S U N D AY, N O V E M B E R 2 9, 2 0 1 5
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OPINION
ADELLE CHUA EDITOR
lettertotheeditor@thestandard.com.ph
OPINION
MEMO TO PUTIN: SYRIA IS TURKEY’S UKRAINE
[ EDI TORI A L ]
WE ARE PARIS
By Marc Champion RUSSIAN leaders have evidently been shocked by Turkey’s deliberate decision to shoot down one of their planes, which they say was motivated by Turkey’s alleged support for Islamic State and greed for the proceeds of smuggled terrorist oil. A simpler explanation is that Russia would have done the same. Here is the hypothetical: What would President Vladimir Putin do if civil war broke out in a neighboring country, which had been part of the Russian empire for centuries before breaking away under circumstances, and with borders, that Russians still found difficult to accept? What would he do if, in that war, some of the rebels were ethnic Russians at risk of being brutally crushed by the armed forces of the neighboring state? Actually, that’s not so hypothetical; it pretty much describes eastern Ukraine. And we know what Russia did—it became heavily involved in a poorly concealed invasion. Syria was under Ottoman control from 1516 until the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. The Russian Empire took over the Donbass region in the mid-1700s. The “Turkmen” rebels that Russia’s Su-24 aircraft was bombing at the time it was shot down are ethnic Turks. They ended up on the wrong side of the border when it was imposed by a1921 treaty (shortly before the Donbass region was incorporated into Soviet Ukraine). Even the strange psychology of how former empires feel they still have a special right, even responsibility, to intervene in long-since amputated parts is similar. When pro-democracy protests began in Syria in 2011, Erdogan said Turkey had to view the turmoil in Syria as a domestic issue. He was affronted when President Bashar al-Assad refused to do as he was told. Since the shoot-down earlier this week, Turkey’s President has all but admitted that his country deliberately targeted the Sukhoi because of what Russia was doing to the Turkmen rebels. “We have no intention to escalate this incident. We are just defending our security and the rights of our brothers,” Erdogan said. As aggressive as the Turkish decision to down a Russian jet over a technical, 17-second airspace infringement was, Erdogan has not gone as far as Putin to assert his right to intervene militarily to protect ethnic kin, anytime, anywhere. Now consider how Putin would react if the US or North Atlantic Treaty Organization decided to get involved militarily in eastern Ukraine, placing an airbase and Patriot missile batteries 50 miles from the Russian border. Picture Nato
THOSE headed to Paris this week, including our own President Benigno Aquino III, may find themselves overwhelmed by the significance of their destination. Just a little over two weeks ago, Paris was the site of the attacks that killed 130 people and injured scores of others. International terror group IS has claimed responsibility for the coordinated attacks, and France has retaliated by bombing several areas in Syria where the group is known to be living. Online, social media users have draped the three-colored flag of France over their profile pictures, fueling a debate on why an attack on France merited such response and support while those on less prominent countries continue to be met with silence, passive acceptance, or indifference. Paris was also where a roomful of cartoonists and satirists were killed early this year. Again, after that event, people were moved to declare that they were Charlie, referring to the magazine, Charlie Hebdo, and all it represented. Again, the killings prompted exchanges on whether press freedom had no bounds, and whether religious freedom allowed one to go through extreme measures in defense of their faith. Today, it’s Paris once again, as world leaders, scientists, advocates, diplomats and people’s groups converge in the French capital for the 21st Conference of Parties. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change calls for the meeting of nations to agree on cutting emissions of greenhouse gases that in turn warm the globe and cause climate change. The 20 previous meetings have, at best, allowed countries to agree at some later point how the cuts will be achieved and who will set the example of doing so at the expense of growth. That final agreement, much less a way to ensure every country complies with its verbal commitments, has never been worked out. The Philippine President will be in Paris to speak as the leader of one of the countries most affected by climate-induced disasters. Filipinos are all too familiar with the effects of climate change on our weather patterns: stronger, more frequent storms, erratic paths, drought and dry spells. Couple this with our innate vulnerability—lack of education and information, and disparate levels of local government preparedness—the result is a people frequently battered not by the weather but by the lack of resilience to meet the inevitable effects of climate change. Many have expressed doubts that aside from the high-level meetings and prestigious personalities, nothing substantial and enforceable will be agreed upon, and the world will continue to plummet into the tipping point for accelerated global warming. Countries which can afford to do so will protect their citizens by enabling them to be resilient; others will not be able to do anything but watch people die or get displaced. Despite the trappings, what will happen in Paris is not a red-carpet event that would be graced by the “who’s who” in the world. In reality, the “who’s who” are the vulnerable people who may not even know what UNFCCC stands for, what the difference between mitigation and adaptation is, and who may not be aware that the objective is to prevent global temperatures to rise by 2-degrees Celsius or more to save ourselves, yet for whom every day is a confrontation with the dangers that await them. The world’s eyes will be trained on Paris once again, but it won’t be the lot just of the French. It will be what will happen to the world. Or won’t.
