Shifting our green problems

Is the solar panel really green? While discussing with a friend over matters of our energy supplies, this question just hit me. We think that the solar panel is a green solution to our energy needs; but what if producing it can be as eco unfriendly as oil-powered power plants (cf. Deepwater, 2010) or even nuclear ones (cf. Fukushima, 2011)?

Manufacturing solar panels takes lots of energy (that is, using electricity generated by other carbon emitting power plants) and produces toxins that could damage environment and people’s health. Also extracting materials from the mother earth itself can impact on environment, both natural and human.

Some have warned about this, but unless you consciously look for it, you won’t find much information. Certainly there is no drive to heighten public awareness on the issue on the part of the mainstream media.

Then I heard on BBC for just five seconds: there has been a protest in eastern China against a nearby solar panel factory damaging their environment. I started chasing.

Now it is reported that the plant in question was closed down. The manufacturer, Jingko Solar Co., was suspected of dumping toxic material in a nearby river, killing fish and causing other environmental damages. The local people demanded explanation, violent confrontation followed, and finally authorities stepped in, ordering the company to stop production of solar panels.

Can we say that it is a Chinese problem and dismiss it as such? After all, manufacturing of any industrial products can leave dangerous toxic stuff as byproduct, and apparently, the Chinese are behaving just like Western industrialists in the era of the Industrial Revolution in the previous centuries. In the West, they say that our technology is improving. Overall, the whole process of solar panel production, from the material extraction stage to the final assembly, is still much more eco friendly than using other energy sources.

Or, are we just letting the Chinese build the most polluting kinds of those panels while our manufacturers get to build good ones? Our old computers also end up in China, where under-paid low-skilled workers put those machines apart by bear hands. No protective gears, no facemasks, nothing. It is amazing that they let a Japanese TV crew film it at all.

Now should we go on talking about manufacturing of computers, mobile phones, and flat panel TVs? Personally, I’m not so sure the radiation from mobile phones won’t damage our brains. By the looks of it, it is already too late, most young people and business elite is now zombies.

.. and incidentally, a small solar panel for mobile phones I bought this summer broke down within a week of purchasing. It was made in China. How the >_< do I recycle this thing?

Ref.: -

http://mailman.anu.edu.au/pipermail/enviro-vlc/2009-January/001286.html

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2011-09/20/content_13739338.htm

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/sep/18/chinese-solar-panel-factory-protest

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=solar-cells-prove-cleaner-way-to-produce-power

War month is finally over!

August is over. 66 years ago, Japan surrendered on August 15^th and signed the peace treaty in early September. Ever since, the Japanese media, especially the state run NHK has been using August as the war remembrance month, telling the public that their country is dedicated to peace. To make this point, they talk about the extent and scope of national calamity that was the Pacific War: war vetrans and civilians who lived through the Pacific War talks about how their cities were bombed and innocent people were burnt alive; soldiers, who had no personal grudges against enemy, were ordered to fight and kill – sometimes enemy PoWs. Everyone suffered and many lives and properties were lost; hence war is not worth it, and Japan has renounced war as a policy option. Etc. etc.

What is not talked about is how on earth Japan started the war in the first place. What calculations were made when deciding on aggressive foreign policy that ultimately led to that war are discussed rarely.

A recent TV documentary I saw on NHK discussed how a lack of strong leader led to the decision to go to war with the US in December 1941 – they say that the decision makers all wanted to avoid war with the US, but equally, they did not want to humiliate some ministers, diplomats or military leaders who had been responsible to have led the nation to the mess. In the end, they just failed to take a decisive step to accept the American ultimatum that demanded that Japan would stop its aggressive actions in the Western Pacific region, and so they attacked Pearl Harbor.

Huh?

All of this does not make sense because they almost never discuss root causes of wars in Asia in the 30s and the 40s. The War in the Pacific 1941-45 was, in a way, a peacekeeping operation by the American led allies in the world without peacekeeping mechanism. (The US did not even join the League of Nations, the predecessor of the United Nations, making it spineless when it comes to peacekeeping. ) What was going on was a Japanese design based on the old, now discredited European imperialist model, aimed at constructing a system or empire getting out of hand. We must see this in a larger context of development of international relations from the late 19th century up to the 1930s.

