Saturday, December 22, 2007

Voltaire's Candide

Candide is a symbol of optimism and loyalty. Voltaire described his young hero, Candide and friends in a very interesting way through a series of journeys and misfortunes. From the beginning of the story, Candide has faced a lot of tortures and tragedies, starting from him being kicked out from the Baron’s mansion for kissing his daughter, Lady Cunégonde.

From then on, he is destined only to meet torments and agonies, but that doesn’t make him give up his hope in life. “Things cannot be other than they are, for since everything was made for a purpose, it follows that everything is made for the best purpose.” That was taught by his tutor, Dr. Pangloss, and that what makes his optimism stays alive in facing all the tortures he has faced in life.

In this book, Voltaire is not only trying to build optimistic mind in coping with the burden of life, reflected by the incessant suffering, from natural disasters and illnesses to man-made wars, he also presents a story of love searching and loyalty. The optimistic taught from his tutor, not only making him survive from a series of bad lucks and harassments, it also gives him strength to put all his efforts to find and marry the love of his life, Lady Cunégonde.

Candide’s love and loyalty to Lady Cunégonde can be seen when, among all calamities he faced, Candide and his companion, Cacambo finally arrives in a beautiful place called Eldorado, where the king and the people are so nice and friendly. A place endowed with gold nuggets, emeralds and rubies, so rich of them that the people don’t have to be cruel and greedy to be rich.

Having finally found a friendly and wonderful place to live doesn’t make Candide decide to stay there forever. Spending a month at the King’s palace, not a day passed without Candide saying to Cacambo: “It is quite true, my good fellow, that the house where I was born won’t beat comparison with the mansions of this country; but still, I shall never be happy without Lady Cunégonde….” And so, they decide to leave the country and continue searching for Candide’s love. They are willing to sacrifice their beautiful, safe place and be ready to face more difficulties for the sake of finding the loved one.

For a classic literature, this book is quite easy to digest. It has good plot flowing smoothly from one journey to another, one torturing experience to another. Voltaire also brilliantly presents Candide’s companions differently in most of the journeys. Each companion shows different wisdom and, sometimes, wittiness.

I highly recommend this book for it is really a book of unflinching optimism, sacrifice and loyalty. By reading it, an optimistic feeling inside your heart and mind will grow. It will help you optimistically see that any obstacles in love and life are not there for nothing, as everything is made for the best purpose.

Friday, December 21, 2007

Tropical rainforest: national property vs. global common

Tropical rainforests play a very significant role in supporting life on earth. It provides protection to soil stability and hydrology, water supply, climate, and the efficient cycle between soil and vegetation. Moreover, rainforests have a rich biodiversity, containing animals, herbs plants, which are of importance to genetic material, new crops and medicine. Also, from economics point of view, tropical rainforests perform a key role by producing industrial products such as rubber, tropical timber, and a wide range of oils, resins and waxes.

Considering the important role of tropical rainforests, it is deemed necessary to protect the rainforest from destruction. There are two types of forest destruction, namely forest degradation and deforestation Forest degradation refers to changes in forest quality and occurs when the species diversity and the biomass are significantly reduced through unsustainable forms of forest utilization. Another type of forest destruction, namely deforestation, occurs when a forest is cleared to give way to another use of the land.

Deforestation emerged as an international issue during the 1980s and it has been firmly established as global concerns from 1990 up to now. International attention for tropical rainforests has risen due to the concern that ongoing deforestation has global effects such as global warming and loss of biodiversity. Thus, it requires global action, which can be in the form of international cooperation, to solve the problem. Unfortunately, the process of finding solution for deforestation is hindered with arguments between environmental nationalism and the international community’s desire to protect the forests.

One of the basic problematic dimensions of forest conservation is the proprietary dimension, which leads to the competing claim over world’s forests. There are three competing claims exist, namely the acknowledgement of forests as global commons, national resources, and as local commons. The latter is claimed by local people, especially indigenous people, and mainly become the focus of international NGO, which asserts that forests belong to local people. The most problematic issue that raise debates between governments in developed and developing countries in international forum is the competing claims between forests as a global common and as a national resource. Many actors, who mainly come from the developed countries concerned about the global effects of forest destruction, incline towards asserting forest as a global common. On the contrary, the governments of the developing countries resist such claim and assert a counter claim stating that forests, under the state’s sovereignty, are a national resource to be used in line with national policy. Thus, the different point of view over the claim of forests hampers the international cooperation for forest conservation.

Before further discussing the different arguments on world’s forests claim in international arena, it is necessary to recognise what global commons and national property are. Global commons can be defined as the areas or resources that do not or cannot by their very nature fall under sovereign jurisdiction. The benefits from the exploitation of such resources should be shared by all states, which presumably distributed to the people, regardless of the state’s participation in resource extraction. The resources include in this definition are the oceans and deep seabed, Antarctica, space and the atmosphere, because those areas are beyond state sovereignty. Sovereignty can be defined as the legal doctrine that states have supreme authority to govern their internal affairs and manage their foreign relations with other states and IGOs. Thus, forests as a national resource means that it is the property of an individual state, on which state has the right to exclude others from the forest and from decisions affecting the future of the forest.

