What was your history class like? Was there any world history? If there was, chances are that it was relegated to the periphery of the largely Euro-centric story told of the rise of the West, or left out to be taught in another non-mandatory elective. Professor of global history at Oxford University, Peter Frankopan, seeks to rectify these historical gaps in his 2016 bestseller The Silk Roads: A New History of the World, and in the process maybe change Western perceptions of a region today commonly seen to be backwards and reactionary.
Frankopan tells the interconnected story of the world by examining the civilizations along the ancient trading routes of the Silk Roads that spanned from Africa to the Mediterranean to East Asia that connect the West to the East, from the distant past to the present, giving readers a new perspective on major historical events, like the fall of the Roman Empire to the later fall of the European colonial powers. It is the epic story of conquests, wars, and the constant trade of goods, people, ideas, and religions, a globalization that started and has never completely stopped, but seemingly has increased in intensity in the present moment.
So rather than follow the traditional route of historical analyses in expounding heavily on our inheritance of the Greco-Roman legacy, a path Frankopan sees as neglecting a nuanced tale of vibrant East-West exchange, Frankopan starts with the rise of the Persian Empire in the 6th century BCE in competition to the Romans as one of the first defining moments of antiquity. Within this hotbed of exchange, major religions and economic conventions became fairly mainstream, from common trade currencies to religions whose success depended on emphasizing common elements of these doctrines with local traditions. Christianity moved this way east and Buddhism west, attracting large sects of competing followers and helping to ensure their statuses among major world religions.
There was a healthy inter-mixing and borrowing (and relative tolerance) of ideas that, by-and-large, enabled the East to flourish in a varying succession of great empires, a condition that has endured for a majority of humanity's existence. The West caught up and eventually surpassed the East in large part through the exploitation of the bountiful natural and human resources of conquered lands, from the gold and slaves brought back from North and South America, Africa, and Asia, to the spices, precious stones, and eventually oil, of the Middle and Far East. Conquest and suffering went hand-in-hand with prosperity at home, allowing Western Europe and later America to beef up their militaries while simultaneously raising their political, cultural, and economic stars worldwide in the form of various colonial empires. When those empires fell, the powers-that-be turned to short-term deals with strongmen to safeguard their interests in the region (think oil). (Of course, we know today how that's gone.)
As a result of the latter policies, the exploitation of the East by the West left mixed-bag legacies that continue to resonate today, from the powder keg of the largely autocratic Middle East to the economic dynamism of East and South-East Asia. This is where it becomes especially helpful to know the other side of the story, how imperial legacies set the countries of the Silk Roads back in the modern era, with arbitrarily designed national boundaries and centuries of economic exploitation (think oil) resulting in autocracy, income inequality, and a bevy of other declines on various social indices for many living in the region.
But, there seem to be major changes underway today that are serving to revitalize the ancient corridors of commerce, people, and ideas, and with it lift up the peoples of the area. While uneven progress has been made in the center of the world towards climbing back upwards, the exhaustion of the West in the wake of huge military expenditures in the region in combination with increased political infighting over the globalization opening up new avenues in the East seems to show that the Silk Roads may be reclaiming their historical top-dog status once again. For one, China is investing heavily in Africa and in its ambitious New Silk Roads initiative to build up the transportation and economic infrastructure of the region. New centers for the arts and learning are popping up again in the Middle East and Asia. Many Western foreign policies are beginning to shift their focus Eastward.
In any case, in an era of transition, much uncertainty remains. While The Silk Roads prescribes no solutions that will avert potential conflict between a seemingly peaking West and rising East, it provides helpful context, a roadmap of the past leading to the present. Whatever we choose to do next, it seems clear that Western foreign policy should be geared towards peacefully guiding the rising powers upwards and securing a prosperous multipolar world for the many. Peace would seem to depend on that.
Works Cited:
Frankopan, Peter. (2016). The Silk Roads: A New History of the World. New York: Vintage Books.
Friday, April 19, 2019
Friday, April 5, 2019
Book Review: Laurie Halse Anderson's "Shout"
In the era of #MeToo, many women in the United States and around the world have found their voices to speak out against a persistently misogynistic cultural, economic, political and social system. A shot heard round the world, from the United States to Bollywood. Sure, it was much worse in the past, the usual narrative goes. But now women have achieved voting rights and a degree of social mobility. Now, with #MeToo, it seems the power imbalances have been thrust into the light, and no abuser is safe. Yay, progress!? Well...not so much.
Like much else, recent history is a mixed bag, with many benefits of movements that shake the powerful and go viral on mainstream news outlets around the world not necessarily trickling down to the masses or affecting change on the underlying structural issues and social attitudes that cause the problems in the first place. This is frustrating and demoralizing for women across the world, who, silenced by the stigmas surrounding sexual violence and assault, may judge it not worth the social costs to come forward, to agitate for change. If they do, they may face scorn and even death threats (see the case of Christine Blasey Ford, who received death threats after her testimony at the hearing for now Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh). One of many giving voice to this despair and rage felt by many women is author Laurie Halse Anderson, first through her 1999 novel Speak, and in her latest, Shout: A Poetry Memoir (2019).
From the get-go, Shout issues a siren call for a new wave of activism in a searing work of poetic prose that is half unflinchingly personal autobiography and half advocacy treatise. Like protagonist Melinda from Speak, Laurie Halse Anderson was sexually assaulted as a teenager, when she was thirteen years old. Of course, this assault having occurred in the 70s meant that Anderson, like other girls and women (and yes, boys and men), were counseled that to stay safe from predatory men (and women), they must dress conservatively, make themselves blend in to the wallpaper, to be seen, not heard. If they were assaulted, it was their fault for dressing provocatively, for drinking, being out at night alone. As for having candid conversations about sex, healthy relationships, consent and menstruation? Out of the question. Talking about sex was taboo, and when non-consensual intercourse happened, it was also taboo to speak up about it.
What makes it even worse is that in addition to the latter smothering cultural mores, Anderson's home life also had another toxic layer of drug and emotional abuse, as a result of her father's PTSD and her mother's powerlessness to change the family situation. After her rape, Anderson fell into a similar spiral, driven by her shame and anger at having to deal with her continuing trauma.
It wasn't until she spent 13 months in Denmark as a foreign exchange student that Anderson was able to gain the clarity she needed to begin healing, something she was unable to do living under her parents' toxic roof. Upon her return home, this clarity began to crystallize into an awareness of the pervasiveness of her situation, as she attended college at Georgetown and dealt with handsy professors, and as a reporter witnessed a defense attorney engaging in the brutal character assassination of a rape survivor. She channeled this awareness and dawning rage at the trauma she faced into fiction writing, first in Speak. When Speak broke into the mainstream, she used her newfound platform to tour schools and speak against sexual violence, empowering students to address these issues openly in their schools to everyone's benefit, while not flinching away from the hard path of recovery those who've dealt with sexual violence must take in order to heal. It is in this unflinching address to readers where Anderson's prose is at its most powerful, a dagger to pierce through layers of ignorance and trauma alike to let the light in.
