesbian ‘marriages’ were sanctioned;
There was also the student and youth idealism expressed in movement against the far-away war in Vietnam against the peasants fighting the most powerful military machine on earth;
The recent environmental movement on the question of climate change and consequences of global warming is beginning to have a dramatic impact on American consumerism and US corporate social responsibility; and,
The huge rise in the average living standards for its people, with a population of over one third billion, showed the scale of its achievement.[6]

Illustration 1 Picture of the Industrial Revolution in England (left); Photo of the Fordist Revolution in the USA (right) Source:www.sustainability.murdoch.edu.au/.../E12.jpg

The prospects for humanity are brighter through these developments. We are in the epoch of the transition to the ‘Asian Century’ – the epoch when the wasted human talent latent within Asia will be utilised as happened previously in the West. This will see in our view Asiabeing added to the West in terms of the global area covered by advanced economic development.

Graph 2 The economic position of Asia 2005 Source: www. imf.com 2005

The ordinary people of the West are benefiting from increased purchasing power through cheap quality products and services provided by Asian roaring economies as well as from the global economic expansion in the world driven by Asia’s economic growth. The youth of the West are revelling in Asian culture as part of the world’s new cultural scene. The elites in the West are already participating in the new business environment of Asia’s economic rise as part of the modern economic world. The USA, through the Iraqwar, has realised that there are limitations to its massive economic and military resources.

Defining Asian

Today the question of ‘what is Asia?’[8] is being defined by the economic dynamism of the continent.

Map 2 of Asia by United Nations’ regions indicated by colour.

Green = West Asia, Red = South Asia, Purple = Central Asia, Blue = North Asia, Yellow = East Asia, Orange = South East Asia

Asia is becoming a vision as well as a reality. ‘Asia is One’ in the famous phrase of the Japanese Okakura Okakuzo in his ‘The Ideals of the East’ (1904). It is engaged in a process of unification on a grand scale – in terms of the economic realities on the ground as well as on the ideological and political level through pan-Asian visionaries.[9]This is a challenge to all the weaknesses of Asia and an appeal to all of Asia’s strengths. Asia as a collective entity will make all Asians strong. It will be more than a sum of its parts. It will also benefit humanity.

India has the potential to be the bridge between east (Japan, China) and west Asia (e.g. Arab countries) in order to unite Asia. This is a strategic role for India - both at the level of trade, culture, philosophy and politics. India can unite Asia. It must be enabled to play this specific global role.

Asians are the majority

The total Asian population of 4.030 billion, out of the total world population of 6.671 billion, constituted 60% of the world population in 2007[10]. Asians are the majority on the planet. At stake is the most fundamental battle on earth: the battle against poverty. If China andIndia defeat poverty, whilst constituting four in ten of the world’s population - with Asians the majority - so can the rest of humanity. IfChina and India do it, they will inspire the rest of poor humanity. The end of poverty will be in sight. From one moment in history to another, the world will have turned from upside down to the right way up – or back on its rightful axis. The majority will dominate the planet. They will not be marginalised people, as in the colonial times. The greatest blow will have been struck against racism.

Graph 3 China and India’s population in relation to other countries and continents 2005

Graph 4 1750-2005 Asia’s population lead in the world Sourcehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population

In the C20th, USA, Soviet Union and Japan as large nations witnessed prolonged periods of high economic growth rates. However, they were still smaller nations (individually or even collectively through aggregation of their population sizes combined together) than that ofChina and India (individually or collectively). Equally, in late C20th the smallest nations experienced major economic transformation through prolonged economic growth – such as the Asian ‘city states’ such asSingapore, Hong Kong and Abu Dhabi as well as those Asian nations with relatively small populations such as Taiwan, South Korea,Malaysia (of south east Asia). Similarly, European Union states such as Ireland and Spain have made major transformation of their economies in late C20th and have placed their societies into advanced economies with very high living standards.

The stage of the industrial and technological transformation of Chinaand India in C21st would be the culmination of the modern trend of economic power gradually becoming located in the most populous countries of the world - since the time of the first establishment of the modern industrial revolution in Britain. In C21st, there will be a clear correlation between the greatest economic power and the most populous countries driven by prolonged economic growth in China andIndia. The process marks a turning point of modern world economic development began by Britain’s industrial revolution.

Equally, China and India are extraordinary nations: one a now quasi-communist state, the other a democracy. One was subject to pre-World War Two Japanese colonialism (for a short period of time), the other subject to British colonialism (for approximately two hundred years). Both are victims of two state theories – China with Taiwan,India with Pakistan (and also in a more distant way Bangladesh). Both face current demands for autonomy, if not separatism form their multicultural and multi-faith nations – for example, in Tibet and inKashmir. It is likely any concessions to territorial disintegration could cause serious and possibly fatal prospects to economic growth. There could be a wider process of national disintegration and explosion – with a collapse of these gigantic societies as national states. The historical process of the tragic partition of India and Pakistan cost millions of deaths and tens of millions of refugees and major dislocation to its economy, with negative consequences of wars and poverty for the region of a wasted half-century of unnecessary conflict.

The late part of C20th saw a greater trend towards to new economic and regional blocs rising above the nation-state as a economic unit - such as the European Union and the free trade agreement such North America Free Trade Association. These are now spreading to all parts of the world including Asia. The cost to the former Soviet Unionthrough its territorial disintegration has been huge and has damaged it economic prospects drastically, as indicated by the key social indicator of falling life expectancy. It confirms the need for such blocs through the negative consequences of disintegration.

China and India and Asia cannot afford territorial disintegration, as it will unleash centrifugal forces with tragic costs in proportion to the weight of these giant countries – and from a cusp of economic victory could result in a return to a situation of fragmented and weak states, warring with each other and shedding blood on religious, cultural, ethnic, linguistic and many other basis – on a scale involving tens of millions of people and possibly hundreds of millions, which those who understand China and India in their history will realise is a real danger. This is the key choice Asia has to make - to keep and enhance China and India as multicultural and multi-faith nations.Despite small and outside pressures to cause the disintegration ofChina and India, such a betrayal of Asia’s destiny has to be resisted by all those who seek the good of Asia and the good of humanity.