In face of growing menace of Western imperialism of the 19th century, Japan responded with a bold strategy: to join the ranks of the great powers. They considered themselves a young nation, and looked up at the European great powers as role models. The Japanese eagerly learnt to play by the rules of the great game. From the late 19th century, they ventured overseas to test their own ability to survive in the competitive environment of international great games.

Colonising China was a logical step. As China was powerless in face of British, German and Russian imperialism, Japan’s security could be obtained either by propping up China or by colonising it. The Americans chose to help China for the sake of their commercial interest and anti-imperialistic principles. (From the Chinese point of view, they were merely meddling!) Japan followed the second. Still enmity between them did not develop at first, as Americans considered Japan as a potential victim of European imperialism, which needed their protection.

They realised that Japan was not heading a right direction soon after Japan managed to defeat Russia in 1905. But soon, the whole framework of international relations went through a radical overhaul.

WW1 resulted in destructions of four European empires: the German, Austro-Hungarian, Russian and the Ottoman empires were all extinguished. The winners, Britain and France, were so exhausted economically and financially (Britain, for example, was borrowing money from Egypt!), their expansive energy and confidence were gone.

As a result, suddenly, Japan rose to the first division of the great power club. Symbolically, the Washington Naval Treaty of 1921-22 considered Japan as the third largest naval power, next only to the British Empire and the US. (Then, the number of battleships determined your place in the world.)

This rapid rise from being an obscure and unknown Asian country to a first class world power naturally affected Japanese self-image and confidence. They were beginning to think that they were the most superior race, on a par with the Anglo-Americans.

By contrast, China’s fortune hit the rock bottom. The country was a shambles: the old Chinese Empire, powerless in face of Europeans and even the Japanese, lost its credibility. The new republican government was set up after a revolution but this was still fragile . During WW1, Japan, taking advantage of European preoccupation with the war, demanded the Chinese government to accept some humiliating terms giving up concessions and trade privileges to Japan. The Chinese were incensed, but in face of Japanese military might, they had no choice but to acquiesce.

One good thing about your country’s fortune hitting rock bottom is that there is only way up from that point on. Although in a virtual civil war, new forces contesting for control of China were emerging (i.e., the Nationalists and the Communists). On the other hand, Japan began to struggle to maintain its newly won position. Soon after the end of WW1, its fragile economy was exposed; the massive earthquake that destroyed Tokyo in 1923 also exacerbated the problem. Society was in turmoil, as the gap between the rich and the poor widened, with social policies lagging behind. Food riots were rampant. The ruling class genuinely feared a Socialist revolution. Finally, with the onset of the Great Depression in the 30s, the fact that Japan was still a ‘work-in-progress’ nation was all too plain to see.

For Japan’s democracy was still primitive. In time of difficulty, politicians failed to act wisely and decisively, making the frustrated populace back a wrong kind of people: the army.

The army believed that formerly colonising northern chunk of China, which was in a state of anarchy, was the only practical answer to Japan’s economic and social woes and strategic problems. They also thought that what they were doing was no different from British colonial intrigues.

Except that the Chinese were not willing to live under the Japanese. The Japanese, on their part, looked down on the Chinese as a subservient race and considered them as inferior to them in any conceivable way.

So, when the Japanese launched a full-scale invasion in 1937, they were surprised by the fierce resistance of the German-trained Chinese forces defending Shanghai. These were equipped with much better German and Czech weapons and inflicted considerable casualties on the invading Japanese troops.

Not just tactically but politically also, the Chinese will to resist was far more tenacious than the Japanese expectations. The Nationalists even concluded a truce with the Communists to concentrate on the war with the Japanese. A tragedy this directly or indirectly caused was the infamous massacre at Nanking.

It was a classic case of soldiers going wild after a difficult siege; with the surprisingly primitive logistical system of the Japanese army, the soldiers on the front line were starving and fighting with mounting losses. So, they were not in a mood to show mercy after taking the city. The scale and the nature of this atrocity have been disputed by the Japanese and the Chinese. It is, however, fairly obvious that this was caused by the poor planning and over-confidence on the part of the Japanese high command.

The fall of Nanking did not end the war. The Japanese tried terrorizing the populace by aerial bombing and brutal scorched earth tactics but these only stiffened the Chinese resistance. It is estimated that between 1937 and 1941, as many as 300,000-400,000 Japanese were killed (Chinese losses were at least several times of this figure.)

