Cross-Culture

“The Islamic Republic won’t last forever. The Iranian Phoenix will be reborn”

No country, except perhaps North Korea in recent years has attracted so much adverse attention as the Islamic Republic of Iran. Its theocratic regime is rightly charged with persecuting dissenters, forcing women to wear the veil and chawdor, bloodily suppressing the protests of hundreds of thousands of Teheranis who believed that its 2009 election was rigged in favour of President Ahmadinejad. Worse, in the eyes of the US and most (though not all) EU Governments, Iran is seen to be using its nuclear power programme covertly to develop atomic warheads for its missiles that could be used to carry out Ahmadinejad’s threat to “wipe Israel off the map”.

The trouble with this analysis is that like the curate’s egg, it is bad in parts. Born of fear and the same kind of flawed intelligence that plunged the US and Britain into Iraq and an unwinnable war in Afghanistan, it fails to take account of the ‘other Iran’ that I have come to know over a lifetime of interaction with the largest, most populous and in the long run, most potentially pro-Western nation in the Middle East.

We need to get back to basics if the Obama Administration in Washington and the new Con-Lib coalition in London are to pursue with any hope of success the “dialogue with Iran” that is the only sane alternative to a slide into bombing and war. So let’s start again – with the history, geography and culture that mean far more than the dithyrambics of the transitory regime of the Mullahs. Iran is big. Put one end on the Bristol Channel and the other would stretch eastwards from Istanbul. Iran is also rich, a reservoir of more oil and gas than anywhere except Saudi Arabia. Climatically it is hot and arid, yet in the turrets of the Zagros Mountains and in the snows of the 11,000 ft tall peaks where Iranians ski and from which streams gush down to the forested shores of the Caspian, it is not hard for the visitor to fall in love (as I did in my youth) with what one of my more distinguished Parliamentary colleagues described as “those plains of amber, those peaks of amethyst, the dignity of that silence of two thousand years”.

Lord Curzon, who was the British Viceroy of India when he said that, grasped the significance of the continuity over the millennia of Iranian culture. Most classical civilizations have seen their ancient history fade into the mists of time. Today’s Egypt, Greece and Italy cherish the memories but bear little contemporary resemblance to the glories of the Pharaohs, of Athens in the 5th Century BC or the Empire of Rome at its peak.

Not so Iran (and China). Visit Esfahan, Shiraz or Yazd and Iranians in three piece suits as well as gowns and turbans, will regale you with tales of Cyrus and Darius, their great emperors who carried the power and culture of Persia to Sudan in the south and Pakistan to the east.

Therein lies one of the keys to dealing with Iran. Far more important, because it is more deeply rooted than the Koran-thumping of the Ayatollahs  - or the consumerism of the Americans – is the self-image of the Persians. Above all, they are proud. They too believe that – like the Brits – they are unique.

Personifying this critical quality of the Persian character is a wise old man living in Le Chateau des Roses, overlooking Lake Geneva in the Swiss city of Montreux. Meet Ardeshir Zahedi, son of the Persian general who restored the late Shah to the Peacock Throne in the long-ago 1950s. Foreign Minister of Iran, Ambassador to Britain and (twice) to America in the ‘80s, Zahedi has even more reason to be hostile to the current regime than other members of the Iranian diaspora. Its agents targeted him for assassination in the 90s. Nor has this muted his calls for an end to the Ayatollahs’ persecution of dissent, their mis-management and corruption of the Iranian economy, their support for terrorist causes among extremist elements of Hamas in Palestine and Hezbollah in Lebanon.  Zahedi is broadly, though not uncritically, pro-British and pro-American. Above all else he incarnates the cultural characteristics of the Persian. In his youth he was passionate and playful. As an Ambassador he was generous to the point of extravagance in the parties he gave for Presidents and Prime Ministers. As Foreign Minister he could be prickly and sometimes profane in his pursuit of Iranian interests, for instance in his insistence that the Gulf must never be referred to as anything other than Persian, and that its islands must be Iranian.

Zahedi today is a pragmatist to whom increasing numbers of thoughtful Iranian exiles look for advice and guidance on how to interpret the cross currents of Iranian politics. Iran watchers at the UN Security Council and the EU Commission in Brussels – though not, alas, the know-it-alls of the State Department and Pentagon – study his occasional speeches and excerpts from his memoirs that appear in the Swiss-Iranian and Persian language journals of west coast America. But Zahedi’s advice is very different from that which might be expected from the ‘Bourbons’, the term traditionally used to describe exiles who ache to destroy the regimes that dispossessed them.

Consider just two examples:

“Bomb Iran to stop it making atomic bombs?”

