A European Summer: (4) Italian Haven

1/7 - Positano from the sea

2/7 - Positano: Amzing view from my balcony

2/7 Positano: Same view at night

2/7 - Ravello: Balcony between the sea and the sky

Some places are better seen, not written about. Italy's Amalfi Coast is among them, where kilometer high mountains plunge into the deep dark Mediterranean sea, even as sprinkles of human settlement clung to their verdant rocky sides. Short buses - orange or blue - twist and turn on the edge of the hillsides, by drivers who knew every inch of the Amalfi Drive which hid a new heavenly view with every turn. The trees are lemons and olives. Bouganvilleas are turned into purple and green arches, roofs and coverings of walls. Picture books at the hotel told of poverty and great deprivation only half a century ago. Men go about life in white shorts, pink shirts and straw hats. You have coffee standing up with a brioche to go. Even as the police band decides to march down the street. On the beach, white smooth pebbles get washed in crystal clear water. Boats crisscrossed the mirror-like seas to Capri and Sorrento, even as we squeezed lemons on freshly fried calamaris. The town slowly went into a warm glow as the sky darkens. The bells toil and fireworks burst forth from Montepetuso in celebration of the Madonna. The air smelled of the sea when you wake up.

Thoughts from A European Summer (3) - The Romans

Something I was appreciate most from this trip, was the opportunity to appreciate - and with greater understanding - the outstanding achievements of the ancient Greek and Roman civilizations. For some fortuitous reason, we kept encountering the antiquities during the course of our trip: in Pompeii, Naples, Northumbria and at the British Museum. However, those encounters would not have meant as much but for my daughter's interest in history and her voracious appetite for books on the ancient Greeks, Romans and Egyptians, which meant I have also gained some knowledge which made me better appreciate what I saw.

All the time, my thought turned to China. One could only wonder what treasures have been lost forever - or is waiting to be discovered - from comparable era of the Chinese civilization which I believe must be no less impressive. Just look at the Great Wall. The main difference can perhaps be summed up in one word: stone. Things made from stone withstood the test of time better than finer materials like wood, paper and cloth.

Looking at evidence of human affairs and creation from so long ago, I was reminded that all human concerns and undertakings are mere scratches on the surface of history.

As we landed in Naples, the ominous outlines of Mt. Versuvius loomed clearly alongside the Bay of Naples. It was the same sight that greeted Greek mariners who came to establish their colonies, ancient Romans who came for leisure and for escape from public life in Rome (or fresh from slaughtering some Gothic tribes or putting the torch on the Temple of Jeruselem) or which greeted 18th century European grand tourists. Even as a young and turbulent mountain, it was a constant relative to the rise and fall of human society and civilization all around it.

Even though it was buried 2000 years ago, the ruins of Pompeii puts much of modern-day artistry, town planning and development (especially in the ugly urban sprawl around it today) to shame. And it was humbling to realise that it was already a very old town (300 years old) even when it was destroyed in AD 79. And Pompeii was also much larger than I had imagined. It easily measured 2km long and just as wide. Many of the ruins are not even excavated yet. But what can already be seen are highly impressive: the road system (complete with pedestrian crossings and track-marks from ancient chariots and carraiges), the public utlilties (water system etc.), the shopping area (long stretches of fast food shops as evident from "countertops" with holes for bowls and jars to display the food), the public forum, the various temples to different gods, numerous brothels (locked when visited: but apparently with interesting "menus" for pleasure decorated on the walls), numerous theatres, a stadium and above all, the many private houses - some of which have been partly restored to display beautiful and well-preserved mosaic works and wall paintings. What is surprising is that so much of that were left at the ruins and exposed to the elements; quite apparently, those are not the best stuff which have been taken away for storage in museums.

The next encounter was not far away, beneath the streets of Naples. We had taken a tour of subterranean Naples which brought us (100 feet below ground) to witness an amazing water system which was built first by the Greek and later expanded by the Romans. The ancients had excavated by hand out of rocks a whole system of underground acqueducts, cisterns and well-points. The aqueducts brought water from a source 170 kms away but as it entered the city, everything was moved underground where the water moved around in man-made underground "rivers" - tunnels up to 10 feet wide and 30 feet high - into a series of larger caverns where the water was either stored or can be picked up from well-points above the ground (one can see tubes leading from the ceiling to ground level. Some of the cisterns are private so can be accessed only from within a private compound and some are public wells. (Picture from inside a cistern below, the whole space hacked and burrowed from solid rock). The system worked so well that it was in continuous use to supply water to Naples for 23 Centuries, until 1888 when it was contaminated during a cholera outbreak. 2300 years! One could still see the wall markings chip marks made by the tools of ancient slaves who hacked away the stones blow by blow, a testimony of immense inhuman suffering amidst a magnificent work of ancient engineering and ingenuity.

