I love TV

"Do the crossword for me," says my mother, pointing to the New York Times heap dated July 24, 2006 sitting on the table in front of us.
The television is off, finally, which allows us to focus our attention elsewhere, after serving as a desensitizing window to the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict.
Six days ago, when the coverage of the fighting was almost a week more novel than it is today, I was unable to convince a Jewish friend of mine that Israel's attack on Lebanon was undeserved - at the time some 200 Lebanese had died because a group they didn't necessarily agree with and which certainly did not represent them as a nation had kidnapped two Israeli soldiers. She agreed with everything I posed as reasons for Israel not bombing Lebanon back "twenty years" (as an Israeli general-type said), but could not bring herself to seeing why those reasons added up to Israel not defending themselves after years of "this sort of thing" (she didn't say exactly that, so the quotes are more paraphrasing than direct quotation). That was 6 days ago, when the news coverage and the whole issue had seemed important.*
I realized, 3 days ago (deathcount in Lebanon ~325 people), that, if I had approached a Muslim friend about the conflict, he/she and I would have disagreed as well - he/she would have disparaged Israel's attacks to an absurd extent, at which point, I would find myself defending Israel, its people, and their, fairly understandable, desire to live outside of constant fear.
Today I saw what seemed to be the result of Israeli use of phosphorus in their aircraft-based bombings. Apparently, the chemical is banned by several treaties concerning which weapons are acceptably terrible and which ones cross into unacceptable terribleness, but nevertheless, there were 2 Lebanese kids on TV, suffering from phosphorus burns that, if they survive, will scar them for life.
As I watched that, I dunked my fries (I take two at a time to justify a more sizable sauce dunking) and, as I ate the fries, made a note to myself to add more Tabasco to the sauce mixture next time. The Lebanese kids continued their crying, leaving tear trails where the ointment was carried away by the saline drops running down their faces. I left the TV room once my food was finished. The news reported that another bomb had gone off in an Israeli kibbutz while I was disposing of my food tray. The news coverage by this time was almost as novel as the proceedings of Afghanistan's democratic government.

* Looking back, I think I meant amenable to change rather than pressing or dire.

Universalism, Rethought

Ever since I heard President Clinton's speech to the Class of 2006 at Princeton University, an interesting thought has been brewing in my head. While I am usually skeptical regarding any sort of universalism (see my article on Ms. Hirsi Ali or the Muhammad Cartoons), there could be a way of bringing about "shared values" that President Clinton spoke about.

In his speech, President Clinton gave a concrete example of how opinions (and values) can change over time. In Indonesia, he said, after the war in Iraq began, approval of American actions was down to 30%. However, after the tsunami, where approximately 30% of Americans gave money in aid for tsunami victims and countless NGOs from the US and other countries (like the Netherlands and UK) came in to help rebuild the lives of the victims, that same approval rating was up to 58%. Therefore, as a result of an empathetic struggle to rebuild Southeast Asia, where the citizens of Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and India saw that Americans actually cared about their well-being, relations between America and those countries (in particular, Indonesia) improved considerably.

The key point in the above example is that the opinions and values of the region evolved not through some propaganda offered up by the American government, but through the hard work and monetary contributions of American citizens. If the government of the US had been the key player in the Indonesian relief effort, there may have been any number of suspicions regarding why the US government was so interested in helping Indonesians. However, when American people, a diverse and characteristically discordant group, come together in an effort to rebuild the region, such suspicions fall away. There is no worry of a conspiracy existing between all the different groups that came to the aid of the Indonesians - the multilateral and non-governmental nature of the effort prevented that. Therein lies the key to a practical universalism.

