Alternative Perspective
 Issue 21, February 21, 2003
 Compiled by Madhukar Shukla

Introduction: Alternative Perspective is an attempt to widen our awareness about issues related to business, environment, role and influence of media, geo-politics, culture, etc. It aims to share, on a regular basis, some of those pieces of news and information, which do not find place in the highly monopolised mainstream media. Please feel free to share/ forward/ distribute this newsletter to others who may be interested.



Note: The URLs of sources used in the text are numbered and given at the end of the Newsletter.

In This Issue:
  • End of History? Or Beginning of New Struggle?
     In 1989, in the context of collapse of the communist block, Francis Fukuyama's article on The End of History[1] seemed a plausible hypothesis to explain the state of the world. The end of Cold War, Fukuyama asserted, showed the triumph of the West, and Western ideals. History, however, does not end, but keeps unfolding, and in this recent article by Fukuyama, he even wonders if the West itself is Cracking[2]
    http://www.sunspot.net/templates/misc/printstory.jsp?slug=bal%2Dte%2Ejournal02oct02

  • Ethiopia: A Case Study of Globalisation
    Narrated by economist Joseph Stiglitz, here is an inside account of Ethiopia's experience of trying to develop and globalise. For a country emerging from civil war and famine, it is an achivement to control the inflation, bring down the military spending, and check the corruption. By all logic, it should receive generous developmental aid from IMF - it didn't!!... As this story shows, the global lending institutions work with a logic, which may not always be (and often is not) conducive to a country's development.
    http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2001/10/stiglitz.htm

  • Why You can't Buy Mauritanian Camel Cheese in Europe
    In an increasingly global world, and with lowering of trade barriers, there is an ever-widening market opportunity for the local produce of less developed countries - or so we are told. This case describes the non-tarriff barriers a small Mauritanian dairy ran into, when it tried to export its produce to the European Union... recommended! extremely readable (I wrote it;0)
    http://www.geocities.com/madhukar_shukla/mauritaniancheese.html

  • Not-So-Sweet Facts about Sugar
    We take sugar for-granted in our day-to-day existence/ consumption. And yet the history of sugar - how it got transformed from being a medicine and a preservative to a commodity and a daily necessity - gives interesting insights into various inter-related issues, such as human rights, slavery, environmental issues, health, consumerism issues and its "hidden costs" to the society.
    http://www.globalissues.org/TradeRelated/Consumption/Sugar.asp

  • Brand America Project
    An objective and dispassionate (and cynical?) commentry on an idea that germinated in an article in Journal of Business Strategy: How to Conceptualize and Sell "Brand America" to those who don't like this country with the USP of 'Opportunity, Democracy and Freedom'. Since the brand promotion was to be done through "words and deeds", it runs into a problem: words are easy, but what to do about deeds?
    http://adbusters.org/magazine/45/articles/brand_america_project.html


    Other Sources Quoted in the Newsletter:
    [1]: http://www.wku.edu/~sullib/history.htm
    [2]: http://www.discussingdifferences.com/clips2/geog1226.htm


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