You have been given the opportunity to broker a peace agreement! Your work will impact a region of the world for decades, perhaps centuries to come! You get to decide what framework will shape the agreement. Will you choose a dare-we-say racist framework, in which you assume that people from similar ethnic groups will get along with each other no matter what and that people from different ethnic groups will always fight each other, or will you choose the framework of international law, which bears a striking resemblance to some of our own dearly beloved values and laws here in the U.S.A.?
Ready? Go!
Path 1: RACISM
Path 2: INTERNATIONAL LAW
The sad thing is, I wasn't even thinking about Iraq when I started writing this. Anyway, here's my favorite part of my paper on Lebanon's 1990 Ta'if Accord, the text of which made me absolutely furious. This paragraph is actually going to be a footnote since it doesn't really fit in with our analytical framework for the paper, but it HAS to be said:
I am highly critical of Ta’if’s differing treatment of the Syrian and Israeli occupations, which I believe reflect deep problems in regional politics. The accord treats Israel as an occupier to which Lebanon may respond with force, but advocates for an incremental withdrawal of Syrian troops predicated on a peaceful relationship, extolling Lebanon and Syria’s ancient “brotherhood” and Arab commonality. This is nonsensical, as their “brotherhood” had clearly not kept them from conflict in the past (nor had it kept Lebanese militias from fighting one another) and insulting, as it implies that the borders of Arab states are porous and that people who share an ethnic or cultural background with their occupiers do not deserve self-determination. Furthermore, the devastating insinuation is that Lebanon and Syria cannot expect to find such commonality or make peace with Israel, a state of mostly Jews of European descent. I was, perhaps naively, shocked to discover that this racism influenced Ta’if’s provisions as strongly as did international law, but not surprised to learn that the U.S. has had a hand, once again, in institutionalizing ethnic division and conflict, despite its protests that it cannot understand the “ancient hatreds” of the divided nations in the Middle East.
Saturday, December 6, 2008
Sunday, October 5, 2008
rocks & hard places
I'm not sure which is worse: that the Obama campaign, judging by Biden's comments during the VP debate, claims that Senator Obama did not support the 2006 Palestinian elections because he knew Hamas would be elected, or because Biden actually lied to say so.
(Note: I am really fond of talking about those elections both because it's kind of the starting point for my paying attention to what was happening in Palestine, and because I was in Jerusalem when they happened. I really like talking about that.)
Obama has had to work hard to convince people that he supports Israel; you can see that at work in this interview with Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic. The questions, of course, are always about a secure Israel and denouncing terrorism and having a zero-tolerance attitude towards anti-Semitism. They're not so much about human rights and self-determination for the Palestinians, which of course is the other half of "the peace process," and of course it's the half the U.S. has mostly ignored. And Obama ignores it when he talks about Hamas supposedly supporting him, though he does offer Goldberg a bit of a solid explanation.
But if he weren't running to be elected the president of the United States, and his words didn't have political consequences, he could have given a response like this:
"Hamas? Yeah, of course those guys prefer me to McCain. I've told you about my deep ties to the Jewish community in Chicago, but what I haven't mentioned is that Chicago also has a huge Palestinian population and a very active Palestinian activist community. So I got to know them and the injustices faced by their people in the occupied territories. So I recognize that we need to end Israel's occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip so that we can give the Palestinians a better shot at self-determination and human rights, which is really the key to ending the violence in Israel. Here's the thing about Hamas: of course I denounce their terrorist tactics, and of course I applaud that they now officially recognize Israel, though most U.S. press and politicians ignore this fact. And yeah, I think their fighting with Fatah and claiming power in Gaza is not ultimately in the interests of the people they were elected to represent. But despite their deep flaws, Hamas, like every Palestinian, has a vested interest in seeing the Palestinian people free, and stable, and peaceful. And they recognize that I'm more likely to work towards that than John McCain is. And I think most Palestinians do, but most Palestinians don't have a voice in mainstream U.S. media. So their voices can only be heard, distorted, though what their most famous leaders and groups have to say."
In my dreams, anyway. I want Obama to win this election, and I mostly really liked Joe Biden during the debate. But I'm afraid the Palestinians are going to be stuck where they usually are. And that's a tragedy for them, which should lead a few of us to raise our voices anyway, because it matters, innately, and the Palestinians are going to continue to be this rallying point for people in power in the Arab world- and in Iran- to use to point at the injustices of the U.S. and Israel. And their grievance will be legitimate, whether or not their policies are.
In the meantime, a really beautiful bit of nonviolent resistance: FREE GAZA.
(Note: I am really fond of talking about those elections both because it's kind of the starting point for my paying attention to what was happening in Palestine, and because I was in Jerusalem when they happened. I really like talking about that.)
Obama has had to work hard to convince people that he supports Israel; you can see that at work in this interview with Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic. The questions, of course, are always about a secure Israel and denouncing terrorism and having a zero-tolerance attitude towards anti-Semitism. They're not so much about human rights and self-determination for the Palestinians, which of course is the other half of "the peace process," and of course it's the half the U.S. has mostly ignored. And Obama ignores it when he talks about Hamas supposedly supporting him, though he does offer Goldberg a bit of a solid explanation.
