There is no doubt that religion and politics make for a potent mix and the recent UN resolution, condemning the ‘defamation of religion’ has created quite a stir in the international community. In the following article Gitanjali Bakshi analyzes the possible implications of this resolution and what it could mean for the on-going debate on religion and politics.
Where Religion Meets Politics…
By Gitanjali Bakshi
There will be no peace among the nations without peace among the religions. There will be no peace among the religions without dialogue among the religions" – Dr. Hans Kung
In 1992 Samuel Huntington claimed that culture and religion would be the primary source of conflict in the ‘post cold-war era’. Some have argued against his theory -- stating that modern wars are as much a product of limited resources as they are a ‘Clash of Civilizations’. Others contest that civilizations have clashed and will clash for eons to come, and that Huntington was simply stating an age old fact rather than a new phenomenon.
Nevertheless, on the 26th of March 2009, a resolution passed by the Human Rights Council, condemning the ‘defamation of religion’, spoke to the very essence of Huntington’s assertion. This resolution is significant because it has once again emphasized the importance of religious debate within the international political arena. With both strong supporters and strong detractors, the resolution is forcing policymakers to deal with the proverbial elephant in the room: religion.
Pakistan and the 22 other states that advocated a resolution against the ‘defamation of religion’, claim that individuals have faced intolerance, discrimination and even acts of violence as a result of certain stigmas about their religious beliefs. In particular, they agree that in recent years there has been a vilification of Islam -- that the religion has often been associated with terrorism, extremism and human rights abuses and that this vilification has led to an irrational fear or even hatred against Muslims, often called ‘Islamophobia’. The resolution, supporters say, is an effort to curb the harmful consequences of this unwarranted slander against any one religion. These 23 advocates speak to an individual’s inalienable right to practice their religion without prejudice, without condemnation.
On the other hand, opponents of the resolution, claim that it is a “shot across the bow of free speech” – one of the central tenets of the Human Rights Charter. They are concerned that the resolution is simply a ruse to stifle debate and inquiry in countries that already suffer from poor human rights records and even poorer press freedoms. The 11 states that voted against the resolution argue that religion must be questioned in order to reform and that individuals must enjoy their right to communicate their opinions freely. A decision to punish those responsible for expressing their beliefs is a decision to steal from human beings one of their most unassailable rights: the right to speak up against what we perceive as unjust or wrong, the right to our own convictions.
While both sides have valid points and both highlight certain undeniable realities, the answer lies somewhere in between.
While engaging in dialogue, we must be careful with our words, we must weigh our thoughts and we must, as much as possible, refrain from the harshest of judgment. Along with freedoms come responsibilities. Unrestrained freedom of one individual can quite possibly mean the curtailment of freedom for another. This is why President Obama has highlighted that it is important to engage the Muslim world and not just criticize them; because the foundation of any dialogue, and especially inter-faith dialogue, must include a certain level of receptivity and respect.
At the same time, saying that religious ideas must be ‘respected’ does not mean that they should go unchallenged. Religion is redundant if it cannot adapt to time and circumstance. The only reason why religion has been subject to reform over the ages is because it has been scrutinized and examined. If we didn’t have the right to question religion, we would not be able to speak up against archaic and cruel practices like sati, witch-hunts and female genital mutilation. These laws are an affront to the most basic human rights of freedom, justice and peace and we must be able to express our collective voice against them.
These guidelines are of course applicable to both opponents and advocates of the resolution against the ‘defamation of religion’. All institutions of governance must undergo change and reform in accordance with their sufficiency in the time and circumstances that we live in. Similarly, religions must award respect to the beliefs of others, if they want respect in return.
But above all, leaving both sides of the debate behind, the recent resolution on the ‘defamation of religion’ has emphasized that -- in a world where we grapple with modern theories like the ‘Clash of Civilizations’, in a world where Political Islam is becoming a clear and undeniable reality and in a world where cartoons criticizing a particular faith can create world wide civil protest -- we can no longer segregate religious debate from political debate.
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Tuesday, April 21, 2009
THE FORGOTTEN MEANING OF "TIANANMEN"
An appreciative thanks to Juan Cole for posting my latest essay during this season of remembrance for the uprising at Tiananmen. I will be posting essays and excerpts on the topic in the next few weeks, linking Global Affairs to sites such as The China Beat and Frontier International. For more information on my forthcoming book, "Tiananmen Moon" published by Rowman & Littlefield, please see minzhuwansui.
-Phil
THE FORGOTTEN MEANING OF TIANANMEN
by Philip J Cunningham
“Tiananmen” is a taboo topic in China. But even in places where it is remembered and commemorated, the Beijing student movement of 1989 is best known for its bloody ending on June 4, a tragic turning point of unquestioned significance, but one which tends to obscure the amazing weeks of restraint, harmony and cooperation in crowds that swelled to a million at the height of an entirely peaceful and extremely popular social movement.
Twenty years ago, as hundreds of thousands demonstrated day after day in Beijing, as ordinary citizens joined in or supported the student protesters with offers of food, drink and hearty cheers, crime all but disappeared and with it everyday suspicions and the habitual selfishness of an alienated populace. A remarkable degree of forbearance was evident on all sides, the government included, making it possible for a truly peaceful mass movement to emerge and blossom in the sunshine of that fateful Beijing spring. Even the provocative hunger strike, despite its grim overtones of self-starvation, did not claim a single victim and was wisely called off after one week.