However, in C21st there is a narrow and focussed economic agenda for this regional cooperation rather than a negative rhetorical ideological and military agenda. The politics of C21st modernism are those based on cooperation rather than confrontation. Asia is participating actively in this new global agenda with its regional structures. It is facing the challenges of a new global economic imperative on a more pan-Asian basis, which can enable it to provide solutions to its competition to the European Union or USA or some new Western transatlantic economic cooperation. In C21st, China andIndia are key players (as semi-regional entities in themselves by virtue of their populations) in keeping Asia together and uniting it for the benefit of Asia and the world.

Religious modernisation is a pre-requisite of C21st. Modern religions have huge challenges and cannot base themselves on:

social prejudice (such as racism, sexism, the choice of lesbian or gay lifestyles, physical or mental disability);
moralism (no sex, no contraception, drinking of alcohol, smoking cigarettes, taking drugs, food restrictions - apart from restricting such activity on grounds of damage to health - with ultimate choice with individuals);
psychological or physical violence (being damned, going to hell, justifying violence against other people or even asking individual’s to do self-harm etc);
anti-individual choice (right to change one’s personal, political or religious beliefs);
religious totalitarianism (no punishment for ‘apostasy’, change of religion or rejection of religion, right to criticise religious practices, a right to challenge religious orthodoxy or literal translation of religious teachings, right to update religious practices etc);
religious terrorism (forcing a religion on society through violent means, denial of religious pluralism, seeking to have a religious imposition on state, public and commercial activity);
educational or economic backwardness (restrictions on the useof modern technology, science, health advancements, entertainment, etc).

History of Asia’s Role in the World

Graph 5 Fall and rise of Asia’s GDP, 1820-2001. Source: A Maddison OECD

Before the full onslaught of industrial revolution in Britain and Europe, in the first half of the C19th, Asia was the overwhelmingly dominant part of the global economy as well as its population. Angus Maddison has produced compelling data on the world economy prior to the full economic rise of Asia. For most of last two thousand years, India and China were the leading global economies by a long margin - India more so than China, differing from current reality.

During the Meiji restoration in C19th Japan almost full-scale ‘westernisation’ was successfully adopted including through massive political reforms to overturn feudal Japanese structures.

On February 3, 1867, fifteen-year old Mutsuhito succeeded his father,Emperor Kōmei and a new era of Meiji, meaning "enlightened rule," was proclaimed. The Meiji Restoration of 1868 ended the 265-year-old feudalistic Tokugawa shogunate.

Establishment of deliberative assemblies
Involvement of all classes in carrying out state affairs
The revocation of sumptuary laws and class restrictions on employment
Replacement of "evil customs" with the "just laws of nature" and
An international search for knowledge to strengthen the foundations of imperial rule.

Illustration 2 1877 painting. Saigo Takamori, the Last Samurai

In short, government was to be the guide and business the producer. In the early Meiji period, the government built factories and shipyards that were sold to entrepreneurs at a fraction of their value. Many of these businesses grew rapidly into the larger conglomerates that still dominates much of the business world. Government emerged as chief promoter of private enterprise, enacting a series of pro-business policies, including low corporate taxes.

Illustration 3 Photo of Tokyo as a modern city built on new industrial and service sectors

However, it did gain a democracy and enforced ‘peace dividend’. It began to be included in international economic institutions and gathering such as the G7.

This unity lasted beyond these Empires through a cultural sense of the existence of these nations, but fragmentation resulted in weakening these societies specifically in the post-medieval period. Both Buddhism and Jainism attacked the caste system through its founder of Gautuma ‘Buddha’ and Mahavira (C6^th -5^th BC) as well as the humanism and meritocracy of Lao Tse and Confucius ( through the concept of ‘Ren’-goodness or human-heartedness). These were replaced by the Law of Man (rigidity of the caste system) in India and by Li (formalism and ritualism as part of social graces) in China – by the time of modernisation in the West.

Illustration 4 Photo Images: Buddha and Mahavir

Illustration 5 Paintings of Guru Nanak with Bhair Mardana and Bhai Bala ; Sheikh Farid of Shakergang

China adopted democracy under Sun Yat Sen as President in 1912 with his ‘Three Principles’ of nationalism, democracy and people’s livelihoods/welfare. However, this proved to be temporary and Japan colonised a weak fragmented China-in another phase of colonialism. Eventually, Mao Tse Tung was successful in defeating the ‘eastern’ imperialists of Japan and establishing an independent China – but under a dictatorial communist regime. Modern India did adopt a democratic constitution, after morfe than a century of imperialist rulke, on January 26, 1950, to create the largest democracy in the world. This was after the success of its historic anti-colonial democratic revolution to get rid of British imperialist rule on August 15th 1947 led by the ‘eastern’ moral, social and political giant of history, Mahatma Gandhi, and the diverse independence movement much of it under the banner of the Indian National Congress.

Illustration 7 Photo of 12^th ASEAN Summit at Cebu Philippines

hosted by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo of the Philippines - Asian Presidents and Prime Ministers from 16 Asian countries representing over 3 billion people.

[1] “OH, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,

Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great Judgment Seat;

But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,

When two strong men stand face to face,

tho’ they come from the ends of the earth!”

The Ballad of the East and West

Rudyard Kipling 1865-1936

(Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. A Victorian Anthology, 1837–1895 published in1895).

[7] In 2007 there were 946 billionaires in the world, according to the annual Forbes magazine survey. Asian billionaires comprised 36 Indians, 24 Japanese, 21 Hong Kong and 20 for China.

[8] Asia can be defined narrowly or broadly. The general definition ofAsia as a geographic continent corresponds with our usage of the term. There is a specific point of the definition to be inclusive of different cultures, languages, religions, colours and civilisations. In this sense, the desire of Australia and New Zealand to be included as part of Asian, should be received positively. West Asia with the Arab and other nations are part of Asia. Similarly, Israel as a Jewish nation is part of Asia. Most of Russia and Turkey are geographically part ofAsia. They can also choose to be part of Europe as part of the Council for Europe or the European Union respectively without contradicting their membership of Asia. Of course, Japan is part of Asia as are countries of south east Asia, south Asia and east Asia. The definition of Asia in the context of the Asian century should be culturally broad and not a narrow nationalistic one. Asia is in a real sense a major part of the human race. Definitions should not seek to culturally restrict those who can be Asians. Both Eastern and Western civilisations have religious origins in Asia.