But if he weren't running to be elected the president of the United States, and his words didn't have political consequences, he could have given a response like this:
"Hamas? Yeah, of course those guys prefer me to McCain. I've told you about my deep ties to the Jewish community in Chicago, but what I haven't mentioned is that Chicago also has a huge Palestinian population and a very active Palestinian activist community. So I got to know them and the injustices faced by their people in the occupied territories. So I recognize that we need to end Israel's occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip so that we can give the Palestinians a better shot at self-determination and human rights, which is really the key to ending the violence in Israel. Here's the thing about Hamas: of course I denounce their terrorist tactics, and of course I applaud that they now officially recognize Israel, though most U.S. press and politicians ignore this fact. And yeah, I think their fighting with Fatah and claiming power in Gaza is not ultimately in the interests of the people they were elected to represent. But despite their deep flaws, Hamas, like every Palestinian, has a vested interest in seeing the Palestinian people free, and stable, and peaceful. And they recognize that I'm more likely to work towards that than John McCain is. And I think most Palestinians do, but most Palestinians don't have a voice in mainstream U.S. media. So their voices can only be heard, distorted, though what their most famous leaders and groups have to say."
In my dreams, anyway. I want Obama to win this election, and I mostly really liked Joe Biden during the debate. But I'm afraid the Palestinians are going to be stuck where they usually are. And that's a tragedy for them, which should lead a few of us to raise our voices anyway, because it matters, innately, and the Palestinians are going to continue to be this rallying point for people in power in the Arab world- and in Iran- to use to point at the injustices of the U.S. and Israel. And their grievance will be legitimate, whether or not their policies are.
In the meantime, a really beautiful bit of nonviolent resistance: FREE GAZA.
Sunday, September 21, 2008
but will the IRAQIS win anything in november?
"Real change in Iraq would mean that Obama realized that for five years straight the United States has promoted and consolidated an artificial sectarian system in the country, and that disengagement from Iraq should also aim at reversing this trend."
Bingo.
Bingo.
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
starting a lil' conflict
I'm about to have a little clash of civilizations RIGHT HERE with the editors of my Intro course textbook/anthology, Leashing the Dogs of War. Soon into the intro I developed a suspicion that Eds. Chester A. Crocker, Fen Osler Hampson, and Pamela Aall were neo-con imperialists, nothing too apocalyptic mind you, just your average American university faculty think-tank types operating with certain assumptions about the legitimacy of global U.S. intervention, but I was floored- FLOORED- when I got to this staggering paragraph:
Since the collapse of European empires, the assumption has been that new states emerging in their wake would have whatever time it took to develop effective and legitimate institutions of governance...Regional actors in formerly dependent areas have gradually taken control of their own destiny while intesifying linkages to the major world power centers of Europe, Asia, and North America.
"No way!" I was thinking. "Formerly dependent areas? DEPENDENT? Like, you mean Africa and Latin America and the Middle East and the other areas that were colonized against their will by European countries?" It continues...
Since September 11, 2001, however, new understandings have challenged this assumption. It is no longer accepted that chaotic, ill-governed regions and zones of failed modernization should be allowed to flounder towards an uncertain future...
Uh, yeah, that's exactly what they meant. I'm reminded of my Oxford prof who famously in MY memory once reminisced about the British Empire by exclaiming, "Ghandi! Wasn't HE a pain in the neck!"
Could this be any more patronizing- or less democratic? Couldn't we at least give a little shout out to the people of those nations who deserve self-determination? The vision here is one of post-colonial states freed to make a name for themselves and royally screwing up; the insinuation is that things were orderly before the independence movements of the 20th century and that if the states are failing, it's their fault alone, and that we've got the right to intervene, like parents taking back the car keys. Or, perhaps, like slave-owners catching runaways because we know what's best for them. (Yeah, I'm gonna risk the harshness of that metaphor.)
I think this is the core conflict between the tasks of "promoting democracy" and "policing the world." This little introduction, and most American foreign policy, places security above democracy (or, if you will, freedom.). And as long as you put your idea of what a secure, ordered world looks like above your commitment to honoring human dignity and the right of peoples to self-determination- well, we got beef.
That's not to say that a Robert Mugabe or even a Hosni Mubarak doesn't merit some kind of international, sanctioning (not necessarily economic) response. (In Mugabe's case, global outcry is appropriate.) They are certainly not interested in creating democratic states, either. But the U.S. approaches these situations not as a servant of people who should live democratically or even as a partner in creating democracy but as a SWAT team. And remember, what's happening in Afghanistan and Iraq are the results of the U.S. "no longer accepting" that other states take care of themselves.
Since the collapse of European empires, the assumption has been that new states emerging in their wake would have whatever time it took to develop effective and legitimate institutions of governance...Regional actors in formerly dependent areas have gradually taken control of their own destiny while intesifying linkages to the major world power centers of Europe, Asia, and North America.
"No way!" I was thinking. "Formerly dependent areas? DEPENDENT? Like, you mean Africa and Latin America and the Middle East and the other areas that were colonized against their will by European countries?" It continues...
Since September 11, 2001, however, new understandings have challenged this assumption. It is no longer accepted that chaotic, ill-governed regions and zones of failed modernization should be allowed to flounder towards an uncertain future...