Given the way the media works, perhaps reflecting something intrinsic to the workings of memory itself, there is undue focus on the big-bang at the end, the ultimate failure of the movement, rather than its peaceful flowering. The brutal crackdown of June 4 tends to eclipse the breath-taking accomplishments of April 27, May 4, May 10, May 13 --indeed nearly every day in mid-May 1989—until martial law was declared. After the troops were moved in, protesters started to panic and mutual threats became more pointedly violent.
Of course, mourning the dead and injured, mourning the lost opportunities for China, bemoaning the injustice is essential in taking measure of what happened. But what about the good times that preceded the blow-out, the soaring dreams taken wing, the beauty of a peaceful uprising?
The understandable, but ultimately misplaced media focus on a handful of nervous politicians and their hot-headed student interlocutors has obscured not only the considerable restraint showed by the communist party and its leaders for much of the period in question, but also occludes the positive, in some cases, outright remarkable contributions of the student leadership who performed brilliantly as crowd facilitators and morale boosters. Key actors on both sides of the barricades were less than democratic in word and deed, but they were adept at utilizing native, communist-influenced political tools to manage people power to an impressive degree.
The focus on the failure of the movement, and the foibles of those best known as its representatives, also obscures the even more weighty and valorous contributions of tens of thousands of ordinary citizens whose defiance was singular and courageous, who made China's biggest peace fest both peaceful and festive. Nobody was really in charge of the crowd, as much as student activists and government emissaries might try, the crowd was self-policing and constantly undergoing spontaneous transformations, at once creating the conditions of its own existence and reacting to subtle shifts in the prevailing political winds.
While focusing on a handful of individuals is perhaps necessary for narrative simplicity, if not coherence, we need to constantly remind ourselves about the multifarious ‘silent majority' who were out there in the streets of Beijing, hoping to augur in and witness the re-birth of a more equitable and just China. Even for those without a clue as to what democracy might mean, there was courage and conviction in the way so many showed their feelings with their feet, voting with their bodies rather than ballots, putting their lives on the line, come sunrise, come sunset, at Tiananmen Square.
Now that twenty years have passed, it is time to go beyond the hate inspired by the crackdown, beyond the ad hominem attacks on inept octogenarians, dithering party cadre and inexperienced student activists, and instead to look at the larger picture of a million souls gathered purposefully and with great self-discipline on the streets and plazas of Beijing, and many more across China, who were part of a rare transformative moment in history. Nearly everyone involved, despite their disagreements, stubbornness and imperfections, exhibited a potent love for country and fellow citizens.
Now that twenty years have gone by, it is a time for reconciliation, a time to ponder the tragedy not with a desire for revenge or recrimination but with a plain telling of the truth, as best as a multidimensional and in some respects unknowable truth can be told, and to accept that this revolutionary drama-turned-tragedy, this alternatively uplifting and gut-wrenching karmic kaleidoscope, was composed of ordinary, mostly well-meaning people acting in predictably human, if not always completely noble, ways.
When mourning the victims of June 4,1989, when challenging the uncomfortable silence that has descended upon an otherwise much reformed, much more open China, let us recall not just the bloodshed that ended the popular uprising at Tiananmen, but the sustained participation of hundreds of thousands of ordinary folks who, simultaneously empowered and laid vulnerable, contributed to the inspirational flourishing of peaceful protest in May 1989.
Philip J Cunningham marched with student protesters in 1989 at Tiananmen Square and conducted interviews with student activists for BBC and ABC news. His memoir, Tiananmen Moon; Inside the Chinese Student Uprising in 1989, will be published in May by Rowman & Littlefield.
see the following websites for more information:
http://icga.blogspot.com/
http://jinpeili.blogspot.com/
http://minzhuwansui.blogspot.com/
http://thechinabeat.blogspot.com/
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Thursday, April 16, 2009
On Iran’s Sincerity in Nuclear Talks
Farideh Farhi
Michael Rubin of the American Enterprise Institute had a piece in the Wall Street Journal on April 12 that really got me wondering about the extent to which opponents of U.S. engagement with Iran are willing to twist the truth to make their case against US-Iran talks.
Reflecting on the history of nuclear negotiations between the EU-3 and Iran, Rubin finds the Iranians to have been as “insincere as European diplomats were greedy, gullible or both. Why? Because Iranian negotiators of all colors have proven to be committed to Iran’s nuclear program!! He identifies this as Iranian insincerity.
But, ironically, the only insincerity that I see reflected in the WSJ piece is the author's!
What do I mean? Well, let's start with the public consistency of the Iranian government's position on its nuclear program. One doesn’t have to agree with Iran’s nuclear program to acknowledge that from day one, Tehran has said publicly that it will not agree to the permanent suspension of its enrichment or enrichment-related programs. Even when it suspended its program in 2004-5, it said it would do so only temporarily and for the purpose of building confidence.
Perhaps people have forgotten the trajectory of the EU-Iran negotiations but, as explained here, 2004 negotiations in Paris were only saved when the Europeans agreed to change the language demanding suspension and instead used the language of "objective guarantees" regarding the peacefulness of Iran's program. If others thought that this was a bargaining ploy or something else, it was not because of lack of consistency or sincerity on the part of the Iranian negotiators.
