Prospect readers have their say
Peace in the Middle East I am a former foreign office colleague of Tom Phillips (“Failure is the most likely outcome,” August) from the late 1990s, when we dealt with Balkan issues. I recall President Izetbegovic telling me that the Bosniac Muslim community in Bosnia was so small it could not afford “ethnic disarmament” until it was quite sure that its neighbours (the Serbs and Croats) were not bent on scattering it.
The underlying dynamic in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is as simple. Neither side sees any advantage in “ethnic disarmament.” The emerging Arab mainstream is content to erode Israel’s resistance by creating endless and unpleasant—if not violent—existential uncertainty. The Israeli leadership responds by digging in hard. The Palestinians are collateral damage. Phillips’s article acknowledges this.
The best way to create a context in which Israel is compelled to look for strategic compromises is to democratise the Middle East and give its citizens some direct stake in a reasonable peace process and shared prosperity. Unfortunately, the world for 50 years has accepted the worst and most extreme forms of non-democratic Arab government, not least in Saudi Arabia. In short, a policy of “the worse the better” suits too many capitals. Charles Crawford Bampton
“The Americans can never be a genuinely impartial broker—the whole weight of their system and their perceptions tilt them towards the Israelis,” writes Tom Phillips. American views toward Israel are shifting. Most commentators here see a chasm opening up between American Jews and Israelis. Frankly, the idea of a rabidly pro-Israel American culture is a distortion. The United States is far more willing to evaluate its alliances with countries based on our national interests. David Pritchard, Wisconsin
Tom Phillips left out the main reason why peace is unlikely: neither the Palestinians nor the Israelis want a two-state solution. The Netanyahu government in Israel is supportive of the settlements and has never shown reason to believe that it supports the idea of a Palestinian state. On the Palestinian side, neither Hamas nor Fatah has ever acknowledged Israel’s right to exist. Arafat rejected Ehud Barak’s proposal in 2000 and chose to begin the Intifada; Abu Mazen rejected Ehud Olmert’s proposal in 2008. The Israelis struggle with the idea of dividing the land and evacuating the West Bank settlers, but they did have a few proposals. For the Palestinians, the two-state solution is a bluff. Aryeh Freidson, Via the Prospect website
A two-state solution is inherently racist. Israel treats its own citizens in a discriminatory way, and runs a fully fledged apartheid system on the West Bank. It needs sufficient citizens in the west to acknowledge what is happening to force politicians to withdraw their financial and moral support for the existing Israeli state, and insist that all peoples in land controlled by Israel have the human rights that are a fundamental requirement for all people.
Tom Phillips cannot imagine a viable alternative to a two-state solution. Perceptions in the world change and Mr Phillips shouldn’t be so despairing. Peter Norton, Aylsham
How good to see Tom Phillips’s clear and forensic piece on why Israel-Palestine peace processes seem doomed to fail. And what a shame that it’s so rare to find such clear analysis in the UK’s mainstream media.
But is there an alternative conclusion—namely that an inclusive one-state solution is, strangely, a more likely “successful” outcome, even if it remains some way off? Phil Vernon, Kent
Of course George Mitchell failed to broker a peace deal in the Middle East (“Interview,” August). The Good Friday agreement didn’t happen just because of Mitchell, Bertie Ahern and Tony Blair. They reaped the fruits of the work of previous Irish, British and US leaders as well as community groups and the terrorists themselves.
But there’s a more subtle difference between Ireland and the Middle East. By 1997, the conflict in Ireland had long since ceased being about religion and had become political. Yet in the Middle East it remains religious, essentially the reality that those of the Muslim faith do not want to live in peace with non-Muslims of any faith.
Until the conflict becomes political there will be no peace there. In Ireland, the turning point was when Sinn Fein/ the IRA accepted the basic fact that most of Ulster was part of the United Kingdom. Desmond FitzGerald, London
The Soros solution George Soros’s proposals for rescuing the euro (“One way out,” August) don’t tackle the root cause of the crisis. The euro became for Germany a strongly undervalued currency, further boosting its already strong economy. But it is acting as a strongly overvalued currency for the Mediterranean countries, choking their economies.
Since it is mainly Germany’s euro participation which blocks any chance of overcoming the crisis, Germany should leave the euro. Shortly after introducing its new deutschemark, Germany could be joined by other strong euro-economies. The remaining members will benefit from a devaluating euro. Inflation will reduce their debts and economic growth will be slowly restored. Gjalt R Smit, Switzerland
Think tank of the year The entries in the Energy and Environment category of the Prospect Think Tank Awards (August) were, according to the judges, surprisingly underwhelming. I wasn’t a bit surprised. Between 2008 and 2011, I observed the sector as communications director of a small NGO, advising MPs on climate change. My impression of think tanks was that they were all in their own “silos,” peddling their own specialist message, often backed by vested interests and usually unable to see the whole picture. Jasper Bouverie, Via the Prospect website
Industrial decline Richard Lambert, in his otherwise excellent review of Joseph Stiglitz’s new book (August), repeats the popular fallacy about Mrs Thatcher and the UK’s industrial decline. The manufacturing industry only declined from 26 per cent to 23 per cent of the economy in the 18 years of Thatcher and Major: less than the decline in most other major economies over that period. The real decline, to 12 per cent, came under Blair and Brown. David Paul, London
A liberal church David Marquand poses the question “Is Britain still liberal?” (August), and, gratifyingly, he mentions the Church of England. The Church has been affected, to its detriment, by a shift to conservatism, shown in the “Taliban tendency” of conservative evangelicalism. The real Church of England is liberal in all the richness of that tradition. At its best, the Church reflects the profound hospitality of God and his invitation to all: single, married, gay, straight and messed up. The emergence of the conservative evangelical insurgency, together with the “traditionalists” (though which tradition being represented is puzzling) is imposing firm and exclusive boundaries rather than gospel openness.
