La tesi tratta del rapporto tra Cina e India, i due giganti asiatici che stanno vivendo una relazione in continuo divenire, complicata dalle irrisolte questioni di confine e dalla condizione dei propri cittadini, stretti tra il controllo delle nascite e la mancanza di diritti civili e sociali. I due Paesi dal passato talvolta analogo, dal presente di contrasto e di collaborazione, stanno dettando le nuove regole dell'economia, della politica e della tecnologia mondiali, all'interno del Pianeta Cindia che sembra costituirsi. I rapporti con gli Stati Uniti, con il Giappone, con i Paesi dell'ASEAN e quelli del continente africano ricchi di materie prime, contribuiscono a delineare un futuro che, per il momento, appare ancora incerto. This thesis is about the relationship between China and India, the two Asian giants living a relation that is always changing, made more difficult by not solved border disputes and their citizens' conditions, held among the birth control and the lack of civil and social rights. The two countries, whom past is sometimes similar and present driven by contrasts and cooperation, are laying down the new global rules of economy, politics and technology, inside the Chindia Planet that seems to be constituting. Relationships with United States, Japan, ASEAN countries and the ones, rich of materials, inside the African continent, have a part in the delineation of a future that appears, for the moment, still uncertain.
Il presente scritto si pone la finalità di ripercorrere brevemente il saggio di Enrico Ferri, Il Mito della Civiltà occidentale. L'Occidente come categoria ideologia e mito politico,. L'autore dimostra attraverso la sequenza circolare, strutturata in tesi, antitesi e sintesi, l'inesistenza del Mito occidentale. Con il termine Occidente si suole indicare, usualmente, un certo tipo di civiltà, valori, cultura, politica: una società fondata sul progresso, sul garantismo e sulla ricerca del benessere. L'autore mette in crisi il modello poc'anzi descritto tramite una ricostruzione storica accurata, dimostrando come in realtà il mondo occidentale, così come siamo abituati a parlarne, sia un miscuglio di culture, anche di origine orientale, e che l'Occidente non può essere inteso come categoria unitaria. Ecco dunque cosa rappresenta il Mito: l'oppio funzionale al raggiungimento dell'approvazione popolare. ; This paper aims to briefly review the Professor Enrico Ferri's "Myth of Western civilization", edited by Nova Publishers of New York City. The author demonstrates through the circular sequence, structured in thesis, antithesis and synthesis, the non-existence of the Western Myth. The term West usually indicates a certain type of civilization, values, culture and politics: a society founded on progress, guarantee of Rights and the search for well-being. The author challenges the model just described through an accurate and historical reconstruction, demonstrating how in fact the Western world, as we are used to talking about it, is a mixture of cultures, even of asian origin. That means that the West cannot be considered as a homogeneus category. The Myth has to be considered as opium functional to achieving the popular approval.
Il presente lavoro di ricerca si propone di discutere il contributo che l'analisi dell'evoluzione storica del pensiero politico occidentale e non occidentale riveste nel percorso intellettuale compiuto dai fondatori della teoria contemporanea dell'approccio delle capacità, fondata e sistematizzata nei suoi contorni speculativi a partire dagli anni Ottanta dal lavoro congiunto dell'economista indiano Amartya Sen e della filosofa dell'Università di Chicago Martha Nussbaum. Ci si ripropone di dare conto del radicamento filosofico-politico del lavoro intellettuale di Amartya Sen, le cui concezioni economico-politiche non hanno mai rinunciato ad una profonda sensibilità di carattere etico, così come dei principali filoni intorno ai quali si è imbastita la versione nussbaumiana dell'approccio delle capacità a partire dalla sua ascendenza filosofica classica in cui assume una particolare primazia il sistema etico-politico di Aristotele. Il pensiero politico moderno, osservato sotto il prisma della riflessione sulla filosofia della formazione che per Sen e Nussbaum rappresenta la "chiave di volta" per la fioritura delle altre capacità individuali, si organizzerà intorno a tre principali indirizzi teorici: l'emergenza dei diritti positivi e sociali, il dibattito sulla natura della consociazione nell'ambito della dottrina contrattualista e la stessa discussione sui caratteri delle politiche formative. La sensibilità che Sen e Nussbaum mostrano nei confronti dell'evoluzione del pensiero razionalista nel subcontinente che passa attraverso teorici antichi (Kautylia e Ashoka) e moderni (Gandhi e Tagore) segna il tentativo operato dai teorici dell'approccio delle capacità di contrastare concezioni politiche contemporanee fondate sul culturalismo e l'essenzialismo nell'interpretare lo sviluppo delle tradizioni culturali umane (tra esse il multiculturalismo, il comunitarismo, il neorealismo politico e la teoria dei c.d. "valori asiatici") attraverso la presa di coscienza di un corredo valoriale incentrato intorno al ragionamento rintracciabile (ancorché in maniera sporadica e "parallela") altresì nelle tradizioni culturali e politiche non occidentali. ; This research discusses the importance of the analysis of the history of political thought (in both Western as well as non-Western thought forums) for the theory of the capabilities approach as founded and theorised by Amartya Sen (economist at the Harvard University) and Martha Nussbaum (philosopher of law at the University of Chicago). It will examine the impact of the history of political theory in Sen's work which has been strongly influenced by the research of a close alliance between economics and ethics, but this contribution will also examine the most important fields of research of Nussbaum's own version of the approach that finds its origins in the Ancient Greek and Roman political thought and especially in Aristotle's ethical and political system. Ideas and institutions regarding education and lifelong learning philosophy have been chosen as a "prism" in order to study the three Western pillars of political theory which are mostly considered by Sen and Nussbaum and in particular: the emergence of the lexicon of positive and social rights; the debate around the nature of citizenship in the contractualist theory and the very debate around educational policies. Furthermore, this work aims to analyse Sen's and Nussbaum's endeavour to overcome the culturalist and essentialist conceptions championed especially in the contemporary political thought by considering the importance of non-Western legacies and heritage of political argumentation and reflection about politics in India's political philosophy both in the ancient (Kautylia and Ashoka) and contemporary (Gandhi and Tagore) thought. Among these contemporary theories in political philosophy, the normative critique of Sen and Nussbaum faces especially multiculturalism, communitarianism, neorealism as well as the theory of "asian values" by remembering the very existence of political reflection in arenas of thought "other" than the West.
Maritime piracy is still one of the most interesting manifestations of human activity by reason of the fact that it has, directly or indirectly, a number of points of contact between different problems of social, religious, political, economical and, of course, historical matter. Specifically, South-east Asia is a great example of how history, politics and religion are strongly and crucially imbued with the maritime banditry phenomenology. During the era of great maritime political entities exercising dominion along the Malay and Indonesian coasts, predation assumed character of endemicity going to fit firmly within the society, politics and economy networks. Inside Zhu Pan Zhi, the reports of the Song Dynasty about the barbarian peoples, is it possible to read about the piracy in the Great Southern Ocean (Nanyang) «the foreign ships were often attacked by pirates. The captives were the favourite of pirates, one captive can sell for 2 liang or 3 liang gold, the piracy prevents the merchants from visiting the ports» . Of great interest it is also the description of piracy in waters near Singapore (Temasek) and south of the straits that, in 1349, appeared in these terms: «The Dragon-teeth Strait (longyamen) is between the two hills of Temasek barbarians, which look like dragon's teeth'. Through the centre runs a waterway. The fields are barren and rice harvest is poor. The climate is hot with heavy rain in April and May. The inhabitants are addicted to piracy […] when junks sail to the European Ocean (Indian Ocean), the local barbarians allow them to pass unmolested, but when the junks reach the Auspicious Strait (Jilimen) on their return voyages, some 200-300 pirate prahus (boats) will put out to attack the junks for several days, the crew of junks have to fight with their arms and setting up cloth screen as a protection against arrows. Sometimes, the junks are fortunate enough to escape with a favouring wind; otherwise, the crews are butchered and the merchandise becomes pirates' booty» . As can be seen from the text, also the physical elements (water, poor soil, distress sea routes, monsoon climate) play an important role in explaining the aforementioned endemicity of pirate phenomenon: in one of the most relevant work by Anthony Reid, a supporter of the Braudelian method of historical investigation, it is reported that few major areas of the world have been so deeply marked by nature such as South-east Asia, going to emphasize the importance of geography in the study of human activities. During the first part of my research, a question to which I have tried to answer was to understand the extent to which individuals, who are placed in a given geographical and historical context, act in a manner consistent with that particular geo-cultural system and how, external elements in that system, can help to change the perspective of action; in essence, I have tried to study how and to what extent India, China and Europe (Western Culture) have affected the history of the indigenous population of South-east Asia and the Straits of Malacca and Singapore in particular. The constitution of the great European colonial empires stretched from the Malacca Straits to the South China Sea, marked the beginning of a progressive modification process of maritime piracy both in terms of objectives to be achieved and also procedures to be followed; Nicholas Tarling lucidly points out in this regard "the old empires decayed, but were not replaced, and with their boundaries marauding communities appared, led by the adveturous Sharifs, or deprived aristocracies, or hungry chiefs" . The main ethnic groups who practiced piracy, the Riau-Lingga Malay, Bugis and Dayak of East Malaysia and Brunei, and Ilanun Balangingi from the southern Philippines and the Sulu sea, became corsairs in the pay of the colonial authorities and all those princes or sultans deprived of their possessions. However, alongside