Now let's turn to Michael Rubin. He uses two quotes in his piece to make his point that to me are highly questionable. The first one is from Abdollah Ramezanzadeh, government spokesman during Mohammad Khatami’s presidency. The quote is drawn from a reporting of a debate between the reformist Ramezanzadeh and a hard-liner by Fars News, which should never be relied upon in its reportage of what reformists say in public debates because its reports are clearly slanted towards the hard-line right.
Even assuming that Fars News is engaged in accurate reporting, the way Rubin takes the quote out of context manages to change the meaning of it. This is how Rubin translates the quote:
“We should prove to the entire world that we want power plants for electricity. Afterwards, we can proceed with other activities.”
The clear implication that Rubin wants the reader to draw is that Khatami’s government was "trying to lull the West into a false confidence so that Iran could pursue illicit nuclear activities." In fact, the words I have placed in quotation marks here are Rubin's exact words in an old post in the National Review's Corner blog about Ramezanzadeh's quote.
Rubin makes a couple of subtle changes in the translation but, more importantly, what Rubin does not report are Ramezanzadeh’s prior sentences which make it clear that by other activities he is still talking about a civilian program. This is the full context of Ramezanzadeh’s quote:
“If we want the right to nuclear energy for the bomb, then it is clear that the world doesn’t want this. But if we want it for electricity, they say you don’t have a nuclear power plant, why do you want the fuel? Just take a look at what the Russians have done to us over the Bushehr power plant? With the current speed of enrichment it will take us 25 years to reach enrichment self-sufficiency. Even then, from where are we going to get our fuel? [The extent of] our reserves are not even unclear. The solution is to prove to the world that we want the power plant for electricity and then begin other activities.”
In fact, anyone with little knowledge of Iran’s domestic discourse on nuclear issues should know that the idea of a nuclear program beyond a civilian one simply does not have a place in public conversations. The Iranian government has been successful in selling the idea of enrichment precisely because it has always maintained that it is pursuing a civilian program, a "right" made possible by NPT, and no illicit activities.
So for Michael Rubin to imply that Ramezanzadeh was saying something beyond that Iran should "prove to the entire world that we want power plants for electricity" - a statement in support of the act of confidence building embarked upon during the Khatami era - is simply disingenuous.
Even more disingenuous is what Rubin does with the interview of Iran's former nuclear negotiator Hassan Rowhani. In response to a question about his failures as a negotiator, Rowhani discusses Iran's strategy for 10 long paragraphs. Rubin takes isolated and out of context sentences – even half-sentences - from different paragraphs, weaves them together as though these were sequential sentences and makes it seem as though Rowhani was making an argument for Iran’s deceptive approach during negotiations.
In fact, Rowhani says that Iran suspended because there was an international consensus against Iran and because the negotiators were led to believe the Europeans were going to negotiate in good faith and that the Americans were interested in a diplomatic resolution of the conflict. He also says that he made abundantly clear to the Europeans that permanent suspension was out of the question and Iran came out of suspension not under Ahmadinejad but under Khatami (which is an often forgotten fact).
Now I fully understand Rubin's position regarding US-Iran talks, even if I disagree with it. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, as it is often said but misrepresentation is another story.
Of course, there is always the possibility that Rubin's Persian is not very good (or his translators are not very good). For instance, in his reaction to one of Roger Cohen's pieces in NYT, Rubin writes in the National Review Corner blog:
"One of Cohen’s interlocutors, at least according to his February 5, 2009 column, was former IRGC Chief Mohsen Rezai. Here is Rezai in today’s Iranian press: “Our enmity with the U.S. has no end." Cohen painted him as a bit more reasonable."
Rezaie in fact said exactly the opposite, using a double negative. He said: "Our enmity with the U.S. is not without end"!
So mistakes can be made in translation. But what Rubin does with Rowhani’s and Ramezanzadeh’s quotes suggests that something more than a mistake is going on.
Iran and the United States are about to begin serious rounds of talks about Iran’s nuclear program. At the center of the controversy is Iran’s enrichment program, which is a civilian program. Iran’s interlocutors have so far taken a "zero-option" position demanding Iran to suspend all enrichment and enrichment-related activities for the fear that this civilian program will give Iran the ability to build a weapons program.
Iran, in turn, has consistently and publicly said it will not suspend its program permanently under any circumstances. It said so during Khatami administration and it is saying so today.
There is an exclusivity of positions and a deep conflict here that may or may not be resolved or compromised over in the future talks because, even though the Obama Administration has given up suspension as a precondition for talks, it is not yet clear whether it is prepared to give suspension up as negotiation objective in exchange for more intrusive inspections and some limits on Iranian program.
But the reason the Obama administration is finally coming to the table is not because it is not aware of this deep conflict of positions or it is gullible enough to be misled by Iran's deceptive diplomatic maneuvers, as Rubin seems to suggest. Rather it is changing course because more than half a decade of useless diplomatic wrangling with frequent deadlines and red lines, repeatedly crossed by Iran, have not been effective.