Uh, yeah, that's exactly what they meant. I'm reminded of my Oxford prof who famously in MY memory once reminisced about the British Empire by exclaiming, "Ghandi! Wasn't HE a pain in the neck!"
Could this be any more patronizing- or less democratic? Couldn't we at least give a little shout out to the people of those nations who deserve self-determination? The vision here is one of post-colonial states freed to make a name for themselves and royally screwing up; the insinuation is that things were orderly before the independence movements of the 20th century and that if the states are failing, it's their fault alone, and that we've got the right to intervene, like parents taking back the car keys. Or, perhaps, like slave-owners catching runaways because we know what's best for them. (Yeah, I'm gonna risk the harshness of that metaphor.)
I think this is the core conflict between the tasks of "promoting democracy" and "policing the world." This little introduction, and most American foreign policy, places security above democracy (or, if you will, freedom.). And as long as you put your idea of what a secure, ordered world looks like above your commitment to honoring human dignity and the right of peoples to self-determination- well, we got beef.
That's not to say that a Robert Mugabe or even a Hosni Mubarak doesn't merit some kind of international, sanctioning (not necessarily economic) response. (In Mugabe's case, global outcry is appropriate.) They are certainly not interested in creating democratic states, either. But the U.S. approaches these situations not as a servant of people who should live democratically or even as a partner in creating democracy but as a SWAT team. And remember, what's happening in Afghanistan and Iraq are the results of the U.S. "no longer accepting" that other states take care of themselves.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
best heading ever
As obscure and neglected as this spot is, I'm still incredibly proud of the quote beneath the title.
In other news, what peace agreement should I choose to analyze for my Intro to Peace and Conflict Resolution class? I'm thinking something to do with Lebanon, something that will force me to untangle more of its crazy history and politics.
I've also found myself increasingly interested in refugees. Conflict uproots and changes their entire lives, they are incredibly diverse, and, as Palestine has taught me, they are one of the most difficult "questions" of war. As history disappears or is rewritten and as politicians argue over solutions or as violence itself ceases, refugees remain. Dealing with refugees humanely and justly requires, I believe, a certain extension of oneself, one's country and resources, that lie beyond what can be considered cost-effective or strategically advantageous.* That's not to say that I think of refugees as overgrown infants, lousy with needs, but that those who have been uprooted deserve homes. And people, nations, don't really like making space for new people to have homes. So it's a big issue, and one that requires attention both here and abroad, one that's really at the heart of Christian spirituality.**
*Unless, in terms of strategy, you believe that hurt and neglected people will lash out violently later on and eventually drain economies and fail to integrate into new societies, etc etc... but that's another story I guess...
**WOAH bet you weren't expecting that! Just seeing if you're paying attention.
In other news, what peace agreement should I choose to analyze for my Intro to Peace and Conflict Resolution class? I'm thinking something to do with Lebanon, something that will force me to untangle more of its crazy history and politics.
I've also found myself increasingly interested in refugees. Conflict uproots and changes their entire lives, they are incredibly diverse, and, as Palestine has taught me, they are one of the most difficult "questions" of war. As history disappears or is rewritten and as politicians argue over solutions or as violence itself ceases, refugees remain. Dealing with refugees humanely and justly requires, I believe, a certain extension of oneself, one's country and resources, that lie beyond what can be considered cost-effective or strategically advantageous.* That's not to say that I think of refugees as overgrown infants, lousy with needs, but that those who have been uprooted deserve homes. And people, nations, don't really like making space for new people to have homes. So it's a big issue, and one that requires attention both here and abroad, one that's really at the heart of Christian spirituality.**
*Unless, in terms of strategy, you believe that hurt and neglected people will lash out violently later on and eventually drain economies and fail to integrate into new societies, etc etc... but that's another story I guess...
**WOAH bet you weren't expecting that! Just seeing if you're paying attention.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
The Trial of Salim Hamdan
So here we have a guy who was (unquestionably) Osama bin Laden's driver and who may have been (questionably) actually a member of or at least very much aiding Al-Qaeda or who may have been (questionably) actually just a driver, a personal employee, guiltless in bin Laden and Al-Qaeda's crimes. Now he's getting a trial in Guantanamo. Boy do I have questions about this.
So this has been an opportunity for me to learn about our attorney general Michael Mukasey. He's the guy asking for legislation keeping detainees from entering the U.S. based on the "extraordinary risk" they pose. Yet another CRAZY MOVE from the Bush administration. I have a hard time believing that they actually think they can't muster up the security to move detainees to the U.S. safely. Do the detainees on Guantanamo have explosives up their sleeves? So I wonder what the real motive is. To try to keep barriers in place to keep the trial, and the detainees, out of U.S. jurisdiction, so the U.S. military, which is running the court and supplying the jury, stays in charge? A symbolic gesture of disagreement with the Supreme Court's ruling that the detainees can contest their detentions in federal court? Will this make Bush/the party/McCain continue to look tough on terror, helping the American people feel safe? Or maybe they really are paranoid.
