Call to reject Malaysiakini and Western stupidity

Mart Garbera | Apr 29, 09 4:49pm , Malaysiakini

I was about to join your ‘famous' website but declined because of your boasts and those who awarded your website are one of the same - subjugated, enslaved, Western-induced weak brains. MCPX I have a million more to write to both of you but please publish these questions to see if you ‘really' practice justice, human rights, democracy, freedom of speech and good governance. Let your supporters see what you people think who you are. Your claims in your About Us and my simple, soft rebuttals and challenges are as follows: ‘... built on fast, accurate and independent news, and well informed and diverse views' - Your views are not fast, not accurate, not independent, not well-informed and not diverse. ‘Discussion on taboo subjects such as migrant workers, Aids, Islam and racial quota systems has generated a new understanding on these issues.' - Your discussion has generated new understanding or more tension, more demonstrations, more friction, instability and distress among the races in this beautiful peaceful country? ‘Our editorial position is consistently supportive of justice, human rights, democracy, freedom of speech and good governance' - Justice according to who? You only? Under the name of freedom, do you want to legalise the lower-than-animal behavior called gay and lesbianism? Human rights according to who? The US and UK that had occupied and invaded more than 120 nations and killed millions? Democracy? The sure-fail, man-made system that has failed humanity all over the world? You want me to elaborate on the stupidity of democracy? Three persons vied for a post, one guy got 40% of the votes and the other two got 25% and 35%. The winner, the guy who got 40, has 60% of the electorate against him! What happens? A continued cycle of hate and disagreement. This is one of the many stupidities of this sure-fail man-made system. Freedom of speech? To say what you like - can a Malay say what he likes in Chinese Singapore? Can a Chinese do that in Indian India? Can a Chinese do that in Korea and Japan? Can you say anything you want in the UK? Good governance according to Anwar Ibrahim, Steven Gan and Premesh Chandran? Is good governance according to Mahathir mentioned ever in Malaysiakini? Is good governance according to Islam discussed? ‘Not linked to any political party' - Yuks! Don't make me throw up! I want to vomit! ‘Malaysiakini has been recognised through various awards and accolades' - Awards from the same mere subjugated, enslaved, Westen-induced weak brains? What have these award-givers said about the great Malaysian government which has brought a lot of development and changes to the people over the last 50 years? I have dignity and high self-esteem. I will never associate nor will I ever have one grain of respect for people or countries or systems that legalise slavery, invade and occupy sovereign nations, have the largest cache of weapons and people that stole gold and diamonds off the walls of Agra Red Fort. To me, Malaysians who follow this so-called justice and freedom coined by the West are really stupid. So Steven Gan and Premesh Chandran, who do you glorify and look up to? Please don't bull_ _ _ _ me! I am smart enough to see Malaysiakini's weakness and I strongly suggest you close this stupid site run by mere subjugated, enslaved, Western-induced weak brains for the same subjugated, enslaved, Western-induced weak brains! Malaysia can be successful without slavery, invading other countries, killing people and stealing. ‘Malaysia Boleh' brother! Free your enslaved and subjugated thoughts! Reject Western stupidity!

Manohara and her prince makes surprise appearance at wedding

By : Sharifah Mahsinah Abdullah

Tengku Muhammad Fakhry Petra (second from left) and Cik Puan Temenggong Manohara (third from left) with the newlyweds, Ahmad Syafi Husam and Indah Purnasari Didin.

KOTA BARU: Guests at the wedding of the son of Pas vice-president Datuk Husam Musa were surprised when Kelantan prince Tengku Temenggong Tengku Muhammad Fakhry Petra and his wife, Cik Puan Temenggong Manohara, made an appearance.

Despite the Internet buzz on her whereabouts, Tengku Fakhry, 31, and former model Manohara Odelia Pinot, 17, looked rather relaxed and enjoyed the ceremony which was held at Husam's house in Kampung Kota, here.

Shortly after their arrival, the prince and Manohara, who was dressed in a pink baju kurung with a matching selendang, greeted the guests who were sitting in a tent.

They then proceeded to the house to meet the bride and groom.

They had lunch with the newlyweds, Ahmad Syafi Husam, 21, and Indah Purnasari Didin, 18, and Husam and his wife Datin Ruhana Abdul Rahman. The couple spent about 40 minutes at the ceremony.

Barack Obama is trying to find a new balance between national security and human rights

After the dark side of Bush regime

Illustration by KAL

DURING a public meeting in Istanbul on April 7th Barack Obama argued that the American ship of state is more like a supertanker than a speedboat. You cannot just spin it around and point it in a new direction; instead, “you’ve got to slowly move it and then eventually you end up in a very different place.”

Ever since the Obama administration released the Justice Department’s so-called “torture memos” on April 16th Americans have been debating what Mr Obama’s “very different place” might mean for counter-terrorism. The memos make disturbing and surreal reading. Disturbing because of the brutality they describe (one man was waterboarded 183 times in a month). Surreal because they combine the torturer’s language with that of the health-and-safety inspector (slamming someone into a wall, or “walling” them, is acceptable, provided that the wall is “flexible” and “the head and neck are supported with a rolled hood and towel that provides a c-collar effect to help prevent whiplash”).

The memos have also stirred a debate about the future of counter-terrorism. How far will Mr Obama go in rolling back the extraordinary powers of surveillance and secrecy, detention and interrogation that the Bush administration accumulated? And how much danger is there that he will overreact to his predecessors’ excesses, leaving his country vulnerable to another attack?

Mr Obama has repeatedly signalled that he will fulfil his campaign promise to turn the page on a dark chapter in American history. On his first day in office he said that he was suspending the military tribunals at Guantánamo Bay. Two days later he signed executive orders banning the CIA’s secret prisons and “enhanced interrogation” techniques, bringing America’s policies on detainees in line with international treaties; he also ordered Guantánamo closed within a year. Many of his supporters regarded his decision to release the torture memos as another example of his determination to break with the past.

But Mr Obama has always been careful to leave himself plenty of wriggle room. Elena Kagan, his solicitor-general, has argued that it may still be necessary to hold some former Guantánamo inmates indefinitely. Mr Obama has not ruled out extraordinary rendition, the practice of sending people suspected of terrorism to other countries for “interrogation”. He has also appointed John Brennan, a veteran CIA figure, as his counter-terrorism adviser, despite the fact that Mr Brennan was passed over for the job of director of the CIA because many Democrats thought that he was too hardline.

Mr Obama has also continued the Bush administration’s practice of urging civilian courts to throw out cases that involve allegations of rendition and torture. In February Mr Obama’s Justice Department persuaded the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that a lawsuit on behalf of a Guantánamo detainee, Binyam Mohamed, who also suffered extraordinary rendition, should be dismissed on the ground that it would disclose state secrets.

