For millions of young people around the world, their introduction to Ernesto Che Guevara will be Gael Garia Bernal as Che and Rodrigo De la Serna as his friend Alberto, kicking back the stand of an overloaded motorcycle, hopping aboard, and lumbering north on an 8,000-mile journey through South America in the film version of Che's ÒMotorcycle DiariesÓ.
For those of us in Cuba old enough to take a similar trip, our journey with Che, the young man with the funny accent and starred beret, began with less romance. ÒPioneros por el comunismo, seremos como el Che! (Pioneers for Communism, like Che we shall be!),Ó we repeated day after day before starting class.
The chant became so tedious that inevitably, the class clown would ask if the incantation would end up turning us all into asthmatics, as Che was. Che's life and deeds all became part of a modern Bible for young Cubans. Even if we wanted to reject what was force-fed in chants or poems like ÒChe ComandanteÓ, it was hard to resist the charm and passion that came from his letters and diaries.
In his speeches, I discovered the brilliant Che, mercilessly railing against inefficiency, false politics and double standards. ÒIf we lack organisation, the ideas, after the impetus of the first moment, lose their effectiveness, fall into the basic routines and conformity, and become simply a memory,Ó he once said. I looked around our island and wondered: was anyone listening?
I discovered the Che who scribbled love poems and coveted his solitude. I wanted to sit with him for a beer and a cigarette to talk about his love for chess or his favourite books.
With the crisis of the 1990s brought on by the collapse of our Soviet patron, many Cubans returned to what Che said about economics, and admit the value of what is achieved with effort. We felt once again the integrity of what it's like to share the burden of a common predicament. The value of our homemade solutions increased to some who had always favoured ideas imported from the East.
Then Che's face flooded our lives, staring at us from T-shirts, banners, walls and key rings, with a look as vigilant as those on the faces in the murals of the Committees for the Defence of the Revolution. The solemn face that Alberto Korda caught in his photographs became tough and unsympathetic. He stopped being San Ernesto de la Izquierda, the saint or talisman who delivered us from injustice. Instead, he rose like the flag of the trivial in a global mass culture Ñ a sign associated with consumer tastes in fashion, music and drugs.
To rediscover the Che who could inspire, I returned to the young Ernesto of Che's diary. I thought again about how on his trip through Latin America, he acquired his revolutionary ideals, clarified certain questions, and added more. I loved how he was brave enough to postpone his life for a while to find his own answers.
Today, a photo of Che's image displayed on the façade of Cuba's interior ministry is a must-have for tourists. Visitors leave and continue their imaginary leftist lives with full refrigerators. We Cubans remain, in charge of keeping the flame alive.
I wonder, Ernesto, what you would have turned into had you lived? An archetype feeding the legend? A general talking down to us with reprimands? A favourite leader? A 21st century Quixote tilting at the windmills of canned politics? A postcard? A repressor of feelings? Or just another dinosaur?
Eduardo Sanchez is a pseudonym for a Cuban writer
JORDANTIMES.COM

