GRANDEUR AND MAGNIFICENCE IN ASIA’S CITIES

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Good day to my fellow global citizens!

The year had just kicked off, and we’re already witnessing the contrast in images projected in the mass media between East and West. Just notice the projections regarding urban life in each hemisphere, and you can see the differences in the images.

Asian cities have been projecting themes of cooperation, growth, exquisite city plans, 21^st century architectural wonders, and these themes were projected well despite the typical urban problems of decay (congestion, pollution, traffic jams). In contrast, those of Western cities’ projected crimes, street protests, snow storms, floods (e.g. Australia’s), and related pessimistic images.

Coming from the East makes me feel with awe and pride about the transfigurations that our own emerging markets and big cities are going through. Our economies are clearly the drivers of the world economy, our investments and treasuries in the West largely keep their economies alive, and our growth and rising middle class make for our urban accomplishments as well.

Whereas before our cities were citadels of flies, malaria, squalor, and crimes, today our big cities have mutated to model skyscrapers, exquisite urban plans with many mixed land use commercial centers, architectural wonders & cultural innovations, and multi-cultural cooperation. Peoples of the West who are truly appreciative of our feats would normally experience their jaws drop in awe over the marvels that our big cities can show to them.

Among recent depictions, I recall vividly the images of Christmas trees in malls all over Asia even in countries that are Buddhist, Hindu, and Moslem. Asian urbanites are showing the way to how a former sectarian event—the Christmas holidays—can be globalized and celebrated by every nation, race, and culture. Buddhist children in Thailand for instance showed deep fondness for Santa Claus and Christmas, so their respective schools respected their fondness and celebrated Christmas as well.

In Indonesia, Moslem workers were shown preparing the finishing touches for Christmas decors, Christmas trees, food & delicacies for the Christmas event, and related paraphernalia. Many of the exported decors from Indonesia’s Muslims reached the Philippines, with some of the Christmas lights reaching our home in suburban highlands east of Manila. China’s toys, Christmas lights, delicatessen, wines, and holiday paraphernalias made us equally happy as did the Indonesians.

Scenes of Asian cities celebrating the New Year—largely the Western New Year based on the Gregorian calendar—were well projected on television, internet, and print media. Taipei 101, the 2^nd highest building worldwide, had its equivalent scenes of pyrotechnic fireworks and revelry of people in its surrounds. Such an event happened in all the big cities of Asia, rest assured.

Beijing with its trade exposition buildings, wondrous streets, magnificent palaces, and other marvels, were among those projected in the media. The world’s largest mall is in this city, and is owned and built by the SM Group of companies of the Philippines (owned by the Sy family).

The cities of Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, Bangkok, Calcutta, Shanghai, Shenzen, Mumbai, Manila, Hong Kong, Taipei, Tokyo, Singapore, Osaka, Dubai, Abu Dhabi among others, were also projected with each one having their contributions to the grandeur of 21^st century life and the bright beginnings of 2011. Till now the very positive projections of lustrous performance and compass of the future in such cities are still being churned out in the mass media.

Contrast those images to the still prolonged floods in Australia (cities affected too), another round of snow storms in the USA, massacre in Arizona by a sociopathic young man, hundreds of deaths in Mexico (how many dead in Acapulco? Mexico city?…), continuing protests in Europe over austerity measures and rising poverty,…well, negative images dominate those reportorials about Western cities, with some images shocking and unnerving.

Before the year 2010 ended, an American lady (professional) whom I met in a social network, shared to me a videofilm of hers about “3^rd World America.” Depicting huge poverty incidence in the USA coupled with urban decay, huge income disparities between rich & poor, and deterioration of the once mighty physical economy there, the short feature film struck a cord. It amplified scenes of 3^rd world deteriorations in America at this time, degenerations that we analysts thought would take place in the next decade yet.

The film was hair raising and admittedly effective in portraying its intentions. Knowing the rapid ‘decline of the West’ (ala Spengler) that is going on in the industrialized world, I could only but hope for a reversal of degenerative trends there, trends that are likewise manifested in the negative images about the Western cities.