“Madness,” says Zahedi. In addition to murdering the innocent, this would be more likely to consolidate support behind the regime that he, no less than the hawks in Washington and Tel Aviv, wants to displace.

“Tighten up sanctions to squeeze the Iranian economy and bring the regime to its knees.”

“It won’t work,” says Zahedi. Iran is self sufficient in food, energy and minerals. Unemployment is a major problem for the rapidly increasing numbers of school leavers in a country of 74 million, more than half of whom are under 20 – but as in Cuba and Myanmar, it is not hard for a regime that controls the press and TV to put the blame for the lack of jobs and declining living standards on “outside enemies” seeking to punish the Iranians for failing to bow to the “Great Satan” (as the Mullahs describe America).

Ardeshir Zahedi’s anaylsis, like mine, is that the dialogue with Iran that the Obama Administration in Washington now says it wants, will get nowhere if it is confined to the nuclear question. Between the US and Iran, there are other festering issues that cry out to be tackled.

For instance, compensation – to the Americans, for the 1979 seizure of their Embassy and incarceration of their diplomats; to the Iranians for the families of the 248 pilgrims killed in 1988 when the US cruiser Vincennes shot down an Iranian airliner en route to Mecca. Both sides also accuse the other of aiding and abetting terrorism. Iran helps fund and arm extremist elements of Hamas in Palestine and Hezbollah in Lebanon. The CIA makes use of money appropriated by Congress to assist anti-Iranian forces not only among Kurds on the borders of Iraq and Turkey but inside Iran itself.

There are nevertheless broad interests that Iran and the West have in common. Trade is one example. As Britain and Europe strive to pull out of the global recession, Iran is too large a market to be left to the Russians and Chinese. And Iran could pay for its imports if only its oil and gas were allowed back onto world markets. Politically too, an Iran at peace with the West could help stabilize the Persian Gulf by removing the Arab fears of Iranian over-lordship after the Americans leave. It could also assist in resolving the Middle East’s most dangerous confrontation, between Israel and Palestine.

There are, as yet, few signs that the Mullahs will put aside their proclaimed intention to export the Islamic Revolution. But that is not the aim nor the wish of the “Other Iran” that constitutes the overwhelming majority of the Iranian people. For them the best way forward is to restore the links with the West that in Ardeshir Zahedi’s day (and mine) made Iran our closest friend and stoutest ally on the crucial land bridge that links greater Europe (including Turkey) with the tomorrow-lands of Central Asia, India and China.

A pipedream? I do not think so. For the Mullahs are not forever. One way or another, they too will pass or be absorbed into the cultural fabric of historic Iran. With Ardeshir Zahedi, I cling to the belief expressed by a mutual friend, Houshang Navahandi, when he served as Rector of Shiraz University:

“Four thousand years of history with so many ups and downs have taught this to the Iranians: Iran has always survived, overcome its invaders… absorbed its occupiers. The Phoenix is always re-born from the Ashes.”

by Sir Eldon Griffiths

France as a model?

It was not long ago that France was regularly criticised by the more liberal economies of the world and its leaders. The intervention of the State in many facets of the French Economy was often seen as being backward and a hindrance to the free market flow of goods and services.

Recently however, these criticisms have been more subdued and you can nowadays hear comments and read more and more articles explaining that the heavily regulated French economy together with its massive public and social spending have actually helped cushion the negative effect of the worldwide economic crisis. “L’Etat-providence” in this situation proved to be the right choice and have made some governments think that more regulations and state intervention may actually help to avoid the type of crisis we experienced caused by economic liberalism and lack of real control of financial institutions.

Indeed, the French Economy has been more resilient than many other developed countries and President Nicolas Sarkozy has been quick to state that France has been one of the countries that best resisted the crisis.

The situation is in fact not that rosy and 2010 and beyond will hold many challenges for the French Economy. The pick up from the crisis is actually quite slow and quarterly GDP growth projections for 2010 are between 0.3 and 0.4%.

The immediate problem will be a further deterioration of the unemployment figures now at almost 10% with this percentage much worse for the young. Consumer consumption is badly damaged and is not expected to recover easily. The business climate is not healthy and recent surveys show that activity will actually slow down rather than pick up in the coming months. Many of the economic measures that the Government implemented in 2008 and 2009 will not be extended and that won’t help.

Additionally, one should also not forget that public finances have been heavily used recently and will continue to be through, among others, its recently announced “Grand Emprunt” (grand loan). As a result, the public deficit is forecasted to soon represent an unprecedented 8.5% of GDP, far above the EU’s target of 3%.