Mr Obama’s taste for trying to balance both sides of an argument is evident in his handling of the torture memos. He has repeatedly said that he will not prosecute people who were simply obeying orders (“this is a time for reflection, not retribution”). He visited CIA headquarters this week to tell the spooks how much he values their work, and to reassure them that he understands the importance of protecting their identities. But he has also hinted that his administration may establish a “truth commission” to figure out just what happened, and that those responsible for designing the policy of harsh interrogation might face prosecution.

This is partly an attempt to have it both ways, of course. But there is more to it than that. Mr Obama inherited some very difficult problems from the previous regime, not least what to do with people, some of them highly dangerous, who have been in a legal limbo in Guantánamo for years. Conservatives are right to be irritated by foolish liberal claims that America does not face any hard choices in fighting terrorism. But it is equally idiotic to argue, as a fair few conservatives seem to, that tough-minded policies are meritorious simply because they are tough-minded.

Own goal

A pointed objection to George Bush’s policies is not just that they crossed a moral line but that they crossed it to no purpose. Mr Bush’s critics were not confined to bleeding-heart liberals who are even now making a fuss about the rights of a captured Somali pirate. They included a legion, from high-ranking commanders to military lawyers to intelligence operatives, who argued that the techniques were counterproductive.

“Enhanced interrogation” acted as a potent recruitment tool for terrorist organisations. It made it more difficult for America to co-operate with allies, particularly in Europe. It imposed personal burdens on front-line workers who found their values compromised. Dick Cheney points out that the techniques yielded some useful information. But the same information might have been obtained by less controversial means. Torin Nelson, a veteran interrogator, says the administration made a fundamental mistake in focusing on how far it could push detainees, not least because people who are tortured will often confess to anything. It would have been better off recruiting and training more skilled interrogators who knew how to win the trust of their subjects.

There is always a chance that Mr Obama will go too far, replacing Mr Bush’s excessive zeal with excessive timidity. But so far the signs are that he is producing a reasonable balance. He recognises that September 11th 2001 changed the rules of national security. But he also recognises that many of the Bush-era policies were clumsy as well as questionable. The most important comment on Mr Obama’s approach to counter-terrorism so far came on April 20th, from the CIA agents who cheered him to the rafters. THE ECONOMIST

Zambry seeks quicker end to MB issue

Hafiz Yatim | Apr 22, 09 7:23pm

It seems Zambry Abdul Kadir wants a quicker way to the resolution of the present political crisis in Perak. He has filed an application to bring the matter directly to the apex court for it to declare him to be the rightful Perak menteri besar. MCPX Zambry filed a notice of motion to the federal court yesterday to seek several matters of interpretation. It is learnt the matter has been fixed before the apex court on Tuesday. He filed the application through the law firm of Zul Rafique and Partners. He named ousted menteri besar, Mohd Nizar Jamaluddin in his application and wants the Federal Court's intervention to interpret: (a) Whether Sultan Azlan Shah has the right not to accede to Mohd Nizar's request for the dissolution of the Perak assembly, when he (Mohd Nizar) ceased to command the confidence of the majority of the assembly; (b) When the sultan declines to accede to Mohd Nizar's request, whether it constitute to his (Mohd Nizar) resignation and that of his state exco members; and (c) Whether when Mohd Nizar refused to tender his resignation, his majesty had the right to appoint Zambry pursuant to Article 16(2) of the Perak constitution after the sultan is satisfied that he (Zambry) commands the confidence of the assembly. Political impasse in Perak And if the apex court agrees that the answers to the above are in the affirmative, he is seeking a declaration by the Federal Court that the applicant (Zambry) was duly appointed the menteri besar on Feb 6, 2009. He is also seeking costs and other relief deemed necessary for the application. Zambry in his affidavit in support of his application to the apex court claimed that the matter before the court concerns interpretation of Article 16(2) and Article 16(6) of the Perak constitution involving the removal and appointment of a menteri besar. He wants the Federal Court to use its inherent jurisdiction to determine the questions of law that he had posed above. Zambry also claimed that the case was of public importance and that a decision by the Federal Court would help resolve the present political impasse in Perak and resulted in the Perak legislative assembly not being able to convene. Mohd Nizar filed an application for a judicial review on Feb 13, in challenging Zambry's appointment and sought several declarations pertaining to the interpretation of Article 16(6) of the Perak Constitution. In his application, Mohd Nizar claimed to be the rightful Perak menteri besar on the grounds that there was no dissolution of the state legislature, no motion of no-confidence was taken in the house against him and he did not resign from the post. He also issued a writ of quo warranto asking Zambry to show cause by what authority he was occupying the post of menteri besar. The case is slated for hearing tomorrow for an intervener application from the Attorney-General's chambers. However, with this application it is not known whether it could be heard. Malaysiakini

PM has to clear his name, says Dr M

Is this the beginning of a project by TDM to undermine Najib and bring up his current protege i.e. Muhyiddin. It would be interesting to see what happen after this. What will be Najib's counter moves to retain power or will he be an interim PM for only one term like his poor predescessor, namely, Pak Lah . If Muhyiddin becomes PM will Mukhriz be his DPM? Interesting manouvers by this old man who want to perpetuate his influence on the country's politics. I am beginning to smell the stench of his old cronies including Daim coming into the picture again.



Former premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad said Najib Abdul Razak "has to clear his name" over the allegations of corruption and links with to the Altantuya Shaariibuu murder.
MCPX

He however accused the foreign media of "demonising" new prime minister by raising such allegations, which continue to circulate despite the lack of any evidence linking Najib with wrongdoing.

mahathir mohamad visits najib in putrajaya 03"Najib can expect to hear more of this kind of demonisation from the foreign press but it is what Malaysians think that counts. It is with them that Najib has to clear his name," said Mahathir in a blog posting.

Najib was sworn in earlier this month after his predecessor Abdullah Ahmad Badawi was forced to stand down, partly due to relentless criticism from Mahathir, who led the country for two decades until 2003.

Najib has hit out at accusations that he will be a hardline leader and has been forced to deny having an affair with 28-year-old Mongolian woman Altantuya, who was murdered in 2006.

altantuya murder case publish on french newspaper la liberation 050309"The Western press launched a concerted effort to demonise the new prime minister. From France to Britain to Australia, the articles are identical and carried the same message," lamented Mahathir.

"The incoming PM is said to be corrupt and involved in a murder case. The Australian writer says Malaysia is a 'pariah' nation. I cannot believe that this demonisation by so many at the same time is a coincidence."

The foreign press was a popular target with Mahathir when he was in power - an era of hardline rule, including the detention of political opponents, which some commentators say Najib will replicate.