Instead of blaming their own arrogance, short-sightedness, poor intelligence and inept planning, the Japanese army developed utter hatred to Britain and America, as they were giving the Nationalist Chinese morale and material support.

Still, at first, they knew that they could not fight China and the Western nations simultaneously. They tried to seek diplomatic solutions, but they did not want to admit that they made a mistake to their own public. They needed a face-saving decisive victory, which was denied to them. The Japanese were sucked ever deeper into the quagmire.

The hope now was Nazi Germany, ironically enough. In 1940, it looked as though Germany was about to win; with Britain, France and the Netherlands either already defeated or busy fighting Germany, they figured, they could seize their colonies to get oil and other war materials.

The US response was trade sanctions; then it moved its Pacific Fleet to Hawaii to send a strong message that it was serious. This move, instead of making the Japanese act sensibly, cornered them psychologically: there was no way out now. Rather than accept a humiliating climb-down, they chose war with America, regardless of consequences. The Japanese felt that they were already losing a contest to control the Western Pacific with the US anyway. It was a gamble: hit the US hard and hope the US public opinion would stop the American government. Some became victims of their own propaganda: saying that the Americans were soft, they really began to believe that, only to find out the sheer determination of the US public to defeat Japan utterly.

What Japan lacked was experienced diplomats and strategists. Unable to find an exit strategy from the stagnant war, they ended up starting another unwinnable war. 

Tragic.

And what is even more tragic is that latest generations of the Japanese are growing up without learning any of this.

Post-summer hiatus

... and it is almost ten years since 9/11. What has changed since?

As a student of security and defence affairs back then, my first reaction was, So, they had no bio-chemical weapons after all. It came as a huge relief, as we were worried about some rogue nuclear warhead finding its way to some terrorist organisation determined to destroy NYC or DC.

then, there was a film depicting just that. Peacekeeper or something like that. That was unfortunate, as Hollywood treatment on serious security issues tend to trivialise them. People would react, when we pointed out the possibility of terrorist strikes, by saying, isn't that movie?

But then another worry back then was of course China. Just before 9/11 there was an incident involving US and Chinese military planes that raised tension in the Southern China Sea. Well, the world has been distracted by 9/11 for ten years and now back to that problem again.

China being a country that would try to overawe other countries rather than attacking them outright, talks of Chinese invasion of other Asian nations are usually nonsense. Yet, what is worrying is the possibility of accidental border clash, some rogue elements in China or other Asian countries initiating their own business ventures.

In the mid 90s, there was a talk of under-paid Chinese sailors moonlighting as pirates or selling their weapons to pirates. Hopefully, the PLA has a firmer grip on their soldiers and sailors today. With booming economy, surely they do?

As for Al Qaeda. Mostly neutralised and irrelevant today. Is it because the vigorous pursuit by the USA to hunt them down? With the help of hindsight, I feel my gut instinct ten years ago was right: they were already spent force even in 2001 with or without the USA starting the War on Terror thing. The sudden outbreak of "Arab spring" seems to demonstrate it.

What should the West do? It is busy with its own economic and financial crises today. The good news is, we don't have to worry over new, clear and present danger. China's rise is mostly about economic and diplomatic relations, not security (don't let their new aircraft carriers startle you); the Arabs hate their own rulers than the West at the moment. This is time for us to regroup, and, if necessary, to reconstruct our economy. When we sort out our own mess, the world looks like a fairly nice place to live.

Byzantium on film

I just discovered that a film titled Byzantium is under production, to be released next year. Disappointingly, it is not about Byzantium! Recently, there was a film titled Constantine, and it wasn’t even historical film. The movie industry is apparently conspiring aginst all things Byzantine, totally ignoring its existence, at the expense of the public who really ought to know this fascinating period of Roman history.

The Roman Empire, once Christianity became its official relgion, is called the Byzantine Empire. It was still the superpower of the day, and, as such, had considerable influence in history. Eastern Europe and a part of the Middle East are practically its direct legacy. The very people who destroyed it, the Ottoman Turks, had to imitate from the Byzantines and, by conquering and absorbing them, some wonder, maybe the Empire of the Ottomans was merely a continuation of the Roman Empire under the Turkish dynasty. Of course the Turks absolutely dismiss such notion.