While we've come a long way from the 70s, there still is much work to be done, as seen by the push back of school administrators against teaching sex-ed sans abstinence, school librarians worried about losing their jobs for ordering Speak, and even one revealing episode in which the fire alarm was pulled by a principal to stop Anderson's talk. But not talking about it will not make the problems go away. Instead, they fester, and the cycle of sexual violence and misogyny continues.
The laws may have changed so that women are able to vote and speak their minds publicly, but social and cultural norms must evolve alongside the laws for a truly lasting change to take hold, to break the cycle. Shout's brutal honesty makes this abundantly clear, and clears the way for other similar much-needed stories to be told, to remind us that the fight is not over. There's still much more work to do.
Works Cited:
Anderson, Laurie Halse. (2019). Shout: A Poetry Memoir. New York: Penguin Random House LLC.
Taub, Amanda. (2019, February 11). #MeToo Paradox: Movement Topples the Powerful, Not the Ordinary. Retrieved March 31, 2019, from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/11/world/americas/metoo-ocar-arias.html.
Like much else, recent history is a mixed bag, with many benefits of movements that shake the powerful and go viral on mainstream news outlets around the world not necessarily trickling down to the masses or affecting change on the underlying structural issues and social attitudes that cause the problems in the first place. This is frustrating and demoralizing for women across the world, who, silenced by the stigmas surrounding sexual violence and assault, may judge it not worth the social costs to come forward, to agitate for change. If they do, they may face scorn and even death threats (see the case of Christine Blasey Ford, who received death threats after her testimony at the hearing for now Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh). One of many giving voice to this despair and rage felt by many women is author Laurie Halse Anderson, first through her 1999 novel Speak, and in her latest, Shout: A Poetry Memoir (2019).
From the get-go, Shout issues a siren call for a new wave of activism in a searing work of poetic prose that is half unflinchingly personal autobiography and half advocacy treatise. Like protagonist Melinda from Speak, Laurie Halse Anderson was sexually assaulted as a teenager, when she was thirteen years old. Of course, this assault having occurred in the 70s meant that Anderson, like other girls and women (and yes, boys and men), were counseled that to stay safe from predatory men (and women), they must dress conservatively, make themselves blend in to the wallpaper, to be seen, not heard. If they were assaulted, it was their fault for dressing provocatively, for drinking, being out at night alone. As for having candid conversations about sex, healthy relationships, consent and menstruation? Out of the question. Talking about sex was taboo, and when non-consensual intercourse happened, it was also taboo to speak up about it.
What makes it even worse is that in addition to the latter smothering cultural mores, Anderson's home life also had another toxic layer of drug and emotional abuse, as a result of her father's PTSD and her mother's powerlessness to change the family situation. After her rape, Anderson fell into a similar spiral, driven by her shame and anger at having to deal with her continuing trauma.
It wasn't until she spent 13 months in Denmark as a foreign exchange student that Anderson was able to gain the clarity she needed to begin healing, something she was unable to do living under her parents' toxic roof. Upon her return home, this clarity began to crystallize into an awareness of the pervasiveness of her situation, as she attended college at Georgetown and dealt with handsy professors, and as a reporter witnessed a defense attorney engaging in the brutal character assassination of a rape survivor. She channeled this awareness and dawning rage at the trauma she faced into fiction writing, first in Speak. When Speak broke into the mainstream, she used her newfound platform to tour schools and speak against sexual violence, empowering students to address these issues openly in their schools to everyone's benefit, while not flinching away from the hard path of recovery those who've dealt with sexual violence must take in order to heal. It is in this unflinching address to readers where Anderson's prose is at its most powerful, a dagger to pierce through layers of ignorance and trauma alike to let the light in.
While we've come a long way from the 70s, there still is much work to be done, as seen by the push back of school administrators against teaching sex-ed sans abstinence, school librarians worried about losing their jobs for ordering Speak, and even one revealing episode in which the fire alarm was pulled by a principal to stop Anderson's talk. But not talking about it will not make the problems go away. Instead, they fester, and the cycle of sexual violence and misogyny continues.
The laws may have changed so that women are able to vote and speak their minds publicly, but social and cultural norms must evolve alongside the laws for a truly lasting change to take hold, to break the cycle. Shout's brutal honesty makes this abundantly clear, and clears the way for other similar much-needed stories to be told, to remind us that the fight is not over. There's still much more work to do.
Works Cited:
Anderson, Laurie Halse. (2019). Shout: A Poetry Memoir. New York: Penguin Random House LLC.
Taub, Amanda. (2019, February 11). #MeToo Paradox: Movement Topples the Powerful, Not the Ordinary. Retrieved March 31, 2019, from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/11/world/americas/metoo-ocar-arias.html.
Friday, March 15, 2019
Book Review: Ruth Bader Ginsburg's "My Own Words"
{The following is the second of two pieces dedicated to telling the stories of women past and present during Women's National History Month.}
In this week's piece, I will take a look at an American icon, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (known by many as the "Notorious R.B.G.") through the lens of a 2016 collection of her professional and personal writings titled My Own Words. Put together by her biographers, Mary Hartnett and Wendy W. Williams, both accomplished legal professors themselves, My Own Words is not a typical biography in any sense. Bracketed by contextualizing introductory pieces by Hartnett and Williams and one piece by her now deceased husband Marty Ginsburg, My Own Words showcases to readers the varied writings of a sharp legal mind whose long career as a women's rights advocate, law professor, and then judge and justice, colors the pages and legal arguments contained within.
A native of Brooklyn, New York, Ruth Bader Ginsburg was born in 1933 and grew up in a Jewish household, learning from her mother early on to be independent and studious. After her mother's death due to cancer upon Ruth's 1950 graduation from high school, she would go on study law at Harvard and Columbia University, rededicating herself to the scholarly pursuits her stay-at-home mother was determined Ruth have.
Ginsburg's first foray into the national spotlight would come when, as one of the first women professors at Columbia University in the 1970s and an early beneficiary of the burgeoning women's rights movement at the time, would partner with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to found the Women's Rights Project. As her role with the ACLU required arguing cases before the courts as part of a litigious, piecemeal achievement strategy on behalf of American women inspired by the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, her national profile would rise with each of the six cases she would argue before the Supreme Court. All in all, her inspiring work with the ACLU would attract the attention of two presidential administrations: President Carter would appoint her to the D.C. Circuit's U.S. Court of Appeals in 1980 and President Clinton would elevate her into her current position of Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court in 1993.
My Own Words is dedicated primarily to Ginsburg's legal lectures, opinions, and speeches given throughout her long career. Taken as a whole, these works compose a detailed picture of her liberal-leaning constitutional philosophy, reveal the inner-workings of a busy Supreme Court, and serve to contextualize American jurisprudence in a larger international context centered largely around expanding the reach of human rights and the rule of law in democratic (and on a more hopeful note, non-democratic) societies. This includes encouraging the development of legal regimes dedicated to eliminating discrimination based on race, gender, and socioeconomic circumstance.