Define 'Mahathirism'

The veteran leader complained that allegations of a return to "Mahathirism" implied he had been "a dictator who detained for no reason, manipulated the judiciary, controlled the press etc".

"As the person concerned I will leave it to Malaysians to judge and to define 'Mahathirism'. They are the constituents which Najib should care about. The foreign press has an agenda of their own," he added.

The new premier served as Abdullah's deputy for six years before taking the helm, one year after disastrous general elections in which voters punished Abdullah for failing to implement promised reforms.

Najib has repeatedly denied any involvement in the death of Altantuya, the lover of his close aide Abdul Razak Baginda who was acquitted of abetting her murder.

Two police officers have been sentenced to hang for the grisly slaying of the young woman, whose remains were blown up with military-grade explosives in a jungle clearing.

Mahathir Projects and Proteges

Helen Ang | Apr 2, 09 10:29am
000001 – this Umno Baru membership number belongs to Dr Mahathir Mohamad. Naturally. After all, he founded the party.
MCPX

Najib Abdul Razak, our prime minister when tomorrow comes, asks that Double-O-One impart his wisdom and long experience to guide Najib after he is handed the reins of power.

Mahathir has been avidly fanning racial sentiments. With him in the advisory role, Malaysians have a good idea of what to expect.

MCA deputy president Dr Chua Soi Lek earlier on the Math and Science in English (PPSMI) issue blogged that he was surprised at the strong objections to the policy resurfacing last month. He commented: “Some even suggested that if Mahathir was still the prime minister, then they (March 7 demonstrators) would have not dare to take the matter to the street”.

hindraf british petition rally 251107Street protests and even Opposition ceramah have been greeted with tear gas and water cannon by police.

There are plans afoot to hold a public demonstration against police oppression. Indians are likely to form the bulwark of this demo, should it take place. If Malaysians comprising mostly Indians gather at Bukit Aman (the lion’s den of all places) to condemn police brutality, it would be expecting a lot for the police to show restraint.

Under Mahathir ‘where got demo’?

Those uneasy with civil society expression point to the fact that during Mahathir’s reign, Malaysians were content to sit on their hands. The pundits are projecting that Najib will adopt Dr M’s strong-arm tactics to keep a lid on dissent.

uthayakumar sedition trial 201008Police have cracked down harshest on Indians – on the Hindraf rally and when a peaceful group had wanted to lodge police reports against Hindraf leader P Uthayakumar’s medical neglect in Kamunting.

Death in policy custody affects Indians the most too. But the crux of the matter lies here: Is Indian life held so cheap by police officers because the Tamil-Hindu community is at the bottom of the social heap? Indians who form the bulk of crime suspects and detainees are from the underclass.

Dr M’s cronyism had created a coterie of bumiputera billionaires. Let’s say that his legacy had instead been a wide swathe of Indian millionaires and a burgeoning Indian middle-class. Would these well-to-do Indians land in police lock-up?

The torture of Indian suspects has to do with human frailty; those permitted to employ excessive force tend to bully the downtrodden ... because they can.

Sadly, Najib has not at all hinted an interest in the ‘Indian condition’. On the contrary, he only not too long ago proclaimed Malaysia is willing to extend a helping hand to Malays of other countries.

It’s therefore quite realistic to anticipate that under him, Indian economic standing will remain status quo if not worsen.

Inheriting a youthful population

A great number of Malaysians will be eligible to vote for the first time come the next general election and determine Umno’s political future.

mahathir pc on bar council 191208 01Najib does not possess the carrot Dr M dangled, i.e. as long as everybody can still make money, vote BN.

If the starting pay of a fresh graduate now is roughly RM1,500, then this amount is not significantly higher than the outdated figure earlier proposed for minimum wage (before the sharp inflation caused by Abdullah allowing a massive hike in petrol pump prices last year).

What’s the real value of RM1,500 today and what standard of living will it buy? After all the hype about Dr M bringing us prosperity, Malaysian youths should ponder on the scope of their opportunity nowadays as compared with their father’s generation in the pre-Mahathir era.

Mahathir’s Proton project was to make cars affordable so that every Malaysian can own one. But how much did it cost (in adjusted terms) comparatively for someone entering the workforce to buy his first car before Proton was foisted on us in a regulated market?

When Proton divested MV Agusta, Dr M was utterly displeased and his supporters accused the Abdullah administration (well, pointing finger at KJ actually) of trying to dismantle Mahathirism. Poor Dollah was made to suffer for the august displeasure.

So expect Najib to continue to prop up Proton lest like Abdullah, he is hexed.

Just for starters, Najib’s economic stimulus package is giving RM200 million to the automotive development fund, which among others, grants a rebate on national car purchase.

Malaysians have been coerced into buying the Proton tin-can by the state pricing up-and-out its competitors. In other countries, transport does not swallow such a huge chunk of monthly income, relatively. All of us who drive have been supporting Proton directly or indirectly in its 25 years of growth.

proton and perodua mergerProton like the NEP started out with good intentions. Our home-grown infant automotive industry was intended to build an industrial base gearing up the country’s drive to heavy industrialisation, which included Mahathir dabbling with Perwaja Steel. Today Kuala Lumpur has among the highest level of per capita motor vehicle use in Asia (and also the most number of people dying in road accidents).

Mahathir’s pell-mell into motorisation was to bring benefits in the form of spin-offs and linkages in local economy. Proton created assembly-line jobs, trained engineers, transferred technology and was supposed to pioneer R&D.

Since Najib is pumping money into Proton-assist, isn’t it only fair for him to provide an audit of the company’s progress, a review of its key performance indicators, and revisit Proton’s aims on its set-up and whether these have been achieved. And ask where the national carmaker is headed.

The Umno disconnect

On PPSMI, Najib’s pronouncements were identical to Dr M’s, so much so that I had to revert to the Chedet blog to doublecheck who said it first. The answer is the mentor did.

parliament stimulas package najib 041108 pc 02What Najib told Umno delegates from the Wanita, Pemuda and Puteri wings could have been a ventriloquist act by Dr M because the lines of argument followed exactly the Mahathir script. It is disconcerting how the incoming PM was moving his rosy pink lips but the words coming out belonged to the architect of the PPSMI project.

Dr M, who singlehandedly wrought PPSMI, insists that English is so very important – without facility in the language, one would not be able to grasp Einstein and other scientific literature.

However, it’s not the theory of relativity, but the millions of Malaysian children, especially pupils schooling in rural areas and in the interior that our educationists are worried about.

Dr M’s detachment from what is doable – and what ought to be done viz overhauling our education system – is evidenced by his invoking Einstein, Enrico Fermi, Oppenheimer, Edward Teller, Werner Heisenberg, etc. He has totally lost sight of the seven to 12 year olds studying Science that the PPSMI debate is about.

It remains to be seen if Najib will toe the Mahathir line on English or reverse Mahathir’s fiat.