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ALL YOU REALLY NEED
IN THE West, Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, is much awaited by shoppers. It is usually marked by outrageous discounts in retail stores. People take advantage of Black Friday to get great deals ahead of their Christmas shopping, just before the stores replenish their stocks for the holidays. On Black Friday, it is common for people to get things they do not need, just because they are
ridiculously cheap. Black Friday has been described as an anarchy, which favors big stores that can afford to have competitive prices for one day. It creates “a brand of shoppers who will trample and fight each other...” This year, however, there was a campaign called “Buy Nothing” which challenges people to “switch off from shopping and tune into life.” It was a 24-hour moratorium on consuming, and could be seen as either “a personal experiment or a public statement.” The global campaign, the website www. buynothingday.co.uk claims, was in 60 countries. The site offered simple advice to those who are
By decluttering, we try to make room in our life for the things that matter.
tempted to go shopping: Just. Do. Nothing. #Shoplesslivemore was the campaign’s hashtag. Another website, Quartz (qz.com), added
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that the only clothes people need this season are the only ones already in their closets. I have no idea how the campaign fared in the just-concluded Black Friday in the West. To us here, the idea behind the challenge to conspicuous consumption is timely now that December is just two days away. Beginning this week, most people will shed all pretenses of restraint to get on full holiday mode. Christmas season in the Philippines is associated with acquiring things. Malls going on sale are a testament to this. We get for ourselves and our family members new clothes, shoes, accessories, things for the house, gadgets or anything we hold dear. After
all, this is also the time we get a boost to our monthly income because of the 13th month pay and, for the fortunate ones, Christmas bonus to the tune of x number of months. We buy Christmas gifts for family, friends and acquaintances, and we receive them as well. Of course, we don’t give presents on the basis of need. What we usually receive—clothes, planners, accessories and others—are not something we would buy for ourselves. We acquire these, too, and they add to the pile of Christmas presents we probably store somewhere. We intend to use them sometime, but we can still do without them now. In the meantime, the objective of gift giving
—telling that person you thought of them enough to get them something, anything—has been accomplished. Thank yous have been exchanged. The thought, indeed, counts. New Year won’t be far behind. Again, many traditions and common practices define how we celebrate this occasion. For example, some households buy 12 kinds of round fruits supposedly to invite prosperity. Often, however, fruits are not consumed by family members. Some are given
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away after the festivities, but most remain on the tabletop, or shoved into the refrigerator, rotting away with time. When the New Year comes, we may be tempted to take the newness literally. We promise to junk old habits and old things and acquire new ones. Unfortunately, we are better at acquiring than letting go. As a result, the old and the rotting pile up, and as new things are acquired, more stuff is accumulated. Homes are occupied, not so much by people but by their pos-
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sessions. There is less space for air to freely flow in and out. One of this year’s bestsellers is Marie Kondo’s “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing.” Kondo is a professional organizer, and her consultancy flourishes from the number of people who want to declutter their homes but do not know how to do it. The book is pricey and is frowned upon by perhaps as many people as those who live by it. Kondo’s method is based on
the thinking that tidying up is a process that transforms the person doing it as much as it does the place that is being organized. Tidying up forces a person to evaluate what is truly important to him, and eliminate what is not. By evaluating each and every item and asking himself one and only one question—Does this spark joy?—the person looks into the deepest recesses of himself and discovers what make him happy, and what does not. Do you really need a book to
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tell you the best way to tidy up? Perhaps, perhaps not. You can choose to focus on logical ways to keep your personal space in order, or you can focus on what your belongings, and your attachment to them, tell you about yourself. You can figure out how best to declutter so that there is more room in your life for the things that matter, preferably intangible ones. You can call it housekeeping. Or you can say it’s introspection. adellechua@gmail.com
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