[9] Okakura Okakuzo wrote that: “ASIA is one. The Himalayas divide, only to accentuate, two mighty civilisations, the Chinese with itscommunism of Confucius, and the Indian with its individualism of theVedas. But not even the snowy barriers can interrupt for one moment that broad expanse of love for the Ultimate and Universal, which is the common thought-inheritance of every Asiatic race, enabling them to produce all the great religions of the world, and distinguishing them from those maritime peoples of the Mediterranean and theBaltic, who love to dwell on the Particular, and to search out the means, not the end, of life.” The Ideals of the East (1904)

[10] Source: Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations Secretariat (2007).

[11] For more information about ASEAN see http://www.aseansec.org

SECTION 2 THE FUNDAMENTAL DRIVERS OF THE ASIAN CENTURY

There are six fundamental drivers of the Asian century, which will become central agenda items of the C21st:

Demographics of the Asian population in the world;
Increasingly dominant role played by China and India in the world economy;
Globalisation of Asian Culture;
Lack of substantial progress in the Middle East peace process;
High value of Asian skills and education in the world market;
Rise of Asian agriculture and ecological imperatives in the world market.

Driver 1 Asian Demographics

Map 3 Highlighting China and India with a population over 1 billion, and in Asia, Indonesia, Japan, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Russia with over 100 million. Only USA, Mexico and Brazil in Americas and Nigeriain Africa have a population of over 100 million people.

India is a more closed economy than China, which specifically sought international capital (from the USA,Europe) to expand its economy. China has made concerted efforts since the 1980s to liberalise the economy - at the end of the cultural revolution, the Communist Party engaged in comprehensive reforms to liberalise sections of the Chinese economy that had become sluggish and inefficient and state controlled pricing mechanisms were failing to respond to shifts in demand. By engaging in this reform China avoided the crippling supply shortages that contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Regime. Important economic changes and milestones include:

· Special Economic Zones (SEZs) were set up in key regions based on economic development zones that Taiwan established in the 1970s;

· the Coastal Development strategy was implemented in the late 80's and proved successful in granting local officials greater autonomy in authorising local projects;

· FDI also saved many State Owned Enterprises (SOEs) through the zhuada fangxio reforms.

Graph 7: Predicted changes Asia’s population 2000 to 2050 Source:www.japanorama.com/images/Donut_2000_2050.gif

India’s demographics will play a large factor in its economic growth provided that it stays an open economy and the government and business sector invests in its people. Specific lending facilities for the rural and poor people have to be developed on a grand scale. In 2003 Goldman Sachs report, ‘Dreaming with BRICS’, demographics was taken into account to show that India could be projected to have a higher growth rate than other BRIC economies. India will also benefit from its much younger population, whilst China has succeeded in reducing its population growth rate through the one-child policy which may lead to a top heavy population.[1]India will also require a new phase of social and political modernisation on a scale of its past historic progressive reform movements to benefit from its population advantage. It will have to unite as a nation to create equality of opportunity for all people and to unite to wipe out poverty through capital investment on a scale beyond China’s achievements. They have history on their side.

Graph 8 Projected Growth of BRIC (Brazil, Russia, Indian, China) economies highlighting India’s potential.

Source – Goldman Sachs 2003 Report ‘Dreaming with BRICS’.

The overall population projections will strengthen the Asian position in the world in C21st in relation to the West.

Driver 2 Rise of China and India in the world economy

China and India’s share of the global trade is increasing: with Chinanearly five per cent and India two per cent in 2005. This is not yet of world shattering proportions as in 1760 or even 1820, but it is the harbinger of momentous change.

Graph 9 Change in Top Ten economies from 2005 to 2040 Source: IMF; Goldman Sachs.

The route of China and India in terms of overall economic policy is very similar: liberalisation to invite internal and external capital. The only difference is that China implemented this policy without democratic debate through its political mechanism and state control.India rightly debates this policy as a democratic polity, enabling business and labour to settle their own disputes as a general rule without strong control in this area. India and China will have to implement a similar policy overall economic policy of liberalisation, despite the protests of the left, because it needs to grow enough to provide for a more than a billion people.

Driver 3 Globalisation of Asian culture

Asian culture is being globalised through an ever-increasing share of the entertainment, media and technology sectors in the world economy.

Graph 10 World music market shares 2005 Source: IFPI (London-based international music industry body)

Illustration 8 Logo of Universal the world’s biggest group in the music industry.

Illustration 9 Shah Rukh Khan with waxwork Shah Rukh Khan at Madame Tussauds London

Bhangra has transformed itself in two critical ways: it adapted itself to the urban street and nightclub dance culture of the West as well as keeping its raw rural energy of its rural lyrics and rhythms. For instance, in UK, Canada and USA, the Punjabi ‘immigrant’ communities started transforming Bhangra in the late 1970s and 1980s to Western Punjabi audiences and then in the 1990s and 2000s to Western and global audiences.[4]. Its fusion with rap, hip hop and other Western urban cultural genres was a critical phase in turning it into global youth music. Its success in the West led to it being exported to India and south Asian youth and society as an ‘Asian’ universal genre in new, youth and party dance music.

Both Bollywood and Bhangra represent popular development of Asian culture in the west and on a global scale at the beginning of the twenty-first city.

Illustration 10 Sony’’s PSP handheld portable gaming console released in December 2004 in Japan

Illustration 11

Bollywood posters in India.(left)

Bollywood films have become more popular than Hollywood Films in the world in 2004.

Illustration 12 Bhangra

Vancouver, Canada in 2006 officially sponsored the International Bhangra Celebration, a reflection of East-West and rural-urban mix

(Left) A symbolic poster of modern Bhangra.