Najib is already carrying a lot of baggage going into office. Pity him if he has to additionally carry Mahathir as Sinbad did the fabled Old Man of the Sea. According to the story, the monstrous old man climbed on Sinbad’s back, wrapped his gnarly fingers fast around the sailor, dug his sharp claws and refused to let go.

Najib's troubled premiership needs a lifebuoy, not a querulous burden riding on its back.

Professionals as World Political Leaders

Selection bias in politics

There was a lawyer, an engineer and a politician...

Apr 16th 2009
From The Economist print edition

Why do professional paths to the top vary so much?

Illustration by David Simonds

WHEN Barack Obama met Hu Jintao, his Chinese counterpart, at the G20 summit in London, it was an encounter not just between two presidents, but also between two professions and mindsets. A lawyer, trained to argue from first principles and haggle over words, was speaking to an engineer, who knew how to build physical structures and keep them intact.

The prevalence of lawyers in America’s ruling elite (spotted by a Frenchman, Alexis de Tocqueville, in the 1830s) is stronger than ever. Mr Obama went to Harvard Law School (1988-91); his cabinet contains Hillary Clinton (Yale Law, 1969-73) as secretary of state, Eric Holder (Columbia Law, 1973-76) as attorney-general, Joe Biden (Syracuse University law school, 1965-68) as vice-president and Leon Panetta (Santa Clara University law school, 1960-63) as director of the CIA. That’s the tip of the iceberg. Over half of America’s senators practised law. Mr Obama’s inner circle is sprinkled with classmates from Harvard Law: the dean of that school, Elena Kagan, is solicitor-general; Cass Sunstein, a professor there, is also in the administration.

President Hu, in contrast, is a hydraulic engineer (he worked for a state hydropower company). His predecessor, Jiang Zemin, was an electrical engineer, who trained in Moscow at the Stalin Automobile Works. The prime minister, Wen Jiabao, specialised in geological engineering. The senior body of China’s Communist Party is the Politburo’s standing committee. Making up its nine members are eight engineers, and one lawyer. This is not a relic of the past: 2007 saw the appointments of one petroleum and two chemical engineers. The last American president to train as an engineer was Herbert Hoover.

Why do different countries favour different professions? And why are some professions so well represented in politics? To find out, The Economist trawled through a sample of almost 5,000 politicians in “International Who’s Who”, a reference book, to examine their backgrounds.

Some findings are predictable. Africa is full of presidents who won power as leaders of military coups (such as Sudan’s Omar al-Bashir) or as guerrilla chiefs (Ethiopia’s Meles Zenawi and Rwanda’s Paul Kagame). Naturally, they rely on old comrades-in-arms. The army’s influence can outlast its direct control. In Indonesia, military rule ended in 1998 but generals are still big in politics because, in a country of 17,000 islands, the army is among the few nationwide institutions. But selection bias in politics (the tendency of people of similar backgrounds to cluster together) goes far beyond the armed forces. Many countries, including America, have political dynasties; in Britain, networks are formed at Oxford and Cambridge universities. Personal ties matter in China (Vice-President Xi Jinping is the son of a Long March veteran). Vladimir Putin, Russia’s prime minister, has an inner circle dating from his time at St Petersburg city hall and his career in the old KGB.

Different countries—because of their history, or cultural preferences, or stage of development—seem to like particular qualities, and these qualities are provided disproportionately by only a few professions. Lawyers and business executives are common; economists, academics and doctors do surprisingly well (see chart 1).

Countries often have marked peculiarities. Egypt likes academics; South Korea, civil servants; Brazil, doctors (see chart 2). Some emerging-market countries are bedevilled by large numbers of criminals, even if this doesn’t usually show up in their “Who’s Who” records.

In democracies, lawyers dominate. This is not surprising. The law deals with the same sort of questions as politics: what makes a just society; the balance between liberty and security, and so on. Lawyerly skills—marshalling evidence, appealing to juries, command of procedure—transfer well to the political stage. So, sadly, does an obsession with process and a tendency to see things in partisan terms—us or them, guilty or not guilty—albeit in a spirit of loyalty to a system to which all defer. In common-law countries, the battleground of the court is of a piece with the adversarial, yet rule-bound, spirit of politics. Even in places with a Napoleonic code, lawyers abound. In Germany, a third of the Bundestag’s members are lawyers. In France, nine of Nicolas Sarkozy’s first cabinet of 16 were lawyers or law graduates, including the president, the prime minister and the finance minister, an ex-chairman of Baker & McKenzie, an American law firm.

In China, the influence of engineers is partly explained by history and ideology. In a country where education was buffeted by the tempests of Maoism, engineering was a safer field of study than most. In fact, communist regimes of all stripes have long had a weakness for grandiose engineering projects. The Soviet Union, which also produced plenty of engineer-politicians (including Boris Yeltsin), wanted to reverse the northward flow of some great Russian rivers, for example.

The presence of so many engineer-politicians in China goes hand in hand with a certain way of thinking. An engineer’s job, at least in theory, is to ensure things work, that the bridge stays up or the dam holds. The process by which projects get built is usually secondary. That also seems true of Chinese politics, in which government often rides roughshod over critics. Engineers are supposed to focus on the long term; buildings have no merit if they will collapse after a few years. So it is understandable that an authoritarian country like China, where development is the priority and spending on infrastructure is colossal, should push engineers to the top.

A Gallic compromise

France, you might say, has elements of both American and Chinese political cultures: it is a democracy with a strong, centralised administration and a predilection for state planning. Its politics is influenced by super-civil servants: the graduates (only about 100 a year) of the Ecole Nationale d’Administration, or ENA, based in Strasbourg. ENA has a quasi-monopoly over many top civil-service jobs, which, in France, serve as stepping-stones to politics. Seven of the last 11 prime ministers and two of the last four presidents have been énarques. Though Nicolas Sarkozy is not one of the breed and has only one énarque in his cabinet, he has eased the institution’s hold only at the top; ENA is still a fast track to political success. A tenth of the French politicians in the sample are énarques.

The second most common “profession” is that of businessman. Silvio Berlusconi in Italy and Mitt Romney in Massachusetts are only two who parlayed business experience and a supposed toughness of decision-making into political office. The credit crunch has made financiers more prominent: in Britain, a former boss of Standard Chartered bank is now minister of trade; a former adviser to UBS Warburg, an investment bank, is competitiveness minister. In America, Hank Paulson, a former treasury secretary, and Jon Corzine, the governor of New Jersey, are both former chief executives of Goldman Sachs, a bank apparently blessed by Midas.

