Distortions Of Progress

All too frequently, the media sensationalizes non-stories as they attempt to whip up anti-Islamic fervor in the name of ratings. FOX News ran a story headline Sunday: “Islamic Law’s Influence in America a Growing Concern.”

What exactly is the concern? Apparently, some taxi drivers in the U.S. decided not to carry passengers with alcohol, a university installed taps for Muslim worshippers to wash their feet before prayer, and a company decided to give their employees a holiday on Eid.

Yeah – real issues to worry about – I don’t know what our free country is coming too when taxi drivers can choose their passengers, a public school helps guarantee freedom of worship, and a corporation acknowledges all religions. That certainly isn’t why our Founding Fathers wrote the Bill of Rights.

This perception of Islam has distorted what the American public views as progress. The media has over-simplified our goals, presenting the idea of a Muslim woman who removes her veil as “progress.” That’s not progress. That’s just a different culture.

I was once propositioned by a woman under a powder-blue burqa on the streets of Kabul. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t the veil that was keeping her in a state of prostitution.

Progress would be if that woman had access to affordable medical care. Progress would be if her children had access to free schools. Progress would be if both she and her husband could earn a living wage. Progress would be if their villages weren’t in danger of being bombed by U.S. drones or held hostage by Taliban insurgents.

Progress would be growth. Progress would be peace. Progress would be a future. Who gives a shit about a veil?

President Obama’s “new” Afghan/Pakistan strategy has the same simplistic view and lacks any fresh ideas as to how we can combat the roots of extremism. Instead, his “new” strategy is simply super-sizing the mistakes of the past 8 years and attempting to reframe the issue with new euphemisms.

The so-called “war on terror” (now renamed, in true Orwellian fashion, the “Overseas Contingency Operation”) continues to view civilian deaths – collateral damage – as acceptable. We continue to fund Pakistan’s military despite knowing that elements of Pakistan’s intelligence forces are supporting Taliban insurgents.

Meanwhile, America keeps trying to convince Afghans, Pakistanis, and other Muslims in developing countries (or occupied territories) that we are just trying to help; yet we refuse to let them help themselves. Islam is always seen as part of the problem – not part of the solution. For nearly a decade, we have attempted to justify our own failures and distract those working for global development by pointing a finger at Islamic piety.

And this is where we have doomed ourselves to failure.

There are so many partners that could help with real progress, but too many of them have been labeled as “too Islamic” and thus a potential enemy. Islam is (like all major religions) built on charity, and there are institutions within many Muslim societies that can act as a partner if given the chance. Unfortunately, our fear has kept us from trusting anything that looks, talks, smells, or even hints at being “Islamic.”

The Indian state of Gujarat is an example of what Islamic organizations can provide if given the opportunity. The city of Ahmedabad was torn apart in 2002 by ethnic and religious riots. (I won’t get into who started it, because like so many other conflicts, it really doesn’t matter. What matters is that a small event escalated and thousands of people were affected.)

After the riots, some of the Muslim population in Ahmedabad was left without homes. Islamic charities stepped in to help. Even orthodox political institutions, like Jamaat-i-Islami, the Pakistani Islamic party with links to militant groups, came to the rescue of the displaced community. They helped reconstruct old homes, set up new schools, and built new communal housing for resettlement. The underlying fear in the Indian government was that the Islamic influence would filter down and create a more conservative, rigid community.

Seven years on, Jawaharlal Nehru University anthropologist Dipankar Gupta writes that fears about rising Islamic fundamentalism have proved to be unfounded. The Islamic institutions have not tried to implement their brand of fundamental religion, but have simply worked to better the lives of Gujarati Muslims.

“Did the [Islamists]…place conditions of a religious nature before they let people into these [resettlement] colonies? None, as far as the residents could recall…[N]obody was tested for orthodoxy before they were allowed in…

The truth is that neither Jamaat-i-Islami nor [other Islamic institutions are] keen on advocating fundamentalist lifestyles. They have no interest in sponsoring madrassas that teach only Arabic and the Quran. Instead they have set up schools that provide secular education…These schools are not a ruse for Islamic organizations, or clerics, to pump religious fervor into Muslim kids.