Starting from those definition, environmental nationalism, which is represented by developing countries, argues that forests should not be claimed as a global common because it certainly fall under the jurisdiction of sovereign state. Therefore, the management and utilisation of forests should be in line with national policy. The argument is also backed up with the widely accepted concept of state sovereignty over their natural resources in the 1970s. In fact, the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment held at Stockholm in 1972 combined this right with the responsibility of states to avoid transboundary environmental damage, which is reflected in Stockholm Principle 21.

The Stockholm Principle 21 is widely accepted so that it will be difficult for the claimants of forests as a global common to dispute national sovereignty over forests resources. Alternatively, members of the international community, mostly from developed countries, try to redefine the nature of sovereignty in two ways. Firstly, they redefine the traditional territorial definition of forests into functional definition. Forests perform global functions by providing biodiversity, carbon sinks, wildlife and beauty. All the benefits and losses occurred from such functions will affect all countries, not just those with forests. Hence, the international community has a stake in the conservation of the world’s forests. Secondly, the nature of state sovereignty over forests is challenged with the moral argument stating that it is important to preserve forest for the common good of humanity, considering its effects in global scale.

The case of contradicting arguments between forests as national resources and as global commons can be seen in the debates on Amazonian rainforest in Brazil. The international community believes that the Amazonian rainforest is a public good for its destruction can significantly diminish the quality of life through massive soil erosion, sedimentation, floods, hydrologic cycle problems, desertification and the release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Amazonian deforestation also leads to loss of species of animals and plants peculiar to the rainforest as their habitats, as well as to the depletion of goods supply important to mankind. The international community claims that the Amazonian destruction has damaging effects on the welfare of human being, therefore, it becomes the international responsibility to conserve the natural resources of Amazonia.

Responding to the international community’s claim, Brazil invokes the principle of non-intervention, which is prohibiting one state from interfering in another state’s internal affairs and emphasises its sovereignty right over its natural resource to be determined in line with the national needs. Brazilian government argues that it needs to exploit the Amazonia to meet the basic needs of its increasing poor majority, satisfy the energy needs of its booming population, find export goods for the international market and expand its industrial sector. Nevertheless, Brazilian government points out its willingness to stop the destruction of the rainforest.

In supporting the argument to assert national sovereignty over the forest resources, developing countries point out the relationships between deforestation and the needs for development to erode poverty and national debt. Besides, developing countries alleges the assertion of forests as global commons proposed by developed countries are just their instruments to take control of the resources for their own interests. Tropical forest produce has been of vital importance to the development of Western industries. The future development of Western medicine is clearly heavily dependent on the tropical forests. The development of disease resistant, or more productive and adaptable strains, is dependent on the availability of fresh genetic material, where can only be found in tropical forests as the sole source of such material.

In 1992, the results of the UNCED negotiations regarding forests convention gave benefits to developing countries. The Forest Principles and Chapter 11 of Agenda 21 reaffirmed the rights of sovereign nations to utilise their forests in accordance with their national priorities and policy objectives. Nevertheless, developed countries do not give up their efforts to assert the global responsibility approach in order to form a legally binding regime on global forests, which is reflected on the emerging of several international initiatives on forest conservation, following the failure of the UNCED to produce a global forest convention.

By observing the explained arguments above, it is difficult to refuse the fact that forests are national resources that fall under national jurisdiction. Forest countries have the sovereign right to manage and utilise its forests in accordance with its national policy. Nevertheless, considering the functions of forests and the effects of deforestation that go beyond national jurisdiction, forests can also be seen as global commons. Thus, the actors involved in forest conservation should bear that idea in mind, so that the process of finding solution on deforestation is no longer focused on the proprietary dimension, but more on finding harmonious means that can give benefit developing countries in preserving its forests and in the same time, developed countries could also enjoy the functions of the forests.

Thursday, December 13, 2007

Insurance for your life

I’m the kind of person who believes that having insurance policy for me is important. I know that it seems like what a waste of money to spend every month on insurance, but actually what I’m doing is to save money on insurance.

Before deciding to purchase insurance policy, of course we need to consider insurance plans pros and cons, as well as trying to find the best insurance quotes. It’s important to do such things because we want to have the benefit of what we are paying later.

One of the benefits of having insurance can be seen, unfortunately, when we are sick and the treatment bill requires us a lot of money. That is why, health insurance is also needed not only for ourselves, but also for our loved ones. So, it is also suggested to have family insurance for the members of our family.

serba formalin

ada banyak banget jenis makanan di negeri ini yang dicampur formalin. sebegitu susahnyakah nyari duit di negeri ini sampai2 harus mencampur makanan dengan sesuatu yang berbahaya? atau emang aja orang2 itu terlahir berotak majal dan berhati dajjal?

sekarang ini aja, gimana kalau setelah penjahat2 itu ditangkapi, stok formalin yang masih ada disuntikkan aja semua ke otak orang2 itu.

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

blogsvertise for your blog

I believe it's about time I try to earn some money from my blog. And I believe blogsvertise could give what I need, that is writing some entries and earning money at the same time. Bloggers are required not only provide a little bit space in their blog, but also actively involved in promoting the advertiser's links through writing.

So, basically, once our application to join blogsvertise it approved, we will get some tasks from advertisers to write about their web sites and links it. If the writing is approved by the advertiser, blogsvertise will send the payment to our paypal account.

Having a blog developed since 2002 containing many entries and quite many visitors from the first time it's been established, I really hope that now is my turn to earn some pennies from my blog through blogsvertising.

back on track

and we're back on track. may it'll be a better track than before...

welcome back.