Iran is now spinning more centrifuges, has continued work on its heavy water plant, while the international community’s inspection regime, even though still in line with Iran’s treaty obligations, has become less extensive mainly because Iran has stopped implementing the Additional Protocol that it used to implement voluntarily before its case was referred to the Security Council.
In fact, a case can easily be made that the gullible and insincere folks in this process were the ones who refused to face reality and kept claiming, despite evidence to the contrary, that deadlines and red lines, military threats and economic pressures, will work despite repeated straight-forward statements by Iranian officials of all hue that they will not.
Misrepresentations of the Iranian position seem to be the only munitions left in defending a failed policy.
Read more on this article...
Michael Rubin of the American Enterprise Institute had a piece in the Wall Street Journal on April 12 that really got me wondering about the extent to which opponents of U.S. engagement with Iran are willing to twist the truth to make their case against US-Iran talks.
Reflecting on the history of nuclear negotiations between the EU-3 and Iran, Rubin finds the Iranians to have been as “insincere as European diplomats were greedy, gullible or both. Why? Because Iranian negotiators of all colors have proven to be committed to Iran’s nuclear program!! He identifies this as Iranian insincerity.
But, ironically, the only insincerity that I see reflected in the WSJ piece is the author's!
What do I mean? Well, let's start with the public consistency of the Iranian government's position on its nuclear program. One doesn’t have to agree with Iran’s nuclear program to acknowledge that from day one, Tehran has said publicly that it will not agree to the permanent suspension of its enrichment or enrichment-related programs. Even when it suspended its program in 2004-5, it said it would do so only temporarily and for the purpose of building confidence.
Perhaps people have forgotten the trajectory of the EU-Iran negotiations but, as explained here, 2004 negotiations in Paris were only saved when the Europeans agreed to change the language demanding suspension and instead used the language of "objective guarantees" regarding the peacefulness of Iran's program. If others thought that this was a bargaining ploy or something else, it was not because of lack of consistency or sincerity on the part of the Iranian negotiators.
Now let's turn to Michael Rubin. He uses two quotes in his piece to make his point that to me are highly questionable. The first one is from Abdollah Ramezanzadeh, government spokesman during Mohammad Khatami’s presidency. The quote is drawn from a reporting of a debate between the reformist Ramezanzadeh and a hard-liner by Fars News, which should never be relied upon in its reportage of what reformists say in public debates because its reports are clearly slanted towards the hard-line right.
Even assuming that Fars News is engaged in accurate reporting, the way Rubin takes the quote out of context manages to change the meaning of it. This is how Rubin translates the quote:
“We should prove to the entire world that we want power plants for electricity. Afterwards, we can proceed with other activities.”
The clear implication that Rubin wants the reader to draw is that Khatami’s government was "trying to lull the West into a false confidence so that Iran could pursue illicit nuclear activities." In fact, the words I have placed in quotation marks here are Rubin's exact words in an old post in the National Review's Corner blog about Ramezanzadeh's quote.
Rubin makes a couple of subtle changes in the translation but, more importantly, what Rubin does not report are Ramezanzadeh’s prior sentences which make it clear that by other activities he is still talking about a civilian program. This is the full context of Ramezanzadeh’s quote:
“If we want the right to nuclear energy for the bomb, then it is clear that the world doesn’t want this. But if we want it for electricity, they say you don’t have a nuclear power plant, why do you want the fuel? Just take a look at what the Russians have done to us over the Bushehr power plant? With the current speed of enrichment it will take us 25 years to reach enrichment self-sufficiency. Even then, from where are we going to get our fuel? [The extent of] our reserves are not even unclear. The solution is to prove to the world that we want the power plant for electricity and then begin other activities.”
In fact, anyone with little knowledge of Iran’s domestic discourse on nuclear issues should know that the idea of a nuclear program beyond a civilian one simply does not have a place in public conversations. The Iranian government has been successful in selling the idea of enrichment precisely because it has always maintained that it is pursuing a civilian program, a "right" made possible by NPT, and no illicit activities.
So for Michael Rubin to imply that Ramezanzadeh was saying something beyond that Iran should "prove to the entire world that we want power plants for electricity" - a statement in support of the act of confidence building embarked upon during the Khatami era - is simply disingenuous.
Even more disingenuous is what Rubin does with the interview of Iran's former nuclear negotiator Hassan Rowhani. In response to a question about his failures as a negotiator, Rowhani discusses Iran's strategy for 10 long paragraphs. Rubin takes isolated and out of context sentences – even half-sentences - from different paragraphs, weaves them together as though these were sequential sentences and makes it seem as though Rowhani was making an argument for Iran’s deceptive approach during negotiations.
In fact, Rowhani says that Iran suspended because there was an international consensus against Iran and because the negotiators were led to believe the Europeans were going to negotiate in good faith and that the Americans were interested in a diplomatic resolution of the conflict. He also says that he made abundantly clear to the Europeans that permanent suspension was out of the question and Iran came out of suspension not under Ahmadinejad but under Khatami (which is an often forgotten fact).
Now I fully understand Rubin's position regarding US-Iran talks, even if I disagree with it. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, as it is often said but misrepresentation is another story.