On the contrary, these Muslim institutions are clear that they want the boys and girls in their care to learn secular sciences and skills and heave themselves out of parental poverty. The curricula in these schools are so designed that they conform to the requirements of the state education board. There would be some religious instructions in these institutions, but they would be on the side, and a minor matter…

The accent is on turning out successful Muslims who can negotiate confidently in a secular world…

Where then is that fundamentalism that is supposedly breeding in the smoldering slums of Ahmedabad? In fact, if anything, it is just the reverse…”

The Obama administration has similar ready-made partners for reconstruction in Afghanistan and Pakistan. America (or NATO) cannot do it alone – and nor should they. Afghans and Pakistanis – and the religious values that are a part of them – need to be integrated into the very institutions that are seeking to help. We need to heed a lesson from the reconstruction of Ahmedabad and stop being afraid of utilizing Islam in development.

But gaining support for such an idea first requires something from the media. We need a media that focuses on true progress instead of culture. We need the anti-Islamic fear-mongering to stop.

We need a media that presents Islam for what it is and what it should be – part of the solution.

Now that would be a truly new strategy for the “Overseas Contingency Operation.”

Wil Robinson
AWOP International Contributing Editor
Author of International Political Will Blog

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Moving Obama Forward

I’m still tentatively problamistic about President Obama – not optimistic, not pessimistic - just assuming the most probable outcome. I won’t say I’ve become disillusioned yet, but Obama is definitely not bringing the kind of change we voted for, especially when it comes to foreign policy.

Obama’s policy on Iraq is virtually identical to what Bush’s was at the end of his term last year: we’re gonna keep some troops, we’re gonna secure our “interests” (read: oil), and we’re never really gonna leave entirely.

But it is in Afghanistan that Obama has really screwed himself. And it seems only now is everyone beginning to realize it. The decision to keep raining airstrikes on Afghanistan and Pakistan in hopes that we can bomb an insurgency into submission is finally being questioned (although many pundits seem to be questioning only “Obama’s decision” to bomb – seeming to ignore the 7 years that Bush first decided it was a good idea). But let bygones be bygones. We’re talking about now – the future – and the way forward.

I first said our policy of airstrikes on villages was doomed for failure last October. Then again here. And here. And also here. Professor Juan Cole alluded to the problem on January 26, just days after the inauguration. Newsweek opined on the issue in late January. The Scholar’s Stage analyzed the issue as well. And a former Pakistan CIA case officer wrote an op-ed for the New York Times last week saying the same thing.

Is anyone in the Obama Administration listening?

Rabbi Michael Lerner, editor of the progressive spiritual magazine Tikkun (check out Tikkun’s wonderful piece on the positive role of Islam in Afghanistan), appears to have some constructive ideas about how we can get Obama’s attention (reprinted in part from an email and available in the March/April 2009 issue).

…[Obama’s] decision to double U.S. troops in Afghanistan is a moral and political disaster. He has neither clearly articulated goals nor a plausible exit strategy, he continues the intellectually incoherent and morally perverse “war or terror,” and he guarantees the death of innocents…

Yet how do we [criticize Obama]?

…[F]or some the answer simply is: “keep quiet, be patient, and in his own time he’ll do all the good things liberals want.”

But that is not how Obama works. It’s obvious from his appointments and his policies that Obama responds more to those outside his camp who make a ruckus of criticism than to those whose support he takes for granted.

To be politically relevant, spiritual progressives have to become visible critics where that criticism is morally required. Yet we must do so in a language that embodies our genuine respect for Obama and our genuine belief that he can be called back to his own highest values.

Our task is to use this extraordinary moment in history…to provide a detailed vision of an alternative…Without that vision of an alternative, progressives and liberals are forced back into the old ways of thinking…

The “something new” is already there…in our religious and spiritual wisdom, but today it must be fleshed out and applied…to build a new global system. That is our challenge, and that is our major project in the months ahead.

