Mae Sai

Mae Sai - Taichilek border crossing, from Mae Sai

I'm back in Thailand, in the lovely, seedy border town of Mae Sai. I'll be heading back to Chiang Mai in a few hours. I have lots of photos and stories to put up, but I'm going to wait for a better internet connection to do so.

Let me just say that Burma is a strange, strange place. When you step across the border, you set your watch back 30 minutes, and move back in time a half a century. It's a dictatorship, but one held together with carbon copies, handwritten account books and library paste. The streets are dirt, the houses bamboo and thatch, the vehicles improvised, held together with hope and wire. More than anywhere else I've ever been, it's a place apart. And yet...the thing I've come to understand, above all, is that Burma's isolation doesn't --as it were-- happen in isolation. The life is being sucked out of the country, and that's very, very good for the rest of the region. Whether their interests are in gas, oil, timber, hydropower, gems, drugs or labor, powerful people in the surrounding countries benefit from Burma staying exactly as it is. The chaos in Burma allows for ruthless extraction of its resources in a way that would never be possible in a country where the government bears any accountability to its people. Thailand benefits, China benefits, India benefits, the Burmese junta benefits -- and the Burmese people are left to pay the price.

This, I think, is the most important story about Burma, and I'm working on how to communicate it through the frame of the issue I'm focusing on.

Taipei

Smoking Lounge, Taipei Airport

Made it to Taipei, Taiwan. Confirming, once again, that airports (at least the big ones) are pretty much identical the world over -- though this one is a bit chillier than average. Points for free wireless. Demerits for bad, overpriced coffee.
2 more flights to go.

Heading off..

I'm off to the airport in just a few minutes, to Chiang Mai, Thailand via Taipei and Bangkok. I'll try to post again when I arrive.

Cornell

Snow? In upstate New York? In March?
This is something that should have occurred to me in advance. But living in California has made me soft.

Marlena's

The (semi)final cut of my series on the drag show at Marlena's Bar in Hayes Valley:


Check out a few more from the series on my flickr acount

Traveler's Song

My loving mother, thread in hand,
Mended the coat I have on now,
Stitch by stitch, just before I left home,
Thinking I might be gone a long time.
How can a blade of young grass
Ever repay the warmth of the Spring sun?

- Meng Jia, translated from the Chinese by Mingfong Ho

I looked up, and discovered February had already slipped through my hands.
Desculpame.

Adventures of Isabel

I’ve been asked a few times lately, so: the title “Adventures of Isabel” refers to a poem by Ogden Nash about a little girl who refuses to be intimidated by anything or anyone. Those of you who were never a little girl named Isabel may find it a bit obscure, but she’s always been an inspiration to me…

The Other Peace Process in Mindanao

While public attention is focused on peace negotiations between the Philippine Government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and the Communist Party of the Philippines, a third, much quieter peace process has been underway in Mindanao. Since 2003, the Revolutionary Worker's Party of Mindanao (Rebolusyonaryang Partido ng Manggagawa ng Mindanao - RPM-M) has been in negotiation with the government to end three decades of conflict.

Mediated by Balay Mindanaw, a local NGO, and conducted locally, transparently, and with the involvement of the affected communities, this "other peace process" is focused on identifying and meeting the needs of villagers before an agreement is signed.

By giving all affected parties ownership over the process, focusing on the needs of communities rather than politicians, and avoiding high-profile international involvement, the process has avoided much of the chaos, violence and media posturing that mars negotiations with the MILF and the CPP. Unfortunately, corruption and insincerity on the part of the government and government contractors (and the unwillingness of international agencies to give aid before a final agreement is brokered) threaten to undermine the process. Villagers often do not see the infrastructure projects they are promised -- and every time the government fails to deliver its side of the bargain, it becomes more difficult to reengage communities in the peace talks.

I had the chance to meet with Balay Mindanaw president Kaloy Manlupig earlier this week, and was very impressed by his commitment to the peace process. I'm hoping to visit the affected areas this summer, so more on this later...

(And I'm going to quickly note here that US involvement in the region is, of course, complicating this process as well -- partly by pushing the Philippine government further towards a manichaean division between "good guys" and "bad guys" that discourages negotiation with "enemies" and "terrorists" like the RPM-M and the villagers who support them, and partly by threatening to disrupt the ceasefire in its hunt for "terrorists" in Mindanao.)

Bannerhang

Demonstrators protest in favor of democratizing the UC Regents, against the Berkeley-BP research deal, in favor of leaving the Memorial Oak Grove uncut, against the UC refusing to turn over Native American remains held for "research." And also against nuclear weapons.
Ah, Berkeley...

Protecting the Boys

I haven’t felt in the mood for blogging lately but after reading about the release of a US Marine charged with raping a 14-year old Okinawan girl, I’m reminded of this piece on a similar case in the Philippines, which I wrote a for a class a few months ago and never did anything with:

On December 4, 2006, Philippine courts sentenced U.S. marine Daniel Smith to 40 years in prison for raping a Filipina. The verdict was a dramatic victory for people seeking to hold American servicemen accountable for their crimes against civilian populations.

On December 29, 2006, the hopes raised by Smith’s conviction were shattered when the US Embassy removed him from Philippine custody.

Smith remains in the custody of the US Embassy in Manila while he appeals the verdict, causing widespread public outrage in the Philippines. The impulse to prevent Smith from languishing in an overcrowded, under-serviced prison while his case is resolved is understandable. But the “protect our boys” ethic that underlies it, which dictates that U.S. personnel abroad should invariably be shielded from local accountability, needs to be seriously reexamined.

In the Philippines, this case was clearly tied to US-Philippine military relations from the moment it hit the front pages. It was precisely this kind of crime -- and the lack of accountability that accompanied it -- that led to the expulsion of US Military bases from the Philippines in 1992.

After years of lobbying, the US military was allowed to return in 1999 under a new Visiting Forces Agreement. Among the key features of this agreement are provisions guaranteeing the Philippines greater power to try and punish American soldiers for serious crimes.

Smith’s trial was the first major test of the renegotiated agreement, and the guilty verdict gave Filipinos reason to believe that the era of American impunity had ended. Instead, within weeks of Smith’s conviction, the United States pressured the Philippine government to transfer Smith to American custody by threatening to cut aid and cancel joint military exercises.

Using the power of the state to shield Smith transformed his crime from an isolated incident into a statement of U.S. foreign policy. While asking the Philippines to stand shoulder-to-shoulder in the war on terror, the United States effectively refused to acknowledge the Philippines’ equal right to protect its citizens, and undermined the very democratic institutions the war on terror is purported to protect.

America’s insistence on protecting a convicted rapist at the expense of Philippine sovereignty underscores an unequal partnership the Philippines, one of America’s staunchest allies in the war on terror, has every right to resent. On the anniversary of Smith’s conviction, protesters stormed the US Embassy in Manila calling for Smith’s return to local authorities and demanding the repeal of the Visiting Forces Agreement. As this call goes unheeded, resentment builds.

Filipinos are understandably upset by an ethos that "protects our boys" above all else. Shouldn't we be too?

Happy VD!

This is my all-time favorite Valentine, sent to me last year by Britta. It may be old, but I thought about it today, it still makes me laugh, and I figured I should spread the love.

Demonstrations in Berkeley

Since last night, demonstrators have been gathered outside of Berkeley City Hall, waiting to see whether the City Council will repeal a letter it issued last month informing the US Marines that they were “uninvited and unwelcome” intruders in the city.
After attracting international attention, and prompting republican lawmakers to call for federal funding to be withdrawn from the city, the council is meeting again tonight to reconsider their statement.
I wasn’t able to stay until the meeting was finished, but I stopped by in the afternoon and the evening to check out the scene.
People from Code Pink have been camping out in front of city hall, and a crowd of anti-war demonstrators has gathered around them.
Separated by a police line, a large crowd of counter-demonstrators is blasting patriotic music and waving flags. In the afternoon, the crowd of counter-demonstrators seemed the bigger of the two, but by the time the meeting started it appeared to have evened out.
To make things even more chaotic, a delegation of workers from Pacific Steel is also demonstrating at City Hall, in relation to another item on the agenda – a proposal to declare the Pacific Steel plant a public nuisance.
The proposal stems from noise and pollution complaints, but workers are afraid regulation will endanger their jobs. Unfortunately, because they arrived in the midst of a standoff between demonstrators and counter-demonstrators, their anti-City council stance effectively put them on the side of the pro-war demonstrators. There was a bit of commotion as people tried to find a camp to put them in, especially after one of the leaders of the workers delegation began making patriotic, pro-military statements. A few people from Code Pink tried to talk tie the loss of jobs to war policies, and one very unpleasant guy (who, judging from his orange bandana, was from an anti-war group) yelled at the (mostly Latino) workers for being “illegal Mexicans.”
I was able to talk to a few of the workers later, and it was clear they were there only about the Pacific Steel resolution, and had no intentions of making a statement for or against the Marines.
I have more photos up on flickr, and I'm still waiting to see how it all turns out.