Well, so, in our Westernised world, how much do we know about this Roman Empire from the mass media of films and TV programmes?

Not much, sadly. The Western media is obsessed with Republican and early Imperial Rome, not Christian Rome. (And so the idea of Islamic Rome is utterly abhorrent not just to the Turks but to us also!)

So, Byzantium has become almost like a ficticious empire of magic and darkness in some TV. For example,

Buffy (1997-2005)

In 1997, Joss Whedon started a TV show for teenagers titled, ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’. While most people, including me, cringed at this silly title, it did remaind me of Basil the Vulgar Slayer, which is a rather lame translation to the Byzantine nickname for Emperor Basil II who finally subjugated the Bulgars in 1014.

The Balkans is full of gory stories of vampires and demons – possibly this is mysologizing of actual human conditions that helped shape the mentality of people living there, having experienced real horrors of butchery, cruelty and insanity, which were nasty byproducts of political violence (with ordinary folks as their chief victims). The whole region was soon considered as a bloodthirsty place.

Whedon must have encountered Byzantium when doing research on the subject of the vampire. In Season 5, my suspicion was confirmed, when a bunch of Byzantine knights showed up in order to stop a hell god in exile trying to destroy the world. (Funny, their general was called Gregor, a very unlikely name for a Byzantine. Of course, since they all spoke good American, presumably many of them are American recruits by the order!)

Is it possible that there was a particular Byzantine military order to fight forces of evil? For one thing, they would not have called themselves Byzantines anyway, and, if there was ever such an order, it is more likely that it was a roleplaying club by some history buffs (no pan intended) dressed up like medieval knights, fighting demons and having fun. Then they got entangled with real world of magic and became serious…

Agora (2009)

Ok, something more serious. Agora is a fantastic film, even though, personally I do not agree with the main message. (And technically it is not Byzantine history either.) Still, well, it is just great that a film showing how things were in Egypt in the late Roman period gets made.

Rachel Weisz is perfect in the role of Hypatia, the Greek aristocratic lady who is known as one of the leading scientists and philosophers in Roman Alexandria, who was killed by increasingly fanatical Christians in Alexandria. (Weisz was the Anglo-Egyptian girl in The Mummy.)

The film was cleverly plotted, though maybe a bit melodramatic. Since we simply don’t know much about Hypatia’s life, the filmmakers restructured history of Roman Alexandria, throwing Hyptia in the thick of the most violent incidents in the city. Some of the events depicted in this film didn’t happen in her lifetime, but this really is not a problem. The point is, she could easily have been involved with something similar, given the volatile and venomous atmosphere in the city at the time. She was the focal point of main events in the film, giving viewers a good reference point to follow the story.

And of course, love interest. Well, actually there is none from her side. But, a young man, one of her students at Academy, fell in love with her. Accroding to anecdotal stories the chroniclers recorded, she rebuffed his advances by showing a piece of her sanitary cloth, soaked with her menstral blood, saying, is this what you love? (Translation: grow up. You are too young to know a real woman.)

This young man’s identity is not known. The film thus brought in a fictional character, Orestes, instead of the real Orestes, who was the Roman governor and rather old at the time. One of the reasons for Hypatia’s murder was political jealousy she aroused in her rivals, but, by making the young man who was in love with her the young Orestes, their alliance gets not just intellectual but also intimately personal. (She might not be interested, but she was happy to be his friend and mentor.) Since her enemies were trying to influence Orestes without much success, the only way to stop their relationship was to kill her. By making Orestes in love with Hypatia, the film skirted around the problem of trying to show why their ties were so strong.

The film could be controversial, as it is blatantly anti-religious, with full of allusions to modern day fundamentalism both in the Christian and Islmaic worlds. Also the film ends with Hypatia’s death, who was on the verge of a major scientific discovery, which was eventually made by Johannes Kepler in the 17^th century. Implication: advancement of science was stopped by the fanatics!) Well, I don’t think she was about to discover that Earth’s orbit was epicyclic in the 4^th century. Also if I try to be critical of religious fundamentalism, I’d rather pursue the question of where it comes from before attacking what they do (that’s for the judges). Still, the movie is enjoyable enough to spend two hours watching a CGI version of the Library of Alexandria.