There is no question that the United States is a thousand times better off with Obama than his criminal predecessors (one of whom seems unwilling to let go of the fear…ehem, I’m talking about you, Darth Cheney).

We made a huge step forward last November when we elected a person like Obama. Unfortunately, the last eight years left us little room for mistakes. We can no longer afford two steps forward and one step back.

So the question we are left with is: What is the most probable outcome? Will Obama suddenly shift to a new foreign policy paradigm that advances international coexistence between East and West, between Muslim, Christian, and Jew, between rich and poor?

Or will Obama continue his drift toward hypocrisy, appeasement of the conservative right, and repetition of the failures of the past?

Progressives like Rabbi Lerner believe our duty as citizens only began last November. The future is up to us.

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¡Viva la Depredador Aviones!

Why aren’t we bombing Mexico with unmanned Predator drones?

If the Obama administration truly believes that dropping bombs from remote-controlled aircraft onto villages on the Afghan-Pakistani border is a good idea to combat the Taliban, why not do the same to fight the drug cartels in Tijuana and Ciudad Juarez?

It seems that Mexico - where the drug war killed three times as many civilians in 2008 than a real war did in Afghanistan - is a perfect candidate for expanding Project Predator.

There are a number of similarities between the two regions:

Both the northern Mexican states and Pakistan are perilously close to becoming failed states, rife with corruption and lacking any entity that can enforce the rule of law.

Both countries are fueled by narco-terrorism and violence as they each try to export their illegal drugs to Western markets.

Both countries routinely see decapitations used as a method of terror, like these unfortunate Mexican police sans heads.

The threat of kidnapping is prevalent in both countries.

Neither Mexico nor Afghanistan/Pakistan attacked America on September 11, 2001.

There is actually more evidence to support the bombing of Mexico rather than Pakistan:

More people were killed in Mexico in 2008 (6,000+) in drug-related violence than died in Afghanistan (2,100+).

Unlike Afghanistan/Pakistan, the violence in Mexico actually is spilling over directly into American cities.

Phoenix is the kidnapping-for-ransom capital of the U.S., with 366 incidents in 2008 (police estimate twice as many may not be reported). Phoenix also has a murder rate that is twice the national average (unless it’s all those senior snowbirds that are responsible for the homicides).

The southern New Mexico town of Columbus has seen a trend of drug lords from south of the border moving into their small neighborhood:

“Several residents of Palomas [across the border in Mexico near Juarez] have bought property in Columbus recently, paying cash…new Cadillac Escalades, and cars with thousand-dollar chrome rims, have appeared suddenly, in a town without a single traffic light.”

More than 200 American citizens (15 of them minors) have been killed in Mexico since 2004, largely in border cities like Tijuana, Ciudad Juarez, and Nuevo Laredo. Another 75 Americans are still missing. Most of these cases are unsolved.

In fact, despite what the politicians and their mainstream media lapdogs attempt to convince us of, drug violence in northern Mexico is a bigger threat to American security than any Taliban insurgents. Though we have effectively scared Americans with color-coded fear factors and visions of wild-eyed Mohammedans who want to kill us for our freedom, it isn’t the reality. Americans are much more likely to die in drug-related violence – directly tied to the northern Mexico smuggling routes and cartels – rather than at the hands of a Muslim suicide bomber.

Given the facts, I can’t understand why we aren’t already using Predator drones south of the border. It seems to me that drug lords would be pretty easy to locate in their lush villas, and then we can just drop a bomb or two via remote control – their families be damned. We don’t care about collateral damage in Pakistan – why should we care about it in Tijuana?

If we aren’t worried about addressing the root of Afghanistan’s problems with any real infrastructure or reconstruction, why are we even bothering to try to solve the underlying drug problem in the U.S.? Forget social programs and rehab centers, stop funding the Narcotics Anonymous meetings and anti-drug programs in schools, eliminate that wasteful spending on the DEA. If we can just bomb our way out of a problem, why bother with all that bleeding-heart liberal nonsense?