The modern attitude towards culture is beautifully expressed in the lyrics of the song, ‘Aish Karo’ (‘Have Fun’), by A.S.Kang, one of the godfathers of modern Bhangra:

“Khao, peeo, aish karo, mitro;

Di,l par, kisae da dukhaeo na”

(translated as “Eat, Drink, Have Fun, Friends; But Do Not Hurt Anyone’s Heart”).

(Source: http://www.desimusic.com/music/pop/songs/1999/aish-karo-a-s-kang.html)

Illustration 13 Jackie Chan

With co-star ChrisTucker of the successful ‘Rush Hour’ film series

Driver 4 Lack of a Middle East peace process

Illustration 14(left) Prime Minister Rabin, President Clinton and President Arafat at the signing of the Oslo Accord in Washington DC 1993.

Failure to reach a mutual solution with Israel and the Palestinians based on the two-state solution - with mutual economic and security guarantees;
The notion of ‘Muslim’ democratic-theocratic states, through the application of an underlying Muslim empire (‘Khalifaat’ type) idea as a solution to the problems of 21st century Middle East or the modern ‘Muslim’ world, by countering and eliminating ‘Western’ and ‘other’ secular and non-Muslim differences and oppositions.

Map 4 The boundaries of the Caliphate Empire 622 – 750 AD

The danger of implosion from within is a possibility with the rise of sectarian violence within Islam – as a facet of the developments, for example, in Iraq and Pakistan.

The ‘Muslim world’ (as a broad term of different Muslim communities in the world) is failing and succeeding at the same time - out of the same process of economic globalisation. It is succeeding through the economically successful states such as those in east Asia (Indonesia,Malaysia, etc) as well as west Asia and north Africa (such as the Gulf states and some of the oil-rich states). Indian’s Muslim population is facing the challenge of being in an emerging multi-faith economic super-power as well as seeking to eradicate poverty. In the widerMiddle East and ‘Muslim’ world, oil is a major asset and its successful use for the diversification and economic broadening of growth is a possibility, although it is not a reality yet. On the failure side is the development of Muslim ‘failed states’ through a process of civil wars and radical Islam attempted coups– such as Afghanistan, Somalia,Iraq, Gaza in Palestinian territories etc.

Illustration 15 The famous Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

There is the key issue of the overthrow of the Taliban state inAfghanistan by the West - with the support of the international community through the United Nations - against the notorious al-Qaeda and Taliban alliance and its reactionary development ofAfghanistan into a backward state with social regression, whilst there was some Muslim popular sympathy for the Taliban in Pakistan. Iraqis perceived to have been attacked - without adequate international legal foundations through an explicit United Nations resolution - in a pre-emptive strike to remove the Saddam Hussein regime. Critics of the invasion note that more plausible reasons for the attack were cynical energy or military-strategic interests rather than democracy or the defence of humanitarian interests and avoiding the deployment of weapons of mass destruction. Iraq has become unstable with an internal civil war and failing as a state, despite the attempt to base the new state upon an electoral and democratic mandate. Islamic radicals will not accept the verdict of the electorate and the democratic mandate when it does not suit them. There is a false policy of Shia ‘majoritarianism’ in Iraq that threatens the unity of the country, with the Sunni minority already alienated and feeling its existence threatened. Both sides have armed and powerful militias. They all hide behind the cover of ‘anti-US and anti-colonialism’ politics and religion.

It would be accurate to say that the Muslim population is not economically homogenous - it is not uniformly as poor as sub-SaharanAfrica, nor uniformly as wealthy as the West (although it is both of these in some parts). There is an emerging globally advanced economic development amongst some significant Muslim populations and countries as well as deep poverty and economic under-development amongst most others. The globally-successful models of economic development (such as Dubai or Malaysia) may indicate a route map for the development of oil-rich Muslim states and maybe has a wider application to poorer ‘Muslim’ states. Dubai has the hallmarks of trying to win the game of economic enterprise and competition – with magnificent achievements such as the tallest structure in the world, Burj Dubai, and the Burj Al-Arab, as the only ‘seven star’ hotel (self-claimed because technically it is still a five star, although possibly the best in the world in that category), Jebel Ali as the largest man-made port in the world, a globally competitive ‘Emirates’ airline, international airport Dubai International, world class leisure and tourism facilities. It is possible to be internationally competitive without religion being a barrier. Dubai is also becoming outward-looking by establishing Hindu and Sikh places of worship for its vital migrant workforce. Equally, it is clear that economic success has not equated with democracy in Dubai; whilst it is legitimate to argue that the conditions for democracy to exist have been created here, through its economic and cultural successes and freedoms.

Illustration 17 Photo images: Burj Al-Arab Hotel and Media Centre, Dubai City

It is clear that ‘Muslim’ states that have an exclusivist outlook and have obsessive anti- globalisation attitudes (whether in relation to Western or Eastern globalisation) and are antithetical to multi-cultural or multi-faith relationships have failed e.g. the Taliban regime of Afghanistan. In my view, the notion of a Muslim-only world is a mistaken strategic notion and orientation - as much as an idea of Christian or any mono-religious state (Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh, Jewish, Shinto, Confucian, etc) or world. Mono-religious states adopt an ‘internalisation’ syndrome – with a state and its people turning inwards rather than outwards. There are examples of states within which an intra-Muslim civil or external conflict develops as a result of trying to establish a mono-religious state entity, such as Iraq today,Pakistan in the late c20th, Afghanistan, Iran as a war with Iraq as a neighbouring state.

Philosophically and historically, Islam is not incompatible economic modernisation and neither is it incompatible with a broader secular multi-cultural and multi-faith outlook. For instance, it has a philosophically progressive attitude towards women’s property rights – which like many ideas of original religions are lost in the period after its foundation, empty formalism and institutionalisation.Strategically, Islamic states and people should not see themselves as a collective victim or actor in the ‘clash of civilisations’ narrative and instead should regard themselves as participants and seek to be beneficiaries of multi-cultural and multi-faith globalisation.

Driver 5 High value of Asian skills and education in the world market

The Asian Century is based on the extraordinary ‘knowledge revolution’ in Asia. Ancient historical knowledge and innovation inChina and India has been employed for the age of the silicon. The Chinese have been responsible for great innovations in science and knowledge including the great government manager, the ‘mandarin’, whilst the Indians gave the world the numerical zero and other amazing scientific and intellectual tools ( including concepts such as ‘Ahimsa’ – non-harm). This firm foundation of learning has now been deployed on a massive scale involving tens of millions of people and expanding all the time.