Even as the book's biographical narrative turns on the highlights of her legal career, her story is fleshed out further in the tributes she gives recognizing the women trailblazers that came before her as well as close contemporaries she sees in a similar light, like justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and former justice Sandra Day O'Connor. She gives stirring remarks about her friendships within the court, especially the unlikely one that developed between her and the late conservative-leaning justice Antonin Scalia around their mutual love of the opera. (In fact, they both performed as special guests in operatic showings on two separate occasions.) Overall, it was very rewarding to get a glimpse at both the formal and informal ceremonies of the Supreme Court and the dynamic bonds of collegiality the court depends on to function effectively as last-resort arbiters in cases of constitutional import, interpersonal bonds that serve an equal importance in the other co-equal branches of government.
While being extremely gracious about her colleagues on and off the bench, she pulls no punches in describing the ideological differences that exist even in as politically-insulated a branch as the judicial one, even as the Supreme Court tends to be unanimous or close to unanimous in a good majority of its decisions. In the end, the key to keeping it together, Ginsburg notes, is to attack the ideas in an argument rather than resort to ad-hominum attacks on another justice's character or personal beliefs. The behind-the-scenes legal battles fought in majority and dissenting opinions is just another ongoing dialogue, one of many spirited discussions necessary in a democratic system. After all, democracy turns on reaching a consensus among groups of people with vastly different beliefs, finding the places of common ground and moving together from there.
While not necessarily a biographical work, My Own Words is a strong showing nevertheless in terms of granting readers a better perspective on the professional and personal life of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, despite some repetitiveness and overlap between certain passages, as Ginsburg often cites her legal opinions frequently in her many off-the-court appearances at legal conferences, schools, memorials, and other public venues. Some readers will feel dissatisfied at the heavier focus on Ginsburg's legal philosophies and insights at the expense of getting a more personal sense of the motivations driving her long career, such as the struggles and self-doubt she no doubt experienced at some point in her life, perhaps during her early days as an ACLU advocate fighting the good fight against gender-based discrimination. However, in my opinion, My Own Words gives just enough glimpses into both Ginsburg's personal and professional lives to sate readers for now, while building anticipation for the full-fledged official Hartnett and Williams biography of Ginsburg expected to be published after Ginsburg completes her term on the Supreme Court. Stay tuned!
Works Cited:
Ginsburg, Ruth Bader, Hartnett, Mary, & Williams, Wendy W. (2016). My Own Words. New York: Simon & Schuster.
In this week's piece, I will take a look at an American icon, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (known by many as the "Notorious R.B.G.") through the lens of a 2016 collection of her professional and personal writings titled My Own Words. Put together by her biographers, Mary Hartnett and Wendy W. Williams, both accomplished legal professors themselves, My Own Words is not a typical biography in any sense. Bracketed by contextualizing introductory pieces by Hartnett and Williams and one piece by her now deceased husband Marty Ginsburg, My Own Words showcases to readers the varied writings of a sharp legal mind whose long career as a women's rights advocate, law professor, and then judge and justice, colors the pages and legal arguments contained within.
A native of Brooklyn, New York, Ruth Bader Ginsburg was born in 1933 and grew up in a Jewish household, learning from her mother early on to be independent and studious. After her mother's death due to cancer upon Ruth's 1950 graduation from high school, she would go on study law at Harvard and Columbia University, rededicating herself to the scholarly pursuits her stay-at-home mother was determined Ruth have.
Ginsburg's first foray into the national spotlight would come when, as one of the first women professors at Columbia University in the 1970s and an early beneficiary of the burgeoning women's rights movement at the time, would partner with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to found the Women's Rights Project. As her role with the ACLU required arguing cases before the courts as part of a litigious, piecemeal achievement strategy on behalf of American women inspired by the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, her national profile would rise with each of the six cases she would argue before the Supreme Court. All in all, her inspiring work with the ACLU would attract the attention of two presidential administrations: President Carter would appoint her to the D.C. Circuit's U.S. Court of Appeals in 1980 and President Clinton would elevate her into her current position of Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court in 1993.
My Own Words is dedicated primarily to Ginsburg's legal lectures, opinions, and speeches given throughout her long career. Taken as a whole, these works compose a detailed picture of her liberal-leaning constitutional philosophy, reveal the inner-workings of a busy Supreme Court, and serve to contextualize American jurisprudence in a larger international context centered largely around expanding the reach of human rights and the rule of law in democratic (and on a more hopeful note, non-democratic) societies. This includes encouraging the development of legal regimes dedicated to eliminating discrimination based on race, gender, and socioeconomic circumstance.
Even as the book's biographical narrative turns on the highlights of her legal career, her story is fleshed out further in the tributes she gives recognizing the women trailblazers that came before her as well as close contemporaries she sees in a similar light, like justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and former justice Sandra Day O'Connor. She gives stirring remarks about her friendships within the court, especially the unlikely one that developed between her and the late conservative-leaning justice Antonin Scalia around their mutual love of the opera. (In fact, they both performed as special guests in operatic showings on two separate occasions.) Overall, it was very rewarding to get a glimpse at both the formal and informal ceremonies of the Supreme Court and the dynamic bonds of collegiality the court depends on to function effectively as last-resort arbiters in cases of constitutional import, interpersonal bonds that serve an equal importance in the other co-equal branches of government.
While being extremely gracious about her colleagues on and off the bench, she pulls no punches in describing the ideological differences that exist even in as politically-insulated a branch as the judicial one, even as the Supreme Court tends to be unanimous or close to unanimous in a good majority of its decisions. In the end, the key to keeping it together, Ginsburg notes, is to attack the ideas in an argument rather than resort to ad-hominum attacks on another justice's character or personal beliefs. The behind-the-scenes legal battles fought in majority and dissenting opinions is just another ongoing dialogue, one of many spirited discussions necessary in a democratic system. After all, democracy turns on reaching a consensus among groups of people with vastly different beliefs, finding the places of common ground and moving together from there.
While not necessarily a biographical work, My Own Words is a strong showing nevertheless in terms of granting readers a better perspective on the professional and personal life of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, despite some repetitiveness and overlap between certain passages, as Ginsburg often cites her legal opinions frequently in her many off-the-court appearances at legal conferences, schools, memorials, and other public venues. Some readers will feel dissatisfied at the heavier focus on Ginsburg's legal philosophies and insights at the expense of getting a more personal sense of the motivations driving her long career, such as the struggles and self-doubt she no doubt experienced at some point in her life, perhaps during her early days as an ACLU advocate fighting the good fight against gender-based discrimination. However, in my opinion, My Own Words gives just enough glimpses into both Ginsburg's personal and professional lives to sate readers for now, while building anticipation for the full-fledged official Hartnett and Williams biography of Ginsburg expected to be published after Ginsburg completes her term on the Supreme Court. Stay tuned!