UPDATE: The Berkeley City Council elected to retract the statement, but refused to apologize to the Marines. Republican lawmakers are continuing to push the "Semper Fi" act, which cuts off federal funding for the City of Berkeley.

Meanwhile...

These past few weeks have been incredibly busy. On top of all the usual nonsense, I have to get ready for my trip to Southeast Asia, I'm going to be presenting a paper at a grad student conference at Cornell in March, and I'm spending a lot of time trying to persuade people to let me take their pictures.

As part of my preparations for going to Thailand and Burma, I decided to be sensible for a change and take adequate health precautions, so I went to the clinic yesterday to get all of my shots. I feel poked full of holes, have a lingering soreness in my left arm (Hep A) and can barely lift my right arm (tetanus and polio). I also have live typhoid (in therapeutic quantities) sitting in my fridge. Irritatingly, it has to be kept refrigerated, and has to be taken two hours after and one hour before eating -- so it will sit there until I can get organized enough to come home to my refrigerator before I'm so hungry I'm about to pass out. Could be a while.

I'm working on two new photo projects as well. One is a multimedia piece about flamenco in the Bay Area, and the other a photo essay on gender and gender politics. I've always been pretty comfortable with asking strangers if I can photograph them, but working on more in-depth projects requires a much higher level of access to people's lives, so it's an interesting challenge. It's good for me, though, to have work to do that requires going out and interacting with people, instead of just holing up in the library or my room.

I'm also revisiting my paper on the Rizal Morga to present at Cornell. There are a few things that should be improved, but mostly I'm just trying to condense it.

This has really turned into a list here, but I wanted to put up something. I think this will be my first "apologizing for not posting more" post in a while.

University of California - Bureaucracy

A new semester, and as usual I’ve spent most of the past week running from office to office trying to persuade people to bend the rules for me.
I really can’t decide whether there is something wrong with me or something wrong with the system that makes this such a pattern. As far as I understand, normal people do not do this. They sign up for classes online, show up, and that’s that.

Me, well…

Having to juggle multiple departments is a big part of why pulling my schedule together is always such an epic drama. As an undergrad, I completed 3 majors in 3 years, and now I’m working on two Master’s degrees simultaneously. So I have much more bureaucracy to deal with, and much less room to maneuver.

This semester’s big upset came from trying to join a journalism school class on Burma. International reporting, Southeast Asia – what could be more perfect, and (thanks to my past research and reporting in the region, not to mention those 3 majors competed and 2 Master’s in progress) something I’d like to think I’m pretty well qualified for. But of course there was a catch. Because of the way the dual degree program I’m in is set up, I have not yet taken one of the prerequisite J-school classes. But I applied anyway, and early last week a loophole, somehow, was found.

And then the next obstacle. The lecture component of the Burma class conflicts with Indonesian, which I’m absolutely required to take to remain eligible for my funding. So I had to convince my Indonesian teacher to let me take her course as an independent study, showing up twice a week instead of three times and working on my own to keep up with the class. Then I had to convince my advisor in the Group in Asian studies that this was okay. Then I had to double-check with the people who administer graduate fellowships that I could use an independent study course to meet their requirements. Then I had to get the department of South and Southeast Asian studies to sign off on my course plan for Indonesian.

It’s been raining like crazy all week, and I discovered it’s very, very hard for people to say no to me when I show up in their office wet and disheveled, making a sad face, and holding out damp papers for them to sign. It also helps that, unlike in Madison -- where I had an actual nemesis who seemed to take personal affront at my I’m-such-a-special-snowflake attempts to bend the rules, and threw obstacles in my path at every possible opportunity (this woman is, to the infinite benefit of the students who follow me, no longer employed there) – everyone I met with actually wanted to help me. The University of California - Bureaucracy (just in case you were wondering what UC-B stands for) can be an absolute nightmare, but my experiences with the individual tentacles of the beast have been pretty good so far. The paperwork is still grinding through, but it looks like it’s all going to work out.

The upshot of all this is….I’m going to Thailand and Burma in March!