My first question about the trial, though, was: what does a jury of Mr. Hamdan's peers look like? Seems like a really just jury would be a global jury. Americans, both civilian and military, Afghanis, Yemenis, another Guantanamo detainee perhaps. Maybe a Saudi or two. Muslims, Christians, Jews, agnostics, Buddhists. Maybe some parents who'd lost sons or daughters here and abroad.
You'd have to have a lot of translators. And I guess one result of the Supreme Court's ruling is that the trials are American-run, so they don't require an international body. But if those folks came to a real consensus, seems likely it would be fair. I fell in love with To Kill a Mockingbird when I read it in eighth grade, so I pretty quickly thought about America's history of prejudiced juries.
I hope the six military personnel they have on the jury chose their careers because they have a strong sense of justice and will do their best to objectively hand Hamdan the sentence he deserves. But, uh, it's also possible that they're pretty biased. The New York Times:
Another [jury member], an Army pilot, said he had been later deployed to Iraq and had been attacked by ground fire there. When Mr. Hamdan’s military lawyer, Lt. Cmdr. Brian L. Mizer, asked what the impact might be on the pilot’s ability to judge the case fairly, the pilot answered, “I’m not sure of the answer to that, sir.”
I commend his honesty and humility, but wonder why they picked him.
BUT what's crazy to me is that this jury of six senior military officials can convict with 2/3 support. I don't know the legal precedent, domestic or international, but it strikes me that in a situation where A) there's a good chance the jury is biased and B) a guilty verdict could lead to a life sentence you might want to come to a solid consensus.
So this has been an opportunity for me to learn about our attorney general Michael Mukasey. He's the guy asking for legislation keeping detainees from entering the U.S. based on the "extraordinary risk" they pose. Yet another CRAZY MOVE from the Bush administration. I have a hard time believing that they actually think they can't muster up the security to move detainees to the U.S. safely. Do the detainees on Guantanamo have explosives up their sleeves? So I wonder what the real motive is. To try to keep barriers in place to keep the trial, and the detainees, out of U.S. jurisdiction, so the U.S. military, which is running the court and supplying the jury, stays in charge? A symbolic gesture of disagreement with the Supreme Court's ruling that the detainees can contest their detentions in federal court? Will this make Bush/the party/McCain continue to look tough on terror, helping the American people feel safe? Or maybe they really are paranoid.
My first question about the trial, though, was: what does a jury of Mr. Hamdan's peers look like? Seems like a really just jury would be a global jury. Americans, both civilian and military, Afghanis, Yemenis, another Guantanamo detainee perhaps. Maybe a Saudi or two. Muslims, Christians, Jews, agnostics, Buddhists. Maybe some parents who'd lost sons or daughters here and abroad.
You'd have to have a lot of translators. And I guess one result of the Supreme Court's ruling is that the trials are American-run, so they don't require an international body. But if those folks came to a real consensus, seems likely it would be fair. I fell in love with To Kill a Mockingbird when I read it in eighth grade, so I pretty quickly thought about America's history of prejudiced juries.
I hope the six military personnel they have on the jury chose their careers because they have a strong sense of justice and will do their best to objectively hand Hamdan the sentence he deserves. But, uh, it's also possible that they're pretty biased. The New York Times:
Another [jury member], an Army pilot, said he had been later deployed to Iraq and had been attacked by ground fire there. When Mr. Hamdan’s military lawyer, Lt. Cmdr. Brian L. Mizer, asked what the impact might be on the pilot’s ability to judge the case fairly, the pilot answered, “I’m not sure of the answer to that, sir.”
I commend his honesty and humility, but wonder why they picked him.
BUT what's crazy to me is that this jury of six senior military officials can convict with 2/3 support. I don't know the legal precedent, domestic or international, but it strikes me that in a situation where A) there's a good chance the jury is biased and B) a guilty verdict could lead to a life sentence you might want to come to a solid consensus.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
those roots
You know how I was saying that Arabic is magical and interesting, etc.? Here's an example of how it's lovely when you start making connections: I realized, today during my lunch break, trying to meet the meager summertime study goals I've set for myself, that the verb "to read" is related to the word "Q'uran." The same root letters- I think the Q, the R, the A. How had I never noticed it before?
It's lovely to me, anyway.
It's lovely to me, anyway.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
grammar chart kills puppy
I often wonder about my interest- can I say it's a passion?- in learning Arabic. It's not something I fully understand. I sometimes think people take to other cultures, languages, and countries because they find something kindred in them. (Or because they spend a semester in Africa after 20 or so years lived in the suburbs and are struggling to figure out how to assimilate their abroad experience into their American life and cognitive dissonance makes them a bit black and white, rejecting the strip mall and longing for the village.) I don't think that's true for me and Arabic, or Egypt. If anything, it's the foreignness that draws me- learning something so different from what I know and learning to take part in it.
Then there's desire. I have a real desire- and desire is such an interesting, mysterious force- to learn and speak this language. I don't mean desire in the way that we can casually want something, such as wanting the bus to come on time. I mean desire as in appetite, as in craving, as in getting close to something and wanting to get closer.
And you thought French and Italian were romance languages. Anyway, it's a mysterious feeling but today, after reading an Amazon review of an Arabic-English dictionary, (hello, internet-inspired expansion of "the canon" and that which is deemed quotable!), I think maybe studying this language appeals to both my need for structure and logic and my need for relationship and mystery and art.