Maybe it’s time that Western peoples should look up to the themes and images projected by Eastern cities, watch and learn from our nascent innovations and urban marvels, and hope that the experience could help to reverse the deepening pessimism and nihilism going on in Western cities and nations.

[Philippines, 19 January 2011]

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BEIJING OLYMPICS: LAST GAMES, AS WORLD WAR III COMES

Erle Frayne Argonza

Good afternoon from Manila!

I’m sure that the euphoria of the recently concluded Beijing Olympics is still with most of us. I have no better wish for now than to see that euphoria last for a longer time, and make everyone anticipate the next games. My own country is hungry for a Gold medal, and I already said my piece about the matter (i.e. sports science can make Olympics gold medalists for us).

This note is a sports forecasting briefer. It’s not about the typical forecasting of the outcomes of specific events and the overall medals that countries can make from out of the aggregate medals—especially gold—accruing from those events. It is about the big possibility that the Beijing Olympics could be the planet’s last, that thereafter no more Olympic games will be in the offing for a long while. That London games for 2012 is a chimera, it will be cancelled most likely as London will sustain damages from the coming conflagration.

World War III is about to break out soon, and I am of the opinion that if this war will happen, it will last for at least thirty (30) years. It will be likened to the 30 Years War in Europe (1618-48), a great war that (a) totally devastated the economies of the contending war parties and (b) redefined territories along boundaries that constituted the modern nations of today (via Treaty of Westphalia). In like vein, this World War III will be concluded with a treaty that will see the disappearance of nations and the finalization of the territorial boundaries of regions-states and city-states that will replace nations-states.  

As war rages across the globe, the possibility of training athletes for the Olympics will be nil. Bankrupt or near-bankrupt states will be needing funds as logistics for its own war participation pursuits, and cannot prioritize athletics or related cultural-leisure engagements that appear to be trifle in a war situation. However, athletes and entertainers will have a great time performing before war-weary combatants during lull moments of violent confrontations.

The nearest to the Olympics games would be, if ever, regional games. These games will be performed by member-countries of regions that would be least affected by the war, or which will not serve as major warfronts. As to which regions these will be, it is not easy to forecast for the moment. The main warfront will be the Iran-Middle East area, where it will start (it is just months’ away from hereon). Other possible affected areas would be (a) North Africa (spill over area of the battles), and (b) Central Asia (former Soviet states will be polarized in their alignment). Europe would most likely see a flooding of migratory waves of Arabs, Iranians, Berbers, Central Asians, and Africans who will escape the war and move by waters and land to reach the ‘promised land’ of totalitarian Europe.

Possibly conflicts in (a) Northeast Asia and (b) between China &Taiwan will be experienced. The ASEAN and Australia-New Zealand may not turn to battle grounds, and can therefore launch friendship missions via international athletics. If South America won’t be a warfront, then perhaps the countries here can hold their own version of international games.

But most likely there will be no global athletics such as the Olympics. Ditto for specific events of world athletics, for example: WBA-WBF-WBC-IBF boxing fights, world basketball, and world soccer.  A dreary, dreadful planet this one will be when the conflagration spreads across the globe, and made dreary many times over by the lack of leisure & sports events that could pep up and lighten up the psyche of crowds.

The return of the Olympics will be contingent upon the cessation of hostilities among war parties. As to when that time will come, no one knows exactly. What is most observable is the trend that no one single world power, since after World War II, was able to win a war outside its boundaries (save for that negligible “war” calisthenics between Argentina & Britain over a non-descript island populated largely by birds and very few homo sapiens). Even today, the USA is losing in Afghanistan and Iraq, so what will make us forecast safely that the USA can win a major war anywhere in the planet…

The war will drag on for many years, taking us across the 2030s till probably 2040. That’s when some sane people, most especially the leaders of that time who will come from today’s generation of infants and school children, will declare an end to hostilities. To instill order at that time, authority will be hyper-centralized in totalitarian state formations representing (a) city-states and (c) region-states that are beholden only to (c) the totalitarian ‘technotronic’ capitalist world-state…That’s when the Olympics can be returned.