And if Pakistan’s sovereignty doesn’t deter us from crossing the border and bombing villages, why should Mexico’s sovereignty be any different?

Of course, there is that one underlying factor that makes our politicians think twice when taking a human life – religion. Those drug lords in Mexico are, after all, Catholic (as in, not Muslim).

But we get no help from the Catholic Church. The Vatican can’t even decide whether or not they should excommunicate these drug lords (yet we complain about Muslim leaders not doing enough to speak out against terrorism). Though the Catholic Church seems to be quick to deny communion to politicians who support a woman’s right to her own body. And at least they take a tough stand on real crimes against humanity, like being gay.

President Obama decided – within hours of taking office – that having a robot kill people (thus removing the human conscience from the equation entirely) was a good way to win hearts and minds in Afghanistan.

Now he thinks he can reach out to “moderate” Taliban insurgents. How can we possibly know who is moderate and who is extreme when our only contact is through an infrared camera attached to a remote-control plane thousands of feet above the ground?

However, Obama is the commander-in-chief, so I’ll assume he’s is correct in killing 15 civilians in hopes that one of them is a mid-level Taliban leader (who will be replaced before the sun sets).

But if we’re going to use this new sophisticated technology, I want to go all in. I want Predator drones used in any situation where they might be remotely possible (pun intended) to help us protect our country. I know it’s only a matter of time before we are using Predators against our own people (Great Britain already is considering it).

Let the bombing of Mexico begin.

Will Robinson
AWOP International Contributing Editor
Author of International Political Will

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An Educated Tragedy

There is a joke that circulates among ex-pat teachers of English in Japan (though Japanese never found it funny):

On the Titanic, moments before it sank, there were special announcements.

“Attention all British citizens. Women and children first. It’s the gentlemanly thing to do.” And all the British men replied with “here, here,” and “I say, cheerio, good chap.”

Then another: “Attention all American citizens. Women and children first. Be a hero.” And all the American men replied with “Hell yes, damn right, USA! USA!”

And another: “Attention all German citizens. Women and children first. Your fuhrer demands it.” And all the German men saluted and marched.

And finally: “Attention all Japanese citizens. Women and children first. It’s what everyone else is doing.”

I suppose it’s a stereotype to say that Japanese people are all the same – a nation of followers. But I say with confidence, experience, and evidence:

Japan is wasting its educated, affluent population by suppressing ingenuity and training a nation of 100 million followers to think collectively and robotically.

I pay (most) of my bills reading and grading an average of 20 English essays a week – all written by Japanese, most post-graduate professionals looking to improve their English for job opportunities or to enter graduate school in the US or Britain. (Before that, I spent more than a year teaching Japanese students conversational English in the southern prefecture of Fukuoka.)

The essay prompts are similar for all students:

What country would you visit for a two-week vacation?
What will the 20th century be remembered for?
Create your own holiday to honor or celebrate a person or event.
What is the most endangered resource and how can we protect it?
How can Japan address its aging population?
Etc., etc.

And miraculously, for the past year, I have received virtually the same answers from dozens of students:

• They only want to go on vacation to a country they have already been to. Going somewhere new is entirely out of the question.
• The 20th century will be remembered for technology. Then follow three body paragraphs about how “technology” is good (though I never get an actual definition or example of what kind of technology…)
• Everyone wants to create a holiday “for relax.” No real reason, no person or event to honor, and no creativity. Just “for relax.” Isn’t that what a Sunday is?
• The most endangered resource is our forests. Of course, “protecting them” just means having international conferences – you know, that Kyoto thing. That Japan is responsible for a fair portion of the Amazon deforestation to make hardwood furniture has never come up. Neither have the millions of disposable wooden chopsticks the country runs through every day.
• And always, without fail, Japan needs to address its aging population with “government measures.” No clue as to what those “measures” might be…

So to sum up what the basic values and ethics the Japanese education system teaches, based on their essays:

Stay in your comfort zone, technology is good, recognizing individual achievements with a holiday is unnecessary, international conferences without action will solve global problems, and government measures are best left to the bureaucrats to figure out.

