In the wake of the trifecta of earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear crisis, Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan and his colleagues have donned the blue uniforms of first responders, suggesting they are working tirelessly. But despite his efforts to handle the biggest crisis in Japan since Hiroshima, Kan has not won the hearts of his countrymen, whose apprehension and distrust increases each morning when they turn on the news to learn of increasing radioactivity, the plummeting stock market, and the soaring death toll. As it turns out, blue uniforms are not enough.
History has taught us that disasters and mass emergencies can transform a mediocre politician into an inspiring leader. The 1944 San Juan earthquake in Argentina that killed more than 10,000 people, earned Juan Perón instant esteem, as well as a glamorous wife, Evita. Ten years ago, the rubble at Ground Zero in New York City transformed George W. Bush from an alleged illegitimate president to a folk hero shepherding the nation through crisis. For Kan, the challenges of Sendai have opportunities and pitfalls. But so far, Kan’s focus on the rubble has not brought the Japanese together in common purpose.
Where did Kan go wrong? To be sure, there is a Japanese cultural style, But nowadays politicians must be aware of new global expectations, which call for a man of compassion and empathy, a man of the people. Consider Wen Jiabao. Two hours after China’s 2008 Sichuan earthquake, he jumped on a plane bound for the area struck by disaster. Soon he was seen walking around in the devastated community, telling children who were buried in a half-collapsed building that “Grandpa Wen is here with you.” The politics of emotion in action. Hundreds of millions of Chinese watched Wen shedding tears, angrily slamming his cellphone at slacking officials, and hugging wailing orphans. Just as Bill Clinton, Wen realized that a politician must feel your pain. As a result, the Chinese felt sheltered instead of afraid. A few cynics have called Wen “the best actor in China,” . . .
Read more: Post-Earthquake Politics in Japan and China
By Gary Alan Fine, May 3rd, 2011 
In a post submitted before Osama Bin Laden was eliminated, Gary Alan Fine poses a question that is especially pressing after this latest development in the ongoing global wars. –Jeff
Coming out of a bar late one night, a patron finds his friend on his hands and knees searching desperately beneath a streetlamp. “I lost my keys under my car and I must find them,” moans his friend. “But why, if the keys are under a car, are you searching under this lamp?” “Well, the light is much better here.”
This is an old chestnut, none too clever, but one that has powerful political resonance, helping to explain flawed policy decisions. Why, if we worry about the menace of Al Qaeda, have we gone to war against two states – Iraq and Libya – that have distant, even hostile, relations with our terrorist foes. The light is better there.
A student of mine, Michaela DeSoucey, currently at Princeton, wrote her doctoral dissertation about the battles to ban foie gras. She asked the question why is it that animal rights activists chose to make the banning of foie gras a central issue, despite the small amount of foie gras consumed by Americans, as opposed to veal, much more common on American tables – or chicken. Neither baby cows nor poultry sleep under 300-thread count sheets. Her argument is that battling foie gras producers is a far easier task than the cattle or poultry industry. Yet, each battle provides a rich vein of publicity. Foie gras is what DeSoucey labels an easy target: it is, if one can pardon the culinary-mixed metaphor “low-hanging fruit.” Activists hope, but do not expect, that such targets can provide a wedge for other bigger enemies. Not yet.
But my concern is not with the pantry, but with the atlas. Here we are battling in Libya, while Syria falls into chaos. Americans and our NATO allies have determined that it is crucial that we overthrow the Qaddafi regime, even though that regime is opposed to Al Qaeda as are we. And, frankly, it is becoming a vexing pattern. We are . . .
Read more: Easy Targets
I find myself puzzled by the response to the killing of Osama bin Laden. Listening to President Obama’s speech, I immediately wondered how this would affect the war in Afghanistan and our relationship with Pakistan. Since it seems to me clear that the terrorist threat has less to do with a specific network called Al Qaeda, more to do with fanatics around the world, I wondered about their response.
I then turned on CNN and was bewildered. Why were all these young people in New York and Washington, and at the Mets – Phillies game celebrating? And why the wild chants of USA, USA! What were they thinking? What were they feeling? Why were they so enthusiastic?
Bin Laden was not a nice guy. He was a master of destruction. He inspired his supporters and his enemies to wage war, torture, attack human rights and civil liberties and the like. He was a global anti-democratic force. Without him, globalized terrorism and anti-terrorism are less likely. But the Arab Spring is much more consequential in this regard, I believe, as it points to promising alternatives for people around the world. Democracy is “in,” fanaticism is “out.” The heroes of Tahrir Square are the real answer to the “Clash of Civilizations.” This confirms for me ideas I had soon after 9/11, leading to the writing of The Politics of Small Things: The Power of the Powerless in Dark Times.
Yet, no doubt, I am underestimating and not understanding the response of people here in the U.S. and around the world to the elimination of a force and symbol of mass destruction. Understanding how they see and feel it is important, because these feelings and perceptions are important political realities. An interesting overview of reactions today were posted on Al Jazeera.
I found particularly interesting the contrasting takes of the key leaders in Israel – Palestine:
Ismail Haniyeh – head of . . .
Read more: Osama bin Laden: Thoughts and Questions
By Cecilia Rubino, May 1st, 2011 
“We heard an explosion, through the shattering glass
We looked up at the Asch building
A bundle of cloth came flying out the window
On the way down it opened up in the wind
It was a girl, it was girl.”
(From the Fire)
Today is May Day, “el Dia del Trabajo,” a day in which work and workers are honored around the globe. Today in particular, five weeks after the hundredth anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, we remember the 146 immigrant workers, most Jewish and Italian girls, who died trying to escape flames that roared through the upper floors of the Asch building, a garment factory near Washington Square. Trapped behind locked doors, many never had the chance to escape. Others jumped out the windows, some hand-in-hand, their hair and clothes aflame.
Saturday, March 25, 1911 was a clear, early spring day. Crowds of New Yorkers strolled in Washington Square and on the streets of the lower East Side. Suddenly at 4:45, many looked up and saw smoke billowing from a ten story building on Green Street and Washington Place. Hundreds rushed to the scene. One observer said he thought the factory owner was trying to save his best cloth by throwing bundles of fabric from the ninth floor. He and so many others realized in horror that they were seeing not bundles of cloth falling from the windows but girls — girls in flame, girls who were landing in broken heaps on the sidewalk in front of them. The fire which lasted less than half an hour, made these invisible immigrant workers suddenly starkly visible. Photographs of the mangled bodies were printed in the morning newspapers but still thousands came to view the open coffins lined up in rows on ‘Misery Lane,’ the makeshift morgue set up on the peer at 26th Street. Some were family and friends desperately searching for missing loved ones but most wanted to just see the dead with their own eyes. Ocular proof.
New Yorkers felt that they knew these shirtwaist makers. They were the girls who . . .
Read more: May Day’s Ocular Proof: A Bundle of Cloth
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