John Romer, Byzantium (TV documentary series, ca. 1994)

Originally a Ch4 documentary series by the eminent Egyptologist, John Romer. Exploring the splendour of Byzantium in Romer’s unique style, this is probably the best introduction to Byzantine history from the foundation of Constantinopolis until the very end, the Ottoman conquest of the city in 1453.

Egypt was a Roman/Byzantine province until the coming of Muslim Arabs, so it is no wonder Romer should be interested in the subject. Indeed, many major archaeological discoveries on Byzantium are from Egypt, where Byzantine Christianity, Coptic Church, paganism and Judaism fought for supremacy, as depicted in Agora. Recently, some early Christian documents were dug up in Egypt, which, unfortunately, inspired some popular novelists to write on the assumption that the Church suppressed true origins of Christianity. The truth is, there were so many Christian sects in Egypt, producing different kinds of gospels according to their different creed. Each church tried to prove that their version was most true. It is more likely that the ultimate winner suppressed other versions of the gospel because they genuinely believed that they were false. There was no conspiracy. It’s just politics in plain sight.

Anyway, this series is now available as TLC video, I think.

Naval Museums

The Viking ships, Oslo, Norway

These ships were excavated at locations in the UK and Norway. Considered as 9^th – 11^th century Viking long ships, a couple of them are beautifully reconstructed. Below is the exhibit showing the surviving part. What is amazing, however, is that the majority of the timber for these boats survived, so that these reconstructed ships use most of the original material. This is because these ships were used for burial of powerful people like chieftens, and somehow the soil preserved them. It is believed that these ships were not built specifically for burial. Perhaps the powerful Vikings wanted to be buried on ships they used throughout their lives? They are similar to those boats depicted on Bayeaux Tapestry, the comic book of the Middle Ages telling the story of the Norman invasion of England, 1066. So we might imagine that the Vikings did use this type of vessels for ocean crossing. The Viking ship is often small enough so it can be dragged on land, giving the Vikings overall land and sea mobility. They were the most feared amphibious raiders the Anglo-Saxon England didn’t know how to counter.

The Jylland (Jutland), Ebeltoft, Denmark

After some country drive from Denmark’s second city, Arhus, you’d suddenly find this fine ship museum in the sleepy town of Ebeltoft. This steam powered frigate participated in Scheswig-Holstein War precipitated by the rapid and meteoric rise of the Kingdom of Prussia. Bismarck, the Prussian Chancellor, famously advocated a policy to provoke short victorious wars so Prussia could gain more power. His successful wars against Denmark, Austria and France paved the way for the birth of the German Empire in 1870.

The Peder Skram, Copenhagen, Denmark

This modern warship of the Cold War era is now decommissioned and used as a museum ship, but open only with appointment I gather. It is a typical modern frigate, with the usual weapons arrays of naval guns, SSM tubes (Harpoon anti-ship missiles) and ASW weapons. Peder Skram is a Danish naval leader in the 16^th century, who played a major part in wars when Northern European states were locked in struggles for supremacy in the Baltic.

The Aurora, St. Petersburg, Russia

This is where the Russian Revolution started! Need to say more?

The Mikasa, Yokosuka, Japan

Now one of the Aurora’s nemesis, the Japanese Mikasa. Built by the British shipbuilder, Vickers, this modern warship helped the Japanese rise to the rank of the Great Powers at the beginning of the 20^th century. In 1905, led by the Mikasa, the Japanese battle fleet defeated the Russian Baltic Fleet, demonstrating superiority of British technology and training. (But then also that trying to engage a major modern combat fleet after getting your crew dead tired in a 3-month voyage around the globe is a bad strategy!)

The Mikasa can be found near Yokosuka USN base, Japan

The Averoff, Athens, Greece

This Italian made armoured cruiser, later modified in the US (notice the top mast), is the forgotten hero of the Greek wars against the Turks in the first quarter of the twentieth century. Obviously even the Greeks themselves don’t care much about the Averoff nowadays. If anything, young people use the aft deck for party or something, provoking furious reactions from good citizens of Athens!