Because language is all of those things. This Amazon review spends a bunch of paragraphs describing how the set-up of the dictionary mirrors Arabic grammar. Which must be tremendously boring, almost unreadable to anyone but the few of us wired to find something to desire in learning Arabic grammar, and which I'm refraining from describing. And then the author busts out this:
"This dictionary strips the patterns of the Arab language bare. This incredible semantic superstructure is one even many native speaking Arabs are mostly unaware of. Still, sometimes - okay, maybe often - this dictionary (like scientific things can so often do) kills the puppy, dissects it, and gives you a chart. But the essence of that puppy isn't in the chart. It's a more metaphysical reality. A living, breathing, wriggling thing, one that requires much more intuition than logic to understand.. The Arab language is just such a reality. Another semantic universe, truly exotic to an English speaking mind, a vivid poetic wonder.
You know, studying Arabic is a real pleasure. It's truly sublime."
Grammar? Amazon reader reviews? It's true- mystery and desire live even there.
Then there's desire. I have a real desire- and desire is such an interesting, mysterious force- to learn and speak this language. I don't mean desire in the way that we can casually want something, such as wanting the bus to come on time. I mean desire as in appetite, as in craving, as in getting close to something and wanting to get closer.
And you thought French and Italian were romance languages. Anyway, it's a mysterious feeling but today, after reading an Amazon review of an Arabic-English dictionary, (hello, internet-inspired expansion of "the canon" and that which is deemed quotable!), I think maybe studying this language appeals to both my need for structure and logic and my need for relationship and mystery and art.
Because language is all of those things. This Amazon review spends a bunch of paragraphs describing how the set-up of the dictionary mirrors Arabic grammar. Which must be tremendously boring, almost unreadable to anyone but the few of us wired to find something to desire in learning Arabic grammar, and which I'm refraining from describing. And then the author busts out this:
"This dictionary strips the patterns of the Arab language bare. This incredible semantic superstructure is one even many native speaking Arabs are mostly unaware of. Still, sometimes - okay, maybe often - this dictionary (like scientific things can so often do) kills the puppy, dissects it, and gives you a chart. But the essence of that puppy isn't in the chart. It's a more metaphysical reality. A living, breathing, wriggling thing, one that requires much more intuition than logic to understand.. The Arab language is just such a reality. Another semantic universe, truly exotic to an English speaking mind, a vivid poetic wonder.
You know, studying Arabic is a real pleasure. It's truly sublime."
Grammar? Amazon reader reviews? It's true- mystery and desire live even there.
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
riverbend, where are you?
Ok, seriously, I'm starting to miss Riverbend.
And I haven't even been reading her for that long.
She's the Iraqi who started blogging when the war started in 2003. Her entries have been published in two volumes, in multiple languages. She's won journalism awards. She's humanized the war for many Americans. She's one of the reasons to have a tiny bit of hope about the internet and journalism. She left Iraq last year and her blog Baghdad Burning hasn't been updated since last October, when she wrote about living in Syria.
Anyway, Riverbend, I check your blog at least once a week, and I'm wondering where you are, and I want you to let us know. It's funny, this dependence we develop on certain voices. At least me, I'm drawn to those people who say things that are true and sharp. I count on them.
And I haven't even been reading her for that long.
She's the Iraqi who started blogging when the war started in 2003. Her entries have been published in two volumes, in multiple languages. She's won journalism awards. She's humanized the war for many Americans. She's one of the reasons to have a tiny bit of hope about the internet and journalism. She left Iraq last year and her blog Baghdad Burning hasn't been updated since last October, when she wrote about living in Syria.
Anyway, Riverbend, I check your blog at least once a week, and I'm wondering where you are, and I want you to let us know. It's funny, this dependence we develop on certain voices. At least me, I'm drawn to those people who say things that are true and sharp. I count on them.
Monday, May 19, 2008
the seduction of stereotypes
Last week I spent an hour or two staring at the car wreck of the New York Times' article "Young Saudis, Vexed and Entranced by Love's Rules," and the online comments it inspired. The article follows two young Saudi men for a couple days, quizzing them on how courtship, marriage, and love function in Saudi society. The reader comments started to fall into some themes.
Readers expressed outrage at Saudi society and the men's behavior, often coupled with notes about how, as a nation, it's a shame that we're so economically connected to such a repressive society. Some had criticism of the article for its inaccuracies, often from those who were personally familiar with Saudi Arabia, often expressing anger at the Times' propagation of stereotypes. There were some who promoted a kind of cultural relativism, suggesting it's not our job to judge, including (and this is my personal favorite) some single New Yorkers lamenting that their dating scene doesn't really offer much in the way of romance, either.
Comments of the outraged and bewildered variety were often frighteningly racist and intolerant, making incredibly sweeping statements about Arabs and Islam. Of course, such ignorance and hatred is often construed as an act of righteous feminist rage. My favorite, for its imagery, from a woman who describes herself as "shaking with fury" at the men's treatment of one woman they see in a restaurant:
"Would that the internal combustion engine had never been invented, would that not a drop of oil rested under that god forsaken desert, then these swine would be on the backs of camels in the Sahara, where they belong."