By avoiding "uni-traditional" and governmental actions, the world can work towards the sort of "shared values" that President Clinton speaks of. If the actions are "uni-traditional" (ie, all the aid groups come from within Western nations), immediately there is the worry of conscious manipulation of another culture's values by the aiding culture. If the actions are governmental, there is a similar worry of governmental conspiracy to colonize the region they are aiding. Thus, in order to achieve the shared values that President Clinton feels would result in "more friends and fewer enemies," any actions causing a profound effect on a region (whether culturally, economically, or physically) must be taken by multi-traditional and non-governmental entities. That is, a relief effort in any part of the world must, in order to succeed in the long-term, possess participants from as large a cross-section of the world as possible. Then, any cultural effect caused by the effort, be it a direct result of the effort or an indirect consequence, will be seen not as a malicious trick by any one group, but rather a coming together of people in an effort to improve the lot of their fellow person, resulting in the growth of a basic set of shared values.

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As a side note, I would like to say that President Clinton's idea about NGOs is similar to what I suggested as a possible solution in Iraq. The diverse nature of NGOs would prevent any sort of focused influence effected by any one country. As a result, the shared values that arise will be, as the president said, "general and embracing and [would] work everywhere," rather than being values perceived to be imposed upon Iraqis by the Coalition of the Willing.

Rationale for the Muhammad Cartoons

The New York Times published an editorial written by Flemming Rose in Der Spiegel explaining why he printed the Muhammad Cartoons in his newspaper last year. He caricaturizes himself as a 60s hippie who, over the years, has become jaded by the exploitation of the left by the very victims they try to protect. He speaks of fundamentalist Muslim clerics in Europe taking advantage of the doctrine of "victimology" to use it against the people who defend them. And so on and so forth.


After making a case against the clerics, he moves onto defending his own actions. He makes a very strong case for himself, writing:

By treating a Muslim figure the same way I would a Christian or Jewish icon, I was sending an important message: You are not strangers, you are here to stay, and we accept you as an integrated part of our life. And we will satirize you, too. It was an act of inclusion, not exclusion...

However, as one of my close friends pointed out, it's like covering oneself in honey just after a bee's nest has been poked, merely because covering oneself in honey is within the bounds of allowed action (and perhaps even the "right thing to do"). She referred to his actions as "idiotic" and "mistimed." However, while I agree it was mistimed, I think he sees his own actions as idealistic rather than idiotic. There have been many situations when we have lauded a person for doing something like this, saying he or she "did the right thing" despite having every reason not to. Ultimately, I think, while he had the right to do what he did, especially as his reasons were idealistic, I think he did, in fact, mistime them. But furthermore, as he writes, the Muslim community in Europe should not have reacted quite as violently as it did - being a citizen of a multicultural democracy carries with it the implicit assumption that ones culture and religion may very well be the butt of a joke every once in a while. As a citizen of a democracy, one also has the right to protest such perceived violations, but not to the point of threatening the lives of other humans - such a reaction solves nothing and has potentially gigantic costs.

The Iraq Issue

Blair and Bush are finally conceding that they made some mistakes in Iraq. The de-Baathification of the government led to a large number of angry people with guns while reducing the effectiveness of any army the US and UK help them put together (as every extensively trained Iraqi is disenchanted with us due to the de-Baathification). They admit that removing Hussein from power was not what was needed to spark a democratic Iraq and that they needed a plan before having gone into the country. Politically-wise, this concession helps them stop the bleeding by appealing to the sympathy of the voters. However, now that they have admitted to the mistakes, they need to start doing something to fix Iraq.

First of all, we need to admit this is not going to be a short term situation. We are stuck there. If we leave now (or soon), all we do is show the Middle East that we do not much care for them and that we entered Iraq for all the reasons they think we entered for: oil, imperialism, war against Islam, etc. As such, I agree we need to train Iraqi forces, but that does not mean our troops are leaving very soon (I see at least 3-4 years more there). But the sudden rush to increase Iraqi forces has been incredibly bad: widespread corruption, uniformed death squads, etc. are consequences that come to mind. We need to take our time - even artificially sown democracy does not rise overnight.