Asian knowledge and skills are being applied on an industrial and intellectual scale. The industrial factory and the software service centre are the twin hallmarks of this revolution. The industrial revolution had a practical application for science and its outlook through gigantic industrial projects across Britain and the globe. TheUS invented business science with its application of management and creative techniques on a continental scale through new mass production lines and marketing levels with several hundred million people as direct beneficiaries. This current revolution in Asia has the context of a few billion people, although there are several hundreds of millions without any real level of formal education and only very basic levels of agricultural or labouring skills - indicated by 4 in 10 illiteracy of India’s population.

The sheer weight of operating in a dynamic market of such numbers – encapsulated in the notion of three billion capitalists – creates entrepreneurial, managerial and managerial skills on a grand scale. At the same time, the entry into the industrial and service labour market of millions and millions of people creates a new vibrancy amongst the industrial and intellectual labouring classes of Asia. Both China andIndia are in the midst of a knowledge revolution and its practical application on a scale greater than ever before – on a global demographic and geographical basis.

Graph 11 Global comparison of university graduates rates in science and engineering Source: Morgan Stanley

Asian universities are emerging as world class players.

The initial competitive aspect for the use of Asian skills was low cost, now it is becoming quality even at relatively rising costs. WithinIndia, the free labour market has led to rising salaries in the IT industry, whereas China’s manufacturing industry is based on controlling labour from the countryside and discriminating against the countryside in this matter.

Driver 6 Rise of Asian agriculture and ecological imperatives in the world market

Asian contribution to world agriculture is increasing becoming dominant. Asia’s ecological imperatives are central to the future of the planet. Asia has an enormous contribution in both. In some ways,Asia has over three billion farmers and three billions ecological champions. This is because it urbanisation has been very recent.China and India still have a rural majority. The historical memory of ecology in Asia is huge. Equally, the current knowledge of agriculture and ecology amongst Asians is a vast reservoir waiting to be tapped by the new science and research institutions of the world. On the fundamental question of the balance between ecology and economic growth, Asia have over three billion ecologists willing to pursue ecological goals – provided they are not being used as a recipe for the monopoly of economic growth and good living standards in the West.

Despite this inequity on agricultural subsidies, Asian agriculture is moving forward in the world market. China and India ($264 billion, $151 billion respectively) in 2005 were the top two countries in terms of the value of their agricultural production in the world ahead of theUSA ($128 billion) and individual European countries. Japan was the four largest at $64 billion – far behind the leading three. However, the European Union total figure as opposed to individual countries was $293 billion, making it the largest regional agricultural producer.

Map 5 World Agricultural GDP 2005

From 1804 to 1999, the world population has risen six-fold - from one billion to six billion. (http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/sixbillion/sixbilpart1.pdf ).

The new moral universe in the Asian Century

Equally, the instability and wars in west Asia such as the Iraq war, the concern about a conflict in Iran and the lack of a full peace settlement in Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a major cause of the split being the old Western order and a desire to create a better world. The anti-war movement in the West is sectarian in its approach by not using the examples of the peace process in Asia (such as the one between India-Pakistan, North-South Korea, Japan and South Korea, USA and Vietnam etc) as models of the process of conflict resolution. It falsely believes in its own moral superiority and has a vested interest in Asianot being a bigger moral example that the Western peace movement follows. This could make it seem racist because it cannot accept Asian aspirations and imperatives for peace in the world supported by Asian philosophical and moral schools as legitimate and major examples. A peace process between India and Pakistan involves a combined population of over one and a third billion! It is highly significant. Maybe the West needs to learn from the East about peace rather than arrogantly preach to the East on this subject.

Map 6 British Empire in 1921

Electoral Results of Extreme Right Parties in Western Europe

Country

Party

Most recent national election

% vote.

Seats

Situation

Germany

Republikaner

September 2002

0.6

0/603

Marginal

Germany

Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands (NPD)

September 2002

0.4

0/603

Marginal

Germany

Deutsche Volksunion (DVU)

September 2002

Marginal

Austria

Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs (FPÖ)

November 2002

10.0

18/183

Governmental participation

Belgium

Vlaams Blok (VB)

May 2003

11.6

18/150

Blackmail potential

Belgium

Walloon Front National (FN)

May 2003

2.0

1/150

Marginal

Denmark++

Fremskridtspartiet (FrP)

November 2001

0.6

0/175

Marginal

Denmark++

Dansk Folkeparti (DF)

November 2001

12.0

22/175

Coalition potential

France*

Front National (Le Pen)

April 2002

May 2002

16.9

11.1

Presidential

0/577

Blackmail potential

France*

Mouvement National Républicain (Mégret)

April 2002

May 2002

2.3

1.1

Presidential

0/577

Marginal

Great Britain

British National Party (BNP)

June 2001

Marginal

Italy+

Lega Nord (LN)

May 2001

3.9

30/618

Governmental participation

Italy+

Alleanza Nazionale (AN)

May 2001

12.0

99/618

Governmental participation

Italy+

MSI-Fiamma Tricolore

May 2001

0.4

0/618

Marginal

Norway

Fremskrittspartiet (FrP)

September 2001

14.7

26/165

Coalition potential

Netherlands

List Pim Fortuyn (LPF)

January 2003

5.7

8/150

Marginal

Sweden

Sverigedemokraterna

September 2002

1.4

0/349

Marginal

Graph 12 Far right electoral results in Europe (data collated January 2004)

The future of humanity belongs to all people on this planet and not one people, colour, caste, race, religion or culture;
Human diversity and difference is a strength and not a weakness;
A true morality recognises the good done to the world’s people- in a more upwards levelling of global living standards - with the age-long desire of ending the poverty and suffering of people;
Democracy is not a luxury, but a basic requirement of moral governance through the participation of ordinary people and their exercise of political sovereignty;
A true moral world will have a right of the free movement of people throughout the world as well as goods, services and capital;
Non-violence and peace should be the bedrock of basic morality and practice of states, movements and ordinary people of the world;
Ecological diversity and strength truly starts with respect for all life;
In another sense, true concern for the environment only starts when the needs of the poorest in the world have been fulfilled; and,
The planet’s resources belong to its people - should be used for their needs and not for anyone’s selfish greed.

