CONTENTS East West Affairs | Volume 2 Number 1 | January-March 2014 Editorial 5. Postnormal Governance | Jordi Serra Commentaries 13. Iran’s “Charm Offensive” | Stephenie Wright 21. A Very African Homosexuality | Zain Sardar 29. Malaysian Shadow Play | Merryl Wyn davieS Papers 35. Come together...for what? Creativity and Leadership in Postnormal Times | alfonSo Montuori and gabrielle donnelly 53. The Story of a Phenomenon: Vivekananda in Nirvana Land | vinay lal 69. The Pedagogical Subject of Neoliberal Development | alvin Cheng -h in liM 93. Science Fiction Futures and the Extended Present of 3D Printers | JoShua pryor 109. Muslim Superheroes | gino Zarrinfar 123. The Joys of Being Third Class | Shiv viSanathan Review 165. How the East was Won | Shanon Shah Report 165. Looking in All Directions | John a. S Weeney East-West Affairs 1 East West Affairs a Quarterly journal of north-South relations in postnormal times EDITOrS Ziauddin Sardar, Centre for policy and futures Studies, east-West university, Chicago, uSa Jerome r. ravetz, research Methods Consultancy, oxford, england DEPuTy EDITOrS Zain Sardar, birkbeck College, university of london, england Gordon Blaine Steffey, department of religious Studies, randolph College, lynchburg, uSa John A. Sweeney, department of political Science, university of hawaii at Manoa, honolulu, uSa MANAGING EDITOr Zafar A. Malik, dean for development and university relations, east-West university, Chicago, uSa DEPuTy MANAGING EDITOr Joel Inwood, development and university relations, east-West university, Chicago, uSa ADVISOry BOArD Tahir Abbas, department of Sociology, faculty of arts and Science, fatih university, istanbul, turkey Mert Bilgin, department of political Science and international relations, bahcesehir university, istanbul, turkey yi-zhuang Chen, department of philosophy, faculty of public administration, Central-South university, Changsha, China Gabrielle Donnelly, Writer, Wolfville, nova Scotia, Canada Deshang Fan, vice director & general Secretary, the Center for global governance Studies postdoctoral Committee office, peking university, China rathana Peou Van Den Heuvel, bangladesh university of liberal arts, dhaka, bangladesh Sohail Inayatullah, Queensland university of technology, brisbane, australia George Gheverghese Joseph, university of Singapore, Singapore Maorong Jiang, director, asian World Center, Creighton university, omaha, uSa Farida Khan, department of economics, university of Wisconsin-parkside, uSa Wasiullah Khan, Chancellor, east-West university, Chicago, uSa Vinay Lal, department of history, university of California, los angeles, uSa Alvin Lim, department of international and Comparative politics, american university of nigeria, yola, nigeria Iftikhar Malik, department of history, bath Spa university, england rana Mitter, department of Modern Chinese history and politics, university of oxford, england Alfonso Montuori, California institute of integral Studies, San francisco, uSa Sami raza, department of political Science, university of peshawar, pakistan Pedro Sotolongo, Cuban national Writers association (uneaC), havana, Cuba Joost Vervoort, environmental Change institute, university of oxford, oxford, england Shiv Visvanathan , School for government and public policy, o. p. Jindal global university, Sonepat, india 2 JANUARY -MARCH 2014 CONNNECTIOONFSo rY tOOUhe WILL MAKE Master of Arts in East--West Studiies Creighton University Located in Omaha, Neb., Creighton University is rankeed NUMBER ONE inn Master’s degree grranting universities in the Midwest’ by US News & WWorldorld Repoortt. CCreighti hton is nationalllly recognizedi d for providingidi a challenging and balanced experience focused on edducating the whole person academically, socially and spiritually. The Program The Master of Arts in East-West Studies is a two-year program designed to provide a strong cross-cultural fframeworkk ththroughh iintterdidisciplinari li y applicationli ti andd international collaboration. The program combines courses taken at Creighton University in Omaha with inti ernational experience gained at our partner institutions in Asia. The program prepares students to assume global leaddership positions in these four areas: • Comparative Eastern and Western Arts, Philosophhy and Literature • Comparative Eastern and Western Business Admiinistration • Comparative Eastern and Western Energy TTechnolechnoology • Comparative Eastern and Western Way of Negotiaation and Dispute Resolution Start planning yyourour future today For more information on the East-West Studies program pleasse contact us at 402.280.2856 or by e-mail at [email protected] ews.creighton.edu For the greater East West Affairs a Quarterly journal of north-South relations in postnormal times East