Works Cited:
Ginsburg, Ruth Bader, Hartnett, Mary, & Williams, Wendy W. (2016). My Own Words. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Friday, March 1, 2019
Book Review: Kara Cooney's "When Women Ruled the World"
{March is the official start to Women's History Month! Here is one of two pieces about women's lives both past and present to celebrate.}
I happened recently upon an intriguing book chronicling the (often short) reigns of six ancient Egyptian queens. Partly out of curiosity to learn about an ancient culture I hardly knew anything about outside of the dramatized stories surrounding Cleopatra taught in schools and outside of them, and drawn to the the title's promise to shed more light on historical figures almost completely left out of the record, I gave Egyptologist Kara Cooney's 2018 publication, When Women Ruled the World: Six Queens of Egypt, a chance. And I was not disappointed.
There were only six women leaders or pharaohs on record in the tombs, temples, statuary, stone tablets and other artifacts left behind in ancient Egypt's roughly 4,000 years of existence: Merneith, Neferusobek, Hatshepsut, Nefertiti, Tawosret, and Cleopatra. Upon the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt in 3100 BC by the first pharaoh and warlord King Narmer, the ancient Egyptian lands of Northern Africa were uniquely positioned to flourish as they were protected from the constant instability of other societies of the time--namely, invasion and drastic population shifts--by the Nile delta, perilous seas, and surrounding deserts. Moreover, the Nile's annual floods and fertile silt left behind, made Egypt into the Mediterranean breadbasket. All of these blessings bestowed by its natural geography and unique agricultural situation allowed its societal institutions and culture to remain largely unchanged over its long history, passing down a patriarchal and authoritarian system of centralized rule underneath an Egyptian god-king. How then did these six women find the space to rule in such a society, however briefly their reigns may have been?
Not unique among hereditary dynasties, Egypt sought to stave off crippling internal power struggles partly by utilizing a system of incestuous marriage, and partly with the unique Egyptian tradition of ritualized killings of the competition (mostly male members of the elite and royal family) in the event of the previous monarch's death and burial, to consolidate power in one line of continuous descent. This included the children of the monarch begotten by the many women in the royal harem and his wife, respectively. While brutal, realpolitik ritualized killings of the competition eventually tapered off after the stabilization of dynastic rule, there were situations in which there was no fit male ruler to continue the dynasty: he was too young, crippled, sterile, or died young as a consequence of incest. To stave off a succession crisis and make the smooth transition between dynasty, Egypt relied on its women, usually the widowed Royal Wife, to serve as a stop-gap or regent where the male heir was too young or wasn't there, counting on the assumption that women wouldn't act against their children's or larger familial interests by ruling pragmatically (why buck the system that gave you your power and station?). This usually meant violence of any kind was out and consensus in, and that the women inherited their station at the end of a dynasty and in times of crisis, whether they were the frequent incest-driven succession kind or the more rare cases of infighting, religious feuds, or climatological shifts. (Funny isn't it how women tend to come to power in more unequal societies and during times of crisis to clean up the mess left behind?)
Merneith was the first queen to witness the brutalities of court life--notwithstanding the ritualized killings claiming up to hundreds of victims at a time or the fact of her gender being largely regarded as mercurial, passive, and easy to control by the men in her life. Merneith would not be the first or last woman to largely be used in leadership positions in order to shore up their support of a patriarchal system that had elevated them to those same positions of power. She was the pioneer of the six, ruling as (unofficial) regent while her young son, King Den, matured, with those same ritualized killings helping to shore up her unofficial reign along with an emphasis on her status as descendant of a god-king or kings. Using the template Merneith set down of achieving power as the feminine protector of the god-king's realm, Neferusobek followed up by managing to rule for four years alone after the untimely death of her sterile husband. She would become the first female king, with Hatshepsut, Nefertiti, Tawosret, and Cleopatra VII following using the time-honored strategy of propaganda and other positive PR emphasizing her god-king lineage and willingness to do anything in service of the realm (this PR included grafting on traditional masculine-aspects of power onto their female figures in stone reliefs carved in their image in a sort of ancient-world pant-suit).
However, these women couldn't rely solely on their religious and political status and had to also use their educated minds to get Egypt out of a tight spots. For example, Cleopatra made powerful Roman alliances with Julius Caesar and Mark Antony and other Mediterranean powers to shore up Egypt against imperial rule and Nefertiti made peace with ostracized and powerful priests in a diplomatic tight-rope act after her husband Akhenaten tried disastrously to forcibly convert Egyptians to a monotheistic sun cult religion away from their traditional polytheistic one in a bid for even more power. In other words, instead of the proverbial two-sided coin of power being both male and female (stereotypical brash and bold versus cautious leadership styles), this pharaoh was of the view that a man need not share influence at all and sought to redefine power as only legitimate when exercised by a male.
Often, the thanks these women got for coming to the rescue was backlash from the society that temporarily granted them power, evidenced by the removal or attempted obliteration of their names from the kingly lineages recorded on tablets, statuary, or tombs. If they remained in the historical record at all, they would be remembered as leadership failures or as overreaching by showing naked ambition for power, rather than cloaking it as merely assuming the mantle of leadership in protection of her dynasty (sounds familiar). Akhenaten's cult-episode and Nefertiti's perceived blatant power-grab foreshadowed a trend in following dynasties that mostly barred royal women from positions of power, opening up marriage to non-royal females (the power disparities much greater here) and allowing Game of Thrones-style infighting among elite families to worsen.
While I disagreed with Cooney's broad generalizations about female leadership biologically trending towards the cautious, consensual, and prudent rather than the bold or aggressive unilateral style of a man's (society's social constraints rather than biology seems to explain better why a woman takes a more cautious approach to power in a patriarchal society that would crucify her for expressing herself any other way than the "proper" protector-of-the-family or supportive-nurturer role), I agreed with her concluding appeal that society needs to utilize all styles of leadership (whether perceived to be more feminine or masculine) in order to prosper. This makes the equality of the sexes culturally, economically, politically, religiously and otherwise even more imperative if we can redefine and re-balance the idea of power itself. However, as When Women Ruled the World shows, as a species, humans, whether in monarchical or democratic systems of governance, are both so close and yet so far from that elusive goal of parity.
Works Cited:
Cooney, Kara. (2018). When Women Ruled the World: Six Queens of Egypt. Washington, D. C.: National Geographic.
I happened recently upon an intriguing book chronicling the (often short) reigns of six ancient Egyptian queens. Partly out of curiosity to learn about an ancient culture I hardly knew anything about outside of the dramatized stories surrounding Cleopatra taught in schools and outside of them, and drawn to the the title's promise to shed more light on historical figures almost completely left out of the record, I gave Egyptologist Kara Cooney's 2018 publication, When Women Ruled the World: Six Queens of Egypt, a chance. And I was not disappointed.
There were only six women leaders or pharaohs on record in the tombs, temples, statuary, stone tablets and other artifacts left behind in ancient Egypt's roughly 4,000 years of existence: Merneith, Neferusobek, Hatshepsut, Nefertiti, Tawosret, and Cleopatra. Upon the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt in 3100 BC by the first pharaoh and warlord King Narmer, the ancient Egyptian lands of Northern Africa were uniquely positioned to flourish as they were protected from the constant instability of other societies of the time--namely, invasion and drastic population shifts--by the Nile delta, perilous seas, and surrounding deserts. Moreover, the Nile's annual floods and fertile silt left behind, made Egypt into the Mediterranean breadbasket. All of these blessings bestowed by its natural geography and unique agricultural situation allowed its societal institutions and culture to remain largely unchanged over its long history, passing down a patriarchal and authoritarian system of centralized rule underneath an Egyptian god-king. How then did these six women find the space to rule in such a society, however briefly their reigns may have been?
