Diplosphere wrapped up 2023 and looked forward to 2024 with a Mixer on an eclectic mix of subjects:
A Year of Elections
From early January elections in Bangladesh to the US elections in November, 2024 is a year of elections with over 40 countries holding elections. Indonesian elections are scheduled for Valentine’s Day (Feb 14) and includes elections for both legislative and executive positions.
It's gonna be big elections because we are talking about 575 members, new members of the parliament, from 77 constituencies in Indonesia.
There are three new presidential candidates - the incumbent is constitutionally barred from running again - each with fluctuating possibilities of success. An ongoing debate in Indonesia revolves around the entry of the current president's eldest son into politics, alongside candidate Prabowo Subianto. This is seen by some as an attempt to establish a political dynasty, which is contentious within the principles of modern democracy.
Indonesia Stats & Trade
Indonesia drew lessons from New Zealand's effective handling of the Christchurch shooting and the COVID-19 pandemic which helped in their recovery from the pandemic. But both countries should be careful regarding "putting all eggs in one basket," referring to Bali's heavy dependence on tourism.
Impressive stats:
It's a country of 275 million people living in the world's archipelago, flanked by two big continents, Asia and Australia, and also flanked by two big oceans, Indian and the Pacific Oceans.
It includes 1,300 ethnicities, speaking more than 750 dialects, and home to over 13,000 islands, many of which are part of the Pacific, including nine provinces where Melanesians and Polynesians reside. This multicultural and multi-ethnic makeup underscores Indonesia's position as the fourth-largest nation globally. Indonesia, while the most populous Muslim-majority country, is a secular nation. It achieved independence through struggle, and New Zealand was one of the first countries to recognize its sovereignty. Since establishing diplomatic relations in 1958, the two countries have supported each other in international forums and have developed a growing trade relationship.
Indonesia and New Zealand reached a trade record in 2021... when the trade value reached 1.67 billion US dollar, an increase of 35.85% compared to the previous year.
Indonesia offers investment and trade opportunities with a significant workforce, competitive wages, and a high proliferation of social media usage, indicating a technological and socially engaged community. Despite Indonesia’s large population and strategic position as a gateway to the ASEAN market, trade with New Zealand has not reached its full potential. growth and deeper economic engagement between Indonesia and New Zealand. "Indonesia is your next biggest neighborhood, after Australia... But look at the figure of our trade. It's never that high."
NZ Political ménage à trois
Political commentators Dr Bryce Edwards: Political Analyst and Director of Democracy Project, and Thomas Coughlan, Deputy Political editor, NZ Herald took on the new NZ government. Who is wearing the pants? What lies ahead for the new coalition government?
The viability of the coalition is under scrutiny, with one key challenge being maintaining unity among parties with different ideologies. "Each party is trying to show they're in charge... they've got slightly different ideologies, priorities, and they're trying to maintain that distinct identity." There is an ongoing debate about who holds the most influence within the coalition, with a suggestion that inherent tensions may arise due to power dynamics. "Who's really got the upper hand... you do start to see those tensions come out." The discussion addressed the strategies employed by the coalition partners to assert their influence, including strategic positioning and leveraging media coverage. "They're both keen to get as much media attention... it's sort of a dance they do to show they're the one in charge."
Audience questions revealed concerns about the implications of the coalition's policies on various sectors, such as international education. "The opposition was looking at ways of managing that border policy to allow international students back into the country very, very early on."
Think AI is big now? You ain't seen nothin' yet!
Guests Scott Houston (author, entrepreneur, innovation hero) and Asa Cox (CEO/co-founder, Arcanum AI) sat down with Dan O’Brien (Diplosphere) to get their big picture thoughts on the world of AI .
On the positive … we heard about how AI - as a tool - can free humans from monotonous robotic work, enabling more impactful human endeavors.
However, it’s hard to define the basics … "believe it or not, we do not have a measure of sentience or consciousness for something outside of our own species... The only thing that we've ever done to remotely measure that was the Turing test..."
And certainly being a science fiction novelist on AI ain’t easy! … author Scott is in a race against the very technology that he is writing about. Who is going to win? Find out in 2024 (we hope…)
We will have big decisions to make, about “it” … It isn't going to sleep, it isn't going to eat, it's going to learn, and it will become more intelligent than us... the risk is this entity becomes more intelligent than us and we cannot control it.
Feels like we are on the “knife edge" … we are at a precarious position of humanity in relation to AI development, indicating a perceived risk that could go either way in terms of beneficial or harmful outcomes.
Outstanding question: Are we dumber people with smarter machines?
Crazy times. 2024 will only deliver more of the same.
A Dreadful Christmas
(This part is a personal observation by Dan O’Brien rather than Diplosphere)
In the season of Christmas and hope, terrible tragedy has beset the children of Gaza. In response to an atrocious Hamas attack on Israel on October 7th, Israel’s indiscriminate bombing (US President Joe Biden, 12/12/23) of Gaza has continued unabated and civilians are paying the heaviest of prices. Antonio Guteres described Gaza in early November as:
Gaza is becoming a graveyard for children. Hundreds of girls and boys are reportedly being killed or injured every day
The numbers are shocking, here are the latest (10/11/24) from Al Jazeera Labs with casualties totalling an astounding 84k+
Gaza: Killed: at least 23,357 people, including more than: 9,600 children, 6,750 women. Injured: more than 59,410, including at least: 8,663 children, 6,327 women. Missing: more than 8,000.
The latest figures from the Palestinian Ministry of Health in the occupied West Bank are as follows: Occupied West Bank. Killed: at least 340 people, including more than: 84 children. Injured: more than 3,949.