An important measure of the seriousness of a reform movement in any society is the willingness of its authorities to combat corruption and the concrete steps they take to overcome a modern scourge that has become endemic in many societies, both developed and underdeveloped. First, of course, the nerve centres of institutionalised corruption must be identified and a regulatory and control framework based on strict criteria set in place.
Corruption is defined in a variety of ways and from different perspectives. There are three main approaches to the issue, one from the perspective of public interest, another from a political-economic angle and the third as a behavioral phenomenon. The first defines corruption as the use of an official post to achieve personal gain; the second as the charging of a price for the provision of a public service in excess of the official tariff; the third as engaging in activities deemed illegal by society.
Actually, the term corruption in its modern sense covers such a vast and growing assortment of activities that it cannot be reduced to a single definition. These activities include, but are not limited to, drugs trafficking, money laundering, corporate crime, arms sales, the sex trade, art and antique fraud, human trafficking, capital flight and the financing of terrorist networks. The only common denominator linking these activities together is that they are all undertaken outside the legality of the system.
Globalisation and the information revolution have turned the phenomenon of corruption from what used to be a cottage industry into a vast global organised crime network transcending national borders and defying all attempts to address it as a single, well-defined aberration from the norm. It is worth noting that all the definitions of corruption carry a contradiction within them, branding corruption as a form of unethical behaviour deemed unacceptable by society as a whole when corruption has become so widespread that in many societies it is no longer considered an exception but the rule.
The rise of corruption in any society is a direct result of the absence of adequate checks and balances in the system. It is this that allows the emergence of a parallel system in which aberrant forms of behaviour take root. The lack of healthy channels encourages people to resort to unhealthy channels outside the system and to openly challenge the rules of legality.
Like capitalism, corruption is driven by the profit motive. But unlike capitalism, it does not operate within the legal framework governing the capitalist system. It would thus be wrong to imagine that corruption is exclusive to capitalist societies. It is a feature widespread in all underdeveloped societies, including societies that attribute themselves to socialism. It thus appears that corruption is a phenomenon difficult to measure. At the same time, it is imperative that it should be vigorously combated as one of the most harmful phenomena of the age, its devastating social consequences threatening the safety and security of peoples, states and democratic institutions.
What makes matters worse is that rigorous criteria for measuring corruption are not available. In the absence of reliable indicators as to the true scale of corruption, on what grounds can we assert that a given society is more corrupt than another? How to use quantitative criteria to qualitatively assess different situations? How to factor into the equation all the elements that distinguish one society from another? When the countries to be compared have particularly similar traits--and these are the interesting cases--the danger of mistake is particularly high. When two societies are to be compared and one is assessed to have a corruption rating of, say, 749 while, for the other, it is estimated to be 747, the margin of error is under 1 over 300!
Mohamed Sid-Ahmed
WEEKLY.AHRAM.ORG.EG

Workers fix a pipe from an oil tanker anchored at a port in Jakarta, Indonesia, Oct. 8. (AFP File Photo)

In a freak coincidence that thriller writers might imagine the price of oil hit an all-time record Saturday exactly at the time that the Kyoto Protocols came into effect. The protocols needed the signature of Russia to bring the number of adherents to 120, which makes them binding on nations that have already signed it. At the same time the price of oil, having hovered around the $50 mark per barrel for a week, touched an all-time high of $56 in spot markets across the globe.
The coincidence meant that many, especially in the West, saw the coming into effect of Kyoto as the good news of the day while the oil price hike was cast as bad news. Normally, however, a strong price for oil should be regarded as good news because high demand for energy is one of the surest signs of economic growth. By all accounts at least part of the recent rise in demand is due to the success of several new economic powers, notably China, India and Brazil. Also Saturday, as Kyoto was coming into effect and oil prices were rising, IMF chief Rodrigo de Rato was in Saudi Arabia as part of a regional tour to persuade OPEC members to increase investment aimed at raising oil production. (See interview with Rato on page 1). Rato's argument is that cheaper oil is essential for maintaining global economic growth.
But should oil producers heed his advice? The short answer is: No. OPEC and other producers have no interest in sinking vast sums of money into an industry targeted by the ideology that has produced the Kyoto accords. Nor is there any reason why they should increase supply to bring down prices, and thus reduce the return on their investment. More importantly, the amount of oil available in the planet is ultimately finite. It makes little sense for countries with substantial oil reserves to sell their irreplaceable assets faster and cheaper.
Logically, the Kyoto lobby should also be opposed to increasing global oil production and consumption. If the Kyoto targets concerning reductions in greenhouse gases are to be met, fossil fuel consumption should be reduced rather than increased. If global warming is a real threat, something that is a matter of scientific dispute, the best way to deal with it is not to make oil cheap thus encouraging its greater use.
The truth is that the Kyoto system is partly driven by fashionable environmentalist ideologies and electoral calculations in several major Western European countries. These ideologies portray oil as an evil substance to be worked out of human existence. The more fanatical Kyotoists are prepared to take direct action to disrupt oil exploration and production across the globe.
The major industrial powers cannot have it both ways. They cannot demand more oil while brandishing the slogan of "No more oil." If they want more oil they should assume a part of the burden of investment. There are plenty of undeveloped oilfields across the globe, including in our region. But developing them requires a strategic understanding between producers and consumers that, sadly, appears to be remoter than ever.
ARABNEWS.COM

