Tommy says…

In January 2009, I took a one-month trip to Europe, transitting for a few days at each end through China. Not having reliable access to internet, I decided to write my thoughts down – with a pen – in my little black notebook. So here they are, now twice edited and with a travel tip heading each note.

Travel tip #1: Write down travel tips as you think of them; writing them down “later” probably means you’ll forget them.

Some would define a city by a landmark building, a particular view, or, failing all else, a three-letter abbreviation.

For me, a city is first defined by its smell. When the airlock doors open at the airport, the smell of a city impresses itself even before the eye adjusts to the light outside. Whether it’s day or night, and regarldess of the weather, a city’s smell is probably its most indelible character.

In Sydney, it is the smell of a sun-burnt country overlaid with a fresh yet salty hint of the sea.

I don’t know what ingredients make up Shanghai’s odour. At a guess, it’s six parts air-borne pollutants and three parts the muddy East China Sea. To me, however, it is the pregnant hint of an exciting metropolis of 20 million souls.

Shanghai’s growth is incredible – that probably sounds cliched now. Still, I was struck by some surprise even on the fairly short journey from the airport. The futuristic wavy form of the new airport seems to have reproduced itself across the highway – in the form of a second terminal every bit as grand as the first. A maglev train zooms past alongside the highway. A giant, inverted step yramid dominates the skyline to the south – it’s the centrepiece of the 2010 World Expo site. As we ascend the great concrete rings that lead onto Lupu Bridge – Sydney Harbour Bridge magnified in concrete – I spot the new IFC, in the shape of a polygonic bottle opener.

Despite having read about and seen the building in print, I was struck by the way it dominated the Pudong skyline – and dwarfed the Oriental Pearl TV Tower, once the pride of Chinese engineering, now at a mere 284 metres tall (if my Communist-drilled memory serves) a ridiculously disproportional bulbous erection beside the IFC.

The city’s cultural life has also changed. Mandarin is even more dominantly the lingua franca. The person sitting next to you on the bus could be of any nationality. The traditional pancake-and-fried-dough breafast I grew up with is gone, replaced by a myriad of options ranging from bacon and eggs to northern Chinese fried buns – this I found out after an hour of fruitless searching one cold, cold morning.

Some things, though, have not changed. The subway announcement still says “Nexus stop” instead of “Next stop”. There are huge crowds everywhere. When I got up on a ledge to take a photo of the famous crowds on Nanjing Road, I noticed two other photographers doing exactly the same thing.

London, on the other hand, smells like grilled ribs.

Until next time,

Tommy

I passed by the Guardianship Tribunal of NSW in Balmain recently, and noticed an Indian restuarant on its ground floor – it had a massive sign saying “AIR”. Air? That’s a strange name for an Indian restaurant, I thought. Then I noticed the small writing: “All India Restaurant“, and I realised that it was a pun. Geddit? I’m guessing no.

Here’s how it works: “All India Restaurant” → A.I.R. → “All India Reports”, the most commonly used law reports series for Indian cases → law → Guardianship Tribunal. Geddit?

I like it because it’s so obscure

I was walking down the long, dark valley of the shadow of death that is Phillip Street (and not in a particularly elated mood, as you can probably tell) when I looked up, and saw – sapphire blue sky reflected in the windows of Chifley Tower, and behind, Governor Phillip Tower, its roof foils gleaming in the sun, against a brilliant sky dotted with whispy clouds. I was happy.

Sometimes, you just have to look up.

On Sunday, I submitted the last assessment for my College of Law course work. This brings to an end 15 weeks of stress, learning, and – sometimes – fun. I’m glad to say that my thousands of dollars in accrued debt has not gone to waste. I made some great friends, learned a great deal, and now have the slightly dubious boast that my best subject at College was trust accounting.

In two weeks’ time I will face a much more momentous ending. It will be my last exam, and the end of six years of university. What lies ahead? Life, career, mortgages, “real life” as I like to call it, away from the comfortable cocoon of school. It’s been a great journey, with twists and turns; moments of intense emotion as well as pure carefree joy; times when I wished the world would just disappear, and moments that I wished would last forever. To those who have been most important for me – and you know who you are, hopefully – thank you, and I am thinking of you right now.