President Nicolas Sarkozy promised back in 2008 to implement many necessary reforms to the way things were organised in France and the majority of the population supported him at the time of his election. While quite a number have been implemented in the last 30 months, many have been actually watered down and quite a few have been postponed partly due of course to the crisis, but also partly due to the steady unpopularity of the President whose rating is nowadays below 40%. 

His style is leaving many French people uncomfortable to say the least. Trying to do everything himself and taking all the decisions or at least giving that impression is actually putting him at the front line constantly. The recent debate regarding “L’Identité Nationale” (what it means to be French) is actually further polarising the electorate and is very much seen as an attack on the immigrant population and more of an extreme-right idea coming from someone like Le Pen.

But this is actually a sign of a much deeper problem. While the official country’s motto has been historically “Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité”, a good part of its population, not only immigrant, is not seeing much of these words practiced in reality. The social fabric is breaking down and a growing percentage of French citizens are “falling by the roadside”. The immigrant population especially from the former colonies is struggling to integrate into French society and the number of “new poor” is growing regularly and dangerously. Paradoxically, the number of “privileged” civil servants in France has grown in the last 20 years much more quickly than the private sector to reach 5.4 million or 1 in 5 employed people, but this has not benefited much the above mentioned groups of people. France will need to tackle this problem seriously to avoid more unrest in its cities’ suburbs.

There is no doubt that France needs more essential reforms partly to cut down on huge public expenses even in time of “normal” economic condition. France is living beyond its means and President Sarkozy has again recently insisted on getting them through. One of these reforms will be the delicate one on retirement age and pension benefits, but at a time of slow economic growth, implementing all the planned reforms will not be easy. Of course, almost everyone still continues to believe that these reforms are needed, as long as one is not touched by them.

We can of course here easily recognise one of the key characteristics of the French character, but this is basically what the French government is up to. Contrary to the Swedish population which had to accept many painful reforms a few years ago for the common good, a good percentage of the French population does not see it that way and will resist any attempt to modify earned privileges or any set arrangements. With 2010 just starting and to duplicate last spring’s demonstrations by 3 million people all over the country, one can easily envisage more unhappy people ready to fill up again the streets of France and/or going on strike to stop reforms or to demand improvement in their conditions. It remains to be seen how well the French Model copes!

by Jacques Méon

Japan – why did it take them so long?

On 30 August 2009, a good part of the Japanese electorate finally decided to interrupt the Liberal Democratic Party’s half century in power and gave instead a clear majority to the Democratic Party of Japan.

One can question why it took the Japanese people some 20 years and several elections to decide this political shift ever since the bursting of the economic bubble. This would certainly have not been the case in most Western countries where a percentage of the population happily changes sides at each election.

The answer is partly historical but also cultural.

Historically, ever since Japan’s emergence as a modern state, political parties have tended to be a sideshow to the real business of running the country’s economy. This was left to the various Ministries’ elite bureaucrats who dutifully steered Japan towards prosperity and stability. During the last 50 years or so, the LDP was able to surf on that wave and even after the bubble burst in the late 80s, the politically apathetic public did not mind reconducting the party in power despite the regularly recurring scandals and deepening economic problems facing it.

After all and despite its shortcomings, the LDP was seen as having played an important role in Japan’s overall economic success of the 60s, 70s and 80s and was therefore able to gain a high level of loyalty from a good part of the middle class electorate especially in the countryside. The LDP was able to convince it that there was no other party able to run Japan effectively. Over and over again, the public fell for it.

Culturally, the Japanese are usually very cautious people and are reluctant to change. Stability and patience are also two of their key cultural characteristics. When Junichiro Koizumi became Prime Minister in 2001, there was great popular support and great hope that the LDP was going to change internally under his leadership and that he would be able to introduce the reforms that the country needed.  This was an ideal situation for the electorate as it would not actually and conveniently need to alter its allegiance to the LDP.  On all accounts, this proved to be wishful thinking as much of what was implemented went against many of the traditional Japanese values. Some will be seen later in this article.

The recent world crisis came maybe at the right time or rather at the wrong time for the LDP. After lacklustre performances by three successive Prime Ministers namely Shinzo Abe, Yasuo Fukuda and Taro Aso, each lasting about a year and despite numerous stimulus plans, the Japanese economy is registering its worst performance with a forecasted decrease in 2009 in GDP of 6.2%, with exports having decreased recently by about 50% and unemployment reaching currently 5.7%. This situation helped destroy once and for all both the LDP and the bureaucracy’s reputation for economic competence. As a result, the electorate decided to turn towards the DPJ more out of disgust and despair than real belief that it will solve their problems.

So what will the DPJ do now that it occupies more than 300 seats in the Lower House of the Diet of the 480 available?