Though it might seem as if rich democracies are most susceptible to managerial charms, the suits are in fact more significant in emerging markets. Anek Laothamatas, the former leader of the Mahachon party in Thailand, argues that businessmen have played a decisive role in his country since the 1980s. Thaksin Shinawatra, the fugitive ex-prime minister and fomenter of the “red protests” that are now congesting the streets of Bangkok, is only the most prominent example.

In local elections in Russia between 1997 and 2003, 38 businessmen (all men) ran for governorships, of whom ten won. Scott Gehlbach and Konstantin Sonin, of the Centre for Economic and Financial Research in Moscow, argue that three factors have influenced businessmen to go into politics in post-Soviet countries. Politics helps them harm competitors; in new democracies, robber barons are often the only ones rich enough to finance election campaigns; and business people do not trust politicians to keep campaign promises because there is no real party discipline, so they go into politics themselves.

One might add a fourth consideration: parliamentary immunity has enabled some corrupt businessmen to ward off legal investigation. This clearly matters because, when the Kremlin started to extend its control over parliament, overriding claims of immunity, politics went out of fashion among business people. Considerations of immunity may also help to explain the remarkably large number of legally challenged politicians in India: according to the Public Affairs Centre, a think-tank based in Bangalore, 23% of members of India’s parliament have been served with criminal charges.

Some mature democracies, especially Britain and America, are seeing a new phenomenon: the rise of politics itself as a profession. In the old days, politics was something you went into after doing a real job. In Britain, Tory MPs were stereotypically squires of independent means or retired businessmen; Labour ones, trade-union leaders or university lecturers. No longer. David Cameron, the Tory leader, went from university into the party’s research department and, apart from a few years studying the dark arts of public relations, has been in politics all his adult life. Gordon Brown and Tony Blair, Britain’s current and former prime ministers, became members of Parliament at the tender ages of 32 and 30 respectively, their other careers (journalist and barrister) having been merely useful preludes.

The emergence of politics as a career choice has been made possible, argues Peter Oborne in his book “The Triumph of the Political Class”, by a penumbra of quasi-political institutions—think-tanks, consultancies, lobbying firms, politicians’ back offices. They have increased job opportunities for would-be politicians. Increasingly, therefore, the road to a political career leads through politics itself, starting as an intern, moving to become researcher in a parliamentary or congressional office, with a spell in a friendly think-tank or lobby group along the way.

Mr Oborne says this is producing an inbred class that lacks proper connections to the outside world. Perhaps. But the trend is unlikely to stop. The intrusive demands upon aspiring members of any American administration make it harder for outsiders to enter politics. (The Obama team asked applicants, “If you have ever sent an…e-mail, text message or instant message that could…be a possible source of embarrassment to you, your family or the President-Elect if it were made public, please describe.”) For good or ill, politics is becoming its own profession.

Najib Asks Malaysians To Discard " Ethnic Silo" Mentality

KUALA LUMPUR, April 15 (Bernama) -- Malaysians should discard their 'ethnic silo' mentality, said Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak.

The Prime Minister said Malaysians must "stand together, think and act as one people under the '1Malaysia concept'."

"Lets break away from operating in the ethnic prism as we have done over so many years. This is also the meaning of the '1Malaysia' concept.

"We must respect each other, go beyond tolerance and build trust among each other and build trust between various ethnic groups," he told a press conference here, Wednesday.

He said Barisan Nasional (BN) component parties for example, should not necessarily be focusing their services in locations based on their own ethnic groups.

Najib also cited the example of him releasing 13 Internal Security Act (ISA) detainees on being sworn in as Malaysia's sixth prime minister on April 3.

"The MIC should have been thankful to the government for freeing the 13 and not only focus on the two Hindraf members released.

"If we freed two Hindraf members, don't forget there were 11 others. Don't think about Hindraf alone," he said.

The Prime Minister also said that he had explained the 1Malaysia concept to the members of the new Cabinet at its first meeting in Putrajaya this morning and reminded them "don't be just concerned about your own community " but strive to fulfill the high expectations of all Malaysians.

"I stressed on four things, namely integrity, ability, loyalty and commitment. The Cabinet must also be people-oriented in order to gain the trust of the people," he said.

Besides this, he said, ministers should also be agents of change and bring about reforms towards meeting the needs of the entire spectrum of society.

"We cannot be thinking the government knows everything. The doors to dialogue must be open to all so that decisions made by the government truly reflect the wishes of the people," he said.

Najib also reminded the ministers not to give the people the perception that the government only favoured certain groups or corporate entities although it was of utmost importance to carry out polices that were private-sector friendly.

"But the bottom line is that any decision taken must be based on the overall interests of the people," he said.

He said under the '1Malaysia' concept, if it concerned poverty eradication, it should encompass all races irrespective of whether they were from urban or rural areas, estates, new villages or aboriginal settlements.

"It ('1Malaysia') does not mean the policy to help the bumiputeras is sidelined, in fact it will give implementation of the policy greater impetus so as to ensure that eligible bumiputeras get their due consideration," he said.

Besides this, he said, the '1Malaysia' concept should not be misinterpreted by certain quarters for example the opposition and equate it to the Malaysian Malaysia concept (championed by an opposition party).

-- BERNAMA

Rais Strives To Make Ministry More Effective

KUALA LUMPUR, April 14 (Bernama) - Despite wide-ranging in scope, the Information, Communications, Arts and Culture Ministry will be able to execute its functions more effective by dividing the tasks correctly, said its minister, Datuk Seri Dr Rais Yatim

He said the ministry would beef up its "thinkers" and formulate clearer polices and instructions to ensure its effectiveness.

Rais said he would give his deputies, Datuk Joseph Salang Gandum and Senator Heng Seai Kie specific tasks to make the ministry more efficient.

"We do not have to change the ministry's philosophy. The ministry has more sting with the enforcement of the Communications and Multimedia Act, and the role of the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission.

"With the powers vested in the ministry, it will make nation building easier," he told reporters at the handing over of duties ceremony at Angkasapuri here today.

Rais takes over from Datuk Ahmad Shabery Cheek who has been appointed Youth and Sports Minister.

Rais, who was Information Minister from 1984 to 1986, said although there was hardly any difference in the ministry's functions during his tenure and now, what was more pertinent was enhancing the quality of services to the people.

"The ministry will champion the use of Bahasa Melayu, uphold the National Language Act and help realise the 1Malaysia concept advocated by the prime minister," he said.

Rais said the integration of the communication divisions would enable the ministry to expand the enforcement of the Communications and Multimedia Act to encompass private television and radio networks.

The feedback from the people will be of great value to the ministry in formulating its policies, he said, adding that officers would be trained to acquaint themselves with the policies.

G20 The Beginning Of A New World Order ?

