Archive for March, 2008
This week provided a clear example of dyschronicity, from Saudi Arabia.
The Washington Post reports that the kingdom’s “most revered cleric” has issued a fatwa demanding apostasy trials for two writers who questioned an aspect of hardline Saudi Islam in articles.
The cleric decreed that the writers should be tried and executed if they do not repent.
Hence the 400-plus year gap between Sweden and Saudi Arabia on the dyschronicity map: Western Europe gave up this conception of the role of religion around the 17th century.
(Image usable with credit and link to FutureAtlas.com)
A compromise has, for now, kept Belgium from moving toward dissolution, with a deal between parties representing Flanders and Wallonia.
However, says the New York Times, “polls indicated that confidence in the new coalition was extremely low even before it took office,” so it may only be a stopgap measure.
Taiwanese voters yesterday backed the opposition, effectively retreating from the more stridently pro-independence ruling party.
This may help reduce the risk of conflict between China and Taiwan, a war that could easily draw in the United States.
At the same time, Taiwanese are not ready to merge with China: polling finds that 63% consider the island sovereign and independent, 31% say its status is undetermined, and only 5% agree with China’s position that it is part of the mainland.
The Chinese response to unrest by Tibetans in the last two weeks has once again revealed how unlikely Tibetan self-determination is for the foreseeable future.
China is still willing to use force, and seems ready to escalate the level of force far beyond what has so far been employed.
And the Chinese seem ready to shrug off international condemnation: the sacred unity of China is far more important to them.
Tellingly, the government’s depiction of events — with the Tibetans as violent “splittists” manipulated by outside forces — seems to find widespread support among ordinary Chinese. So even a substantially democratized China might still keep a tight rein on Tibet, because the electorate would favor this.
(Image usable with credit and link to FutureAtlas.com)
India’s vast film industry has generated relatively little cultural power for the country over the decades: its productions have tended to be formulaic and simplistic, and have found only limited audiences beyond South Asia and its diasporas.
That may begin to change. Buoyed by India’s rising wealth, Bollywood is gaining resources, professionalizing, and linking to the global entertainment industry, reports indicate. Indian films are starting to attract global talent, and movies are taking on more diverse and serious subjects, while simultaneously becoming more accessible to non-Indian audiences.
The result may be that India’s values and views will be shared with the world more broadly and more convincingly, the hallmark of a great power.
New polling in Iran offers mixed signals to those who hope for “moderation.”
A strong majority of Iranians favors allowing all reformist candidates to contest elections, and 86% say that all leaders of their country should be elected.
At the same time, a slim majority of Iranians says that Iran should develop nuclear weapons–51% are in favor of this, with only 39% opposed.
So Iran’s potential interest in nuclear weapons is not confined to a tiny ruling group, and even the advent of full democracy might not dispel it.