These monotonous ideas and expressions are coming from one of the richest, most educated, and affluent populations on earth. Japanese have one of the highest life expectancies and most comfortable living standards in the modern world. They have a quasi-socialist state that assures everyone receives a great education, a healthy diet that has virtually eliminated obesity, mega-cities where random acts of violence and crime are almost non-existent, and a culture of alcohol that knows how to enjoy a beer (usually several) without getting “angry drunk.”

Yet with all these advantages, Japan can’t produce people that can think for themselves.

One student, after being repeatedly advised that they needed to take a clear position in issue essays and express their opinion with evidence, actually replied with: “You mean I should express my own opinion?”

I have been debating with co-workers where this collective “don’t abandon a sinking ship, just let everyone drown quietly” mentality comes from. We considered the geographical isolation that comes with being an island nation, Confucian traditions that demand respect for the elderly, and the same ethic that led the nation to blindly follow their emperor to the kamikaze ending of World War II. Too often, I think, we incorrectly chalked it up to “the Japanese (and perhaps East Asian) Way.”

Masaru Tamamoto wrote an interesting op-ed in the New York Times yesterday that has a different take. Not willing to accept notions that assume “to be Japanese is to be a follower,” Tamamoto thinks the post-World War II reconstruction of Japan built the bureaucratic wall that has stymied progress.

[W]hat most people don’t recognize is that [Japan’s] crisis is not political, but psychological. After our aggression — and subsequent defeat — in World War II, safety and predictability became society’s goals. Bureaucrats rose to control the details of everyday life. We became a…large middle-class population in which people are equal and alike.

Conservative pundits here like to speak of this equality and sameness as being cornerstones of “Japanese” tradition. Nonsense…

[O]ur economic success has relied on the availability of outside models from which to choose…Japan’s rise to economic greatness was basically a game of catch-up with the advanced West.

So what happened once we caught up? Over the past two decades, the answer has largely been paralysis. Japan’s ability to imitate outside models was mistaken for progress. But if progress is defined by pursuing a vision of a desirable future, then the Japanese never progressed. What we had was a concept of order and placement, which is essentially stasis…

Japan desperately needs change, and this will require risk. Risk-taking is not common among the bureaucratically controlled. You won’t find many signs on Japanese beaches saying, “Swim at your own risk. No lifeguard on duty.” If that sign were to appear, many Japanese would likely ask the authorities to tell them if it is safe to swim. This same risk aversion translates into protectionism and insularity…There is not nearly enough critical thinking and dissent in the Japanese news media…

Japan’s passiveness today is in large measure a calculated and reasonable reaction to its behavior during the Second World War. But today, this emphasis on safety and security is long [outdated]…

Japan needs more critical thinkers like Tamamoto, and they need them in their education system, where they can stimulate debate among the next generation of leaders instead of churning out more followers.

Otherwise, Japan faces a future of vague, theoretical sameness, and solutions that do little to move their people forward. A stagnant Japan will offer little to the rest of the world. For an educated country with such potential, maintaining the status quo is tantamount to failure.

And, incidentally, why can’t I, just once, have a student that thinks like Tamamoto?

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Poppies and Pomegranates

There is yet another obscure way our government is trying to fight the so-called “war on terror” (besides actually stopping it).

Pomegranates.

Apparently these delicious (but ridiculously hard-to-peel) fruits are the key to fighting terror in Afghanistan and thwarting the Taliban. Unable to keep local Afghan farmers from growing the lucrative opium poppies, the U.S. government is now trying to convince them to switch to the [slow-growing and less lucrative] pomegranate crop to export to world markets.

Following U.S. Government logic, this would deprive the Taliban of their illicit drug trade – and without funds the insurgency would disappear (because, you know, the only reason they are terrorists is because they have illegal drug money…I mean, it’s not like there is a religiously extreme, petro-dictatorship like Saudi Arabia out there with a history of supporting the Taliban that could step in and keep the money flowing…).