West Affairs (eWa) is a multidisciplinary journal devoted to that examining the relationship between east and West in a rapidly changing world, where power is shifting from West to east, uncertainty and complexity are the norms – what is generally being described as 'postnormal times'. eWa provides opportunities for publication of scholarly articles, which may represent divergent ideas and opinions, on international, political, economic, social and cultural issues from the perspective of shifting power balance from West to east. the Journal also publishes essays and commentaries on policy and research relevant to the global South. it seeks to promote understanding of east-West relations and appreciation of non-western concerns and issues. articles and commentaries are peer reviewed. Contributions are normally received with the understanding that their content is unpublished material and is not being submitted for publication elsewhere. translated material which has not previously been published in english will also be considered. the editors do not necessarily agree with the views expressed in the pages of eWa. iSSn 2330-2844 published by east-West university 816 S Michigan avenue, Chicago, il 60605 East-West Affairs issue 5 is licensed under a Creative Commons attribution-nonCommercial-Sharealike 4.0 international license. based on a work at http://eastwestaffairs.org. permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://eastwestaffairs.org. -- Cover iMage : Zafar Malik , detail , grid 2, aCryliC on Wood . 4 JANUARY -MARCH 2014 EDITORIAL Postnormal Governance governments act as if nothing has changed and it’s business as usual. but as events in the ukraine, egypt, and Spain demonstrated, we are entering the uncharted territory of postnormal times, which require a new approach to governance and international relations Jordi Serra IN THEIr CLASSIC PAPEr , “S CIENCE FOr THE POSTNOrMAL AGE ,” S ILVIO funtowicz and Jerome ravetz formulated the principles of postnormal science as a new type of science “where facts are uncertain, values in dispute, stakes high and decisions urgent” (funtowicz and ravetz, 1993). later on, Ziauddin Sardar elaborated on the concept and coined the notion of “postnormal times” where chaos, complexity, and contradictions were becoming the norm and uncertainty was the dominant theme (Sardar, 2010). even a casual glance at recent world events reveals how politics and governance is rapidly going postnormal. before we examine recent developments, we should say a few words about the category itself. the selection of the label is quite relevant here. “postnormal” connects two pertinent notions: it indicates that what we are experiencing is not normal or, at least, what we could expect as normal. the conventions by which we have lived over the past decades are increasing becoming irrelevant. but the term also signifies that what we are experiencing is not exactly abnormal. rather, what is happening is that we are transcending the usual meaning of normalcy and entering an uncharted territory, which is the domain of the “postnormal.” but in what sense are East-West Affairs 5 we surpassing normality? the short answer would be in the modern-industrial sense. Modernity appeared as the answer for a new kind of power that needed a new legitimate source that would break up with medieval traditions and structures. hence, it witnessed the emergence of a new leader, Machiavelli’s The Prince , who ruled over a new concept, the state or more specifically, “the nation-state.” Science served as a useful tool to cut the remaining allegiances to the old feudal system and to provide new foundations for the new structure. Science and (colonial) politics combined to produce the industrial revolution with an accent on modernity that became the main criterion for regulating our life. Modernity, the industrial worldview and science had a symbiotic relationship as all three advocated standardization, imposing some sort of statistical average as the reference for normalcy. there were standard rules that applied to everyone and served all and solved all our problems. these standards were conventionally seen as “universal”; and western civilization, with its hallmark features of “democracy” and “human rights,” was projected as the future of all cultures and societies. but these assumptions of an assumed monolithic world, with a single source of power—western culture, led by the united States and europe— are no longer valid in a multipolar, multicultural world. even the science it is based on turns out to be not as objective and neutral as we liked to think. What funtowicz and ravetz postulated in their seminal work is that we need to go beyond the normal emphasis of science that focuses on results or products