The present blends quickly into the future. Next Monday, I begin my final seven weeks of work experience towards qualification as a lawyer – even before I do my final exam. This leads, in the blink of an eye, to full time work in February (and hopefully, an admission ceremony in the same month). My life is rolling ahead, and I’d better start jogging to keep up.

Unfortunately, I am at my most prolific when I should be studying for exams. All four of them in the next four days, to be precise.

I happened upon the Wikipedia article on family dictatorships - and the related articles on dynasties and political families – and found it in a most unsatisfactory state. I’ve edited it, but it’s got me thinking. When does a political dynasty turn into a family dictatorship, and when is a family dictatorship a monarchy?

The first difference seems to usually involve a value judgment as to the quality of the political system. If the country is democratic, as in the US, then the passage of a position from father to son creates a “political dynasty”, while if the country is judged to be a dictatorship, then this is a family dictatorship. I say “value judgment”, because clearly this is not a question of law. Many “dictatorships” have very nicely whitewashed constitutions and hold regular elections. Often, the boundary can be hard to define. Is Singapore a political dictatorship or merely a political family?

The latter difference also is not one strictly of laws and institutions. In a monarchy, the crown passes within the family by force of law. However, some family dictatorships also enshrine their succession by laws designating the dictator’s heir.

It seems to me that the conditions for consituting a string of leaders from the same family as a family dictatorship are something like this:

1. No general law of hereditary succession. If a regime adheres to a general law of hereditary succession, then regardless of how the leadership is named, it is a hereditary monarchy and not merely a dictatorship. This is a maximum threshold. Anything falling short of this can be a family dictatorship. This covers a broad spectrum of institutional positions. A state may enact an ad hoc law designating the leader’s proginy as the legal successor; or it may hold elections (as to which, see below); or it may simply in practice treat the successor as the new leader. An example of the last is Kim Jong-il, whose position, the chair of the National Defence Commission, was simply declared to be the highest office of the land by government propaganda after the death of his father as the President. Since the younger Kim is not the President, he needed not be elected and is under no constitutional obligation to present himself to the electorate either.
2. Use of political, not “soft” power. A family dictatorship is first and foremost a dictatorship. This means that the regime enacts its policies, including succession policy, by the use of politcal powers as represented by instruments of state. This is a minimum threshold. Thus, a regime that holds free and fair elections, but in which one family, because of the informal power and influence accrued to it, continues to hold political office, is not a family dictatorship. Thus, no matter how many Bushes are elected to the Presidency, the US is not a family dictatorship. The Bushes would achieve disproportionate success because of their economic power and informal influence, rather than control over state apparatus. By contrast, Singapore is arguably a family dictatorship. The (indirect) hereditary succession was instituted through the regime’s control over the country’s political process, which itself is maintained by relaxed separation of powers, the enactment of laws that hamper dissent, and using the law to force dissidents into bankruptcy, jail, or exile.

Family dictatorships share attributes with other forms of government. One is the non-transparent selection of a successor. The selection and cultivation of a successor usually involves the interplay of forces within the regime, and can often be highly personal. It is often highly uncertain, with successors falling in and out of favour over a long period of time. To a greater or lesser extent, the same process is found in all but the most transparent of systems. The second is the “grooming” of a successor. In order to attain either authority within the regime, or a veil of legitimacy in the eyes of the public, the successor is carefully planted in various positions to attain experience, often with a cult of personality built up around that experience. Such a process is also found across authoritarian regimes and in hereditary monarchies. One scene which I found curiously apt during the Olympics was that Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping was chosen to meet with all the visiting Crown Princes – as heir apparents, the selection ensured reciprocity. (A vice presidency does not equal heirdom apparent in China. Since each president now serves for two terms, the first term vice president is a holdover minder from the previous administration, and the second term vice president is the designated successor.)

Since I can’t think of any particularly nice pictures to put in here, enjoy these two Youtube videos:

A day in the life of the Prince of Wales: Part 1 

and

Dear Leader Kim Jung-il is the People’s Inspiration

Is the Great Wall of China lawful at international law in light of the International Court of Justice’s Advisory Opinion on the Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall? Discuss.