A wider order comes into view

By Quentin Peel

Published: April 5 2009 19:47 | Last updated: April 5 2009 19:47

Face time: a billboard greets a citizen of Beijing. China will need to adapt from export-led growth to expanded domestic demand, a difficult political task to manage

It may take months to discover whether the actions taken by last week’s Group of 20 summit in London are enough to rescue the world economy from a prolonged recession, if not depression. The substance of its conclusions will have to convince capital markets, global financial institutions, investors and humble consumers that they can start to spend, borrow or lend again.

But the symbolism of the event may be more important than the substance. For even if the G20 countries are a strange ad hoc selection, initially brought together by the Asian financial crisis in 1997, they represent a whole new element in the world order. They are not the Group of Seven – the club of western powers and Japan – or the G8 (the G7 plus Russia). The use of the G20 at this moment of global crisis is a clear indication that the old order has outlived its time.

Another pointer came four months ago when the US National Intelligence Council, part of Washington’s security apparatus, published a startling forecast. The international system as constructed after the second world war would, it predicted, be “unrecognisable” by 2025, thanks to globalisation, the rise of emerging powers and “an historic transfer of relative wealth and economic power from west to east”.

“The next 20 years of transition to a new system are fraught with risks,” the document declared. “Strategic rivalries are most likely to revolve around trade, investments and technological innovation and acquisition, but we cannot rule out a 19th-century scenario of arms races, territorial expansion, and military rivalries.”

That report was largely written before the full force of the financial and economic crisis had become apparent. Nevertheless, its authors were convinced that the “unipolar moment” of unchallenged US hegemony after the Berlin Wall came down was already drawing to an end. The future world order would be “multipolar”.

The extraordinary thing about the present moment is that several fundamental adjustments are taking place at the same time. That is what makes the outcome so unpredictable.

ASSERTIVE CHINA:

Respect quest

When the Group of 20 leaders met last November, there were great expectations that China, the world’s only large economy still firing on most cylinders, would make a hefty contribution to the debate, writes David Pilling.

In the event, China shied away from grabbing a larger role, saying that its main useful role was to keep its own economy, worth one-tenth of global output, ticking over at 8 per cent real growth by means of a $570bn fiscal stimulus.

Last week’s G20 was different. Both in the run-up and at the summit itself, there were clear signs that the economic crisis has accelerated China’s emergence as a big player. Perhaps the most closely scrutinised bilateral meeting in London was the first encounter between presidents Hu Jintao and Barack Obama. China’s leader came with a more co-operative stance than before on boosting the International Monetary Fund. He also showed Beijing could not be bounced into positions it did not like when he objected to an attempt by France’s Nicolas Sarkozy to brand Hong Kong and Macao as tax havens.

Ahead of the summit, too, Beijing was far more active. It let it be known that the US could not expect China to help fund its enormous deficit without something in return. It lectured Mr Obama’s new administration on the need to follow stimulus spending with a renewed effort at fiscal consolidation.

More startling still, a few days before the summit, Zhou Xiaochuan, governor of China’s central bank, suggested that the IMF enlarge the scope of special drawing rights, its unit of account, so that SDRs could challenge the dollar as a global reserve currency.

Ben Simpfendorfer, economist at Royal Bank of Scotland, says that while that proposal is unrealistic, “it demonstrates global leadership and underscores the rise of the east”. China, he says, is staking a claim for its renminbi to become the de facto Asian currency unit, which would help consolidate its emergence as regional leader.

Shi Yinhong, a politics professor at Beijing’s Renmin university, says China knows that for now it has little choice but to keep bankrolling the US. But in return for buying a currency it suspects will one day collapse, it will seek more respect for its views on issues including arms sales to Taiwan, Tibetan independence and its activities in countries such as Sudan.

Indeed, there are already signs that Beijing’s strengthened financial leverage is paying political dividends. When Hillary Clinton, US secretary of state, visited China in February, she said human rights “cannot interfere” with bigger economic and diplomatic priorities.

That Mrs Clinton, of all people, should adopt such a restrained tone shows just how far things have tipped in Beijing’s favour.

The end of the cold war, with the fall of the Wall in 1989, cleared the way for new powers to rise – China and India in particular – and removed ideological obstacles to globalisation. Cross-border migration has surged. The technological revolution of the internet has transformed international communications, the flow of information, financial trading and political awareness.

The breakdown in the global financial system, caused not just by the bubble that burst in the US subprime mortgage market but also the explosion of financial speculation across world markets, has rapidly turned into a recession in the real economy. No one has been spared. Credit has frozen up in markets from Africa to eastern Europe.

A massive rebalancing is starting to take place in world trade flows between the unsustainable US trade deficit and the equally unsustainable surpluses of China and other big exporters. US consumers are no longer going to be the engine for Chinese export-led growth, but nor can Chinese savers continue to finance American borrowing.

Finally there is the underlying adjustment – one that would normally still take decades to be realised – that the NIC report identifies, of the switch in power from west to east, especially the rise of China and India to reassume the prominence they held when Europe was in the Dark Ages.

There is an assumption in many parts of the world that the “crisis of capitalism” represented by the freezing up of the financial system will accelerate the long-term geopolitical shift, heralding the decline of US power and European influence. Last year’s choice of the G20 as the forum to tackle the crisis was a belated recognition that China, India and Brazil, at the very least, must be at the table. But will the G20 provide lasting leadership? It smacks of an emergency solution, not a considered construction.

For a start, it has no permanent secretariat. Gordon Brown, UK prime minister, as current chairman struggled for months with a tiny team of British civil servants to forge a consensus. There were divisions between the US and Europe. More important, there were different priorities for the industrialised countries and emerging economies. It was remarkable they managed to agree on a communiqué.

“It is an arrangement that works for finance ministers and central bank governors to meet once a year,” says Trevor Manuel, the South African finance minister. “When you take it up to heads of state and government, the imbalances are accentuated.”

But at least there were few signs of schadenfreude in London. Expectations in 2007 and 2008 of a “decoupling” between the crisis-hit economies of the west and the less exposed emerging markets have vanished. The pain is global and the solution had to be, too.

The real economic effect of the financial crisis has hit emerging markets harder than the developed economies, with a collapse in trade flows and a dramatic fall in commodity prices. It is clear that those worst hit will be the poorest – especially in Africa – who have the least to fall back on.

Second hardest hit are those commodity producers that have always faced big social and demographic challenges, such as energy-rich Russia, Iran, Nigeria and Venezuela. Even Gulf oil producers have been affected. All had become used to swollen export and tax revenues and face readjustment.

Finally, emerging economies still in transition from poverty to prosperity – or from communism to democracy – have been caught by the economic crunch before they could build stable systems of governance and root out endemic corruption. They include many in central and eastern Europe that emerged from the Soviet empire.