Second, we need to focus more on the humanitarian aspect of our invasion of Iraq. We killed a few tens of thousands of Iraqis and displaced probably even more. It is unsurprising that we do not have a positive image in their eyes. As such, we need to bring in NGOs to aid in rebuilding people's lives. This would mean a huge relief fund built especially for NGOs within the Coalition of the Willing who are willing to go into Iraq and help people settle down again. That could be anything from physically helping them rebuild their houses, help them setup educational facilities from elementary school to secondary institutions, help them establish local governance, etc. The list goes on and on. It will cost a lot and there will be a lot of failed attempts, but, I think, this is the most important part of any long-term improvement of Iraq.

Finally, if our efforts in Iraq are to succeed, we have to alter perceptions of America and American actions in the Middle East (as explained by ex-Secretary Albright). A large part of why al Qaeda succeeds in recruiting new terrorists is that Muslim youth feel that America is an evil entity desirous of the end of Islam. Of course that is untrue, but al Qaeda is able to spin everything that the US does into a large-scale assault on Islam. We need to correct that perception. To do so will involve not just a PR campaign but also a campaign of positive action involving massive efforts to improve relations between Muslims (within and outside the US) and the rest of the population. Bringing NGOs into Iraq could be considered a part of this effort, but it should be the best fleshed out part, because I truly believe it is the most important one.

I imagine there are tons of other aspects to Iraq that I have not thought about yet. However, in my eyes, the aforementioned three would go a long way to improving what is, at this point, an utter and absolute mess.

(I realize this is a rather liberal point of view on the whole Iraq issue. Although I imagine most people reading this will be rather liberal, if anyone can think of any other improvements for Iraq, I would be interested to know them (liberal or conservative).)

Ayaan Hirsi Ali - Human Rights vs. Tolerance

Ms. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, member of the Dutch Parliament, was recently found to have falsified her refugee information when she arrived in the Netherlands in 1992. I just heard a radio interview with her on WNYC about her new book The Caged Virgin. Her views on Islam, as I see them, are influenced by her earlier interactions with the religion: her grandmother performed a circumcision (FGM) on her when she was six years old and then her father attempted to marry her off to a distant cousin when she was twenty-two. In all, she has not had a particularly positive relationship with Islam and Muslims.

That is why, while I may agree with her that certain tenets in Islam are contrary to western liberal thought, it is unfair to say that we should not be tolerant of apparently intolerant cultures (as she says in her interview on WNYC). Protection of female rights and cultural tolerance, while closely entwined in her context, are not the same issue. Religious tolerance stems from an idea of cosmopolitanism that is a strongly-held tenet of western liberalism and female rights belong to the idea of universal human rights, also a major aspect of liberalism.

Ms. Hirsi Ali, as far as I can tell, wishes to do away with cultural tolerance to preserve human rights. I would propose we follow something of a middle path, one that will neither ignore human rights nor eschew cultural tolerance. Within countries that hold the same set of beliefs, ie western liberal countries (I daresay the US may not be one with our recent anti-abortion legislations), we protect the human rights of individuals, be they citizens, residents, visitors, or refugees, against any malefactors. After all, if a group of people wishes to practice their cultural traditions, it must ensure that the beliefs of that culture do not clash with the policies of the nation in which they have chosen to reside. However, outside this set of nations, our government pursues a policy of cosmopolitanism - governmental agents and agencies do nothing that will offend the residents of nations outside the group outlined earlier.

However, that does not restrict NGOs from carrying on their own campaigns for human rights, campaigns such as those discouraging child marriages and female genital mutilations and encouraging the use of sexual contraceptives. As long as the NGOs are not coercive in their tactics and merely attempting to educate and equip people with the knowledge and tools to improve their lives, they are within their bounds. On the other side, we must allow NGOs from other nations access to our populace. They must be able to educate and equip any members of our population who agree with what they are saying. Again, their actions must be limited to non-coercive tactics that do not violate the laws of our nations, much like NGOs from our nations cannot violate the laws of their nations.