the politically motivated piracy, continued to resist a kind of maritime banditry conducted by fishing associations, outcasts or Chinese immigrants and so-called nomads people of the sea (Orang Laut), clanic and personalistic in nature whose cultural substrate was made up of bonds of friendship, kinship and blood. The remarkable fact is that the two types of piracy are not mutually exclusive but, on the contrary, represented the two faces of a coin and it was not unusual for pirates and corsairs to exchange roles when political or economic contingencies were changed. Interesting in this regard it was been the reading and examination of archival documents found at the National Archives in London (The National Archives) showing exchanges of correspondence and minute of some of the leading authorities of the British Straits Settlements between the first and second half of the nineteenth century. A set of letters that, given its enormous historical and political significance I decided to bring entirely, contains the correspondence (1863-67) between the Straits Settlements Governor Orfeur Cavenagh, Abu Bakar ibn Temenggong Daing Ibrahim Temenggong of Johor and Inche Wan Ahmed, exiled prince of Pahang become rebellious and pirate. Proceeding with the analysis of the phenomenon and given the interest of the international community for the sea routes passing into the Straits of Malacca and Singapore, the next questions concerned what was the real impact of piracy on maritime trade, what costs in human and social terms it produced, which law enforcement measures riparian states and foreign countries (in colonial and post-colonial age) have come into force; in addition to these I had tried to understand who is the pirate, what are the main reasons for his actions, what is the connection, if does exist, between piracy, terrorism and organized crime. In this direction, starting from the definitions of piracy given by the International Maritime Organization and the International Maritime Bureau, I examined most of the international conventions and regional agreements in which the issue of maritime security and cooperation between states and supranational bodies is addressed, placing special attention to the rules and clauses contained in the treaties able to activate those mechanisms for cooperation and burden sharing (burden-sharing) indispensable to the solution or, more realistically, the containment of the problem. Of great relevance to this line of analysis it has proved useful the socio-anthropological approach by Carolin Liss on the links between maritime banditry, criminal syndicates and terrorist groups (criminal syndicate) and the statistical and methodological approach by Karsten von Hoesslin focused on quantity, quality and type of assaults committed at sea. Concluded the second part of the thesis, I went to compare what is written in both historical and contemporary perspective to understand what kind of conclusion emerged from the results of my research; I asked myself, therefore, a further question: taking as a fixed point the thought of Braudel and Reid, following the method of analysis of Liss and Hoesslin, examine the archival documents and translations of ancient texts on the subject (the Sejarah Melayu and Suma Oriental of Tome Pires), given the availability (more or less declared) from South-east Asian newly established states (post-independence) to cooperation and given the interest of third actors in the straits, is it conceivable and correct to sustain now, in the first half of the new millennium, the possibility of a modification of the ancient customs and traditions and entrenched rivalry between neighboring countries on the basis of a new collective consciousness directed to a harmonious resolution, conveyed by a general law, of the phenomenon of maritime piracy? Or are we facing with a false hub of history, with a point that falsely or inappropriately is considered the turnaround from a tradition that has its roots in the coastal kingdoms of the sixth century and which is the sub-cultural layer of those population who have made the sea their source of wealth and power? To say it once again with Braudel, has the longue durée history undergone a change of route or will it repeat and renew her cycle again and again, sweetened by new technological tools and new forms of politics and economics? And if a change is in place, why now and how does it happen? Will history repeat itself? To give an answer, as thoroughly as possible, to this question I tried to define some of those steps that the countries of ASEAN should follow in order to effectively combat maritime piracy, terrorism widespread locally and organized crime; what could be the milestones in the process of construction of a shared legal system able to provide answers to many of the legal issues including the lack of a common legislation on maritime security. The watchword in the near future will have to be 'mutual legal assistance' in view of the implementation, in national legal corpora, of all those rules necessary to give effect to the directions contained in international conventions. Eventually, I propose a different and further reading of all those theories that track in failure or in the great inefficiency of coordinating policies in the field of maritime safety, the proliferation of piracy. Though I substantially agree with some of those interpretations, two points are critical and deserves attention: the lack of a proper historical and historiographical perspective of analysis and what I have called the axiom of the ultimate solution.