Not unique among hereditary dynasties, Egypt sought to stave off crippling internal power struggles partly by utilizing a system of incestuous marriage, and partly with the unique Egyptian tradition of ritualized killings of the competition (mostly male members of the elite and royal family) in the event of the previous monarch's death and burial, to consolidate power in one line of continuous descent. This included the children of the monarch begotten by the many women in the royal harem and his wife, respectively. While brutal, realpolitik ritualized killings of the competition eventually tapered off after the stabilization of dynastic rule, there were situations in which there was no fit male ruler to continue the dynasty: he was too young, crippled, sterile, or died young as a consequence of incest. To stave off a succession crisis and make the smooth transition between dynasty, Egypt relied on its women, usually the widowed Royal Wife, to serve as a stop-gap or regent where the male heir was too young or wasn't there, counting on the assumption that women wouldn't act against their children's or larger familial interests by ruling pragmatically (why buck the system that gave you your power and station?). This usually meant violence of any kind was out and consensus in, and that the women inherited their station at the end of a dynasty and in times of crisis, whether they were the frequent incest-driven succession kind or the more rare cases of infighting, religious feuds, or climatological shifts. (Funny isn't it how women tend to come to power in more unequal societies and during times of crisis to clean up the mess left behind?)
Merneith was the first queen to witness the brutalities of court life--notwithstanding the ritualized killings claiming up to hundreds of victims at a time or the fact of her gender being largely regarded as mercurial, passive, and easy to control by the men in her life. Merneith would not be the first or last woman to largely be used in leadership positions in order to shore up their support of a patriarchal system that had elevated them to those same positions of power. She was the pioneer of the six, ruling as (unofficial) regent while her young son, King Den, matured, with those same ritualized killings helping to shore up her unofficial reign along with an emphasis on her status as descendant of a god-king or kings. Using the template Merneith set down of achieving power as the feminine protector of the god-king's realm, Neferusobek followed up by managing to rule for four years alone after the untimely death of her sterile husband. She would become the first female king, with Hatshepsut, Nefertiti, Tawosret, and Cleopatra VII following using the time-honored strategy of propaganda and other positive PR emphasizing her god-king lineage and willingness to do anything in service of the realm (this PR included grafting on traditional masculine-aspects of power onto their female figures in stone reliefs carved in their image in a sort of ancient-world pant-suit).
However, these women couldn't rely solely on their religious and political status and had to also use their educated minds to get Egypt out of a tight spots. For example, Cleopatra made powerful Roman alliances with Julius Caesar and Mark Antony and other Mediterranean powers to shore up Egypt against imperial rule and Nefertiti made peace with ostracized and powerful priests in a diplomatic tight-rope act after her husband Akhenaten tried disastrously to forcibly convert Egyptians to a monotheistic sun cult religion away from their traditional polytheistic one in a bid for even more power. In other words, instead of the proverbial two-sided coin of power being both male and female (stereotypical brash and bold versus cautious leadership styles), this pharaoh was of the view that a man need not share influence at all and sought to redefine power as only legitimate when exercised by a male.
Often, the thanks these women got for coming to the rescue was backlash from the society that temporarily granted them power, evidenced by the removal or attempted obliteration of their names from the kingly lineages recorded on tablets, statuary, or tombs. If they remained in the historical record at all, they would be remembered as leadership failures or as overreaching by showing naked ambition for power, rather than cloaking it as merely assuming the mantle of leadership in protection of her dynasty (sounds familiar). Akhenaten's cult-episode and Nefertiti's perceived blatant power-grab foreshadowed a trend in following dynasties that mostly barred royal women from positions of power, opening up marriage to non-royal females (the power disparities much greater here) and allowing Game of Thrones-style infighting among elite families to worsen.
While I disagreed with Cooney's broad generalizations about female leadership biologically trending towards the cautious, consensual, and prudent rather than the bold or aggressive unilateral style of a man's (society's social constraints rather than biology seems to explain better why a woman takes a more cautious approach to power in a patriarchal society that would crucify her for expressing herself any other way than the "proper" protector-of-the-family or supportive-nurturer role), I agreed with her concluding appeal that society needs to utilize all styles of leadership (whether perceived to be more feminine or masculine) in order to prosper. This makes the equality of the sexes culturally, economically, politically, religiously and otherwise even more imperative if we can redefine and re-balance the idea of power itself. However, as When Women Ruled the World shows, as a species, humans, whether in monarchical or democratic systems of governance, are both so close and yet so far from that elusive goal of parity.
Works Cited:
Cooney, Kara. (2018). When Women Ruled the World: Six Queens of Egypt. Washington, D. C.: National Geographic.
Friday, February 15, 2019
Book Review: Susan Orlean's "The Library Book"
What do you picture when you think of a the library? A mere repository of books? A place you can go to get your documents notarized? The place you can go to consult with a reference librarian, or a clerk on their latest book recommendations? A place to study and research? Perhaps, a place where you can access the Internet for free? A community meeting space with adult and children's programming, such as story times or book clubs? A sanctuary when you want to get away from it all? Libraries are all of these things and more nowadays where the Internet and Internet-based technologies constantly call into question their continued relevancy. New Yorker writer and author Susan Orlean offers a look at the evolution of libraries over time through the story of the Los Angeles Central Public Library, which was wracked by one of the worst library fires in American history in April of 1986.
Orlean's story is part true-crime thriller, historical treatise, and journalistic endeavor, whose prose overall reads like an ode to the beloved institution of the library and the people that make it feel alive, patrons and workers alike. While not perfect by any means, dealing with the social problems of the society that hosts it, such as homelessness, unemployment, and mental illness, libraries have become regarded nonetheless as valuable community spaces. The community of Los Angeles was no exception in regards to the Central Library. Central Library burned for nearly seven hours in April 1986, causing the loss of 400,000 books and damage to a good portion of the surviving inventory, either charred by flames, buffeted by smoke, or soaked through despite the best attempts by the firefighters to cover the stacks with protective tarps. Not long after, Los Angeles heard the suspicions of arson investigators hired in the wake of the tragedy that the blaze was intentionally set.
Orlean writes of the visceral damage to community morale when libraries and their contents were targeted by arson, whether by a spited lone arsonist, a government feeling challenged by the ideas contained in their stacks, or collateral damage in an armed conflict. These kinds of disasters shake people to their cores precisely because one's life is fleeting and impermanent, but stories put into books live on; to burn those books is therefore psychologically damaging as much as they are physically to the patrons and library materials involved. Despite this, communities are also very resilient. After much of the shock passed, the community rallied in support of their imperfect library, whose crowding, flawed wiring, and lack of air conditioning had been issues before the fire. In October of 1993, the library would reopen renovated and twice the size of the original building with the addition of a new wing. Not bad, considering that the Los Angeles Library, like many other libraries, started off as small charity projects (the most famous being the Carnegie libraries project), stuffed into cramped quarters, with their collections at first only open to wealthy men.