The scary part is that this kind of comment frequently goes uncontested- maybe even a majority of commenters on the article would AGREE, at least in some way, with this commenter. She deplores that we have to interact with Saudi society but recognizes it as an economic necessity, displays an almost comical lack of geographical understanding (the Sahara is in North Africa, not the peninsula where Saudi lies), and says that the men in the story are less than human.
I'm starting to think that a sense of entitlement- to oil, of course- coupled with deep racism and distrust towards Arabs and Muslims has a much stronger hold on the general American psyche than I ever imagined.
And, personally, while I'm somehow fascinated and compelled to interact with this dialogue, I find that it wears on my psyche, too. I'm so busy trying to make sense of it all- how can I respond to such comments? Is there REALLY something "ingrained" in Islam that subjugates women? How can I ask people to have a more nuanced view of Arab cultures while not falling into a cultural relativism that flies in the face of my commitment to justice and human rights? How can I decry the subjugation of women wherever it exists while still maintaining that the lives of many Arab women are rich and complex? How can I strongly agree with those who note repression in Saudi Arabia when to side with them seems to mean siding with imperialist projects and Islamophobia?
I want so badly to find a comprehensive, honest, intellectual response that I sometimes forget to allow the lived experiences of others speak for themselves, to rest for a moment in the knowledge that the truth of real faces, real personalities, and real relationships exists despite news reports and analyses.
Not surprisingly (my incarnational religious tradition shows) my liberation lies in taking the hands of others. It was like waking up from a bad dream in the days following my reading of that article, to spend time with Arab friends, and to enjoy their company and their stories. Faced with that reality, faced with forging friendships and communication, all the inaccuracy and violence of those news reports lost some of its grip on me.
Readers expressed outrage at Saudi society and the men's behavior, often coupled with notes about how, as a nation, it's a shame that we're so economically connected to such a repressive society. Some had criticism of the article for its inaccuracies, often from those who were personally familiar with Saudi Arabia, often expressing anger at the Times' propagation of stereotypes. There were some who promoted a kind of cultural relativism, suggesting it's not our job to judge, including (and this is my personal favorite) some single New Yorkers lamenting that their dating scene doesn't really offer much in the way of romance, either.
Comments of the outraged and bewildered variety were often frighteningly racist and intolerant, making incredibly sweeping statements about Arabs and Islam. Of course, such ignorance and hatred is often construed as an act of righteous feminist rage. My favorite, for its imagery, from a woman who describes herself as "shaking with fury" at the men's treatment of one woman they see in a restaurant:
"Would that the internal combustion engine had never been invented, would that not a drop of oil rested under that god forsaken desert, then these swine would be on the backs of camels in the Sahara, where they belong."
The scary part is that this kind of comment frequently goes uncontested- maybe even a majority of commenters on the article would AGREE, at least in some way, with this commenter. She deplores that we have to interact with Saudi society but recognizes it as an economic necessity, displays an almost comical lack of geographical understanding (the Sahara is in North Africa, not the peninsula where Saudi lies), and says that the men in the story are less than human.
I'm starting to think that a sense of entitlement- to oil, of course- coupled with deep racism and distrust towards Arabs and Muslims has a much stronger hold on the general American psyche than I ever imagined.
And, personally, while I'm somehow fascinated and compelled to interact with this dialogue, I find that it wears on my psyche, too. I'm so busy trying to make sense of it all- how can I respond to such comments? Is there REALLY something "ingrained" in Islam that subjugates women? How can I ask people to have a more nuanced view of Arab cultures while not falling into a cultural relativism that flies in the face of my commitment to justice and human rights? How can I decry the subjugation of women wherever it exists while still maintaining that the lives of many Arab women are rich and complex? How can I strongly agree with those who note repression in Saudi Arabia when to side with them seems to mean siding with imperialist projects and Islamophobia?
I want so badly to find a comprehensive, honest, intellectual response that I sometimes forget to allow the lived experiences of others speak for themselves, to rest for a moment in the knowledge that the truth of real faces, real personalities, and real relationships exists despite news reports and analyses.
Not surprisingly (my incarnational religious tradition shows) my liberation lies in taking the hands of others. It was like waking up from a bad dream in the days following my reading of that article, to spend time with Arab friends, and to enjoy their company and their stories. Faced with that reality, faced with forging friendships and communication, all the inaccuracy and violence of those news reports lost some of its grip on me.
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Bassam Haddad on Lebanon
Last night I went to a lecture in a small room in the basement of one of UPenn's ivory-tower-looking buildings. The audience was small and I recognized most of the people in the room from similar events. Nonetheless, Bassam Haddad, Director of George Mason's Middle East Studies program and member of the editorial board of a publication I adore, the Middle East Report, presented an interesting and well-versed talk titled "Lebanon and Syria in the Context of the Bush Administration's 'New Middle East.'"