As a parish priest who stands explicitly in the liberal tradition, both theologically and politically, it is made clear to me by the insurgency that I am not really Christian—that I don’t qualify for salvation. It is my hope that we will rise to the challenge by establishing the true richness and service of liberalism, this great tradition. The Revd David Yabbacome, St Nicholas, Newport, Lincoln
Namibian roads Tahir Shah suggests (“Travel favourites,” August) that the excellent roads in Namibia are due to its having been a German colony. Absolute rubbish. The roads are so good because when the territory was South-West Africa they were vastly improved to enable South African Defence Force troops to get to Angola where they were (unofficially) fighting on Jonas Savimbi’s side (whose biography I was once asked to write).
On one of many trips I once went on a bus from Windhoek to Upington so steady that we were served dinner with wine on board. Richard Cox, Salisbury
You’ll never be Chinese Being Chinese by descent and having lived in China for over a decade, many of the author’s views resonate with me. Not because we hate China, but because we thought it would, or could, be better than it is now.
Yes, the typical Chinese response to the ideas presented in the article is “if you don’t like it, go home”—which is, essentially, the very problem the author is describing. I know many well educated Chinese who share the same disillusionment about their country. What then, is your response to those people? To leave too? It certainly seems that [Chinese] government leaders, after they have “acquired” enough wealth, are doing exactly that. Xiaobai
Why does one come to China? To have fun? To learn about other cultures? To experience something new? This is not a frivolous question. What does it mean for Mark to come to China in the 80s as a student and compare a nation of a billion people to a toddler learning to walk and talk? What does it mean for someone used to the liberal, capitalist culture of the west to be unsatisfied that China has not been able to cobble together a powerful enough alternative of its own? I actually think Mark is aware of all of these things, but I’m not sure that many expats reading this article are.
I am saddened that conditions are bad in China for foreigners, but only because I am saddened that conditions are bad in general for the vast majority of people who live there. While most expats have the option to leave, very few native Chinese people have any choice at all. China has a “me-first” attitude now, but that’s pretty common in the western world as well. It’s okay to leave, but if you cared enough about China to come here, and to live here for two or five or ten years, do you care enough to help us? Jefferson Mao
Well said Mark! I left China for good yesterday. After 17 years, I don’t want my kids to grow up in a “me” culture, nor live in an expat bubble so they don’t see the selfishness, spitting and littering. Even my 6-year-old sees the gap between donkey-cart peasant and those with Ferraris/Benzes/Audis. Not a day has gone by when I’ve not been asked my salary, cost of my villa. Ray Plummer
There’s a lot I disagree with here, but I just want to say that my parents came from South Asia to the US 40 years ago. They are both citizens, speak fluent (accented) English, attended American graduate schools and are as patriotic as can be. Yet the vast majority of people don’t perceive them as American and never will.
You enjoy all kinds of privileges as a foreigner in China, not least your financial means and your ability to actually leave when you “fall out of love” with your China dream. In light of that, how could you possibly expect not to be considered an outsider? Ms M.R.
I lived in China from 2002 to 2009. There’s no way I could live there again and the thought of raising kids there is absurd. There is a difference between “yellow peril” racism and an understanding of how spine-chillingly soulless this country has become on various levels. I’d rather have the evil of neoliberal “democratic” capitalism dominate than an ethno-nationalistic, morally vacuous totalitarian capitalism. Now everyone wants to copy the USA’s culture and way of life simply because it has the most power and influence. I deeply loathe this state of affairs, but I simply would not want to live in a world where that baton were passed to China. I’d prefer to live under the Iranian theocracy.
I do disagree with some of the article’s assertions on history. I don’t think it’s possible to speak of superpowers before the second world war, and it is not academically acceptable now to say the Mongols or Manchus became Chinese, as less sinocentric narratives are emerging. The author also has, I’d say, an idiosyncratic reading of the effects of Leninism on China. You have to go back to the late Ming rise of commerce to explain where Chinese culture is now. Lee
In my admittedly short experience of two-and-a-half years living in a mid-level city, and also in a very rural area in Zhejiang province, I have found [Mark Kitto’s observations] not to be the case. While there is definitely the ubiquitous flaunting of new money in the newer areas, I found there is still an extremely strong traditional family culture, and almost everyone I knew held strong traditional family values. There are 1.4bn citizens in China and the vast majority of them aren’t a part of the communist party, aren’t super-rich, and shouldn’t be attributed with the shallowness with which you characterise the soulless money-grubbers you are apparently surrounded by in Moganshan.
There is no doubt about the ills of the communist government and public systems. But I hope that you made enough good friends during the 16 years you were in China that you aren’t regretting the whole time. Matt Staskal