Meantime, enjoy your euphoria, and enjoy it to the max. For you will not see an Olympic game again in a very long time.

[28 August 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila]   

OLYMPICS A’BEIJING: CHINA & ASIA RISE IN ATHLETICS

Erle Frayne Argonza

Magandang araw! Good day!

Is there any other news that brightens up the world better than the latest Olympics games held at Beijing? Amid the world’s running agog in quagmires of hatred and wars, caused largely by demonic minds among the West’s oligarchy, there are still developments that enchant us even as they stir up hope in a planet that had now moved into a new Dark Age.

The latest Olympics held at Beijing deserve a plethora of praises from everyone, with the greatest accolades given to the People’s Republic of China. With excellent playing grounds nestled on an exquisite ‘bird’s nest’ structure of stunning architectural wonder, excellently organized and provided for, what else can you say of this Beijing sponsorship of the games? Only those rowdy Western Establishment media had raised an unparalleled noise to detract China from its developmental goals, a smear campaign orchestrated by who else other than the oligarchs of the West who would never want any country other than the West’s to go up the prosperity ladder. Only the Herd quacks believe in Western media black propaganda anyway.

It turned out that China performed stunningly well not only because of the superb preparations, but also because its athlete earned the top number of gold medals. Of course the oligarchic Western media has that issue of age-related protest and that uninterestingly impertinent news about the stabbing by a Chinese of a kin of a delegation from some country, and what did those largely impertinent dung earn? They never made a dent on China’s performance in the games. They only highlighted the dirt and corruption of Establishment  media generally.

For us Asians, China’s Olympic rise is very, very important. We now acknowledge that, as far as the development path is concerned, China leads the rest of the pack here in Asia. This is also true for the sports development path which China showed to be doubtlessly the leading nation. The event likewise formally signaled that China was opening its doors to the world as a great civilization once again, which revives notions of an earlier period of Middle Kingdom when a great mighty civilization opened itself up to the world. These developments are happening among the most dynamic regions of Asia by the way, and there is China to lead us here which causes elation.

To recall, there was the pestering question of supposedly polluted air in Beijing which is nothing more than Establishment media’s baloney detraction. The United Nations Environmental Planning or UNEP released a note that shows a different situation altogether: that China has been moving positively towards transforming its vehicular power needs from gas to natural gas and alternatives, greening the city altogether, and other positive moves that belie the media mogul’s and oligarchs’ noisy propaganda. The same issue of pollution, to note, were also raised in the other city venues of the past, and amid such pestering eco-fascist and media quackery, all of the games ensued in the same cities anyway.

There was also that noisy propaganda about China’s handling of Tibet. How little do people realize that the Dalai Lama of Tibet has become a pure politician, and is being handled by the British Intelligence from behind the scenes. The Tibet fiasco was largely orchestrated by operators of the British Empire, the same oligarchic circles who recently egged Georgia to practice some guzzling gun power on Russia over South Ossetia, the same oligarchs who were responsible for the destruction of Afghanistan and Iraq, the same oligarchs who orchestrated the chaotic inflationary situation of gas and grains, the same oligarchs who are now pushing for a World War III that will start with Iran’s bombing sometime late this year or next year.

Just the same, despite the slanders, fiascos, and mudslinging tirades by the Western oligarchy against China, the Beijing Olympics went on. And with China’s lead along the way, Asia’s athletes did shine somehow. This is just the start, and hopefully the Olympics can be sustained across the decades so that future generations can see the re-nascence of Asia into a powerhouse of Hope such as what Asians did in the latest Olympic feat.

So, to the organizers of the Olympics in Beijing from the side of the People’s Republic of China, cheers of victory! Hail the Middle Kingdom!

[27 August 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila]