The AAP’s “clean sweep” in Delhi Assembly Elections
Memo #327 What it means for India By Asim Arun – asimup [at] gmail.com The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP, Common Man’s Party) landslide victory in the Delhi Assembly polls this month is a rare instance of a civil society movement succeeding in democracy’s ultimate test: elections. The AAP is the child of the “India Against […]
Nepal’s Citizenship Challenges: Gender and Sovereignty in the Himalayas
Memo #326 By Sara Shneiderman – sara.shneiderman [at] ubc.ca It’s not often that the words “and” and “or” become political slogans, but this has happened in Nepal. A coalition of feminist and rights activists is demanding that the country’s new constitution grant citizenship on the basis of descent through “father or mother,” rather than “father […]
Fighting for Myanmar’s Child Soldiers
Memo #324 Efforts to release some 70,000 child soldiers in Myanmar face multiple challenges. By Kai Chen – chenkai [at] zju.edu.cn Since Myanmar’s independence in 1948, the nation’s interest groups—in particular its ethnic minorities and the national military—have been at odds on how to rule Myanmar. The result has been a long simmering armed conflict […]
Pakistani Taliban: The Fault in their Narrative
Memo #323 By Dur-e-Aden – dur-e-aden [at] hotmail.com On December 16, 2014, Pakistani Taliban massacred over 132 children when they attacked a high school in Peshawar. They rationalized this attack as a reaction to the violence perpetrated against them (whether by the Pakistani military or US drones). This narrative attempts to shift blame for the […]
Integrating Sexual Minorities in South Korea
Memo #321 By Joseph Yi – joyichicago [at] yahoo.com, Joe Phillips – joephillips5 [at] gmail.com, Heather Yang – heatheryang0102 [at] gmail.com The LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender) occupy a peculiar place in South Korean society. By maintaining somewhat sexually free, separate social enclaves, they avoid significant public backlash and government oppression. However, they have no […]
In Myanmar, Let’s Make a Deal
Memo #320 Myanmar’s Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement has the potential to end decades of conflict, but a political solution will have to wait. By Brandon Miliate – bmiliate [at] gmail.com Today there is the real possibility that Myanmar’s sixty-year history of ethno-national insurgencies might be coming to an end. After decades of stagnation and intermittent fighting, […]
Understanding Kashmir, Tackling the Kashmir Problem
Memo #319 By Promod Puri – promodpuri [at] blogspot.com The division of the Indian sub-continent in 1947 generated a persistent hostility between India and Pakistan, a hostility dominated by clashing territorial claims over the Kashmir region. On the international stage the Kashmir problem is largely viewed in diplomatic, political, government and media circles with the understanding that the […]
Mongolia – From Sino-Russian Buffer to Conversion Zone
Memo #318 By Mendee Jargalsaikhan – mendee [at] alumni.ubc.ca Last autumn, Presidents Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin made separate visits to Mongolia, met for a tri-lateral (Russia-China-Mongolia) summit in the Tajikistan capital of Dushanbe during the leadership summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), and dispatched their vice-foreign ministers for a working-level meeting in preparation for next […]
Restoring Indonesia’s Direct Regional Elections: Stability in a Divided Society
Memo #317 Indonesian President Pak Joko Widodo must fight to reinstate direct regional elections to maintain social stability. By Matthew J. Bock – m.bock [at] alumni.ubc.ca and Geoffrey Macdonald – gpmacdonald [at] gmail.com Joko Widodo, referred to as Jokowi, was inaugurated as Indonesia’s seventh president on October 20, 2014. President Jokowi represents a new era of […]
Music for the Mind? Virtuosity and Performativity in Celebrity Diplomacy
Memo #314 By Hyung-Gu Lynn – hlynn [at] mail.ubc.ca Does celebrity diplomacy work? If so, based on what measures, why, how and for whom? In the afterglow of bravura passages powerful yet precise, arpeggios determined yet delicate, these questions arose, at least in one small corner of my brain. The United Nations Day concert in the General […]