Greek Complexity

Global financial crisis? No, Western financial crisis

Kishore Mahbubani, an outspoken former diplomat (there's a contradiction for you) and current academic in Singapore, is a person whose views I usually find myself detesting, their generally being of the aggressively far-right variety, continentalistic (as an analogue to nationalistic, if I may be allowed to coin a neologism) and full of just plain preachy know-it-all-ness. Imagine therefore my surprise when I read an article by him in the FT yesterday, in which he comes across as quite reasonable and accurate. My favourite bit was:

Indeed, if the Thais and Indonesians did not come from inherently polite societies, they would say to the US and Europe: "The time has come for you to administer the same bitter medicine you prescribed to us: stop living beyond your means."

The article makes several other very good points, which I won't bother quoting here because then I might as well copy-past the entire article here.

The one thing I still disagree with him pretty strongly on is his notion of Asianness, something I consider quite nonsensical. As I've ranted before in a different context, there is no such thing as Asia. Or to be more specific, there is no one correct definition of Asia beyond the purely factual geographic one (and even that isn't clear -- is Turkey part of Asia? Is Australia? Eastern Russia?). So for someone to claim to speak for all of "Asia" is silly at the very least. For someone who happens to come from one of Asia's smallest countries to attempt to assume this mantle is just absurd.

Still, this article is very much worth a read.

Link: Asia has had enough of excusing the west

Cricketing chimera

Why do I have this recurring dream Every Single Day that I am holding a bat executing a square cut in imperious fashion? Even more than I dream about bowling someone out, though I was always more of a (mediocre) bowler than a batsman. I was actually a half-decent fielder and I never dream about that. I haven't followed the game in years, haven't played it in even longer and never ever executed a square cut even when I did play! What gives?

Small-town India finding its poise?

My uncle directed me to an article (link below) published by the New York Times a few days ago. There are some very good insights into the India of today, particularly its youth and its hinterlands. Don't click through expecting a macroeconomic thesis. It's written in a very personal style focusing on one person and his life, and that's where its strengths lie. He also points out things that would seem strange to Westerners and other non-Indians, maybe even some urban Indians, but he doesn't do it in a patronising or fun-poking way. Worth a read.

The only jarring note was this bit:

I had a sense, from this and earlier visits to Indian finishing schools, of a generation being trained rather than educated. They knew nothing about industry, art, history, literature, science. There were now hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of Indians who were making this bargain and adopting this focus. And they were liberating India. But I wondered what kind of country they would make when there were enough of them to change its essential character. Their heads were filled with SWOT analysis and ways to win friends and influence people, not with the tolerance of Asoka, the poetry of Kabir, the universalism of Tagore.

Why jarring? Well, was this generation aware of industry, art and all the rest before they made this seemingly Faustian bargain? Would they have been made aware of all this had they not made the bargain? Not really, so it's a false dilemma. It is a shame that many people are focused on a purely utilitarian "education", as Giridharadas says --then again, someone please remind me what country I live in-- but that is not to say that a well-rounded education will never be available to all in future or that such an education is desired by or is even appropriate for everyone.

Link: India's New Generation of Caste Busters - NYTimes.com