In Naples, the past is never far away. We visited an apartment, where in 1999 (not too long ago) some archeologists noticed that the building (which is a mere 400 years old) has an oddly-slightly curved wall on one side. When they knocked on the door and asked to look around inside, they found the tell-tale shape of a Roman arch in the living room. They went into the basement - then used as a garage for motorscooters - where they found more arches. Those arches have been established to be part of the largest Roman theatre in the area - so magnificent that Emperor Nero performed there - and which later on, in the 17th century, people built on top of the ruins, making use of the still-standing pillars and foundations.

In the basement where we saw the remnants of the theatre, we noticed a perculiar pattern of brickwork (something we also saw in Pompeii) where the bricks were laid on their corners - at a 45 degree angle - such that they form the shape of diamonds. Upon asking, it turned out that those were walls build using Roman "seismic" or anti-earthquake technology! (Some of those brick arrangements can be seen above the arch in the picture of Pompeii's "small" theatre above) Apparently, the Romans learnt that walls built that way could withstand the impact of an earthquake. No wonder, so much of Pompeii had survived a strong earthquake just a few years before the volcanic eruption buried the town.

We saw more evidence of Roman civilization at the Naples Museum the next day. The highlights were the relics from Pompeii and other ruins from the area, and the Farnese collection of Roman sculptures. One rarely sees such wonderful works of great artistic merit notwithstanding that they were 2000 years old. From the excavations in Pompeii and Herculaneum, we saw very finely detailed wall paintings done in exquisitely beautiful hand by the artists. There were decorative objects, I was most impressed by a glazed glass bowl with different layers of glass from which the artist etched relief drawings from mythology.

There were great numbers of statues, among them many enormous (20 foot high) masterpieces from the Baths of Caricalla. Many of the status are Roman copies of (even more ancient) Greek status that are long lost. Through them, we know what Homer the Greek Poet and Plato the Socrates actually looked like - well, as well as the artists could make it anycase. In fact, among the great numbers of mosaics taken from private villas that have been excavated - the most famous of which is a large mosaic, made from perhaps 1m pieces of finely crafted stones, (pictured left), depicting Alexander the Great's defeat of Persian King Xerxes, which remained the only likeness we know of Alexander the Great. All the other figures, even the horses, showed great fluidity of movement and distinct expressions and personality.

Though made of stone or bronze, the standard of artistry of the sculptures is so outstanding that one feels the energy/spirit of the figure represented; and the lightness, beauty and balance of the composition; and forgetting the denseness of the materials used. (Pictured below, a massive sculpture originally from the Bath of Caricalla)

We would eventually get to see more of them (and even more ancient examples) with the Partheneon Marbles in the British Museum. On the debate, I happen to believe that certain objects are human patrimony, such that it should no longer "belong" to any nation or government, as much as no one should be allowed to (mis)treat them in ways that rights of ownership would imply. Imagine the Red Guards deciding to blow up the Great Wall or take down the Forbidden City to use the wood, or level Huangshan to build a steel mill, or do what the Taliban did to the Leshan Buddha. Having said that, the British Museum has equally no rights to keep it there. Unless its wellbeing is threatened, relics should belong to its natural place where the world can see it where it was intended.

Fast forward to the northern borders. A thousand miles away from Italy, we were at the northern boundaries of the Roman Empire in Northumbria and Hadrian's Wall or the Roman Great Wall.

It ran only for about 100 miles with a garrison fort at every mile and 2 watch towers in between each garrison. It is perhaps what the original Qin Dynasty great wall was like, made of piled stone approximately 8-10 feet high plus an outer defensive ditch, and greatly utilizing the natural contours of the land to best benefit. It was the outer reaches of an immense empire that is linked militarily, administratively, economically and culturally from the windswept hill tops of Northern England to Mother-Rome; and from there another thousand miles south to Aswan in Egypt, a thousand miles West to Spain and Morocco, a thousand miles east to present day Iraq. There I felt that I had come to realised what the immensity of empire must have felt like to the citizens of Rome or Qin or Persia: it must have felt like one is has the power and responsibilities over all of the civilized world.

Justice for Teoh Beng Hock

Justice must be done and be seen to be done. Malaysia deserves no less.

There are time and place for righteous outrage, this is one of them. Tyranny does not happen simply because of tyrants, it happen when citizens turns a blind-eye to injustice, feel too embarassed to stand-up for one's brethren or cynically dismiss "politics" as somebody else's business. Tyranny feeds on neglect and indifference. Now is not to time to keep feeding it.

Nothing happenned overnight, these are the consequences to decades of corruption that has been feeding on public indifference and "not wanting to cause trouble". Notice the warnings not to "politicise" his death, as if his political affiliations made him less Malaysian and less worthy of protection and justice. I reject that. Politics is a civic duty of each and every citizen and justice is a dignity that fellow human beings safeguard for one another. Malaysians must stand up for the kind of nation they deserve otherwise it is no one's fault but their own.

The Malaysian-in-the-streets have been putting up with corruption, abuse of power, injustice, unfairness, lies and intimidation. ALL of us are Teoh Beng Hock because if things does not change anyone can be Teoh Beng Hock.

I am reminded of Dr. Martin Luther King who once said that "the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice. It bends towards justice, but here is the thing: it does not bend on its own. It bends because each of us in our own ways put our hand on that arc and we bend it in the direction of justice...."

I welcome suggestions of legal and practical ways how we can all put our hands together to bend that arc to justice.

My condolences to his family, friends and compatriots.

Martyr Teoh Beng Hock

If one is found plunge to death following 10 hours of questioning by Malaysia Anti-Corruption Commission on the rooftop of a building right next to the Commission's office with fragment of the Commission's window found near the body, please tell me what is the reasonable inference?

I mourn the tragic death of a 30 years old man, Martyr Teoh Beng Hock and extend my condolence to his fiancee and his family members.

Teoh's death shall not be in vain. Justice for Teoh and justice for Malaysia!

Throughs from a European Summer: (2) World City?

Let me expand on my thoughts about the Arab world in Lond0n.

Although Central London have always been a favourite destination for the Arabic world especially during the summer, I could not recall ever seeing so many in London. My vantage point, staying with a relative of ours right in the middle of Mayfair did little to help with a fair and impartial view. Mayfair is, of course, a favourite location as the London base for Arab princes, embassies and other government outposts. From my daily walks, I could see large presence especially from the Qataris, Saudis. The other concentration in the Edgware Road area are mostly middle-class Arabs from Lebanon and from elsewhere in the Levant.

Last Sunday, while I was out jogging in Hyde Park, I could see that at least half the people out-and-about in the park are of Arabic origin: groups of men, women, children, whole families of Gulf Arabs enjoying strolls, at play or sitting down under a tree for a picnic. I could not help but notice how relaxed and happy they looked. Perhaps they come to London to feel free - from the governments, extended family, religious authorities and other nosey-parkers - and for a chance to be themselves.

The same can probably be said for the wealthy from Russia, Central Asia and from the Indian Subcontinent. London may no longer be the center of the British Empire, but it has obviously become the favourite external base (and second homes) for wealth from large parts of the world. Aside from being a welcoming and comfortable place to stay and spend money, London is seen to be a safehaven for money and personal investments.

As I watch little Arab children and teenagers having a good time in Hyde Park, I believe London will continue to have an enduring (and endearing) place in the hearts of whole new generation of Arabs. I believe London will continue to attract a whole gush of oil money for years to come. Whenever money gets made in Nigeria, Russia, Pakistan, Kazhakstan or Iraq they flow right out into London. It is an enviable position to be in.

Its main competitor is, of course, New York. New York plays that role for money from Latin America, the rest of North America and from East Asia such as Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong etc. (but which tend to prefer California and Vancouver). But London has the upper hand in terms of being geographically closer to the Middle East, former-Soviet Union, Africa and South Asia. Traditional i.e., colonial, ties with Africa and the Indian sub-continent is also an undeniable factor. Paris used to be another competitor, exerting a pull on Middle-Eastern (especially Iranian and Lebanese) money. But elsewhere, the only competitors I could see are Melbourne and Perth in Australia, being safehavens and retreats for people from Southeast and East Asia.

As the center of gravity of global wealth shifts gradually eastward, i.e. further away from London and even further away from the US, I am tuning in for somewhere within 6-8 hours' flight from China and India, with a nice climate, safe haven for wealth, politically influential and stable, an attractive city as a place to live and to spend money and with some emotional links to the new wealth. If I were Singapore, I would throw the doors of my universities open wide to the best and brightest kids from Southeast Asia, China and India. One day, they will return with their money.

Thoughts from a European Summer (1) - London: Betters Shops Worse Newspapers

Bro, let me start with writing about London, where we first crossed paths in September 1995. It is easy to put a marker on when I left my UK days behind, it was the day of the elections which brought the Labour party under Tony Blair to power. Since then, I have been back to visit three times and each time I have been greeted by the thrilling feeling of familiarity but also new observations.

Without a doubt, the London of 2009 is a more thriving, prosperous, and, dare I say, modern, place than the one I first saw in 1991. I was impressed by the new and renovated infrastructure and public amenities: gleeming trains and buses, renovated public buildings and streets and houses that appeared to, literally, have gotten a well-deserved jet-wash to remove a century of grime and a fresh coat of jet paint.

Moreover, I was impressed by the quality and vitality of the shops and services available. Cafes and high quality delis sprouted on to the streets everywhere presenting a more open and accessible feel to the city; perhaps from cultural influence from Continental Europe. While the range and quality of convenience food in outlets like M&S and Tesco are among the best anywhere, the prices have taken a tumble to levels I do not recall in the late 1990s. British brands and retailers have managed, for a price of course, to combine traditional attention to heritage, quality and workmanship with attractive modern designs and marketing. The pubs are more pleasant than any I remembered, bustling, smoke-free, decent food and better range of ales than I could ever remember. The quality of cultural institutions are just as good as the ones I knew, except that I have grown to be even more appreciative of the treasures they contain. It is impressionsitic and superficial, of course, but it seems that London is happily rejuvenated. Overall, I felt the impalpable but undeniable sense of energy and renewal that one would be hard-pressed to find in the London I enjoyed so much in the 1990s.

London is also becoming more ethnically diverse than ever but I sense a lot of unresolved tensions. London likes to think of itself as a global city but I did not feel the same ease and tolerance between the races as I find in New York. And in any case, one gets the feeling that Central London is a globalized district to the rest of London which in turn is a seperate psychological entity from the rest of Britain. There is an enormous population of young Eastern Europeans in the service industries, e.g. restaurants, cafes; especially in the less sociable hours and locations (such as Stanstead Airport at 7am), migrant workers who come to make money but will eventually head home. There are more people from the Indian sub-continent in official state employment, which makes them better integrated but, one sense, not yet truly accepted outside the big cities.

East Asians on the other hand do not seem to have as much of an impact and one do not encounter more Chinese, Japanese or Koreans than previously. As compared to New York, although both cities can claim to be true cosmopolitans, the mix of ethnic diversity is certainly very different: with New York having vastly more East Asians and hispanics.

However, the most disappointing aspects of London (and England as a whole) was the deteriorating intellectual environment. I remember British newspapers and media to be irrelevant, cynical and insular but I would also find bastions of sophistication, quality writing and worldliness. However I was dismayed by the quality of The Times of London or the Daily Mail today, consumed as they were with trivia, narcissistic journalism and an alarmingly narrow minded view of the world. The standards of news even on the BBC is astonishingly poor, centered, as with the papers, on trashy celebrities, manufactured "outrage" and negativity about everything else. The age-old tradition of the British public to be perenially whinging in the media about almost everything in the most generalised, disproportionate and cynical attitude is still hard to stomach, given that one could honestly say, the British are among the most fortunate lot on eart. Perhaps nothing has changed and people have been lamenting about "falling standards" since time began, but I was left with the feeling that this new London is better visited than lived.

Robert McNamara

Robert McNamara, who died at 93 last week, was best known first for being one of the "best and brightest" that President Kennedy brought into the top echelons of the US Government in 1961. Later, he would be blamed as Secretary of Defense for the architect of the US build up culminating in the debacle of the Vietnam War. Although to be fair he has had 3 world class careers, first as one of the young Harvard educated managers who turned around Ford Motors in the 1950s which culminated in him being named President of Ford Motors, before he would join the Cabinet as Secretary of Defense and before he was removed by President Johnson to be the head of the World Bank for 13 years until 1981. At Defense, his legacy included racially desegregating the armed forces and sending troops to enforce the ruling in Brown vs Board of Education. He also introduced modern management structures as he struggled to control a "military industrial complex" that at that height of the Cold War consumed half the US Federal Budget and employed 3.5 million people. But he would live the rest of his life having his considerable achievements in life overshadowed by this disastrous legacy of US build up in Vietnam. I do not claim to be knowledgeable about him except in the outline. But in the mass of obituaries that emerged last week, I was presented with a man who was a clear and honest thinker. He was removed as Secretary of Defense after sending President Johnson a missive in which he concluded that the US was wrong about the war and that the US cannot win and should change course and aim for a negotiated exit. I find such clear headed acknowledgment of one's own mistakes highly impressive. Equally telling was his observations during WW2 when he was using his study into statistical methods in helping to plan US bombings on Japan; when after estimating to the general in-charge of the US bombers that the bombing in Tokyo killed 100,000 civilians and 900,000 Japanese civilians in total, he was reported to have told the general that, "you know, if we lose we will all be war criminals", to which the general quietly and grimly agreed. He struggled long and hard with question of what made something moral if one wins and criminally immoral if one loses. It was a question that he continued to struggle with even when first President Kennedy, and later, President Johnson escalated US fighting in Vietnam. After his removal, the Vietnam war escalated even more and continued for 6 more years at twice as many casualties as the first 5 years.

