Philip Jong

This month the public witnessed the unfolding of two very differently held elections in the United Status and Canada. In the United Status, the midterm elections heralded the downfall of the Republicans and the ascension to power by the Democrats in both the House and Senate. In Canada, the municipal elections in Toronto (where I live) oversaw the domination of incumbent mayor David Miller over the two frontrunners Jane Pitfield and Stephen LeDrew. Notwithstanding any obvious dissimilarity in the landscapes of these two elections and in the policies by which they had been driven, an understated difference was the presence in the former and the absence in the latter of a major political controversy over which the respective voters had to contend. For the United Status, the continuing war with Iraq had deeply divided the country during election and ultimately became an embarrassment for George Bush and his administration. By contrast, for Canada, the election was a low-key affair for which David Miller had coyly avoided any political scandal in the media that would have attracted unwanted criticism by the voters. In the end, the defeat of George Bush and the victory of David Miller stand as a great example in the study of elections in extreme. In politics, after all, no news is perhaps truly good news.

Last month many Muslims openly accused Pope Benedict XVI of insulting the religion of Islam during an academic address given at the University of Regensburg in Germany where he had seemingly characterized the teachings of the Prophet Mohammed as evil and inhuman. The controversial speech sparked much outrage and backlash among many followers of the Islamic faith, despite a prompt apology by the pontiff that the offending comment about the holy wars reflected neither his personal nor the Vatican’s view. At least one killing, that of Sister Leonella Sgorbati in Somalia, had been attributed possibly as retaliatory attack to the pope’s remark. While an informed (or even heated) exchange between two religions should never be discouraged (or snuffed), to this day I question exactly how many of these protestors were truly informed of the whole context in which the pontiff’s remark was made. Little was told of the fact that the inflammatory statement was actually not of his own words but a straight quote he made of the 14th century Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus, “Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.” Moreover, a complete reading of the text would reveal the fact that the pope was not at all arguing for a condemnation of the Muslim belief but, to the complete contrary, a rejection for the use of religion as a motivation for violence, Muslims or Christians. This observation proves that when a religion is so blindly followed among faith seekers without understanding the full context in which these beliefs should be asserted, then such practice is no different from that of simply acting out the roles in a fantasized tale, regardless what God or Prophet it may involve.

Early this month the world mourned the five-year anniversary of 9/11. To this date, my memory of this tragic event remains vivid. At the time, I was attending a conference in Washington DC and was only blocks away from the White House. Since that day, the world has learned of the ongoing threat of terrorism on the masses and the price we must pay to protect ourselves from fanatics whose moral and ideology differ from our own. More importantly, 9/11 reminds us that we do not live our lives in isolation from other people around the world and that plans to achieve peace must extend far beyond the arbitrary borders created by nations, ethnicities, and religions. Any attempt to achieve long-lasting peace and security by building rather than breaking the walls that divide the human race is doomed to fail. Even though one day the memory of 9/11 may finally fade in people’s minds, the lesson which the human race has learned from it must never be forgotten, since those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it again.

Last month, renowned physicist Dr. Stephen Hawking posted the question “In a world that is in chaos politically, socially and environmentally, how can the human race sustain another 100 years?” on Yahoo! Answers. The post generated unprecedented attention from both the media and public. Earlier this month he posted a follow-up message on Yahoo! Answers to his original question.
Notwithstanding the assertion that I am in no position to compare my opinion with that of an academic and intellectual of our times, I also question the ability of humankind to survive the next millennium, given our current path of self-destructive behaviors as a civilization. The conflicts we create within our species, such as warfare and famine, as well as those we create against our habitat, such as global warming and depletion of natural resources, will only grow larger as humankind continues to expand its dominance on this planet. We blind ourselves from the long-term consequences of our actions by the short-term rewards we reap from the supposedly technological and cultural progress we achieved over time. Before we can devote ourselves to expand the human race to the reach of outer space and other stars (as Hawking claimed), we must first learn to resolve the conflicts we have already created, for otherwise our fate is sealed regardless of where the human race lives on.

Currently there is a heated debate among internet stakeholders on the merits of network or net neutrality. Although the term was only coined in 2005 by Tim Wu, the fundamentals of net neutrality actually dated back to when internet protocol was first conceived to guide data exchange across a global network. At the most basic level, net neutrality guarantees the indiscriminate delivery of information packets across the internet, regardless of their sources or destinations. Proponents of net neutrality, including many academics and Tim Berners-Lee (the father of the World Wide Web), have advocated such unrestricted access as a basic right of freedom to information. Opponents of net neutrality, such as the telecommunication industries, have argued for their right to rely on market economics to prioritize access to information on the internet. The latter is based on existing practice by common carriers, such as in cable television, where consumers are charged to pay differently depending on the level of content delivery. However, such argument ignores the fundamental differences between the internet and traditional media channel on how information reaches its consumers. As an avid consumer, my right to access such information must never be determined by economics or politics. Any challenge to this right is simply censorship, regardless of the regulatory disguise under which this censorship may hide.