Heroes and villains of 2011

Some of the key themes of the year – most notably the struggle of the many against the dictatorship of the few – converged in the past week.

The deaths of North Korea’s Kim Jong Il and former Czech president Vaclav Havel represent the two sides of a coin.

Kim was responsible for the world’s most repressive and self-isolated country. Yet it has played on the West’s weaknesses and built itself into a nuclear power while its much richer and powerful neighbours – South Korea, China, Japan and Russia as well as the US -- stood by and watched.

China and Russia have moved on from the Stalinist cult model but still give enough forms of support – as they do to Iran – to create confused reactions in the West. 

But Kim’s death and the handing of power down the dynastic family line to the young and unproven Kim Jong Un (or Eun) give US-based researchers Sung-Yoon Lee and Sue Terry hope that the time has come for regime change.

They note that the early stage of Kim Jong Un's rise has been marked by aggression, such as the 2010 sinking of the South Korean navy ship the Cheonan and the shelling of Yeonpyeong island.

They accuse the Western powers of allowing the Kim’s to set the rules for too long and call for firmer action in a record year for toppling dictators.

Penalties can range from extensive combined US-South Korea military exercises to reinforced interdiction operations and financial sanctions… Washington and Seoul should seize the initiative in 2012 and squeeze Pyongyang's pressure points: the need to confirm the unseasoned successor at home and extort economic concessions from abroad.

Meanwhile, for the latest events, the New York Times has this update.

Curiously, Kim the Dear Leader will mainly be missed in Hollywood: the Hollywood Reporter has unearthed these parodies, while the writers of 30 Rock have a dilemma because the last series ended with the Elizabeth Banks character being kidnapped to become North Korea’s equivalent of Lord Haw Haw.

Speaking truth to power
Few politicians deserve the accolades received by Vaclav Havel, who led the Czechs out of communism in a country stereotyped for its mood of helplessness and resignation.

But his book The Power of the Powerless, summarised in the Economist’s obituary, provides extraordinary insights into the struggle against totalitarian systems and ideology.

These are apposite today because Time magazine labelled 2011 as the year of the protester and occupier. A feature of both the Arab and westerns versions was accidental leadership and a lack of focus on objectives.

The so-called Arab Spring quickly turned nasty when the Islamists took control – much as Lenin did in Russia’s Bolshevik version of the revolution -- while in the West the Occupiers have gone or are heading home with even less to show for their protests.

Havel’s words are about the former, who were revolting against totalitarianism and not the excesses of capitalism in already-free societies.

In this revolt the [protester] steps out of living within the lie. He rejects the ritual and breaks the rules of the game. He discovers once more his suppressed identity and dignity. He gives his freedom a concrete significance. His revolt is an attempt to live within the truth. . . .

By breaking the rules of the game, he has disrupted the game as such. He has exposed it as a mere game. He has shattered the world of appearances, the fundamental pillar of the system.

He has upset the power structure by tearing apart what holds it together. He has demonstrated that living a lie is living a lie. He has broken through the exalted facade of the system and exposed the real, base foundations of power.

Signs of this are happening in the in the village of Wukan in the world’s most dictatorial superpower Havel’s example is also being followed there by other brave individuals: writer Yu Hua and artist Weiwei, among many others.

Wall Street Journal reviewer Melanie Kirkpatrick describes Yu’s latest book, China in Ten Words, as a game changer on attitudes.

It is…a wake-up call about widespread social discontent that has the potential to explode in an ugly way… If you think you know China, you will be challenged to think again. If you don't know China, you will be introduced to a country that is unlike anything you have heard from travellers or read about in the news.

Meanwhile, a new film, Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry, will screen at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. This year, he spent two-and-a-half-months in jail on vague charges of economic crimes, later paying hefty tax demands with millions of yuan from public donations.

Another film to look out for in The Lady, a biopic of Aung San Suu Kyi, whose dreams of a free Burma came closer to realisation and make her a worthy Woman of the Year.

The Most Missed Man of the Year: Steve Jobs; the Least Missed Man of the Year: Muammar Gaddafi.

His time has come
In a troubled continent that has brought the global economy to its knees through political mismanagement, I am picking the European Man to Watch is Spain’s new prime minister, Mariano Rajoy.

He was the first victim of craven European reaction to Al Qeada. In 2004, just before an election, Spanish voters dumped him in favour of socialists after Islamist terrorists bombed four trains in Madrid, killing 192. As Newsweek explains:

He accepted defeat gracefully. In 2008, he lost again after telling the blunt truth about the economic crisis, while his opponent, José Luis Rodriguez Zapa-tero, lied about the tsunami coming from Wall Street and Spain’s ability to resist the devastation.

Poll of the Year
French women’s magazine Terrafemina raised some well-plucked eyebrows when it picked Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s wife as woman of the year ahead of his successor at the IMF, Christine Lagarde.

The Daily Beast’s Leslie Bennetts contrasts the two:

Anne Sinclair is a humiliated spouse who achieved notoriety for putting up with her husband’s chronic philandering and supporting him despite charges of sexual assault in France as well as the US.

Christine Lagarde…was ranked the ninth most powerful woman in the world by Forbes magazine this year.

But Bennetts has a deeper explanation for the choice, saying Sinclair is considered the "Barbara Walters of France," one of France’s best-known journalists, the longtime host of a popular political show on the largest European private television channel and a best-selling author as well as the writer of a top political blog.

That achievement, Bennetts says, makes her worthy of the accolade and compares with that of Hillary Clinton, who now rates higher in the US than President Obama.