Kenyan Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai plants a tree at the UN headquarters in Nairobi, Oct. 11, 2004. (Reuters File Photo)

In 2004, the Norwegian Nobel committee made a revolutionary decision. In awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to an environmentalist for the first time, the committee broadened the concept of peace. The message the committee sent was this: If we want a peaceful world, we have to manage our environment responsibly and sustainably. We also have to share natural resources equitably at local, national, and global levels.
Since winning that prize, I have traveled to many parts of the world sharing the groundbreaking message of the Nobel committee. Friday, the 35th celebration of Earth Day provides us the opportunity to rededicate ourselves to doing all we can in our daily lives to protect and nurture the Earth.
There can be no better time. The recently released Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Report shows that nature provides so many “services“ that the decline of ecosystems worldwide has measurable deleterious effects on human well-being. The 1,300 scientists compiling the report found that 60 percent of nature’s vital services that make all life possible--including fresh water and the flood protection and climate-stabilizing capacities of forests--are already degraded or in danger.
Nature is not an amenity to be drawn upon. It is a fundamental component of our ability to survive--and a central pillar in expanding the possibilities for peace.
Nearly 30 years ago, I planted seven trees that led to the creation of the Green Belt Movement. Since then, women (and some men) have planted more than 30 million trees across Kenya, and we have shared our approach with many other countries in Africa.
Through the Green Belt Movement, thousands of communities, largely poor and rural, have been able to transcend ignorance and fear and take positive action for the earth. In the process, they have also secured their own livelihoods, as the trees provide them with fuel, fodder, protection against soil erosion, and even a small income.
One of the most important lessons we learned is that citizens need to be empowered. They need to feel that the life they want for themselves and their children can be achieved only when they participate in protecting and restoring their environment and expanding what I like to call “democratic space.“ They can’t wait for others to do it for them; they need to take action themselves. Otherwise, the best theories about how to preserve ecosystems for use by humans and other species will remain just that: theories.
On a recent visit to Japan, I learned the concept of mottainai. One meaning in Japanese is “what a waste.“ But it also captures in one term the “Three Rs“ that environmentalists have been campaigning on for a number of years: reduce, reuse, and recycle. I am seeking to make mottainai a global campaign, adding one more “R“ suggested by Klaus Tðpfer, the head of the UN Environment Program: “repair“ resources where necessary.
We can practice mottainai in rich countries where overconsumption is rampant, and we can do it in regions where environmental devastation is causing the poor to get poorer and the ecosystems on which they depend to be degraded, some beyond repair.
In my case, mottainai means continuing to plant trees, particularly now that the long rains have come to Kenya. I have also called on my parliamentary colleagues to ensure that government offices use both sides of each sheet so we can halve the amount of paper we consume.
CSMONITOR.COM

South Korean police block anti-Japan protesters during a demonstration in front of the Japanese Culture Center in Seoul, April 22. (AFP File Photo)

Japan does not like immigration. That is self-evident from even the most cursory observation of a street in any large Japanese city. It is difficult to see anyone who is not Japanese.
After centuries of isolation, Japan–s rapid industrialization after 1867 catapulted the country into the ranks of the advanced world and left its neighbors trailing in its wake. This disparity served to further distance Japan from Asia and fueled the kind of supremacist attitudes which saw Japan colonize Korea and Taiwan, northeast China and then briefly, during World War II, most of Southeast Asia, often with considerable barbarity.
After Japan–s defeat in the war, it grudgingly admitted partial responsibility for its actions but it never went through anything like the kind of cathartic process that was to transform Germany. Guilt was confined to an ambiguous and cryptic form of words, plus an economic largesse toward its Asian neighbors, China included. Not surprisingly, Japan–s reluctant expressions of remorse, repeated again by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, have never measured up to the profound sense of grievance felt by its neighbors, especially China and South Korea. As a consequence, the issue has festered and the wounds remain; unlike in Europe, there has been no closure. It is one of the reasons why Japan has never been able to exercise the kind of regional influence that its status as an economic giant would imply.
Japan–s ostrich-like attitude toward its own past has left it with feet of clay. It seems uncomprehending toward the huge resentments that animate not only the Chinese, but also the Koreans, Filipinos and many others. Indeed, it appears almost nonplussed by the latest protests, a sentiment reflected in Koizumi–s statement the other day, which merely represented a repetition of previous utterances. It would not be difficult for Japan to disarm its critics by a sincere display of remorse, by a willingness to engage in open bilateral investigations of the past, in a heartfelt rather than grudging mea culpa.
It would be wrong to believe that the feelings displayed on the streets of numerous Chinese cities over the last three weeks do not accurately reflect the feelings of ordinary Chinese people. They resent Japan–s failure to atone for its past, not least the Nanking massacre in which, according to the author Iris Chang, 300,000 were slaughtered. The recently revised junior high school textbook--which glosses over such events and which was one of the causes of the recent demonstrations--serves only to add insult to injury. None of this, of course, is new; what has changed is the context.
East Asia is frozen in time. Old conflicts remain as relevant as they were half a century ago­-Taiwan, the division of Korea, and Japan–s colonization of its neighbors. Given this backdrop, the rise of China is likely to result in a growing contest with Japan for regional hegemony.
Japan, meanwhile, has few allies in the region. In the present Sino-Japanese spat, it is difficult to think of a single country--with the possible ambiguous exception of Taiwan--which sides with Japan. South Korea–s sentiments, for obvious reasons, lie overwhelmingly with China. Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore have all expressed sympathy with Chinese sentiments. Japan has only itself to blame: It is the author of its own estrangement and it shows no sign of being willing to do anything about it.
GURADIAN.CO.UK

For Sweden, my homeland, the United Nations is a sacred cow. But today, many Swedes, like others around the world, are having second thoughts. Three events incited these doubts. The first was the slaughter in Rwanda a decade ago of more than 800,000 people within 100 days--probably the fastest genocide ever. The well-documented fact is that Kofi Annan, then the U.N.’s deputy secretary general, ordered U.N. soldiers in Rwanda not to intervene or protect the victims. Why Annan, after this enormous failure, was then promoted to secretary general of the U.N. remains a puzzle.
Doubts about the U.N., and Annan personally, have been compounded by the scandal within the U.N. administration concerning the Oil for Food Program. Although reports have so far not implicated Annan directly, his management failures are abundantly clear.
The third--and perhaps the most disillusioning--scandal concerns the Commission on Human Rights, for it lays bare much about the structural and permanent lack of balance and morality within key U.N. agencies. Most people assume that this commission exists to promote human rights and democratic freedoms. Yet some of the worst human rights violators are commission members. These enemies of freedom are permanently silent about torture, oppression and mass murder carried out by their fellow dictatorships.
The recent “high-level panel“ report on the future of the U.N. was right when it said: “We are concerned that, in recent years, states have sought membership of the commission not to strengthen human rights but to protect themselves from criticism or to criticize others.“
So, finally, the truth is emerging. After more than a third of a century at the U.N., even Annan has come close to admitting that the Commission on Human Rights is a source of shame.
Is it reasonable to elect a pyromaniac to the board of a fire department? About half of today’s U.N. members are democracies; the other half are not. So totalitarian or authoritarian states--more interested in hiding their own oppression than fairly judging other nations--can easily trigger a sort of political pogrom against any democracy that annoys enough tyrants.
To prevent such vicious absurdities from continuing, the world’s democracies must unite to prevent any country that systematically violates human rights from being allowed to be a member of the Commission on Human Rights.
Who should decide whether a country is democratic or not? A tremendously respected independent think tank, Freedom House, is, like the U.N.’s headquarters, located in New York City. Freedom House is led and advised by experts on 190 countries. Political rights and civil liberties are rated from 1 to 7 for each country, with 1 representing the most free and 7 the least free. The designation of countries as “free“ (1-2.5), “partly free“ (3.0-5.0), or “not free“ (5.5-7.0) is determined by combining these ratings.
The goal of all free countries should be that only other free countries are allowed seats on the Commission for Human Rights. Unfortunately, most democracies are often unwilling to fight against the perversion of the Human Rights Commission. The European Union represents 25 democracies and often inspires countries to seek their freedom, as it has in Ukraine and Lebanon. But the EU’s habit is not to defeat the U.N.’s extremists, but to make strange compromises with them. As a result, rogue states make a few concessions to get the Europeans and others on board and then claim moral parity with the democracies.
Free peoples everywhere should remember that totalitarian forces and ideas cannot be defeated by being nice and accommodating.
Per Ahlmark
JAPANTIMES.CO.JP