But this ship fought off the Turkish fleet in the Balkan wars. At the conclusion of WW1, the Averoff was a part of the Greek fleet occupying Constantinople. When, taking advantage of the Turkish defeat in WW1, the Greeks launched the war of the Megali Idea, the Averoff was also in the thick of it, escorting troop carriers landing at Smyrna. The Greeks, trying to revive the Byzantine Empire in Asia Minor, advanced further inland. Unfortunately, the modern Greeks were no Byzantines, and they got creamed by the Young Turks led by Kemal Ataturk, the founding hero of the Turkish Republic. The routed Greeks were ejected from Asia Minor for good. To settle this war between the Greeks and Turks, the Great Powers held the Lausannce Conference in 1923, where they settled their oil interests in the ex-Turkish territories, which are now called Syria, Iraq and Israel.

The Olympia, Athens, Greece

oh and by the way, there is another forgotten ship, the Olympia, the reconstructed Athenian Trireme. Originally an experiement led by an Anglo-Greek team of researchers, the Olympia was used to try out the rowing system of the ancient trireme warship. She is now sitting quietly in a shed next to the Averoff in Faliro Harbour, Athens.

The killing of Bin Laden – why now?

[President Obama announced the killing of Osama bin Laden in Abbotabad in Pakistan by a US Navy SEALS team on 1 May, 2011]

It is all advertisement, after all.

How popular was bin Laden’s version of Islam?

Apparently, not very. Ten years ago, I argued that Al Qaeda and its affiliates were practically cornered by peaceful encroachment of the Free World, so they tried to provoke a clash of worlds by carrying out a series of spectacular and daring suicide attacks in a hope of provoking the US to act in a way that could be seen as blatantly anti-Islam. [US Naval Institute Proceedings, Dec. 2001, pp.50-51] When George W. Bush launched his War on Saddam, seeing the imperial manner in which he made the decision to go for it and overrode the wills of the public and the world, I feared that al-Qaeda almost won.

But it didn’t matter. No matter how many blunders the US has committed (thus the crime of the Bush administration is chiefly that of prolonging ‘War on Terror’), the fundamental landscape of the Islamic world was unchanged. As the second decade of the twenty-first century began, it exploded literally on Day 1, starting in the great ancient city of Alexandria with some sectarian violence. Within a month, the move towards a real change started in Cairo, and, as of now, the whole of the Middle East is up in flames. It’s not an American invasion or European colonialism. It is their own, home grown dictators and corrupt elite that are making their lives of ordinary Muslims a misery. Some of the elite used anti-Western rhetoric as a smokescreen for their mismanagement and tyranny. Others propped up their regime by acting as the only safeguard against al-Qaeda. Neither tactic will work any more.

The Muslims have now begun a new process of change by venting their pent-up anger at their own leaders. Tunisia and Egypt led the way with their spontaneous uprisings; unfortunately in Libya, the popular revolts are being turned into some sort of ancient, tribal war (the same problem the Carthaginians and the Romans had to deal with 2,000 years ago!). What is different this time is that the Libyans themselves asked for Western intervention. They knew better than blaming the West for their troubles. If anything, they are saying, why don’t you use your military power to help us for a change? The Muslims are so much wiser these days.

It is no wonder that this younger generation of Muslims, wised up by the Internet, will not listen to messages propagated by the ilk of al-Qaeda, who had been preaching to bomb foreigners instead of going to useless elections. But now they’ve discovered a more effective alternative: taking to the streets, rather than wasting their lives in something as prosaic as terrorism. Al-Qaeda-ism, as a protest movement, lost its appeal.

After the 911 attacks, the image of NYC engulfed by fire and smoke, and American citizens fleeing in terror helped inspire some new recruits. By being able to frighten the most powerful country, you can feel powerful. Such sense of power is intoxicating and gave some young Muslims who had nothing else to do something to devote their lives. What is terrorism to us is an adventure of lifetime to them.

But after a while, it is just a bunch of amateurish, ineffectual lone terrorists who were still fighting according to the spirit of al-Qaeda. The jihad has degenerated into a series of local, sectarian violence within the Islamic world, resulting in deaths and suffering of more Muslims than infidels. Some small, isolated jihadist groups might carry on their struggle against the West, but personally, when I fly, I’m more worried about mechanical failure or a bad weather than a bomb in the pants of a terrorist.