As a matter of agricultural development policy, I fully support Afghans growing pomegranates and making a buck. It is a critical component of an integrated strategy for success and reconstruction.

But it can’t be in isolation. As long as we’re dropping bombs from 30,000 feet and are willing to accept “collateral damage” that Afghan and Pakistani villagers are not, buying every last pomegranate in Kandahar won’t matter.

First we must put aside the obvious economics behind supply and demand, principles of free trade, and international competition that would drive pomegranate prices down should a massive influx on world markets take place. There is also the fact that the trees only produce one crop a year (poppies produce two).


But more importantly, pomegranate trees take 4-5 years to mature before you can harvest anything. That’s a long-term investment in the future. What about America’s half-assed, infrastructure-lacking, non-reconstruction fund-having, short-sighted, ex-pat alcohol-drinking aid worker, undersized military force and their window-dressing, Euro-centrist, photo-op development projects would make Afghans think we have any intention on supporting something long-term?

The only reason we’re still stuck in a war in central Asia 7 years on is because Bush and his neo-con “do it on the cheap” CEOs-turned-War Cabinet ignored the Afghanistan problem, hoping it would just go away.

But what really pisses me off is that NBC News is regurgitating another Pentagon stunt about “how to fight terror” in isolation – a stunt whose sole purpose is to misdirect the American public’s attention from a comprehensive plan that can really win the war.

Let’s review the many ways our government has told us we can fight terrorism:

Go shopping

Surrender privacy rights

Shred the U.S. Constitution

Throw out habeas corpus

Rewrite the Geneva Conventions

Torture

Promote democracy and then actively sabotage it when you don’t like the result (see: Hamas)

Fund military despots around the world (see: Egypt, Pakistan, et. al.)

Veto United Nations Security Council Resolutions calling for Israel to respect human rights and international law

Rendition

Take off our shoes and go thirsty when traveling on a plane

Deploy a mercenary army with no accountability

Invade countries that didn’t attack us

Continue to placate the one that did (see: Saudi Arabia)

Lower the price of oil by “drilling now”

Refer to the enemy as “homicide bombers” but our own bombs as “smart”

Issue travel warnings to reduce cultural interaction

Color-code fear

Entrapment (see: Hamid Hayat, the Lodi “terrorist”)

Blame Al Jazeera and/or free speech for showing photos of people we killed

Build walls (in Israel or on the Mexican border)

Spend a trillion dollars on an unnecessary war instead of domestic development

Send more troops

Blame religion

Drop bombs on villages from remote-controlled airplanes

And now…Buy pomegranates

It seems we have tried just about everything – except the most obvious:

Stop killing non-white, impoverished Muslims.

With President Obama reshaping the US strategy in Afghanistan, I expected new ideas. Instead, he seems to be hoping that doubling-down on Bush’s failed tactics will suddenly and miraculously succeed. In his first three days in office, Obama decided to continue the policy of dropping bombs on Afghan and Pakistani villages from unmanned drones – a policy that has led to hundreds of civilian deaths and recruited thousands more for the Taliban’s cause. Obama has actually increased the frequency and number of drone attacks over the last month.

The media last week reported on Obama’s plan to send 17,000 more troops to Afghanistan as risky, noting for the historical written record that Obama was now making it “his war.” It’s hard to see how, after only one month, a guy can be responsible for a war after his predecessor fucked it up for 7 years…but I guess that must be the “liberal media” up to their usual tricks.

We’ve seen this tactic used against insurgencies before. Nixon didn’t start the Vietnam War – he just inherited it. But he was the one who decided that expanding the carpet bombing of civilians into Laos and Cambodia would win hearts and minds. Now Nixon is the man remembered for losing a war at the cost of thousands of American and millions of Southeast Asian lives.

The new American president needs more than pomegranates to win hearts and minds, much less a war. If Obama’s answer to the problem in Afghanistan is to drop more bombs and to try to crush an insurgency with military strength, it will be his legacy of failure. Not his war, perhaps, but definitely his shame.

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