The DPJ manifesto is attractive. Some of its promises include large child-care allowances (about 200 euros per child a month), pension guarantees and higher medical spending, tax breaks for small businesses, a postponement for at least 4 years of the increase in consumption tax (VAT) currently set at 5%, income subsidies for farmers, cutting petrol taxes, scrapping expensive highway tolls, allowing greater political autonomy and an end to the bureaucrat-led government.

Although there are worries about how to pay for all these policies, the DPJ maintains that it will be able to finance them by diverting funds from the recent stimulus plans traditionally focused on building more public works and infrastructures such as roads and airports. In its own words, by a transfer from the “concrete” to the “people” as its key slogan is to put “People’s Lives First”. The result is still likely to be a worsening of the fiscal debt amounting already to 180% of the country’s annual GDP.

Other worries lie in the DPJ’s plan to ban the use of temporary workers in manufacturing and to set a higher minimum wage level. The powerful Keidanren, Japan’s Business Federation, is seeing these measures as being counter productive as they will reduce labour flexibility.

Despite its clear victory, many Japanese also wonder how effective its leader, Yukio Hatoyama, will be as Prime Minister. Like all four recent Prime Ministers, he also is a ‘hereditary’ politician with a family having held important positions over three generations in the LDP – his grandfather was actually one of the founders of that Party. Like many older DPJ members, he is in fact a defector from the LDP. With a PHD in Engineering from Stanford University and a higher education from Japan’s top University (Todai), he was really seen more as an academic scholar than a shrewd politician. He actually started his professional career as professor at one of Tokyo’s universities (Senshu). Of course, politics in Japan has for a long time been associated with rich and powerful families who do not have to fight and struggle to get in.

To make things even more questionable, the DPJ, although showing a more social face, is not radically different from the LDP. If the LDP can be categorised as conservative and centre-right, the DPJ can be seen as just a little to the left of it but it would certainly not qualify as being socialist although the Party opposes the kind of privatisation and liberalisation reform that was highly valued by former LDP Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. Socialists and Communists are represented in both Chambers of the Diet but with just a few seats and have never been a threat to the LDP.

An even bigger challenge is the DPJ’s promise to lower and even eliminate the influence of the powerful bureaucracy which has worked hand in hand with the LDP all these years. It remains to be seen how it will handle this very delicate task. As Atsuo Ito, an independent political analyst who recently wrote a book on the Democratic Party, said “the bureaucracy will survive Mr Hatoyama like it survived many past historical events”. The Party’s Manifesto’s pledge to send 100 of its Diet members to various Ministries and Agencies to control them seems quite unrealistic.

Even Hatoyama’s handling of the DPJ itself will not be easy. After all, the Party, founded in 1998, is an amalgam of six smaller parties which have come together in the opposition but who have different views on many issues. Only four newly elected parliamentarians have had ministerial experience in the past, all under the LDP umbrella. The same can be said about his handling of the Party’s ex-leader and powerful figure Ichiro Ozawa, who had to resign his position a few months ago due to a fund-raising scandal.

Although Yukio Hatoyama is often praised for his openness, his idealism, his concern for the public good and his long term vision, his reported lack of leadership and his tendency to change stance are not going to help him in meeting all the challenges that he now has in front of him. Last but not least, his position vis-à-vis the United States and the planned international role of Japan in the coming years remain vague. His statements have shifted from “forging a new and more equal US alliance” to promising “continuity”.

As most of readers will remember, Japan went through a severe economic crisis back in 1989-90 when its ‘economic bubble’ exploded or, more correctly, imploded. The most visible sign was the drop in the Nikkei from a high of almost 40,000 to about 10,000 within a fairly short span of time. The damage to the banking sector was huge and the value of real estate plunged. The government repeatedly announced huge stimulus packages mainly in public works, building more roads, more airports, etc. Many companies were forced to restructure and Japanese workers for the first time started to feel the pain: unemployment increased especially among middle age employees; salaries for the employed were frozen and many were left with negative equity. Interest on savings dropped to basically zero. Even after 20 years, the situation has not improved and annual GDP growth has been minimal.

When one visits Japan however, one cannot fail to notice that it is still a very wealthy country and at first glance does not seem to be in trouble. The number of luxurious cars has never been higher. Foreign brands have taken the opportunity of lower real estate costs to open new flagship stores. New buildings pop up everywhere, whole new districts are developed, department stores are full of well-dressed buyers, restaurants are doing well and people in general continue to look happy. In fact, none of my Japanese acquaintances complained about the economic or political situation. Of course, this was not really a surprise as in Japan one doesn’t criticize unduly nor complain about difficulties and hardships.