The thing is that learning about Lebanese politics gets me all excited. I'm not really sure why, because they're very complicated so I could really only confidently tell you approximately three things about them. Perhaps it's a romantic attachment to a country I know is small, beautiful, and struggling. Perhaps it's the complication itself, so little understood or acknowledged here; maybe reaching for understanding of Arab societies is like my white-girl post-orientalist treasure hunt. Whatever forces tug at me so viscerally- the same ones I sometimes feel studying Arabic- let's, in their honor and for their purification, record a few notes on Lebanon from Haddad's talk. (And, admittedly, this is going to focus on Hezbollah, not really doing justice to Lebanese politics.)
1. One of the three things I CAN tell you about Lebanese politics is that they use a confessional system. Government positions are split up according to religious and political sects, so that power is shared among groups. Haddad emphasized that while this system was created in deference to existing groups in Lebanese society, it actually produces sects. The continued strength and even splintering of sects within Lebanon is not due to a "Lebanese mentality" or a general Middle Eastern/Arab allergy to democracy and pluralism, but to the necessity of creating new groups in order to influence policy.
2. This is the setting where Hezbollah exists, of course. Haddad was clear in stating that Hezbollah is primarily a social movement. Even if Hezbollah's military branch disbanded, its social programs and institutions would continue. The weakness of Lebanon's central government and the strength of groups, including Hezbollah, who run social services are proven by the continuity of life in Lebanon despite the current lack of a president and the continued postponement of elections.
3. I asked Haddad, who had mentioned Hamas as well, to clarify if he would also define Hamas as primarily a social movement. He said that yes, ultimately he would, but that Hezbollah was much better organized and clear in their mission. He also differentiated between the groups- which I think are described quite similarly in American media- by reminding us that Hezbollah was a grassroots Lebanese movement supported by Iran, while Hamas was a Palestinian group encouraged and propped up by Israel in order to take power away from Arafat and the PLO. In this, he said, Hamas better parallels the Muslim Brotherhood. Both are Islamic groups sometimes operating in the government, sometimes outside of it, who have had various levels of popular support and who have used violence. (Though violence is not their raison d'etre, as the U.S. government classification "terrorist" presumes.) In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood, when it was smaller, was supported by then-president Anwar Sadat to take power away from- hmm, I think it was the socialists who were threatening his liberal economic policies. At any rate, both of these groups were supported by governments who didn't really want them to get real power, and are today two of the biggest political forces in their respective locales.
4. On the U.S. foreign policy front, Haddad insisted that the problem with U.S. policy in Iraq and the Middle East is not in method or strategy but in substance. The Iraq failure, he said, is not that the U.S. has poor tactics, but that the U.S. displayed an incredible arrogance in invading in the first place. For this reason, he said, American liberals and moderates scare him more than neo-cons. They use less aggressive language and may create more nuanced policy, but their substance still consists of the assumption that the U.S. has some right to interfere in the Middle East, and they will continue to act not in favor of "democracy" generally, but according to U.S. strategic interests, and will support whichever regimes happen to support those interests at the moment.
I wonder what Haddad thinks about the potential of McCain, Clinton, or Obama leading U.S. Mid-East policy.
The thing is that learning about Lebanese politics gets me all excited. I'm not really sure why, because they're very complicated so I could really only confidently tell you approximately three things about them. Perhaps it's a romantic attachment to a country I know is small, beautiful, and struggling. Perhaps it's the complication itself, so little understood or acknowledged here; maybe reaching for understanding of Arab societies is like my white-girl post-orientalist treasure hunt. Whatever forces tug at me so viscerally- the same ones I sometimes feel studying Arabic- let's, in their honor and for their purification, record a few notes on Lebanon from Haddad's talk. (And, admittedly, this is going to focus on Hezbollah, not really doing justice to Lebanese politics.)
1. One of the three things I CAN tell you about Lebanese politics is that they use a confessional system. Government positions are split up according to religious and political sects, so that power is shared among groups. Haddad emphasized that while this system was created in deference to existing groups in Lebanese society, it actually produces sects. The continued strength and even splintering of sects within Lebanon is not due to a "Lebanese mentality" or a general Middle Eastern/Arab allergy to democracy and pluralism, but to the necessity of creating new groups in order to influence policy.
2. This is the setting where Hezbollah exists, of course. Haddad was clear in stating that Hezbollah is primarily a social movement. Even if Hezbollah's military branch disbanded, its social programs and institutions would continue. The weakness of Lebanon's central government and the strength of groups, including Hezbollah, who run social services are proven by the continuity of life in Lebanon despite the current lack of a president and the continued postponement of elections.
3. I asked Haddad, who had mentioned Hamas as well, to clarify if he would also define Hamas as primarily a social movement. He said that yes, ultimately he would, but that Hezbollah was much better organized and clear in their mission. He also differentiated between the groups- which I think are described quite similarly in American media- by reminding us that Hezbollah was a grassroots Lebanese movement supported by Iran, while Hamas was a Palestinian group encouraged and propped up by Israel in order to take power away from Arafat and the PLO. In this, he said, Hamas better parallels the Muslim Brotherhood. Both are Islamic groups sometimes operating in the government, sometimes outside of it, who have had various levels of popular support and who have used violence. (Though violence is not their raison d'etre, as the U.S. government classification "terrorist" presumes.) In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood, when it was smaller, was supported by then-president Anwar Sadat to take power away from- hmm, I think it was the socialists who were threatening his liberal economic policies. At any rate, both of these groups were supported by governments who didn't really want them to get real power, and are today two of the biggest political forces in their respective locales.