Works Cited:
Orlean, Susan. (2018). The Library Book. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Orlean's story is part true-crime thriller, historical treatise, and journalistic endeavor, whose prose overall reads like an ode to the beloved institution of the library and the people that make it feel alive, patrons and workers alike. While not perfect by any means, dealing with the social problems of the society that hosts it, such as homelessness, unemployment, and mental illness, libraries have become regarded nonetheless as valuable community spaces. The community of Los Angeles was no exception in regards to the Central Library. Central Library burned for nearly seven hours in April 1986, causing the loss of 400,000 books and damage to a good portion of the surviving inventory, either charred by flames, buffeted by smoke, or soaked through despite the best attempts by the firefighters to cover the stacks with protective tarps. Not long after, Los Angeles heard the suspicions of arson investigators hired in the wake of the tragedy that the blaze was intentionally set.
Orlean writes of the visceral damage to community morale when libraries and their contents were targeted by arson, whether by a spited lone arsonist, a government feeling challenged by the ideas contained in their stacks, or collateral damage in an armed conflict. These kinds of disasters shake people to their cores precisely because one's life is fleeting and impermanent, but stories put into books live on; to burn those books is therefore psychologically damaging as much as they are physically to the patrons and library materials involved. Despite this, communities are also very resilient. After much of the shock passed, the community rallied in support of their imperfect library, whose crowding, flawed wiring, and lack of air conditioning had been issues before the fire. In October of 1993, the library would reopen renovated and twice the size of the original building with the addition of a new wing. Not bad, considering that the Los Angeles Library, like many other libraries, started off as small charity projects (the most famous being the Carnegie libraries project), stuffed into cramped quarters, with their collections at first only open to wealthy men.
"All the things that are wrong in the world seem conquered by a library's simple unspoken promise: Here I am, please tell me your story; here is my story, please listen." (Orlean, 2018, p. 310)
However, before the library re-opened in 1993, the city was occupied with the arson investigation, which. after fits and starts and dead-ends, zeroed in on aspiring actor Harry Peak, whose narrative shifted like the wind, being a person who liked pleasing people to the point of obsession and craved attention. He'd been at the library when the fire started, then he wasn't. It was pretty much a case with circumstantial evidence, frustrating arson investigators, who'd already been dealing with the challenge of trying to pinpoint the origin of the fire and how it started, considering pretty much all the materials in the vicinity combusted almost instantly. Like many matters, emotions ran high despite investigators and the public craving accountability and impartiality, meaning that the need to arrest and charge someone put immense pressure on the city. When the dragged out legal process finally concluded, with the city settling with Harry Peak over allegations of mistreatment by investigators, the case was considered closed. Yet, the mystery of the fire still lingers, with outside arson investigators questioning if it even was an arson in the first place and instead pointing their fingers towards the electric and environmental problems the library had at the time.
In the end, Orlean accepts the enduring mystery around the 1986 fire and instead chooses to focus her concluding chapters on the future of the Los Angeles Public Library. This is an appropriate, with the fire and the rebuilding aftermath serving as a symbol of libraries' continued evolution and survival in the face of the considerable pressures of modernization. Like other libraries, the Los Angeles Public Library is no longer merely a research center and repository of books and other print media, but a full fledged community space and information hub. It also functions as a contact center for social service agencies and community events, a meeting place for all sorts of classes and community clubs, and an access point to both electronic and print media at no charge. Yet, for all of the changes, the modern library at its core for many remains an irreplaceable and magical place of exploration and refuge in the Google Age, a feeling perfectly captured in Orlean's Library Book.
Orlean, Susan. (2018). The Library Book. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Friday, February 1, 2019
Book Review: Jeffrey A. Engel & et al.'s "Impeachment"
Impeachment. The dreaded "I"-word. It is a term bandied about frequently enough in today's 24/7 news climate to drive one insane, yet whose seriousness has been somewhat diluted in today's partisan political climate, with negative connotations of hyper-partisanship when contemplated by the party not in power. Yet, it has only been brought forward formally three times in our nation's 242 years of existence, making it a rare occurrence. How did this rarely-used mechanism come about? In what contexts were the first three impeachments invoked, and what can these cases tell us about our current moment? Four scholars and journalists (Jeffrey A. Engel, Jon Meacham, Timothy Naftali and Peter Baker) present three case studies in an attempt to answer this question in their 2018 treatise Impeachment: An American History.
We may think that we have a monopoly on moments of national crisis nowadays, but that is hardly true. Often, the contexts in which the three motions of impeachment were passed were similar moments of national vulnerability. The same goes with the circumstances under which impeachment was first devised in the Constitutional Convention of 1787. An overwhelming and understandable distrust of any centralization of power after the Revolutionary War had left the nation no more than a thirteen-part confederacy, with the federal government unable to keep order, collect tax revenues, oversee commerce and the national defense, let alone govern effectively (most everything required three-fourths of the states to agree in order to pass in the legislature). The colonial powers circled around the young United States, sensing weakness in the new republic, adding to the Founders' fears that any potential future leader could be unduly swayed by a foreign power to the detriment of the country.
After much debate, a new constitution was devised, establishing a system of three separate and co-equal legislative, judicial, and executive branches, which had various checks on the others to keep them in line. Embedded into this document was the impeachment mechanism we know today, only to be used in cases when the president was found guilty of "treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors," enough to warrant an expedited remedy rather than waiting for an electoral one in dealing with a potential tyrant (Engel et al., 2018, p. 44). Therefore, to the Founders, a strong executive was needed to govern by enforcing the will of the legislative (and indirectly the judicial) branch, but needn't be tempted to consolidate even more powers from other branches. Together with the checks and balances between the three branches and the safety valve of impeachment, the Founders believed they had found the needed governance model for their new republic to flourish long-term. They hoped that no one would have to use impeachment, but it nevertheless remained an option when electoral and other methods had failed.
To begin with the first case of Andrew Johnson, the nation was just barely emerging from the destruction of the Civil War and the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, which put the latter's Reconstruction policies in jeopardy. Serving initially as vice-president on Lincoln's Republican ticket in order to shore up support with Southern whites (largely supportive of the then Democratic Party), Johnson's actions and policies (many of them done with racist overtones) as president soon alienated congressional Republicans so much that they brought a case of impeachment formally against him in 1868. This case largely involved technicalities, with Johnson accused of violating a (dubiously) constitutional piece of legislation known as the Tenure of Office Act over a questionable attorney general appointment. The case did not make it past the Senate, however, failing to meet the somewhat subjective bar of "high crimes and misdemeanors" or a pattern of serious criminal activity (Engel et al., 2018, p. 44).