Hamid Karzai's inauguration as Afghanistan's first democratically elected president seems a foregone conclusion. However, preliminary election results indicate that Afghanistan remains strongly divided along ethnic lines, raising questions about the extent of Karzai's mandate.
Election officials by October 21 had counted roughly 62 percent of the ballots cast in the presidential vote held 12 days earlier. Karzai's vote total stood at 56 percent. His nearest challenger, Yunus Qanooni, a former education minister and leader of the Panshiri Tajik community, received about 17 percent. Abdul Rashid Dostum, an ethnic Uzbek warlord, and Mohammed Mohaqiq, the leading Hazara candidate, each obtained approximately 10 percent. The other 14 presidential candidates split the remainder of the vote.
Though Karzai appears virtually assured of victory, he needs to secure at least 50 percent of the vote; otherwise he would face a run-off against his nearest challenger, most likely Qanooni. Election officials have announced that they will not declare an official winner until all the ballots are counted.
Karzai, a Pashtun, seemed to be the only candidate to enjoy even a minimal degree of crossover appeal. Estimates showed that he garnered the overwhelming majority of votes in Pashtun-dominated areas, including southern and eastern Afghanistan. He also polled well in western Herat Province, where in recent months he has acted forcefully to reduce the power of the local strongman, Ismail Khan. In addition, urbanized Afghans, regardless of ethnicity, seemed to express a strong preference for Karzai.
The other main candidates--Qanooni, Dostum and Mohaqiq--all received the dominant share of votes from within their respective ethnic communities. Beyond their home regions, though, their collective popularity appeal was negligible. During Karzai's tenure as interim Afghan president, much of the country operated beyond the influence of the central government. Warlords, including Dostum, are the primary political players in many provinces. In other areas, especially in southeastern areas, Islamic radical insurgents pose the main challenge to Kabul's authority.
Fostering a more cohesive state remains one of the top challenges facing Karzai. The president's inability to make substantial inroads among Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazaras, in terms of his popularity, could hamper the central government's attempts to curtail the influence of warlords and Islamic radicals. Complicating Karzai's task is the fact that his presidential challengers are grudging at best in their acceptance of the vote results. Initially, opposition candidates refused to recognize the tally, alleging numerous instances of fraud. After coming under pressure from the international community, Qanooni and Dostum have announced that they will accept to totals, pending an investigation by a special election commission. Mohaqiq, however, maintains that the vote was illegitimate.
Some Afghan media outlets have been mildly critical of the international community, suggesting that outside meddling is primarily responsible for Karzai's ability to secure more than 50 percent of the vote. A commentary in one weekly, Eslahat, claimed that many voters felt intimidated into casting a vote for Karzai. "People [Afghans] notice that the international community, especially the United States, supports Hamid Karzai," the commentary said. "They thought that if anyone else is elected, then the international community would stop helping Afghanistan, and the country would fall back into the state that existed three years ago [under Taliban rule]."
The ethnic divisions evident in the presidential vote raise a warning sign for parliamentary elections scheduled for next spring. If the parliamentary vote follows a similar electoral pattern, Afghanistan could end up with a sharply divided legislature that is ineffective in promoting the stabilization of the country.
EURASIANET.ORG

As one of the millions of television viewers glued to his screen trying to keep pace with the overwhelming flow of international news, I often find myself pondering the pluses and minuses of present-day advances in computers, electronics and information technology. The other day I happened to be in such a philosophical mood when my eye caught the letter from a Japanese reader wondering whether our current enthusiasm for cell phones signifies in reality a disturbing inability "to develop close ties with others in conventional ways."
Indeed a pertinent point, but I would prefer to direct the question to the way today's international media giants, such as CNN and the BBC, report the news.
If the top producers of news bulletins were willing to exchange chairs for a while with the average viewer throughout the world, they might develop a different outlook:
First, not everyone is happy with the intermingling of "news" with "business developments." Undeniably both are important, but a certain separation would not be harmful, since interests of people vary and not everyone is ready to accept such a "globalized" picture.
Second, the over-repetitive style of presentation--headlines, then a synopsis followed by a more expanded version of the news topic--may be good for viewers just tuning in, but it is rather annoying for those who do so at the top of the hour. Besides, there is often repetition by the correspondent who follows the main announcer.
Third, repetition of the same visual footage to accompany a news item is not only unnecessary but also annoying.
Finally, the trend to refer viewers to the channel's Web site for more information may irritate those viewers who don't have such access. Those who do have personal computers are well aware of the possibility and do not need to be reminded so often.
Maybe I belong to a minority that cannot move with the speed of the times. I happen to have belonged to a generation who, as children, used to follow the news mainly through the agonizing expressions on the faces of elders struggling to grasp the horrors of World War II while glued to an antiquated radio.
George Sioris
JAPANTIMES.CO.JP