Some observers are sceptical about the geopolitical fallout from any financial crisis. “Geopolitical events like the disappearance of Mao in China, or the fall of the Berlin Wall, have far greater consequences than financial shocks,” says Robert Cooper, director-general of external affairs at the Council of the European Union . “Look at the technology bubble in the 1990s. There were no obvious consequences. Or the 1970s crisis with oil prices. Any geopolitical consequences rapidly disappeared.”

Yet he admits that two financial crises of the 20th century – the Depression of the 1930s and economic collapse in Europe after the second world war – did have important results. The former led to the rise of Nazi Germany, the isolationism of America and the outbreak of war. The latter, far more positive, resulted in the Marshall Plan that financed the German Wirtschafts­wunder and economic revival across the rest of the continent, which led to the eventual establishment of the EU.

The lessons of the 1930s also led to the setting up of the Bretton Woods institutions – the World Bank and International Monetary Fund – to bring monetary order to the main industrialised states and a system of crisis management that has survived for more than 60 years. But today their legitimacy and representativeness are being called into question.

The central nation in the ongoing geopolitical transformation is China. It is also the most difficult to read. “They want everything and nothing,” says a senior IMF official. “What they really want is just to be among the big players. The coming 20 to 30 years will be the era of the US and China. They are preparing for this game.”

Beijing wants a bigger share of votes at the IMF, to reflect its rapidly growing economy. But before the G20, it did not want to contribute from its massive foreign reserves to increasing the Fund’s resources because China is still, per capita, a poor country. In the end, Mr Brown announced that Beijing would contribute $40bn, alongside $100bn each from the EU and Japan, as part of a $500bn total. “The crisis emphasises that China is a pivotal world player,” says Bobo Lo of the Centre for European Reform in London. “It might not be a global superpower yet, but it has accelerated that trend.”

If China is a cautious winner, Russia is the most obvious loser from the upheaval. The choice of the G20 as the crisis forum rather than the G8 has abolished Russia’s privileged position as the only outsider at the same table as the wealthiest countries. At the G20 it is one of many middle-sized economies, such as South Korea and Turkey.

But Russia’s weakness is more fundamental. The oil price may rise and fall but the crisis has exposed its failure to diversify beyond the energy sector. Its financial institutions are inefficient, its judicial system corrupt. In the longer term, it faces a chronic demographic crisis likely to result in severe labour shortages in the next two decades.

What of the rest of Europe in the new world order? Like Russia, the continent has an ageing, shrinking population. Slow growth is inevitable, although most west European economies have the reserves and the social safety net to cope with the recession. That is not true of eastern Europe.

For the EU, the risk is that solidarity within the Union will crack, as sneaking protectionism undermines the single market and the old member states show reluctance to bail out the new ones that face acute social crises, with a freeze on bank credit and investment.

The outcome of the G20 – reinforcement of the international financial institutions and a big emphasis on regulation – is what Europe wanted. But it may be a mixed blessing. On the one hand, Europeans have a strong voice in the institutions, especially the IMF. But they will have to give up some of that influence in exchange for China’s contribution and the representation of other developing countries.

As for the G20 itself, the chemistry of the group is unstable. But what seems clear is that without a firm line from Barack Obama’s new US administration, the outcome would have been more feeble. It was Washington that wanted to triple IMF resources. The EU was happy just to double them. Mr Obama played the role of mediator.

France’s Nicolas Sarkozy was the only one who insisted last week that the crisis spelt the demise of “Anglo-Saxon capitalism”. Yet experience suggests that of all the countries affected, the US has the greatest resilience and capacity to recover quickly. The EU and Japan seem stuck in sluggish growth and declining demographics.

As for China, the requirement to adapt from export-led growth to a radical expansion of domestic demand could be a huge political challenge. The Communist party will have to countenance a much faster growth of the middle classes than it has prepared for.

A new world order may be replacing the old – but it will be a bumpy ride.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009

Will the retreat of activist investors give industrial bosses more leeway to manage?

Apr 8th 2009 | PARIS
From The Economist

Illustration by David Simonds

A YEAR ago Stephan Howaldt, the chief executive of Hermes Focus Asset Management Europe, a British activist fund, was in full cry against the Pesenti family, an Italian industrial dynasty. The fund had taken a stake in Italmobiliare, a financial holding company controlled by the family, which in turn controls Italcementi, the world’s fifth-largest cement-maker. Hermes demanded a performance review for Carlo Pesenti, Italcementi’s chief executive, and said the cement firm should sell its stakes in unrelated businesses such as newspapers and banking. Things got personal: the family executives, Mr Howaldt said, became “unusually closed-up”.

Italcementi’s management was therefore delighted when Hermes said in January that it was reorganising its fund and replacing Mr Howaldt. The fund’s activist style had been “disproportionately hit” by the financial crisis, it explained. Hermes still owns shares in Italmobiliare, but its management is not expecting much further pressure for change.

Around the world, activist funds are on the back foot, performing poorly, facing investor withdrawals and struggling to assemble the financial firepower to take on new targets. The activist technique of investing in a few underperforming companies and pressing for change is particularly difficult in falling markets, as other investors seek safe havens. In America investors began only two new activist campaigns in the fourth quarter of 2008, down from 32 in the preceding nine months and 61 in 2007, according to Thomson Reuters, a provider of financial data. William Ackman, a well-known activist who started a fund to pursue Target, a discount retailer, wrote to investors in February to apologise for the fund’s “dreadful performance”. It has fallen in value by around 90%.

In continental Europe, where shareholder activism is a newer phenomenon, corporate chiefs will be quick to seize on signs of failure. On March 26th the chief executive of Wendel, a prominent French investment fund, resigned after an activist investment in Saint-Gobain, a 344-year-old French building-materials firm, went disastrously wrong. Shares in Saint-Gobain fell precipitously after Wendel’s investment, dragging down the fund’s own performance. In recent years, comments Alain Minc, a business consultant in Paris, financial investors were encouraged by cheap liquidity to think they were geniuses who knew better than chief executives how to run companies. In future, he says, they will need real industrial credentials.

On April 2nd Christopher Hohn, chief of The Children’s Investment Fund (TCI), a British hedge fund labelled a “locust” in Germany for its aggressive tactics, abandoned its efforts to force further change at Germany’s main stock exchange. It cut its stake in Deutsche Börse from 10% to below 1%. Last year Mr Hohn conceded that activism is “unpredictable and expensive” in current market conditions. In Japan, too, activists are backing down; in October last year, for instance, TCI sold out of J-Power, the country’s former state-run energy wholesaler, having failed to influence its strategy, and suffered an estimated $130m loss. “Our focus has shifted to buying stocks that don’t require activism,” says the local manager of another big fund.