A vague case, void of specifics, largely motivated by political animus rather than specific legal violations, Johnson's case would inform the careful, bipartisan case of abuse of executive powers assembled by the House Judicial Committee chairman, Peter Rodino, between 1972-1974. The largely airtight, detailed case succeeded in pushing Nixon to resign in 1974 when it was revealed that Nixon threw the Constitution underneath the bus in covering up the break-in to the Democratic National Committee's Watergate headquarters. This spectacle of corruption only served to feed the national unease over Vietnam at the time, where both cases seemed to demonstrate an administration mostly concerned with political survival over national well-being.
While the impeachment cases brought against Johnson and Nixon made it only so far as the House and Senate respectively, President Bill Clinton would survive a House vote on impeachment after winning the battle over his sexual misconduct (and his lying about it) in the court of public opinion. Again, like Johnson's case, Clinton's acquittal came about, arguably, over the overtly partisan nature of the proceedings rather than any specific, detailed enumeration of serious corruption. It was reasoned that yes, Clinton's conduct was terrible and lying about it didn't help, but his actions weren't an overt danger to the republic.
What then does this mean for the elephant in the room in President Trump? The erudite and heavily researched Impeachment leaves readers with an uncertain picture, hinting that the success of Robert Mueller's Russia investigation may ultimately hinge on a Rodino-like method of meticulous and bipartisan case-building, clearly connecting the president to serious crimes against the country like corruption, bribery, or even collusion with a foreign power in order to boost his electoral prospects. Can the nation and our representatives assemble the bipartisan trust needed in these kinds of investigations and subsequent (potential) impeachment hearings in today's divided times? Stay tuned.
Works Cited:
Engel, Jeffrey A., Meacham, Jon, Naftali, Timothy, & Baker, Peter. (2018). Impeachment: An American History. New York: Random House.
We may think that we have a monopoly on moments of national crisis nowadays, but that is hardly true. Often, the contexts in which the three motions of impeachment were passed were similar moments of national vulnerability. The same goes with the circumstances under which impeachment was first devised in the Constitutional Convention of 1787. An overwhelming and understandable distrust of any centralization of power after the Revolutionary War had left the nation no more than a thirteen-part confederacy, with the federal government unable to keep order, collect tax revenues, oversee commerce and the national defense, let alone govern effectively (most everything required three-fourths of the states to agree in order to pass in the legislature). The colonial powers circled around the young United States, sensing weakness in the new republic, adding to the Founders' fears that any potential future leader could be unduly swayed by a foreign power to the detriment of the country.
After much debate, a new constitution was devised, establishing a system of three separate and co-equal legislative, judicial, and executive branches, which had various checks on the others to keep them in line. Embedded into this document was the impeachment mechanism we know today, only to be used in cases when the president was found guilty of "treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors," enough to warrant an expedited remedy rather than waiting for an electoral one in dealing with a potential tyrant (Engel et al., 2018, p. 44). Therefore, to the Founders, a strong executive was needed to govern by enforcing the will of the legislative (and indirectly the judicial) branch, but needn't be tempted to consolidate even more powers from other branches. Together with the checks and balances between the three branches and the safety valve of impeachment, the Founders believed they had found the needed governance model for their new republic to flourish long-term. They hoped that no one would have to use impeachment, but it nevertheless remained an option when electoral and other methods had failed.
To begin with the first case of Andrew Johnson, the nation was just barely emerging from the destruction of the Civil War and the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, which put the latter's Reconstruction policies in jeopardy. Serving initially as vice-president on Lincoln's Republican ticket in order to shore up support with Southern whites (largely supportive of the then Democratic Party), Johnson's actions and policies (many of them done with racist overtones) as president soon alienated congressional Republicans so much that they brought a case of impeachment formally against him in 1868. This case largely involved technicalities, with Johnson accused of violating a (dubiously) constitutional piece of legislation known as the Tenure of Office Act over a questionable attorney general appointment. The case did not make it past the Senate, however, failing to meet the somewhat subjective bar of "high crimes and misdemeanors" or a pattern of serious criminal activity (Engel et al., 2018, p. 44).
A vague case, void of specifics, largely motivated by political animus rather than specific legal violations, Johnson's case would inform the careful, bipartisan case of abuse of executive powers assembled by the House Judicial Committee chairman, Peter Rodino, between 1972-1974. The largely airtight, detailed case succeeded in pushing Nixon to resign in 1974 when it was revealed that Nixon threw the Constitution underneath the bus in covering up the break-in to the Democratic National Committee's Watergate headquarters. This spectacle of corruption only served to feed the national unease over Vietnam at the time, where both cases seemed to demonstrate an administration mostly concerned with political survival over national well-being.
While the impeachment cases brought against Johnson and Nixon made it only so far as the House and Senate respectively, President Bill Clinton would survive a House vote on impeachment after winning the battle over his sexual misconduct (and his lying about it) in the court of public opinion. Again, like Johnson's case, Clinton's acquittal came about, arguably, over the overtly partisan nature of the proceedings rather than any specific, detailed enumeration of serious corruption. It was reasoned that yes, Clinton's conduct was terrible and lying about it didn't help, but his actions weren't an overt danger to the republic.
What then does this mean for the elephant in the room in President Trump? The erudite and heavily researched Impeachment leaves readers with an uncertain picture, hinting that the success of Robert Mueller's Russia investigation may ultimately hinge on a Rodino-like method of meticulous and bipartisan case-building, clearly connecting the president to serious crimes against the country like corruption, bribery, or even collusion with a foreign power in order to boost his electoral prospects. Can the nation and our representatives assemble the bipartisan trust needed in these kinds of investigations and subsequent (potential) impeachment hearings in today's divided times? Stay tuned.
Works Cited:
Engel, Jeffrey A., Meacham, Jon, Naftali, Timothy, & Baker, Peter. (2018). Impeachment: An American History. New York: Random House.
Friday, January 11, 2019
Book Review: Bradley Hope and Tom Wright's "Billion Dollar Whale"
What is it about stories like The Great Gatsby, Crazy Rich Asians, The Wolf of Wall Street, Bad Blood and Bernie Madoff that draw us in? Is it the rags-to-riches narrative that underlies the material excesses? Rather, is it the voyeur's look into a world of the ultra-rich, where the stories of gluttonous consumption, debauchery, and greed provide us a simultaneously scandalous and shocking portrait of a seemingly fantastic life that seems normal to them? Either way, these stories have become part of American culture, despite the 2008 recession and the Bernie Madoffs of the world, for better or ill. Further blurring fiction and reality is the real-life story of Jho Low, a Malaysian financier who became a billionaire by engaging in a fraud of mind-boggling, global proportions via the overseeing of the multi-billion dollar Malaysian sovereign wealth fund known as 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB). Wall Street Journal journalists Bradley Hope and Tom Wright chronicle the unlikely rise of this real-life Gatsby in Billion Dollar Whale: The Man Who Fooled Wall Street, Hollywood, and the World (2018).