Of course, there is always the possibility that Rubin's Persian is not very good (or his translators are not very good). For instance, in his reaction to one of Roger Cohen's pieces in NYT, Rubin writes in the National Review Corner blog:
"One of Cohen’s interlocutors, at least according to his February 5, 2009 column, was former IRGC Chief Mohsen Rezai. Here is Rezai in today’s Iranian press: “Our enmity with the U.S. has no end." Cohen painted him as a bit more reasonable."
Rezaie in fact said exactly the opposite, using a double negative. He said: "Our enmity with the U.S. is not without end"!
So mistakes can be made in translation. But what Rubin does with Rowhani’s and Ramezanzadeh’s quotes suggests that something more than a mistake is going on.
Iran and the United States are about to begin serious rounds of talks about Iran’s nuclear program. At the center of the controversy is Iran’s enrichment program, which is a civilian program. Iran’s interlocutors have so far taken a "zero-option" position demanding Iran to suspend all enrichment and enrichment-related activities for the fear that this civilian program will give Iran the ability to build a weapons program.
Iran, in turn, has consistently and publicly said it will not suspend its program permanently under any circumstances. It said so during Khatami administration and it is saying so today.
There is an exclusivity of positions and a deep conflict here that may or may not be resolved or compromised over in the future talks because, even though the Obama Administration has given up suspension as a precondition for talks, it is not yet clear whether it is prepared to give suspension up as negotiation objective in exchange for more intrusive inspections and some limits on Iranian program.
But the reason the Obama administration is finally coming to the table is not because it is not aware of this deep conflict of positions or it is gullible enough to be misled by Iran's deceptive diplomatic maneuvers, as Rubin seems to suggest. Rather it is changing course because more than half a decade of useless diplomatic wrangling with frequent deadlines and red lines, repeatedly crossed by Iran, have not been effective.
Iran is now spinning more centrifuges, has continued work on its heavy water plant, while the international community’s inspection regime, even though still in line with Iran’s treaty obligations, has become less extensive mainly because Iran has stopped implementing the Additional Protocol that it used to implement voluntarily before its case was referred to the Security Council.
In fact, a case can easily be made that the gullible and insincere folks in this process were the ones who refused to face reality and kept claiming, despite evidence to the contrary, that deadlines and red lines, military threats and economic pressures, will work despite repeated straight-forward statements by Iranian officials of all hue that they will not.
Misrepresentations of the Iranian position seem to be the only munitions left in defending a failed policy.
Read more on this article...
TIANANMEN TWENTY YEARS AGO
TIANANMEN SQUARE DURING THE HIGH TIDE OF THE UPRISING IN 1989
As the 20th anniversary of "Tiananmen" approaches, I would like to post excerpts from "TIANANMEN MOON," my forthcoming memoir about Beijing Spring 1989 to commemorate in a modest but heartfelt way the many moments of wonder, soaring hopes, dashed dreams and raw terror as experienced in the heat of the action, each entry posted twenty years to the day of events described. The excerpts will run chronologically, from May 4 to June 4, including highlights such as the May Fourth demonstration, the ten-thousand bicycle demonstration, the hunger strike, the occupation of Tiananmen Square, the water strike, the imposition of martial law, the arrival of troops and the midnight crackdown.
-Phil Cunningham
Please see Frontier International and Tiananmen Moon for more information.
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Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Will Pakistan Become A Theocracy?
The Pakistani Parliament has now passed the bill authorizing Shari'a laws in Swat - and perhaps in other territories. Punjab, according to the NYT report, United Militants Threaten Pakistan’s Populous Heart is also in grave danger of going Islamic in a meta-way. Baluchistan has broken out into violence and protests since the president of the Baluch National Movement, Mir Ghulam Mohammad, was kidnapped (along with two other senior associates), shot to death and then their bodies ditched from a helicopter. The primary suspicion falls upon the military or military intelligence. That leaves us Sindh. Karachi, the biggest city in Pakistan, is having a battle of the bands. More seriously, it is also been the scene for ethnic riots against the Baluchi recently.
In the meantime, the Obama administration has, to this point, authorized over 60 drone attacks for an al-Qaeda kill rate of 2%. Wonderful.
So, given all this, is there a likelihood of an Islamic Revolution in Pakistan? Is it Game Over?
Before we get there, I want to review a couple more things about Pakistan and its relationship with its constitutive parts. Swat merged with Pakistan, constitutionally speaking, in 1969. However, it has retained the status as a "Special Area" granted under the Yahya Khan One Unit proclamation of 1955. This special status was is recorded into the '73 Constitution, Article 247. According to this status, they are free to make their own laws and govern themselves. The President can, from "time to time", give some directions to the Governor but the Parliament, Supreme Court or any High Court has no jurisdiction. So, the Swat "Shari'a" deal is a capitulation insofar as Pakistan has never amended its Constitution to make the FATA territories squarely under its law. Additionally, the Swat deal seems to be the only way to curb Maulana Fazlullah, at the moment. If Obama is going to talk about "good Taliban" in Afghanistan, Pakistan certainly has the right to make political negotiations to get a cease-fire. The human impact of the last 3 years on Swat valley has been intense - over 300,000 have fled.