In reality however the situation has reached a critical stage. The Nikkei is still around 10,000. The now defunct government and its unpopular Prime Minister Taro Aso, launched four stimulus plans in the last 12 months worth 1,000 billion euros, on a par with the amounts being spent in the US and China. The last phase of this investment programme is supposed to focus on reviving internal consumption, creating employment, helping companies to develop green technology and energy saving industries. It also covers improvements in health, social and education services.

Needless to say, most Japanese viewed these efforts positively even if some of them saw also some clever government maneuvering ahead of the parliamentary elections. This indeed smelled desperately of election strategy coming in addition to the cheque (about 150 euros per person) received earlier this year by all Japanese households.

Under the more popular Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, the government had encouraged the hiring of temporary workers to give more flexibility to companies. As a result, a third of all employees are now temporary workers. This policy created a lot of instability as it made it difficult for people to plan their careers or obtain bank loans to buy property, in addition to going against the Japanese tradition of life-long employment security, which in turn fosters employee loyalty and obedience. In many ways, this measure has had a profound negative effect on Japanese society and many of its core values. The defunct government finally realised this and was planning to promote long-term employment again. Unfortunately, it was too late and this will now be done by the DJP.

The long-term employment system has done well for Japan in the past. The company for many Japanese is like a family, even often the family ahead of wife and children. The employee was ready to sacrifice himself for this family, giving up their bonus or part of their pay for example, for the good of the company. Permanent employment was seen as protecting employees and taking care of their needs in line with traditional Confucian doctrine.

In the meantime, statistics coming out of Japan have been quite alarming. Japan is even now on the verge of losing its number two worldwide economic ranking to China. Of course, Japan cannot be compared to China. China’s economy is continuing to grow as a developing country with a population of 1.3 billion at an annual speed of around 10%. Japan on the other hand has a mature economy with saturated markets. Companies cannot easily find new products/services to sell. Some in despair have even resorted to start selling clothes for dogs and cats!

The aging population, the low birth rate of 1.2 and the decrease in population are also worrisome factors. Projections indicate that the population will decrease to 95 million from the current 128 million by 2050. There may be no other option but to further lengthen the retirement age and possibly lower pension amounts, two measures, which the DPJ has naturally not included in its manifesto. On the contrary it wants to encourage the population to have more children but that measure will take time to become effective.

As one can see, plenty of challenges await the new government. Of course, many of these problems are not unique to Japan. The Western world is struggling with many of them as well.

Since World War 2, Japan has worked hard to become a leading economy. Most of its population has enjoyed the results and experienced the rewards. Japanese people gave ample time and opportunity to the LDP to sort out the country’s problems but instead just witnessed a worsening of the situation year by year. Reluctantly, a majority of the electorate decided without enthusiasm to try someone else. It only took it 20 years to do so. The next 12 months will tell if their decision was the right one.

by Jacques Méon

A United Europe?

The recent European elections saw a significant lurch to the far right, which took many by surprise.

From a cultural perspective this was entirely predictable.

The colours of that end of the political spectrum are those of the national flag, and the emotions it thrives on are feelings of helplessness, anger and a fear of the unknown.

In difficult times like ours, when people have lost their jobs, feel political power is out of their control (Brussels), and that the cultural landscape of their own country is changing (immigration), it is easy to cling to what we first learned – our national values and beliefs – and to reject violently anything ‘other’ which threatens that.

W.B. Yeats’ poem The Second Coming sums up the apathy (low voter turnout), which can lead to the passionately intense seizing power:

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst 

Are full of passionate intensity.

The EU is based on the principle of closer and closer union, but a union of nations with widely divergent values. These divisions can be at the deepest philosophical level: compare French rationalism and German theory with British pragmatism, and you can see why the UK has never felt at home in a political construct built on Franco-German foundations.

We can live with such differences while it is ‘business as usual’, but when crisis hits, and when it hits the pockets of the citizens of Europe, those who can afford it may shrug their shoulders and not bother voting, while many of those who can’t will retreat into their national enclaves and defend their unique values to the death. 

There are no simple answers. But the EU needs to examine its first premises and consider whether closer and closer integration is the right goal, given the cultural differences within Europe. It can then either decide to scale down its ambitions, or come up with such a compelling alternative, such a message of hope – ideally embodied in an Obama-like figure – that it appeals to and unites the whole of Europe….

Hardly likely.

But something must be done to avoid a ‘Second Coming’ like that of Yeats’ poem where a ‘rough beast … slouches towards Bethlehem to be born’. It has happened before in Europe, and history has a nasty habit of repeating itself.

by Michael Gates