A European Summer - Thoughts from Travels in Italy and Britain

There is an urban myth that when Gandhi was asked what he thought of Western civilization, he quipped, perhaps cynically, that, "... it seemed to be an interesting idea."

I have had the pleasure of spending the past 2 weeks vacationing leisurely in Europe and, as usual, many thoughts and observations came to mind; especially with regards to Europe's historic and cultural heritage, which as KY's previous post quoted unquestionably, whether one agrees whether that its a good thing or not, contribute significantly to our own intellectual and economic heritage even though we are not of European descent.

So this is going to be a few postings that I will write up once I get back to New York. Until then!

London, opp Green Park 11 July 2009

Neo-Slavery of African American

In Slavery By Another Name, a putlizer winner, Douglas Blackmon wrote an excellent book on how the Southern White de-enfranchised the African American through trick and terror and reinstated neo-slavery to the former Confederate states in the aftermath of 1865 Emancipation Proclaimation.

The book spoke about the lynching that frightened the African American into submission and servitude. The book spoke about how the African American were victim in the most appalling condition without respect and dignity, not to even mention right and lawful entitlement.

Black men toiled to death and black women were sexual play toy at whim of her White master. In the course of reading the book, I discern that a lot of lynching and attack on black were started by the unsubstantiated time-honored allegation of blackmen sexually attacking white girls.

The book elaborated in great details how the due process was manipulated by the White to convict large number of African American for seemingly minor or non-offence such as vagrancy and how these convict were quickly sold to labor or rather to be enslaved at various mines, farms and factory.

The working and living conditions were no different from a Gulag. The treatment meted out to the African American convict were inevitably inhuman and motivated by racism. The flogging, the whipping, the water torture were the daily routine every African American convicts had to face. The bloodhound were used to hunt down the run away. Many of them caught were first tortured and made to never live again.

The South was a society and a system where the justice was systematically denied to and cruelty was selectively applied to the African American. Almost every if not all Southern White institutions, media and church included, were innocent.

The segregation implemented in the South under the guise of the separate but equal doctrine was Apartheid, plain and simple.

No question that the White Supremacist's reign was morally untenable however the history shown that the emancipation was successfully highjacked and slavery was reincarnated with most American then stoodby and did little to live up to the American credo.

"It was a strange irony", in the word of Blackmon, "that after 74 years of hollow emancipation, the final delivery of African Americans from overt slavery and from the quiet complicity of the federal government in their servitude was precipitated only in response to the horrors perpetrated by an enemy country against its own despised minorities."

The turning point for the eventual success of the Civil Right movement stems more from American's akward position in treating her own citizen in reaction to the Nazist, Fascist and Communist ideologies.

It is like the old saying he who live in the glass house shall not throw stone. This was the awakening moment. The return of large number of African American soldier fighting the WW2
led to unprecedented civil right movement in taking discrimination to court.

One of which culminated in the landmark decision of Brown V. Board of Education 1954 that overruled Plessy v Ferguson 1896 which in turn led to the civl right legislation in the Johnson's Administration.

This is a great book to read and what I like best were the following passage where Blackmon reflected:

"whether any company or an individual, we are marred either by our connections to the specific crimes and injuries of our fathers and their fathers. Or we are tainted by the failures of our fathers to fulfill our national credos when their courage was most needed. we are formed in the molds twisted by the gifts we received at the expense of others. It is not our "fault". But it is undeniably our inheritance."

and in another passage:

"I had no hand in the horrors perpetrated by the 20th century slave masters who terrorized American Blacks for four generations. But it is nonetheless true that hundreds of millions of us spring from or benefit as a result of lines of descent that abided those crimes and benefited from them."