Baluchistan, another princely state which was militarily merged with Pakistan after Partition, had no role in the federal state. After the 1955 One Unit Proclamation, the Khan of Kalat tried again to declare sovereignty. General Tikka Khan ("the butcher of Bengal") was sent to Baluchistan in 1958 under Ayub Khan's military rule to enforce federal writ. Things simmered until Bhutto has to send more army troops against another militant uprising in the region from '72-'74. So, there is no love lost between the center and Baluchistan.
Sindh, Karachi, and the Mohajir Qaumi Movement (MQM) are another beeswax. Only recently, rumors were afloat that Musharraf was cutting a deal with MQM and give them autonomy under a federated Pakistan.
Now, to return to this "question". I would argue that such a formulation of impending doom is one of the main reason Pakistan is in this mess. There is a rich vein of "Pakistan on the Brink" theorization that has dominated US foreign policy since the 50s. Back then, it was the Communist revolution, and now it is the Islamic one. This particular mind-set has propelled one disastrous policy over another for the last 40 years. We have supported dictator after dictator and stood by, silently, when civilian regimes floundered under internal economic and political crises. Once again, this question dominates the Obama policy and will restrict any real re-thinking of the Pakistan issue or re-evaluation of the regional scene. So, let's just categorically understand that:
1. There is a world of difference between "Taliban" and any given Pakistani citizen, even the most devout believer. The Taliban, strictly understood to be warlords operating with or in support of Mullah Omar, are a very particular political group. They _are_ political. They _have_political goals. They are not, in effect, a religious ideology that has the danger of sweeping Pakistan. They don't have doctrinarians or theologians. Al-Qaeda does. Taliban don't. It may seem like splitting hairs but I think it is very important to differentiate between the historically situated Taliban and the groups that have emerged in Pakistan bearing the name "Taliban". In the later case, the term is actually masking other political goals and differences that we need to be carefully attuned to. Similarly speaking, there is a world of difference between a specific political group, however broadly defined, which can be numbered in the thousands and a state of 160-plus million peoples. The people of Pakistan have demonstrated, through a number of elections over the last 60 years, that they do not want their religious leaders in political power. There is no dismissing that reality.
2. The most powerful entity in Pakistan in its national army. The second most powerful entity is its civil bureaucracy. The third most powerful are the landed and industrial elite. None of these entities are about to give it up (whatever "it" is - from nukes to bank accounts) to some ragtag bunch of jihadis. Certainly Zardari, wants to keep everything, don't you know it.
3. There is a robust, active, critical media. A media which has played a prominent role in some amazing events in civil and political theaters in the last 3 years.
So, I reject the premise in which the Swat Deal becomes a stepping stone to the "Talibanization" of Pakistan.
Second, Pakistan has always been the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Pakistan has always self-imagined itself to be a "homeland for Muslims". The question really is: what kind of a homeland? Saudi Arabia is a homeland for Muslims. It has Shari'a and a King. Malaysia is another homeland for Muslims - with a different sort of emphasis. Turkey, with its emphatic secularism, falls on the far end of such a homeland for Muslim spectrum. Where does Pakistan fit in? And where does it intend to go? I think that is the more important question. What is Pakistan to Pakistanis now? Who is a Pakistani, in effect? As I pointed out in an earlier discussion on the idea of Pakistan, there has to be a fundamental re-articulation of Pakistan as an entity, as a nation-state, within its constitutive parts. The urgency of this task is evident - there are other claimants with answers. Claimants who carry guns and who can brutalize a population in the blink of an eye. There is also the United States agenda, which continues to treat Pakistan as nothing more than a client-state. Somewhere in this pincer, somewhere between the taliban and the drone, the Pakistanis have to begin forming a sense of their whole. I am not big on nationalism and I don't think that re-imagining Pakistan as a nation is an easy task, either. (( Sometime ago, I would have loved to see a future South Asia Union - akin to the EU - where Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka found themselves in harmony with our uncle India. What a difference a war on terror makes. )) But, I am not simply talking about some ideological mumbo-jumbo that Islamabad can cook-up.
The most crucial step is that the civilian federal state of Pakistan has to listen - really, actually, listen - to the people of FATA, the people of N.W.F.P, the people of Baluchistan, the people of Sindh and the people of Punjab. It has to provide its citizens with basic security, shelter and welfare. It needs to protect its citizens from terrorism. It needs to strengthen its civic engagement with non-governmental organizations. It needs to ensure that basic human rights and access to a basic educational system is guaranteed to all citizens. These are actions that can be taken and should be taken and they will have a far greater impact than any 1.5 billion dollar aid. The Pakistan military, and the US, must allow for this. It must enable the state, it must pressure the state to fulfill its pledges to the people. Part of that means a military operation against the Taliban (narrowly defined) and al-Qaeda (defined as "foreign fighters" in the press) in Swat and in Baluchistan. This must be under-taken by the Pakistan military.
From such a process, a major process of stabilization, the state can start to re-build. It's a tall order, I know. There are too many de-stabilizing forces. Not to mention, an open question mark over whether there is actual political will to do all this. Yet, I remain hopeful. Pakistanis - however we categorize them - have a lot of heart, a lot of soul and great fortitude. For the last 8 years, they have been paying the price of a proxy-war waged on their soil. A decade before, they suffered through another proxy-war which gave them millions of refugees and a radicalizing ideology. They have persevered. I am still in awe of the hundreds of thousands who galvanized against Musharraf and the millions who cast a vote in the election last year. We must support those many millions in taking the next step.