I won’t know for a few more days exactly where I’m going to be sent, and my project will obviously be location-specific, but no matter what, it’s going to be pretty amazing.

Erap and Sin

Estrada: RP suffering for defying Vatican in 2001 uprising

“Claiming vindication, former president Joseph Estrada said on Monday the country has been suffering because the late Jaime Cardinal Sin did not heed “God’s voice” and, instead, backed the Edsa II People Power revolt, despite a Vatican order to stay away.” more...

I first read this story yesterday, and I still can’t stop laughing about it. Estrada’s chutzpah on this one is almost unbelievable.

It was recently revealed that the highly influential -- and very amusingly named --- Cardinal Sin defied orders from the Vatican when he leant his support to the 2001 “People Power II” movement that swept Estrada from power.

The role of the Church in Philippine politics is ambiguous, and a case can certainly be made for church-elite collaboration against even pseudo-populist politicians like Estrada (Eva-Lotta Hedman’s In the Name of Civil Society is one interesting take). But for Estrada to take this moralistic tone is pretty incredible.

This is the man who managed to reach transparency international’s top-ten list of all-time most corrupt leaders after just 31 months in office! In addition to old standards like graft, kickbacks, complicity in drug smuggling and illegal gambling, Estrada was particularly notorious for spending millions of dollars in ill-gotten gains buying houses for his various mistresses.

But of course, the problems in the Philippines are not caused by corrupt, morally bankrupt leadership. Oh no, says Estrada, it’s because god is punishing the country for Cardinal Sin’s disobedience.

Wala siyang hiya! Ang kapal ng mukha nya!

Irises

Irises, in January.

Everytime I remember to look around, this city astonishes me.

Melilla, a photoessay by Flo Razowsky

Flo -- activist, photojournalist, friend and inspiration -- has just posted a beautiful new photoessay from the Spanish-Moroccan border at Melilla.
http://www.lightstalkers.org/galleries/slideshow/9398

"This portfolio is part of a bigger project focused on the look of borders become manifest, the look of the land and the people when the arbitrary line in the sand takes form. These shots were taken from Melilla, Spain, a Spanish enclave cut off from the north of Morocco by a militarized and deadly triple layer, 10ft high structure. Migrants travel for 4,5,6 years to reach this side of the line only to be held in migrant detention centers, some for years, awaiting the legal system to either award them papers or deport them to where they started out from so many years ago and worked so hard (and many died) to get away from."

The Arroyo Imbroglio

I highly recommend "The Arroyo Imbroglio in the Philippines," political scientist (and former teacher of mine) Paul Hutchcroft's new article in The Journal of Democracy to anyone interested in a lucid summary of a century of Philippine political history. In an impressively concise article (13 pages), Hutchcroft manages to address most of the key issues facing the Philippine political system -- corruption, fraud, violence, human rights abuses, impunity, insurgency and public disenchantment -- in a manner accessible to a non-specialist.

Although the Philippines can boast the oldest democratic structures in Asia, they are currently weak and lacking in legitimacy. Battered by scandal after scandal, these structures need careful and well-considered reform if they are to survive. read more..

Glorietta update from the PCIJ

A while back, I posted on the Glorietta Mall explosion in the Philippines.
The Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism has just released an interesting report on the case:

Glorietta 2 blast: Bomb or gas? by Avigail Olarte
WHILE the Philippine National Police (PNP) considers the case closed, other experts continue to doubt the results of the investigation on the Glorietta 2 blast that left 11 people killed and 108 injured in October last year.

It doesn’t help that the police has flip-flopped on the matter, at first declaring the explosion was caused by a bomb — a terrorist act even — only to later say that it
was triggered by gas build-up. And the report of a Malaysian forensic expert showing that traces of explosives were found in the mall’s basement only bolsters speculations that itwas a bomb. read more...

Watch a Tagalog-language video from GMA TV the day of the explosion, in which the Police claim the explosion was most likely caused by a bomb - don't want to embed it, because it's on auto play, and starts with a creepy real estate ad.

Huckabee strikes again

Don't get me wrong -- I can't stand any of the presidential candidates. But there's still something about this guy that takes it to another level.

I'm not even all that old, and I can still remember a time when this would not have been considered acceptable political discourse.
And of course, the cheering crowd is probably full of the same kind of people who freak out about Shariah law and theocracy in the Middle East.

UPDATE: Check out a very interesting article by Ira Chernus about Faith-based politics at Tomdispatch