Meritocracy: the word sounds nothing but good. It means rule by those who have merit. Such merit is usually understood to be academic achievement, a combination of talent and training. This is measured by academic degrees, which in turn are graded on merit: A, B, C, D, or First, Upper Second, Lower Second, Third.
Who would not wish to live in a meritocracy? It is certainly preferable to a plutocracy, in which wealth determines status, or a gerontocracy, in which age leads one to the top, or even an aristocracy, in which what counts are inherited titles and properties.
For many, France has long been the epitome of meritocracy. Most of those in the top reaches of not only the civil service and the judiciary, but also politics, business, and academia used to be graduates of the famous grandes Žcoles. Many then went through the rigorous training to become inspecteurs de finance, senior state officials.
Yet the French elites today are increasingly held in suspicion, and even reviled, by part of the population. Certainly, French leaders are not immune to corruption. The uneasy relationship of money and politics has given rise to several high-profile scandals in recent years. It is no longer clear that France–s highly educated leaders are able to run the country–s affairs more efficiently and more honestly than others.
Japan–s meritocratically-selected bureaucracy, too, faces much the same public opprobrium. Indeed, the bureaucracy itself is often blamed for the country–s rigidity and ongoing stagnation.
In Britain, a government heading for its third term in office has said more than once that it wants the country to be —meritocraticš. Chancellor Gordon Brown, Tony Blair–s heir apparent, is particularly eager to go down that road. Yet it was a British social scientist (and Labour Party politician), Michael Young, who forty years ago wrote a much debated book entitled The Rise of the Meritocracy. His was not a description of the road to the promised land, but a dystopian vision of almost Orwellian dimensions. Meritocracy was Young–s 1984.
Two central questions raised by Young remain topical today. First, if academic achievement is the entry ticket to power and status, what about the rest? What about those who do not make it to university? How do the other 50 percent fare in a meritocratic world?
They are, Young argued, confined, even condemned to lower-level jobs, with no chance to rise to eminence, or even to a comfortable position of responsibility. According to Young, those who have at least some talent will form a —pioneer corpsš of plumbers and builders and other skilled workers. Those who do not even make that grade will remain in a —home help corpsš of unskilled labourers.
Indeed, nowadays meritocracy seems to be simply another version of the inequality that characterises all societies. It may in fact be a particularly cruel form of inequality, as those who do not succeed cannot argue that they were unlucky or kept down by those in power. Instead, they must conclude that they personally failed, and that no amount of effort can save them.
To this must be added another feature that Young described: meritocracy means only that another ruling group closes the gates behind it once it has achieved its status. Those who made it on —meritš now want to have everything else as well--not just power and money, but also the opportunity to determine who gets in and who stays out.
DAILYTIMES.COM.PK

A funny thing is happening on the way to a globalized economy: Even as national boundaries are getting fuzzier because of free trade and instant flows of capital, the world is becoming more nationalistic.
In this new nationalism, as in most things, America has led the way. Recall the behavior of our Olympic athletes over the years and you’ll realize that American chauvinism and flag-waving are nothing new. President Bush elevated “America First“ to a new ideology after Sept. 11, 2001 and has been denounced by globalists ever since for “unilateralism.“ But Bush-bashers may be missing the real point: Everybody is more nationalistic these days.
Contrary to the assumptions of a decade ago, globalization isn’t sweeping away national identities. The world isn’t flat, notwithstanding the arguments of my friend Tom Friedman in his excellent new book; instead, the world is a washboard landscape of hills and dales and sharp ridgelines of national fervor. In some ways, this new nationalism is a kind of geopolitical fundamentalism--in which people cleave to old identities as a way of coping with the new stresses of globalization.
The past few weeks have brought examples of this powerful, if sometimes irrational, resurgence of nationalist sentiment. The Chinese seem to have gone off their rocker with the recent street protests against revisions of Japanese schoolbooks. The Chinese claim that the texts whitewash Japanese brutality against China during World War II. Maybe so, but what’s striking are the chanting, unruly nationalist protesters in Chinese cities.
Then there’s France, which is always secretly competing with the United States to see which country can be more highhanded in asserting its national interests. This year France may take the prize. After prodding other European nations for a generation toward its view of a unified Europe--and after former French president Valery Giscard d’Estaing took the lead in writing a new European constitution--the French public is leaning against ratification of that constitution in a national referendum next month.
The French will probably ratify the document in the end, but the lesson is clear. The old vision of a quasi-federal Europe must accommodate the new nationalism that is stirring across the continent. The French (and most other Europeans) want to guard their national sovereignty, their national culture, their national prerogatives, their protected national labor markets.
The Lebanese, whose modern identity had been bound up in the idea of an “Arabism“ that could unite Christians and Muslims, have decided that they’re really Lebanese after all and have driven Syrian occupiers back home.
Zbigniew Brzezinski, a former national security adviser, notes that the new nationalism among young people is triggering some copycat movements. The Orange Revolution in Ukraine was driven in part by young street protesters from a group called Pora, or “It’s Time.“ In response, notes Brzezinski, Russian leader Vladimir Putin has encouraged a new movement called Nashi, or “Ours,“ that’s designed to appeal to the nationalism of young Russians. Brzezinski fears it could degenerate into a dangerous, right-wing “Nashi-ism.“
Loving one’s country is laudable, but it also has created rivers of blood over the centuries. Thus the dream after 1945 that the great powers, led by the United States, could create international institutions that would provide a new kind of global security. It would be a delightful irony if the Bush administration, seeing the worrisome rise of nationalism in other countries, helped lead the way back toward dynamic, reformed multilateral institutions. But I’m not holding my breath.
David Ignatius
WASHINGTONPOST.COM