Illustration 19 Gandhi with Lancashire Mill Workers in Darwen 1931

[1] Unlike much of the West, India is cashing in on a ‘demographic dividend’ whereby its young population will add 71 million people to its workforce in the next five years constituting 23% of the increase in the world’s working-age population.

[2] http://www.sheeraz.com/ambassador/bollywood-stats.php

[3] http://mutiny.wordpress.com/2007/02/01/bollywood-vs-hollywood-the-complete-breakdown/

[4] “I remember going to discos and you heard was reggae, reggae, reggae. Asians were lost, they weren’t accepted by whites, they drifted into the black culture, talking like blacks, dressing like them, and listening to reggae. But now Bhangra music has given them ‘their’ music and made them feel that they do have an identity. No matter if they Gujarati, Punjabi, or whatever –Bhangra music is Asian for Asians.” Quote from Komol of the Bhangra Band Cobra ( as reported in Popular Culture, A Reader Ed Guins and Cruz Sage Books 2005).

Theme 2

PLURALISM

‘Let a hundred flowers bloom; let a hundred schools of thought contend.’ Mao Tse Tung

"What sets worlds in motion is the interplay of differences, their attractions and repulsions; life is plurality, death is uniformity."Octavio Paz Mexican Poet and Writer

Majorities and Minorities

The fundamental nature and progressive nature of the C21st is going to be determined by how it treats minorities, according to the sayings of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.

Thomas Jefferson, the US President is his 1800 Presidential address put this matter in the right terms:

China’s economic growth reduces China’s reasons to deny democracy to its people. Neither China nor India have reached economic democracy.

Cultural growth does not require democracy as a rule of the majority, but does require diversity with the rights of minority cultures and languages.

Religion, Secularism and Modernism

Religious Totalitarianism

Subsequent, expressions of Islamic fundamentalism similarly exacerbate civil tensions in a society rather than create a way forward for those societies. For example, Hamas is creating a situation of civil war within the already beleaguered and badly weakened Palestinian state and society. In Turkey, the Islamist party is unleashing violence against the secular institutions of theAtaturkRepublic. In Iran, the rhetoric of anti-semitism is disturbing as is the persecution of women not wearing the ‘hijab’ and other religious clothing. The more secular and humanitarian aspects of Islam are drowned out. The winners of the battle between Islamic secularism and radicalism are the more secular societies such as Dubai, as a city state, and larger nations such as Indonesia and Malaysia, which are showing economic success rather than ‘ideological war’.

The world is getting richer, poverty is being reduced (with absolute poverty within reach of being abolished) and urbanization is a reality of C21st. This is a recipe for social peace. Urbanisation on a global basis is the beginning of a more cosmopolitan world - with modern infrastructures being constructed on a gigantic level. Humanity has come together with TV and radio almost universally. Continental communications happens on a mass basis. Migration and travel across countries and continents is becoming common. 82% of the people in the world are literate[1] – and becoming more so. The religious axis of opposing modernisation and social progress is becoming more difficult to sustain - without seeking a review of religious literalism.

Theme 3

PEACE

‘An eye for an eye and the whole world goes blind’ –Mahatma Gandhi

India’s exclusion from the international system

India, unlike China, is not a permanent member of the UN Security Council. This is gross discrimination by the international community against over one billion people ofIndia, constituting one in six of the world’s population.Japan despite being a world economic power is not a permanent member of the UN Security Council. Europe has two members - UK and France, whilst it’s most powerful economyGermany is not represented. USA is a member, so it Russia. Africa with nearly a billion people is not represented and neither is the half billion people ofLatin America. The UN has lost its post-World War II role and not found one for the C21st. It is in its weakest position since its foundation.

G7 (Group of Seven) includes Germany and Japan as well as USA,France, Britain, Italy and Canada. This is being changed due to international pressure with Russia as permanent invitee and Chinaand India as ‘observers’ andSouth Africa, Brazil and Mexico too. Again on the critical issue of the round of talks on free trade, there is deadlock between Europe, USA, Brazil and India leading to the collapse of Doha trade rounds talks in Potsdam,Germany on cutting agricultural subsidies and goods tariffs.

The entire UN structure has been based on the outcome of the Second World War – with little recognition of the democratic changes in Japanand Germany as well as the emergence of independence from colonial rule throughout the world including in Asia, Africa and Latin America.Britain and France have a weight far in excess of their population based on their colonial power in 1945. There is a clear need to modernise the UN and international financial and security institutions.Asianeeds to be fully included. There is case for Asia to have at least three if not four members – Indonesia (as an Asian state with the largest Muslim population in the world and one of the most populous countries in the world) as well as Japan and India as well the current permanent member, China.

Illustration 21 President Bush with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh (left) in New Delhi

Illustration 22 President Putin with Prime Minister Singh in New Dehli (left)

Illustration 23 Prime Minister Singh with Group of Four for UN Security Council Bid- Japan, Brazil and Germany.

Illustration 24 Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh with the King of the Saudi Arabia

King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, in New Delhi on January 25, 2006.

Peace and diplomacy towards Asian unity

The dynamics of an Asian century requires ‘peace’ amongst Asian nations and the healing of divisions created by colonial powers in the region.

Peace between Pakistan and India

The first major division was the division between Indiaand Pakistanin 1947. Although Pakistan has been a secular state since its independence in 1947 until General Zia –Ul Haq’s rule in 1977, it has had a crises of constitutional and political stability ever since its adoption of the first democratic constitution of 1956, when it was suspended in 1958 by Ayub Khan’s coup d’etat. India has maintained its democratic and constitutional secular rule almost intact since 1947 – with the exception of the 1977 emergency by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and the exceptions of the slight temporary incursions into religious impartiality of the state in recent times.

It is our view that economic progress by the two countries is predicated on a peaceful means and goals of the relationship between the two countries. This has been borne out by the evidence since the Kargil dispute - in much higher economic growths within India andPakistan. Furthermore, the diplomacy of peace is bearing fruit at the renewing of the economic, cultural, tourist and other links between the two states and its people.