I believe that such practices will reduce the objections that people like Ms. Hirsi Ali may have against cultural tolerance. I realize that she feels she has suffered a lot of intolerance at the hands of a culture that we are tolerating, but eschewing tolerance would destroy western liberalism far more quickly and assuredly than any amount of repeated attacks by outside cultures.

References:

Ms. Hirsi Ali's May 5, 2006 Interview with Brian Lehrer on WNYC
Ayaan Hirsi Ali - Wikipedia article

Update:

An interesting epilogue: Upon leaving the Dutch Parliament, Ms. Hirsi Ali is going to the United States, where she will be joining a conservative think tank, American Enterprise Institute - slightly confusing, considering her stated allegiance to western liberal thought.

US - Iran: Actions and Reactions

People's reactions to the recent situation in Iran has me rather confused and slightly angry. People around me keep criticizing the United States for its handling of the situation. As far as I can see, we have done nothing yet that is "wrong" even in the most idealistic sense of the word. All we have done so far is gone to the United Nations to see if we can impose sanctions on Iran if they continue forward with their nuclear program without the oversight of international inspectors. We have also tried to downplay the importance of President Ahmadinejad's letter to President Bush, but that is also not something immediately condemnable. What is it then that people find wrong?
Upon continued discussion, it seems that one point of contention is the sanctions America is trying to impose on the Iranian people. After all, what did the people of Iran do against the United States? But, let us consider what exactly economic sanctions are. Saying that the US will impose economic sanctions against Iran means that, in some form, the United States will reduce trade between companies established in the US and companies established in Iran. Some people say that is unfair. But how is it fair for the US government to stack up the interests of Iran against the interests of the United States and decide in favor of Iranian interests? As the economic sanctions seem to be a tactic to improve American security interests, then by all means, it seems perfectly fair to impose. Furthermore, by requesting the same sanctions at the United Nations, we are merely asking other nations to join us in reducing their trade with Iran. The other delegates should only do so if they also think that economic sanctions are in the interests of their respective nations. Moreover, they are absolutely free to not impose such sanctions - the United States is not strong-arming anyone to do anything by bringing the matter to the United Nations. This is one of the few times that the United States is doing something that comes close to resembling a sane plan of action and to see people deriding it makes no sense. We should applaud such actions by this administration and hope for more of the same rather than the cowboy-blundering we have seen in the past.
Also, some people claim that President Ahmadinejad's letter is not being received as the immense diplomatic gesture that it is. While I would agree that the administration does not seem to be reacting to it quite as I, a private individual, would, it seems almost needless to say that the letter is certainly getting far more attention than is being shown to the public. That is to say, the United States is certainly aware that this is the first, direct, written communication between Iran and the United States since 1979 and it is surely being given due attention. It does seem rather coincidental that the letter comes right at the eve of a decision within the United Nations regarding sanctions upon Iran. However, rather than speaking to the nuclear program for which the sanctions are being considered, the letter focuses on the blunders of George W. Bush as a leader. Ahmadinejad writes of the failure of western liberal democracy and invited the US to try fundamentalism as a form of government. While I am the first to admit that President Bush's actions in the past 6 years have been rather short of stellar, it is unclear to me that converting to a fundamentalist government will, in any way, resolve all the issues that have arisen during his presidency. If anything, moving away from religious fervor, to which President Bush is sadly inclined, might in fact be a better way to resolve some of the issues and prevent future ones. But, coming back to the timing of the letter, it is clear that it was written not to the president of the United States, but to the leaders, diplomats, and citizens of the nations considering the sanctions against Iran being suggested by the United States. Ahmadinejad's ploy seems rather obvious; by questioning the actions, motives, and general image of leader of the country leading the campaign to impose sanctions, he wishes to reduce the overall perceived need for the sanctions.
For the first time in six years, I don't feel absolutely ashamed by the actions taken by my country. To see people condemn them simply because they were taken by someone we do not necessarily like is wrong and, honestly, somewhat scary. We should analyze each situation on its own merits and decide what we think of it as individuals rather than merely toeing our respective party lines.