So what does al-Qaeda do? Bin Laden is described as charismatic [cf. numerous comments by experts who showed up on CNN,] but in reality, he was getting old and irrelevant. There is only one thing left for al-Qaeda: his martyrdom.

Thus I have this nagging feeling. This could be yet another ploy on the part of al-Qaeda trying to get attention. Did they allow US forces to kill Osama? Did they deliberately let him die a martyr’s death? If so and if this great piece of PR worked, they still might get a new lease of life, carrying out new attacks with fresh recruits bent on vengeance.

However, if they could keep up with the rest of the world, especially the Arab world, they might find it more productive not to use terror tactics at all. They’d been using violence to get noticed, and now that we are all aware of their presence and purposes, they can use violence in a more measured way, while their mainstream activities can be focused on waging a political warfare within Western societies, planting seeds of hatred and political dissent in the minds of young Muslims who live in immigrant communities. By design or accident, this is the latest trend in any case and we have to expect this to get more intense.

So, we are now entering a new phase of the al-Qaeda affairs. The killing of Osama bin Laden is in this sense symbolic. It’s the end of the beginning, if not the beginning of the end. The battleground is now on the arena of politics, rather than that of terrorism. It reminds me of Hitler transforming himself from a street thug to a politician. The enemy is elusive, and we cannot really hit them with the Predator or Navy SEALS teams in future. The hope is that more rational and intelligent political movements in the Islamic world will take hold and that they will use non-violent means to redress their grievances. The challenge is still ahead, as the problem of Palestine and social divide within the Islamic world are as deep as ever.  In the meantime, oBama can concentrate on using the killing of oSama for his re-election campaign.

Crete and Tohoku

I'm sure I'm not alone thinking of ancient Crete and the Minoan civilization, when watching news footages from the Tohoku Earthquake in Japan. Until the 3.11 quake hit, I was always a little sceptical about the CGI version of the tsunami that destroyed the Minoan civilization in c.15th century BCE.

Here is one such image:

The Minoan civilization is generally considered as the first European civilization which flourished in the Bronze Age. Most likely an offshoot of booming economy and maritime commerce in the Mediterranean, the Minoans were like the first colony created by the advanced economy that developed in the Levant. The myth of Zeus' abduction of Europa from Tyre loosely reflects its background. This is also the time of Egypt's decline, and other centres of human activities were thriving in its place along the Med coastal regions.

However, this civilization was destroyed quite suddenly when the volcanic island of Thera or Santrini erupted, blowing up the inner half of the island itself and causing a massive tsunami, which hit Crete within a few hours.

The Minoans were maritime people and lived along the coast. They stood no chance in face of a gigantic tidal wave of 10-20 m or probably even higher. Above is our modern recreation of this tsunami by CGI: a massive, black wall of water racing towards you at 100mph or something like that.

I keep seeing these CGI recreations on History Channel, Discovery and NatGeographic Channel, BBC, C4, etc, and was always thinking, well, surely the real thing must have looked very differently.

Now, here is the real one, that hit Japan on 3.11:

Sure, it is less dramatic, as what we see here is more like the ocean swelling by 10+ meters and simply ran over the sea wall built as anti-tsunami defence. In fact, the most dramatic moments were probably not filmed because people didn't start using their cameras until they finally realised that this was really real. This particular footage seems to have started just a second before the wall was breached.

Luckily for Japan, this tsunami didn't hit the centre of Japanese economy. While this was the worst human tragedy this nation suffered in its post-WW2 history, at least the capital of Japan escaped significant physical damage. Though Tohoku is by no means unimportant, as it produces food for Tokyo and many factories are also located, the rest of Japan is capable of keeping Japanese economy going. In contrast, in case of Crete, the Minoan civilization wasn't big enough geographically for the survivors to generate enough economy and industry for a speedy recovery. The Minoans indeed never recovered and the centre of the eastern Mediterranean civilization moved north, to the Greek mainland.

I have a feeling that if Tohoku had been a separate country, it wd have been destroyed for good. Now an odd thought: Japanese media keep saying that the last time a tsunami of this scale hit this region was 1,000 years ago. That's when Tohoku was conquered by the Japanese. Did they take advantage of an earthquake to subjugate the natives? Well, if I managed to find something in my research, I'd get back to you.