4. On the U.S. foreign policy front, Haddad insisted that the problem with U.S. policy in Iraq and the Middle East is not in method or strategy but in substance. The Iraq failure, he said, is not that the U.S. has poor tactics, but that the U.S. displayed an incredible arrogance in invading in the first place. For this reason, he said, American liberals and moderates scare him more than neo-cons. They use less aggressive language and may create more nuanced policy, but their substance still consists of the assumption that the U.S. has some right to interfere in the Middle East, and they will continue to act not in favor of "democracy" generally, but according to U.S. strategic interests, and will support whichever regimes happen to support those interests at the moment.
I wonder what Haddad thinks about the potential of McCain, Clinton, or Obama leading U.S. Mid-East policy.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
bread alone
The other day at our kitchen table a friend said that rice prices are rising- rice, the staple of so many, including those of us who are not so poor but have taken refuge in our ability to eat rice and beans. There are riots, he said, and Wal-Mart is now limiting how many bags of rice a customer can buy.
My eyebrows raised. Wal-Mart? I sang "the times, they are a-changing." I wondered how soon, and how hard, the price of rice and wheat would impact me.
For the time being, the reality of food prices is made most accessible to me as I consider what brothers and sisters in Egypt are facing, as I can picture their meals and their neighborhoods and their bakeries. The venerable Egyptian English-version weekly Al Ahram considers how the government should respond to the crisis.
As what seems like it should be certain becomes more unsteady, I consider the words of my favorite nun: "The poor may know that God loves them. But how can the very poor know this, if they do not even have enough to live?"
My eyebrows raised. Wal-Mart? I sang "the times, they are a-changing." I wondered how soon, and how hard, the price of rice and wheat would impact me.
For the time being, the reality of food prices is made most accessible to me as I consider what brothers and sisters in Egypt are facing, as I can picture their meals and their neighborhoods and their bakeries. The venerable Egyptian English-version weekly Al Ahram considers how the government should respond to the crisis.
As what seems like it should be certain becomes more unsteady, I consider the words of my favorite nun: "The poor may know that God loves them. But how can the very poor know this, if they do not even have enough to live?"
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
"youth for Obama"
A bit of the 2008 presidential race to remember. Stephen Colbert on Larry King, 4/14/08.
KING: Give me your assessment of Barack
Obama,where he's come from, what he's
done, what he's accomplished. He's a
political phenomenon.
COLBERT: Yes, absolutely. He's an
inspiring candidate. And he's got the
young people out there just eating out
of the palm of his hand. He's passing
his hope bong around the drum circle of
young America.
KING: His what?
COLBERT: His hope bong, Larry.
He's inviting people to take deep
tokes off of his bong packed with hope.
Monday, March 31, 2008
rejected by the Times
Cleaning out old emails is like paging through a ramshackle diary; the old notes I'm reading summon the mood and events of certain months in my life. Here's a good one from August of 2006, when I was coming home from Egypt, living at my parents' house, and glued to news of the Israel-Hezbollah war in Lebanon. It's a letter the New York Times did not see fit to print. I'm a little surprised at the ending; I'm not sure if my obvious insinuation that Friedman is committing racism against Arabs gets to the heart of the matter or is an inflammatory distraction in a plea for nuance.
(And here's the original editorial, though I'm refraining from reading it- no need to rehash that now...)
To the Editor:
Re: "Buffett and Hezbollah," Thomas L. Friedman, Op-Ed, Aug. 9:
I struggle to find, in this article, factual evidence to support Friedman's claim that "Hezbollah youth dream of being martyrs," any description of who these youth are, or how Friedman obtained this insight into their desires. Do "Hezbollah youth" include all youth who benefit from Hezbollah's social services, any young person who voted for a Hezbollah candidate, or just the young members of Hezbollah's armed wings?
Mr. Friedman, you write that you look into the faces of Israeli soldiers. Do not the Lebanese, even the "Hezbollah youth," deserve the same examination, simply by virtue of being human? Or do Arabs not merit factual reporting?
(And here's the original editorial, though I'm refraining from reading it- no need to rehash that now...)
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
to kick things off: an international poll
Last week at work during one of my daily BBC perusals, I stumbled upon one of those polls that seem both obvious and important- like "exercise promotes heart health" or "people don't like having their homes bombed," this headline is common-sense but should be heeded: Most muslims "desire democracy."
What I found interesting was not so much the information in the headline but this bit:
"Muslims want self-determination, but not an American-imposed and defined democracy. They don't want secularism or theocracy," said the professor of Islamic Studies at Georgetown University in Washington.
What I found interesting was not so much the information in the headline but this bit:
"Muslims want self-determination, but not an American-imposed and defined democracy. They don't want secularism or theocracy," said the professor of Islamic Studies at Georgetown University in Washington.
"What the majority wants is democracy with religious values."
When I read this, I felt like doing a little Lloyd Dobbler-like bowing in the middle of the street, if only to myself. It encapsulates what I suspected in Cairo- that most Egyptians want both democratic representation in a just government, and to publicly celebrate their religions (which, to me, felt like part of the very air).
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