THE GLOBAL AND THE LOCAL

Published in Bertelsmann Future Challenges , 26 January 2012 We know a lot about Burma. We know of violations of human rights waged against the political opposition and ethnic minorities, recruitment of child soldiers, political prisoners, refugees, and forced labor. We also know about the ongoing struggle between the military junta and Aung San Suu Kyi and her many house arrests. When people need an example of an undemocratic country, they will quote Burma and North Korea. US government officials have been quoted as saying the Burmese regime is the most difficult to deal with. It is easy to imagine that we know everything there is to know about the country. In Burma I could sense such oppression in the very air of Yangon. But I also encountered some unexpected things that we don’t normally think about when we think of Burma. We know that we do have something to teach the Burmese state. But is there something the Burmese people have to teach us? The boys running the stall in Yan...

Published in Bertelsmann Stiftung's "Future Challenges" 11 January 2012 I was in Bangkok last mid-April when it started to pour heavily with rain. I was in Sukumvit Road, the heart of the commercial district. Trying to walk to my hotel, I found that my road quickly flooded with rain within a few hours. I returned to Kathmandu, and followed with anxious trepidation news of the flooding in Thailand via Twitter and Facebook. The stories of old people guarding their small homes by the river banks worried me. I emailed my friends to find out if they were okay. One had fled her home with her parents, an elderly aunt and two dogs. Another friend told me the bottom floor of her parents’ house, close to the airport, had been flooded. The damage to the city seems immense. And yet, isn’t water a precious commodity, one we should celebrate if we get more of it? I learnt from a Thai animation made by volunteers to inform the general public that the reasons for the flooding wer...