In Israel, officials revised the death toll down from 1,405 to 1,139. Israel. Killed: about 1,139 people. Injured: at least 8,730
WCNSF - Wounded Child, No Surviving Family
Each day - 247 Palestinians are being killed or at risk of being killed each day. [..]. They include 48 mothers each day, 2 every hour, and over 117 children each day, leading UNICEF to call Israel’s actions a war on children. [..] Over 3 medics, 2 teachers, 1+ UN employee, 1+ journalist will be killed, many while at work, or what appear to be targeted attacks on their family homes or where they are sheltering. Each day, an average of 629 people will be wounded. [..] Each day, on the current rate, an average of 3000+ Palestinian homes will be damaged. Each day, ambulances, hospitals, and medics will continue to be attacked and killed. [..] More Palestinian children will become WC NSF - Wounded Child No Surviving Family. -Irish lawyer Blinne Ní Ghrâlaigh KC at the International Court of Justice, in closing
Shocking.
This macabre toll is rarely featured in in NZ headlines or articles, taking its cue from the BBC and others. You could be forgiven, as a listener of RNZ or TVNZ and Al Jazeera, in thinking you are hearing about two different conflicts: “Israel Hamas War” (former’s term), and “The War on Gaza” (latter’s term) … with two different narratives: a conflict between two even factions, or a biblical onslaught on the human population of Gaza. The number of mentions (in the BBC) has actually decreased over time. (source)
The New York Times, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times’s coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza showed a consistent bias against Palestinians, according to The Intercept.
New Zealand media largely follows this tune.
Silence in the face of injustice is complicity with the oppressor -Ginetta Sagan
Isolated
US increasingly alone in Israel support as 153 countries vote for ceasefire at UN
This UN vote shows how completely isolated we are from world opinion. Is it because only America is smart enough to understand the Israeli point of view? Or because America's most powerful lobby has dragged us onto the wrong side of history? The answer to that is obvious.
Paul Graham on X. (founder of world’s greatest tech incubator Y Combinator)
The HRW UN director, Louis Charbonneau, posted a statement after the US vetoed a security council resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire in the Palestinian territory:
By continuing to provide Israel with weapons and diplomatic cover as it commits atrocities, including collectively punishing the Palestinian civilian population in Gaza, the US risks complicity in war crimes.
US risks ‘complicity in war crimes’, says Human Rights Watch – as it happened
Some Voices
Professor John J. Mearsheimer:
Mearsheimer points out that although the ICJ does not have teeth to enforce rulings, the moral stain on Israel (and the United States as supplier of weapons) is substantial if Israel were to be indicted. This massacre would sit alongside other “canonical cases of genocide” such as Rwanda and others (link).
When people can’t beat you on facts, what they do is smear you. -Mearsheimer, author of the Israel Lobby
In addition, Mearsheimer points out that the Israeli goal of destroying Hamas seems far from complete, indeed five IDF brigades recently withdrew from the Gaza strip.
Historian William Dalrymple (Twitter/X):
In the 21st century I do not expect a democratic society, supported by western governments, to use smart bombs to target innocent civilians in the expectation of ethnic cleansing. Still less do I expect that democracy- founded on the humanitarian ideal of saving a people from mass murder- to bombard innocent refugees and to glorify on tiktok in the massacre of unarmed, trapped, penned and helpless civilians. And I certainly don't expect that society to do so in the service of imperial colonisation of new territory built over the shattered and seized housing of an indigenous and dispossessed people whose only sin was to have lived for two thousand years in a land British imperialists and eugenicists of the early 20th century felt was theirs to give away because a) they'd never been there and b) regarded the local people to be primitive and therefore expendable.
Pope Francis (Twitter/X) on Christmas Day …
Tonight, our hearts are in Bethlehem, where the Prince of Peace is once more rejected by the futile logic of war, by the clash of arms that even today prevents him from finding room in the world. #Christmas
Robert Patman (link) on the extent of US support for Israel over the years, and recently.
It has blocked 53 Security Council resolutions relating to Israel in the past 50 years, including the two Gaza resolutions last year.
As well as staunch diplomatic support, the Biden administration has pledged, on top of an annual US$3.8 billion military aid package for Israel, to send Tel Aviv what it needs to “defend itself”. In early November last year, the US House of Representatives approved a Republican proposal to provide over US$14 billion in additional military aid to Israel.
Moreover, the US has sent an aircraft carrier, destroyer ships and battle cruisers to help deter Iranian-backed actors from getting involved in the Israel-Gaza conflict, and established a multinational maritime task force to protect merchant shipping in the Red Sea.
Former French foreign minister, Dominique de Villepin, makes the point that the rest of the world does not see things the “West’s” way on this conflict (in French here); that leaders are falling into the trap of “Westernism” - the belief that the West will continue to “manage the international system” as it has done for the past five hundred years; that there is hypocrisy in an approach which criticises Russia in Ukraine but is well timid when it comes the atrocities in Gaza.
Other sources to follow on this subject:
Owen Jones (Twitter/X)
Medhi Hassan (Twitter/X)
Helen Clark (Twitter/X)
Question: what impact will this have New Zealand policymakers when it comes to values-based foreign policy, and the rules-based order - which is much vaunted in official documents? Where is NZ’s evenhandedness on this subject?
Really disappointed to read that Diplosphere has promoted the most far left voices commentating on the war between Hamas and Israel. For example, Mearshiemer promotes the 1 state solution where Israel is wiped from the map and Owen Jones, well he hosts declared antisemites such as Miko Peled. Helen Clark actually justified the atrocities that took place on October 7th.
This is not independent thinking. This is group think.