It is possible to see the healing of the division between the two countries on a distant horizon with a distant hope of the unity of the two countries through a process of reconciliation and peaceful persuasion. India and Pakistanwas once part of a common state, albeit a colonial state. Division created by colonialism should be healed and not be used as a basis for the future of the people on the so-called Indian ‘sub’ continent. South Asia can create a future for itself through a process of reversing this colonial division.

The economic framework of the development rests on a South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) and the development of a South Asian Free Trade Agreement, which came into force on 1^stJanuary 2006, in the region as a basic element in the functioning of the economic unit of this part of the world. This will require a concomitant cultural functioning, which has been artificially punctured by the political division of the region. The region has common cultural threads – Kashmiri, Punjabi, Urdu/Hindi, Sindi, Bengali, Tamil as well as common religious threads of Islam, Sikhism, Buddhism and Hinduism. The choice is sharp and simple: economic, cultural religious and political reconciliation and growth of the South Asian region or economic, cultural, religious and political conflict and decline ofSouth Asia in the global arena.

South Asia can contribute South Asian unity and then towards pan-Asian and humanity unity.

South and North Korean Reunification

The division of Korea along the 38^th Parallel occurred in 1948 – after 35 years of Japanese colonial rule, prior to which had existed a thousand years of a united nation on the Korean peninsula. This was the worst aspects of theUnited States and the Soviet Union carving up Asia into their mutual cold war camps. Since that time, militarisation of the Korean peninsula remained a fact – with the North and South having militarised regimes without any democracy, until free elections in 1988 resulted in a multi-party civilian democratic regime in the South.

North Korea has also experienced famines in the 1990s resulting in the death of between 600,000 to 3.5 million people. It is one of the most closed societies in the world without a free media or multi-party free elections. It is one of the worst manifestation of the so-called philosophy of ‘self-reliance’ in Asia – by economic, cultural, political and philosophical isolation from the world. North Koreahas had a very limited experiment in ‘capitalisation’ of its economy. The economy has grown at less than 2% since 2000, according to South Korean estimates.

The cultural commonality between south and north Koreaand its common heritage are the basis for peace, progress and prosperity in the peninsula. Korean culture is a unique culture –with its own unique culture. Its achievements have been subsumed and need to be greatly highlighted.

Illustration 25 2002 FIFA World Cup Final

Hosted by Japan and Korea, first to be hosted in Asia (photo left)

Terrorism

Dubai is the exact polar opposite of Taliban-ruledAfghanistan by seeking to become an outward looking dynamic economic entity by using leisure and tourism in a cosmopolitan way to become an international player on the global stage. It is attracting people from across the world. There are too many Muslim economic success stories (from many countries Western and Eastern) to believe that Islam and economic prosperity and social progress are contradictory. The contradiction is between religious exclusivity and economic prosperity and social progress. The Asian Century is likely to be a success for Muslims as well as other religions. At the same time, the dead-end of radicalism has to be defeated by progressive and outward-looking Muslims and non-Muslims alike.

A good model for Islamic integration is secular India.

It is the land of the famous verse:

“Koi Bole Ram Ram Koi Khudia

Koi Saye Gosain Koi Allahe..

Koi Kare Puja Koi Sis Nabahe..

Koi Nave Tirath Koi Hajj Jae”

(Translation : ‘Some Say Ram Ram, Some Say Khuda; Some Say Gosain, Some Allah;..Some Do Puja, Some Bow Heads [in Prayer]; Some Bathe During Pilgrims, Some Go and Do the Hajj’).

This song of religious co-existence through Hindu and Muslim forms of worship has been sung by the likes of the great Pakistani qawali singer Ustad Nusrat Ali Fateh Khan of Pakistan and the great film singer Mohammed Rafi ofIndia as well as Sikhs and Hindus. Religious exclusivity is not the only not the best option for religious people in the C21st.

Illustration 26 Nusrat Ali Fateh Khan

An Asian and global Mastro of Qawali and many other great musical traditions.

His great hits included ‘Mast Kalandhar’. He also sang ‘Koi Bole Ram Ram’.

Theme 4

PROGRESS

‘Na koi bairi

nahi begana

sagal sangh hum ko ban aie’

Guru Nanak Dev

Translated Version

‘No one is my enemy

No one is a foreigner

With all I am at peace

God within us renders us

Incapable of hate and prejudice.’

Illustration 27 Lotus - a symbol of Asia and its ancient wisdom, religion and philosophy

Map 7 ‘Freedom in the World 2007’ Source: Freedom House (www.freedomhouse.org )

Colours: Green = Free; Light Orange = Partly Free; Red = Not Free

Progressives Movements in the East

There is a paradox in the thinking and development of C21st andAsia: homogenous and heterogeneous directions in different fields. Whilst equality of political and economic opportunity is fundamental to human progress; rights to cultural, belief and personal differences are vital to human freedom. Equality and diversity are features of the Asian century. They are also the mottos of the USA and the European Union with its famous Latin ‘e pluribus unum’ and ‘unity in diversity’ respectively. Whilst the USA represents a unity of the immigrant culture, the European Union represents a unity of the different European cultures. The Asian century has to champion not only Asian unity in diversity, but also global unity in diversity. The two key philosophical principles of these positions are : first, rights of the individual to cultural, religious, sexual, philosophical, social, economic, linguistic and political freedom; and, second, all human beings, on an equal basis, to have full access to political, social, economic and cultural opportunities on the basis of merit and not on the basis of birth or sectarian affiliation.

How can this be done? This has to be an issue addressed at the level of government and at the level of the cultural industries.

At the current moment, the powers in the cultural industries including the global cultural companies treat Asian culture as peripheral and marginalised.

Why are Bhangra and Bollywood musicians treated as outside of the mainstream, when they have strong followings in the West and inAsia? I can only suggest that there is an institutional racism and monopoly, based on previous black, and now, anti-Asian racism in this industry.