{x-posted to CM}
Read more on this article...
In the meantime, the Obama administration has, to this point, authorized over 60 drone attacks for an al-Qaeda kill rate of 2%. Wonderful.
So, given all this, is there a likelihood of an Islamic Revolution in Pakistan? Is it Game Over?
Before we get there, I want to review a couple more things about Pakistan and its relationship with its constitutive parts. Swat merged with Pakistan, constitutionally speaking, in 1969. However, it has retained the status as a "Special Area" granted under the Yahya Khan One Unit proclamation of 1955. This special status was is recorded into the '73 Constitution, Article 247. According to this status, they are free to make their own laws and govern themselves. The President can, from "time to time", give some directions to the Governor but the Parliament, Supreme Court or any High Court has no jurisdiction. So, the Swat "Shari'a" deal is a capitulation insofar as Pakistan has never amended its Constitution to make the FATA territories squarely under its law. Additionally, the Swat deal seems to be the only way to curb Maulana Fazlullah, at the moment. If Obama is going to talk about "good Taliban" in Afghanistan, Pakistan certainly has the right to make political negotiations to get a cease-fire. The human impact of the last 3 years on Swat valley has been intense - over 300,000 have fled.
Baluchistan, another princely state which was militarily merged with Pakistan after Partition, had no role in the federal state. After the 1955 One Unit Proclamation, the Khan of Kalat tried again to declare sovereignty. General Tikka Khan ("the butcher of Bengal") was sent to Baluchistan in 1958 under Ayub Khan's military rule to enforce federal writ. Things simmered until Bhutto has to send more army troops against another militant uprising in the region from '72-'74. So, there is no love lost between the center and Baluchistan.
Sindh, Karachi, and the Mohajir Qaumi Movement (MQM) are another beeswax. Only recently, rumors were afloat that Musharraf was cutting a deal with MQM and give them autonomy under a federated Pakistan.
Now, to return to this "question". I would argue that such a formulation of impending doom is one of the main reason Pakistan is in this mess. There is a rich vein of "Pakistan on the Brink" theorization that has dominated US foreign policy since the 50s. Back then, it was the Communist revolution, and now it is the Islamic one. This particular mind-set has propelled one disastrous policy over another for the last 40 years. We have supported dictator after dictator and stood by, silently, when civilian regimes floundered under internal economic and political crises. Once again, this question dominates the Obama policy and will restrict any real re-thinking of the Pakistan issue or re-evaluation of the regional scene. So, let's just categorically understand that:
1. There is a world of difference between "Taliban" and any given Pakistani citizen, even the most devout believer. The Taliban, strictly understood to be warlords operating with or in support of Mullah Omar, are a very particular political group. They _are_ political. They _have_political goals. They are not, in effect, a religious ideology that has the danger of sweeping Pakistan. They don't have doctrinarians or theologians. Al-Qaeda does. Taliban don't. It may seem like splitting hairs but I think it is very important to differentiate between the historically situated Taliban and the groups that have emerged in Pakistan bearing the name "Taliban". In the later case, the term is actually masking other political goals and differences that we need to be carefully attuned to. Similarly speaking, there is a world of difference between a specific political group, however broadly defined, which can be numbered in the thousands and a state of 160-plus million peoples. The people of Pakistan have demonstrated, through a number of elections over the last 60 years, that they do not want their religious leaders in political power. There is no dismissing that reality.
2. The most powerful entity in Pakistan in its national army. The second most powerful entity is its civil bureaucracy. The third most powerful are the landed and industrial elite. None of these entities are about to give it up (whatever "it" is - from nukes to bank accounts) to some ragtag bunch of jihadis. Certainly Zardari, wants to keep everything, don't you know it.
3. There is a robust, active, critical media. A media which has played a prominent role in some amazing events in civil and political theaters in the last 3 years.
So, I reject the premise in which the Swat Deal becomes a stepping stone to the "Talibanization" of Pakistan.
Second, Pakistan has always been the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Pakistan has always self-imagined itself to be a "homeland for Muslims". The question really is: what kind of a homeland? Saudi Arabia is a homeland for Muslims. It has Shari'a and a King. Malaysia is another homeland for Muslims - with a different sort of emphasis. Turkey, with its emphatic secularism, falls on the far end of such a homeland for Muslim spectrum. Where does Pakistan fit in? And where does it intend to go? I think that is the more important question. What is Pakistan to Pakistanis now? Who is a Pakistani, in effect? As I pointed out in an earlier discussion on the idea of Pakistan, there has to be a fundamental re-articulation of Pakistan as an entity, as a nation-state, within its constitutive parts. The urgency of this task is evident - there are other claimants with answers. Claimants who carry guns and who can brutalize a population in the blink of an eye. There is also the United States agenda, which continues to treat Pakistan as nothing more than a client-state. Somewhere in this pincer, somewhere between the taliban and the drone, the Pakistanis have to begin forming a sense of their whole. I am not big on nationalism and I don't think that re-imagining Pakistan as a nation is an easy task, either. (( Sometime ago, I would have loved to see a future South Asia Union - akin to the EU - where Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka found themselves in harmony with our uncle India. What a difference a war on terror makes. )) But, I am not simply talking about some ideological mumbo-jumbo that Islamabad can cook-up.
