Blog
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On studying in China
Later this afternoon I leave for the People’s Republic to start my first of two semesters at Peking University, close to Beijing’s beautiful Summer Palace in the northwest. While I like to kid that I look forward most of all to the food, I will also enjoy the opportunity to study and learn about China. But coming to China from Europe, where you cannot help but be exposed to all sorts of stereotypes, assumptions, and truisms, it might be healthy to reflect a bit on how exactly I will study there before I leave.
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Carving up the Girdle of Emerald: colonialism’s violent cleavages
The evil of colonialism is not expressed in a sum of its benefits and downsides. These debates over British railways in India and economic development miss the point of colonialism entirely. Colonialism is violence. It is not just that it entails violence as an inevitable product of its system, colonialism itself is an act of epistemic violence. Colonies require colonial subjects, which needs a cleavage to separate the humans from the lesser creatures. In my Dutch primary school our teacher would illustrate history class with the school’s antique school prints. They piqued my interest in East Asia, but in hindsight they…
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Is China trying use the COC to beef up its Article 281 defence?
Besides ‘we do not accept,’ another legal argument China used to argue that the Philippines case before An Arbitral Tribunal under Annex VII of UNCLOS was inadmissible was that the 2002 Declaration on the Conduct of Parties (DOC) in the South China Sea prevented arbitration as per UNCLOS Article 281. This article states that if states have agreed on a way to settle the dispute, no case can be brought in that area. However, the tribunal quashed the reasoning that the DOC prevents it from judging in this case in its award on admissibility of 29 October 2015. Following the frenzy after the…
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Section 377A is racist
Former High Court of Australia Justice Michael Kirby once termed the sodomy offence ‘England’s Least Lovely Criminal Law Export.’ Much has been said about this nefarious side-effect of the supposed rule of law exported throughout the British Empire in the form of Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code. There is a certain irony in seeing non-Western leaders defending this colonial law implementing colonial values as protecting local tradition against pernicious Westernisation. However, noticing this irony also directs the observer to something often missed in discussions of the prohibition of ‘carnal intercourse against the order of nature’ between consenting men: it is…
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The argument for democracy is its mediocrity
Any review of the argument for democracy as the best form of governance as a matter of tradition starts with Churchill’s citation in the House of Commons of the quote that Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others. I oblige. Its popularity shows how wary many people have become of democracy. Gone is the faith of Enlightenment that the sublime wisdom of the people would lead us to a glorious future once education would have been sufficiently perfected. Instead a disenchanted Churchill-like the-alternatives-are-worse attitude has taken hold of an elite that vaguely remembers being told that democracy is morally superior, but is…
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Closed meritocracy in a segregated Dutch society
It must have been a news article on the occasion of a report from the Netherlands Institute for Social Research (Sociaal en Cultureel Planbureau; SCP) where I read this interesting observation: the Dutch upper class is both very open and closed. This outwardly nonsensical statement could be rephrased by saying that the Netherlands has ‘closed meritocracy’. It is very possible to join the elite, but once you have been allocated to a group, the borders close. Subsequently, there is very little interaction amongst the different groups. This is the direct consequence of the Dutch educational system. Our school system in the Netherlands…
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Reis door Korea: de laatste weken van de zomer
Voor ik vertrok naar Korea beloofde ik hier om niet zo’n typische reisblogger te worden die elk wissewasje met het thuisfront deelt. Daarin ben ik geslaagd: ik heb in Korea welgeteld één blogbericht geschreven. Gefeliciteerd! Maar ik denk dat ze thuis toch wel ietsje meer hadden willen horen. Daarom, nu ik in een kleine maand al weer terug vlieg naar Nederland, een overzichtje van waar ik me zoal mee bezig heb gehouden in de afgelopen maanden. Eerst de zomer! Suncheon Toen ik mijn laatste teken van leven gaf, was ik nog maar net begonnen met mijn rondreis door het land. Dat…
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Drie weken Seoel, Jeonju, Gongju
Inmiddels drie weken en drie dagen geleden landde ik voor de eerste keer in Korea. Wat volgde was een drukke tijd vol met paleizen en musea. Na afgelopen vrijdag afscheid te hebben genomen van een reisgenoot en een weekeinde bijkomen van de stadse drukte in het rustige Gongju, kom ik er nu eindelijk aan toe iets te schrijven over wat ik zoal heb meegemaakt. Het grootste deel van de afgelopen tijd was ik natuurlijk in Seoel, vanaf mijn aankomst op 17 juli tot de reis naar Jeonju vorige week dinsdag. Seoel is een indrukwekkende stad met zoveel te zien en…
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Onderweg naar Korea
Morgenochtend vroeg vertrek ik via Frankfurt naar Seoel, voor uitwisseling aan de Universiteit van Korea. Daarvoor heb ik eerst heb een dikke vijf weken om het land te leren kennen. Het beloven vijf interessante maanden te worden! Net als mijn reis naar Hangzhou van vorige zomer wil ik ook deze keer mijn blog bijhouden voor de thuisblijvers en de andere geïnteresseerden. Ik zal proberen het leuk te houden door er zo min mogelijk een droog reisdagboek van te maken – met die details kan ik thuis wel lastig vallen via Skype of de mail – en in plaats vooral het land…
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Ironies of history captured in photo
The above picture shows the delegation of the Dutch prime minister, who is currently on a trade mission in Indonesia, meeting with their Indonesia hosts inside the Presidential Palace in Jakarta. The irony here is that Merdeka Palace—named after the slogan of the Indonesia struggle for independence, ‘freedom’—was built as Paleis Koningsplein, the residence of the governor-general of the Dutch East Indies. Where now hang portraits of former presidents, once were the solemn gazes of Dutch kings caught in paint. The very red and blue flag standing proudly in this room stands for everything that was prosecuted from here. The…