To be sure, there is little chance that chief executives will feel less overall pressure from shareholders to perform. But demands from short-term investors are likely to subside. In 2007 Moody’s, a credit-rating agency, published a controversial report which concluded that the expansion of shareholder power at American companies was increasing potential credit risk, to the detriment of bondholders and long-term shareholders. Short-term investors in America and Europe, it said, were using new powers such as the ability to nominate board directors to push for actions which could damage credit quality. On top of activists’ own difficulties, companies now have a powerful argument to push back against such initiatives. The pressure from investors trying to force through specific changes—such as increased leverage, spin-offs, acquisitions or share buybacks—has receded, probably for several years.

That will delight chief executives. They resented being given advice on important strategic decisions by people with no industrial experience, and feared the long-term consequences of gearing up. “You end up spending too much time in front of these people rather than running your business,” says one European boss, who adds that short-term shareholders have been a “plague” on industrial firms.

“Creating value through financial leverage will be harder in future, so we can get back to our real job,” says Hakan Samuelsson, chairman of MAN, a German truckmaker, “which is creating industrial value through technology, innovation and efficient manufacturing.” He expects less pressure to sell businesses, because the perceived value of divisions that generate cash is greater now that credit is more expensive. Conglomerates, therefore, stand a better chance of staying intact or even bulking up further over the next few years. Mr Samuelsson also expects more patience for organic growth.

“The dialogue with long-term shareholders has never been as robust,” says Jean-Pascal Tricoire, the president and chief executive of Schneider Electric, a 171-year old French firm which makes equipment for electrical distribution and industrial control. “I believe financial investors are now increasingly realising that industrial people can manage and develop businesses very well.”

In America, too, the financial crisis offers an opportunity to push back against short-term pressure from shareholders, so that managers can go back to running firms for the long term, says Martin Lipton, a Wall Street lawyer who has questioned the value of shareholder activism. Quarterly reporting to Wall Street, long unpopular with industry, is now under fire for having contributed to a push for higher returns and more risk-taking in banking. But American bosses are unlikely to take much comfort from any shift to a longer-term philosophy. Public anger at banks has spilled over into broad fury at corporate chiefs and their pay, and they expect more rather than less scrutiny.

As chief executives regain the freedom to manage, they may seize the opportunity to invest for the long term. But there is also a risk they will indulge in empire-building and roll back improvements in corporate governance. “As activism subsides the result is likely to be that management will tend to become even less accountable, and whether that is in the long-term interests of shareholders is a serious question,” says Nathan Gelber of Stamford Associates, a pension-fund consultancy in London. In Japan in particular, the retreat of activist investors is lamentable.

At some firms vocal fund managers are being replaced by a new kind of activist: the government. Barack Obama proved himself more brutal than any hedge fund when he removed Rick Wagoner as the boss of General Motors last month. But having ousted managers they hold responsible for past failures, governments will seek to build big, stable companies capable of increasing employment, rather than stripping them down in the name of efficiency and shareholder value. On March 29th Christian Streiff, chief executive of PSA Peugeot Citroën, was also ousted, possibly because the French government was infuriated by his plan to cut 11,000 jobs at the firm, announced two days after taking a big loan from the state. Industrial bosses should take note: the wind has changed direction, for a few years at least.

Copyright © 2009 The Economist Newspaper and The Economist Group. All rights reserved.

Need for Muslim and Jew Interfaith Dialogues

Rabbi Marc Schneier | Apr 3, 09 11:41am

With the deserved uproar now fading over Pope Benedict lifting the excommunication of a Holocaust-denying bishop, the Vatican and the Jewish community are seemingly back in each other's good graces. Indeed, all is well between Jews and the Church simply because it was already in a good place as a result of our dialogue with the Vatican over the past 50 years. MCPX We must now move beyond our myopic focus on Jewish-Christian relations and face the real challenge of the 21st century: Jewish-Muslim dialogue. Shifting gears will be anything but easy, however, a re-examination and reassessment of inter-religious dialogue is necessary. American Jews may not recognise the seriousness of the situation, but they only need to look to Europe to see what's at stake – the recent phenomenon of Muslim anti-Semitism. The war in Gaza has brought about a sharp uptick in the number of attacks by Muslims against Jews, but violence in France, Sweden, Britain, Denmark and other countries has been going on for longer and should already have served as a wakeup call. British Jews are in a state of anxiety: there have been physical assaults on Jews in London, recent arson attacks on synagogues outside the capital and anti-Semitic graffiti scrawled in towns and cities all across the country. In Belgium, Jewish community leaders have received death threats. The need for Jewish-Muslim dialogue has never been greater. And yet, when faced with this new reality of partnership-making and bridge building, why are Jews uncomfortable? Why are we are hesitant, worried, anxious and unsure of how to go about the next step? It is true that expanding one's thinking and comfort level is always difficult, yet what better impetus than to help our brothers and sisters around the world? A cadre of extremists has been trying to hijack Islam. So far, thankfully, they have failed in that effort because the majority of Muslim leaders and scholars are, in fact, fair-minded individuals who wish no harm against us. Indeed, many significant Muslim leaders, in America and globally, have extended the hand of friendship to us, an outreach we cannot afford to spurn. Muslim leaders have an obligation to help prevent the toxic spreading of anti-Semitism among the Muslim masses. More leaders must follow in the footsteps of the courageous Muzammil Siddiqi, president of the Fiqh Council of North America, the highest body of Islamic jurisprudence in North America, who has unequivocally denounced anti-Semitism as against the teachings of Islam. More Jewish leaders must speak out In the same spirit, I believe that more Jewish leaders must speak out against Islamophobia, making clear that it is wrong to demonise an entire religion because of the hateful actions of a relative few. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently said that America has a "responsibility to speak out and to work with the Muslim world on behalf of positive change and to enlist the help of Muslims around the world against the extremists." As a religious community, we have that same responsibility: we must get our rabbis to work with imams, get our college students to talk with their Muslim counterparts, get this dialogue going in a meaningful way. There have already been a number of steps in the right direction. The Union of Reform Judaism has a "Children of Abraham" website designed to foster Muslim-Jewish dialogue; rabbis and imams are preaching to their congregations, urging communication and understanding; and the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding "twinned" 50 mosques and 50 synagogues in the United States and Canada this past November, and this coming fall it plans to expand the effort to Europe. The battle will be uphill, the struggle difficult, the discomfort inevitable. But Muslim leaders have the opportunity to echo the historic declaration of the Vatican's Nostra Aetate, a document affirming the need for mutual respect, and to decry "hatred, persecutions, and displays of anti-Semitism directed against Jews at any time and by anyone." We must then rise to the occasion by grasping the outstretched hands of Muslims and working with them to build ties of friendship and trust between our communities. RABBI SCHNEIER is president of the New York- and Washington-based Foundation for Ethnic Understanding. This article is distributed by the Common Ground News Service (CGNews) with permission from The Jerusalem Post.