Progress cannot be built on revenge or the rehearsal of past grievances and anger. Mahatma Gandhi caught the essence of this moral progress. The Asian Century has a moral dimension in this sense – it can teach humanity to embrace each other. India is a fundamental fault-line state in this respect. Each conqueror ofIndiatried to eliminate Indian culture and philosophy. The embrace ofIndiadefeated each such attempt. A cultural construction of a multi-layered society is the modern India. To deconstruct it is to see the failure of cultural interaction. De-construction of societies is the biggest reactionary fallacy to have emanated in reaction to globalisation. Diversity can be defended by progress and not by exclusivity.

Mahatma Gandhi tried to embrace all the constituent elements of India – Muslim and Sikhs, Buddhists and Jains, Hindus and Christians – the rural masses as well as the urban elite – the so-called social ‘outcastes’ ( harijans ‘children of god’ or Dalits ‘crushed’ or ‘oppressed’) as well as the Brahmins- the colonisers as well as the colonised – speakers of English as well as the mother tongues of India – above all to stop the horror of a division and separatism with communal carnage and genocide. He could not celebrate the birth ofIndia – with an amputation through the division of its people on the basis of religion – and neither did he believe in force above moral example – to achieve the right outcome. Real progress is defined not only by the ends, but the means.

Progressive Movements in the West

The pursuit of happiness is our right – to enjoy life and live it to the full.

Illustration 29 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen 1789 by the French Revolution

Illustration 30 First page of the constitution of the United states of America 1787

The 1960s led to legal changes including the availability of reliable contraception and legal abortion.

Illustration 31 Photo: Women’s March Washington DC 2003

Victorian morality cannot be adopted by an Asia that wants to move beyond sexual repression and into adult and mature debates about sex. The Asian century has to be about Asia growing up on the question of sexual morality – more in line with Kama Sutra and thePerfumed Garden and less about covering up table legs to stop ‘impure’ thoughts. This will be progressive.

The Asian Century will have:

the basic modern freedom to dissent from religious dogmatism (of whatever religion); or,
the freedom to reject religion;
enlightenment of free ideas and developing scientific methods ;
rights of man (and, of course woman),
freedom from colonialism,
right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

In addition, it will support:

the right to linguistic freedom (without the imposition of one language),
freedom of different cultures,
freedom of different religions and beliefs,
freedom from hunger and fear (amongst Roosevelt’s famous four freedoms)[1],
creativity and innovation (freedom to invent and design new things and ideas).

It will be freedom for women, freedom for the workers, freedom to pursue different sexual preferences, freedom from racism and freedom from all forms of human and animal exploitation.

Freedom of human movement across the earth without the boundaries of national borders will be another achievement of this century of globalisation and internationalisation.

To be a truly historic century, it should be free from all forms of human violence and cruelty including psychological violence.

The combination of prosperity, peace, pluralism and progress and the tackling of poverty and the struggle against protectionism are the fundamentals of the Asian Century.

Pleasure could also be added to this list of fundamentals – as the Asian Century will also include the right to pursue happiness.
This will be underlined by democracy - of the freedom to choose your rulers and reject them through the will of the majority (which can still be mistaken, hence the entrenched right to have regular elections – for the people to change their minds).

India has answered the critics of those who believe that democracy only belongs to small states or Western society. If it can be done inIndia, democracy can be built in many other places. There will be a greater equality of opportunity, which will have become real through the eradication of basic life-and-death poverty and real access to information through the mass media and technological progress.

Engagement with the Asian century would be the most progressive step taken by the West since the English, French or American revolutions. The industrialisation and scientific advancement ofBritain and Europe and the USA, which generated innovation, enterprise and cultural creativity is being played out on a grander scale involving billions instead of tens of hundreds of millions of people.

[1]“ In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms.

The first is freedom of speech and expression — everywhere in the world.

The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way — everywhere in the world.

That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation.”

Speech by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt of the USA

The Annual Message to the Congress January 6^th 1941

( source: http://www.feri.org/common/news/details.cfm?QID=2089&clientid=11005)

[1] Over two-thirds of the world's 785 million illiterate adults are found in only eight countries (India, China, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Indonesia, and Egypt); of all the illiterate adults in the world, two-thirds are women; extremely low literacy rates are concentrated in three regions, South and West Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, and the Arab states, where around one-third of the men and half of all women are illiterate. (CIA Factbook). 6 READING LIST ON THE ASIAN CENTURY

PLEASE NOTE THE BLOG VERSION OF THIS WORK DOES NOT CONTAIN THE MAPS, GRAPHS, ILLUSTRATIONS

List of Maps, Graphs and Illustrations

MAPS

Map 1: Population density in the world

Map 2 of Asia by United Nations’ regions indicated by colour.

Map 3 Highlighting China and India with a population over 1 billion

Map 4 The boundaries of the Caliphate Empire 622 – 750 AD

Map 5 World Agricultural GDP 2005

Map 6 British Empire in 1921

Map 7 ‘Freedom in the World 2007’ Source: Freedom House (www.freedomhouse.org )

GRAPHS

Graph 1 Relative share of world manufacturing output, 1750-1950.

Graph 2 The economic position of Asia 2005

Graph 3 China and India’s population in relation to other countries and continents 2005

Graph 4 1750-2005 Asia’s population lead in the world

Graph 5 Fall and rise of Asia’s GDP, 1820-2001

Graph 6 illustrating the ‘Pincer Movement’ of Asia’s fall and rise and the West’s rise and fall in terms of the share of the world manufacturing output 1500-2000..

Graph 7: Predicted changes Asia’s population 2000 to 2050

Graph 8 Projected Growth of BRIC (Brazil, Russia, Indian, China) economies.

Graph 9 Change in Top Ten economies from 2005 to 2040

Graph 10 World music market shares 200)

Graph 11Global comparison of university graduates rates in science and engineering

Graph 12 Far right electoral results in Europe (data collated January 2004)

Graph 13 World population distribution 2005 showing the significance of China and India

Graph 14 China’s economic take-off process

Graph 15 India gross domestic growth rates in percentage term 2002-2006

Graph 16 Per Capita (thousand US dollars) GDP growth rates forecast for China, India and USA

Graph 17 Rise of democracy in the world 1800-1998