Before 1MDB, Jho Low started off as a Wharton graduate from a moderately wealthy family in the Malaysian coastal state of Penang, a former British colonial outpost. Heir to a modest garment fortune, he aspired to more, the lifestyles of the uber-rich Americans, Asians, Europeans and Middle Easterners he rubbed elbows with during his education. How would he achieve the glamor and glitz he so desired? First, it involved cultivation of the powerful. In this case, who you know seems to override what you know, especially in the world of 21st century finance. Low worked minor deals, positioning himself as a fixer, giving the appearance of his wealth by his ties with powerful benefactors, like Abu Dhabi royalty and Saudi Arabian financiers. It would be United Arab Emirates ambassador to the United States Yousef Al Otaiba that would provide the in to Low's eventual and nearly $5 billion 1MDB heist. After his early success in 2009 as middle-man to the Iskandar Land Project, an ambitious development project that aspired to give Malaysia a financial hub to rival that of Singapore. His Middle Eastern contacts introduced Low to Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak, who'd become Low's primary patron as the 1MDB scam took shape.
Purporting to be a vehicle for strategic development and economic prosperity, 1MDB raised $10 billion dollars from investors all over the world. Then, around $5 billion went missing, gradually, partly to finance the prime minister's political funds and his family's lavish lifestyle and the rest to Low and his associates for their outrageous parties costing many times over in one night of extravagance what many families make in a year or many years (or a lifetime). How were the banks fooled? While the financial minutiae are dense throughout Billion Dollar Whale, lending credence to the authoritative nature of the account built on three years of investigative work, it ultimately came down to a complex stream of arcane transactions made between offshore shell companies (of Panama Papers fame), the accounts of Low's family and associates, and 1MDB that gave the appearance that 1MDB had the funds to pay its bills when the funds were actually nearly non-existent. The fund was really in the red, but for the scheme to continue, needed to convince investors that they were financially stable. So when bank compliance departments, whether with Goldman Sachs or BSI Singapore raised questions about these transfers, Low was able to weigh in with the help of his contacts, giving the illusory weight of a legitimate Middle Eastern fund or other business entity to the transaction to ease bank jitters over the shady documentation provided.
In 2014, the first reports of financial malfeasance of 1MDB began to emerge, with more following as Low became sloppy in disguising his suspicious and bold transfers through major banking institutions. The scope of investigations in Switzerland, Malaysia, the United States and elsewhere widened enough, scooping up Low's associates left and right, bringing down even the Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak and his family when he was voted out in May 2018 despite strongman tactics of intimidation and killings targeting the opposition in Malaysia and Low's use of a PR firm to burnish his image as a generous philanthropist to counter the negative publicity. As of today, Jho Low remains on the loose and the financial repercussions of the staggering debt on Malaysia's economy are beginning to be felt, even as the U.S. Justice Department continues its wide-ranging investigation into this massive instance of financial fraud.
What then, is the main message to take away from Billion Dollar Whale? While we may have shored up the kind of risky lending that caused the Great Recession, new unregulated vehicles have emerged (offshore accounts and cryptocurrency), combining with the traditional impetus of profit-making and a greatly interconnected (and unequal) global economy. This is dangerous ground, when individuals and companies play fast and loose with the rules and gamble with the future of the international financial system and the financial regulatory frameworks used to hold them to account are being weakened (Dodd-Frank, anyone?). Whether or not Low's offshore account-driven scheme will become the new model for aspiring frauds out there, Bradley and Hope's Billion Dollar Whale nonetheless makes the case for tighter regulatory oversight of financial institutions.
Works Cited:
Hope, Bradley, & Wright, Tom. (2018). Billion Dollar Whale: The Man Who Fooled Wall Street, Hollywood, and the World. New York: Hachette Books.
Before 1MDB, Jho Low started off as a Wharton graduate from a moderately wealthy family in the Malaysian coastal state of Penang, a former British colonial outpost. Heir to a modest garment fortune, he aspired to more, the lifestyles of the uber-rich Americans, Asians, Europeans and Middle Easterners he rubbed elbows with during his education. How would he achieve the glamor and glitz he so desired? First, it involved cultivation of the powerful. In this case, who you know seems to override what you know, especially in the world of 21st century finance. Low worked minor deals, positioning himself as a fixer, giving the appearance of his wealth by his ties with powerful benefactors, like Abu Dhabi royalty and Saudi Arabian financiers. It would be United Arab Emirates ambassador to the United States Yousef Al Otaiba that would provide the in to Low's eventual and nearly $5 billion 1MDB heist. After his early success in 2009 as middle-man to the Iskandar Land Project, an ambitious development project that aspired to give Malaysia a financial hub to rival that of Singapore. His Middle Eastern contacts introduced Low to Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak, who'd become Low's primary patron as the 1MDB scam took shape.
Purporting to be a vehicle for strategic development and economic prosperity, 1MDB raised $10 billion dollars from investors all over the world. Then, around $5 billion went missing, gradually, partly to finance the prime minister's political funds and his family's lavish lifestyle and the rest to Low and his associates for their outrageous parties costing many times over in one night of extravagance what many families make in a year or many years (or a lifetime). How were the banks fooled? While the financial minutiae are dense throughout Billion Dollar Whale, lending credence to the authoritative nature of the account built on three years of investigative work, it ultimately came down to a complex stream of arcane transactions made between offshore shell companies (of Panama Papers fame), the accounts of Low's family and associates, and 1MDB that gave the appearance that 1MDB had the funds to pay its bills when the funds were actually nearly non-existent. The fund was really in the red, but for the scheme to continue, needed to convince investors that they were financially stable. So when bank compliance departments, whether with Goldman Sachs or BSI Singapore raised questions about these transfers, Low was able to weigh in with the help of his contacts, giving the illusory weight of a legitimate Middle Eastern fund or other business entity to the transaction to ease bank jitters over the shady documentation provided.
In 2014, the first reports of financial malfeasance of 1MDB began to emerge, with more following as Low became sloppy in disguising his suspicious and bold transfers through major banking institutions. The scope of investigations in Switzerland, Malaysia, the United States and elsewhere widened enough, scooping up Low's associates left and right, bringing down even the Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak and his family when he was voted out in May 2018 despite strongman tactics of intimidation and killings targeting the opposition in Malaysia and Low's use of a PR firm to burnish his image as a generous philanthropist to counter the negative publicity. As of today, Jho Low remains on the loose and the financial repercussions of the staggering debt on Malaysia's economy are beginning to be felt, even as the U.S. Justice Department continues its wide-ranging investigation into this massive instance of financial fraud.
What then, is the main message to take away from Billion Dollar Whale? While we may have shored up the kind of risky lending that caused the Great Recession, new unregulated vehicles have emerged (offshore accounts and cryptocurrency), combining with the traditional impetus of profit-making and a greatly interconnected (and unequal) global economy. This is dangerous ground, when individuals and companies play fast and loose with the rules and gamble with the future of the international financial system and the financial regulatory frameworks used to hold them to account are being weakened (Dodd-Frank, anyone?). Whether or not Low's offshore account-driven scheme will become the new model for aspiring frauds out there, Bradley and Hope's Billion Dollar Whale nonetheless makes the case for tighter regulatory oversight of financial institutions.
Works Cited:
Hope, Bradley, & Wright, Tom. (2018). Billion Dollar Whale: The Man Who Fooled Wall Street, Hollywood, and the World. New York: Hachette Books.
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