The most crucial step is that the civilian federal state of Pakistan has to listen - really, actually, listen - to the people of FATA, the people of N.W.F.P, the people of Baluchistan, the people of Sindh and the people of Punjab. It has to provide its citizens with basic security, shelter and welfare. It needs to protect its citizens from terrorism. It needs to strengthen its civic engagement with non-governmental organizations. It needs to ensure that basic human rights and access to a basic educational system is guaranteed to all citizens. These are actions that can be taken and should be taken and they will have a far greater impact than any 1.5 billion dollar aid. The Pakistan military, and the US, must allow for this. It must enable the state, it must pressure the state to fulfill its pledges to the people. Part of that means a military operation against the Taliban (narrowly defined) and al-Qaeda (defined as "foreign fighters" in the press) in Swat and in Baluchistan. This must be under-taken by the Pakistan military.
From such a process, a major process of stabilization, the state can start to re-build. It's a tall order, I know. There are too many de-stabilizing forces. Not to mention, an open question mark over whether there is actual political will to do all this. Yet, I remain hopeful. Pakistanis - however we categorize them - have a lot of heart, a lot of soul and great fortitude. For the last 8 years, they have been paying the price of a proxy-war waged on their soil. A decade before, they suffered through another proxy-war which gave them millions of refugees and a radicalizing ideology. They have persevered. I am still in awe of the hundreds of thousands who galvanized against Musharraf and the millions who cast a vote in the election last year. We must support those many millions in taking the next step.
{x-posted to CM}
Read more on this article...
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
SOMEWHERE UNDER THE RAINBOW
BY PHILIP J CUNNINGHAM
The elegant Rainbow Room, like the vast city of New York over which it towers, has seen better days. On a recent visit I was pleased to discover the doormen were not at all strict about the dress code until I got inside and realized they were happy to have any customers at all.
The top floor of Rockefeller Center’s soaring main tower wasn’t completely empty, at least not the cozy bar with southern exposure where the dim lighting and tall windows offer unparalleled views of the Empire State Building, The Chrysler Building and Times Square in the foreground, with the towers of Wall Street and New York’s great suspension bridges twinkling like pearl necklaces in the distance.
But the only party ordering drinks with abandon the night I stopped in was a group of Japanese businessmen, high level cadre from Mitsubishi from the sound of it, and even with their perfunctory, big-hearted spending, one suspected the generosity was corporate, a way of rewarding themselves for laboring over serious business matters late into the night.
Nearly everywhere I went in New York in the days that followed, in the subway and streets, in half-empty cafes and idle shops, I heard talk of the economic downturn, lost fortunes, fear of depression, unemployment, social unrest. So prevalent is talk of financial matters of doom and gloom in America’s economic capital --TV news shows seem to talk of nothing else—except perhaps the latest Obama appearance, or that of his dashing wife.
Even street hustlers were in on the deal, a 34th street vendor of discounted goods of uncertain origin had a hand-painted sign on his sidewalk pushcart, urging customers to support the President’s “stimulus.” Everyone, except perhaps Mayor Bloomberg, who cut his teeth on Wall Street and has emerged from this mess as the city’s richest man, has had some belt-tightening to do.
Among the more puzzling editorials I read before returning to Japan were fear-mongering pieces that suggested America, if it didn’t deal with the downturn in just the right fashion might turn out like Japan. Like Japan? What’s wrong with glittering Japan, I wondered, where restaurants are packed, the cars are spotless and designer goods the domain of every housewife?
A few days later I found myself back in Tokyo, again in a tower looking down on a dazzling city. If you’ve seen Sophia Coppola’s film “Lost in Translation” you know exactly what kind of serenely isolated enclave hotel I am talking about. Why the hotel is so tall the lobby doesn’t even start until the 41st floor! A cup of good tea in the said lobby goes for around 2000 yen, twice the price of a glass of house wine in the Rainbow Room. The faux New York steak-house at the top of the Tokyo hotel, up yet another elevator, was to my great surprise packed with well-dressed customers. I didn’t see “Bobby” DeNiro, who the local Hollywood hack claims is a regular, but you’d have to be a movie star to afford the prices. No wonder those Japanese businessmen could afford to order several rounds of drinks. The real New York is still cheap for them.
So, where’s the doom and gloom in Tokyo? Well, it’s in scant evidence in the city’s fanciest hotels and swank downtown restaurants, but that’s to be expected in a society --once relatively egalitarian and in possession of a decent social safety net-- that has seen the rich get richer and the poor get poorer during a decade-long economic downturn.
For doom and gloom of a political nature, however, one only need to look a few hundred meters north to another striking tower, the sterile, over-bearing and heavy-handed monstrosity called “To-Cho.” Tokyo’s vertical city hall is a monument to architectural arrogance, which suits well the nature of the long-reigning mayor, rightwing firebrand Ishihara Shintaro.
While the economic downturn is not immediately evident in the gleaming towers of Nishi-Shinjuku, there are clear signs of security downturn, or the paranoid perception of such, what with helicopters buzzing the air, government compounds ringed with car-bomb barriers, parcel inspection at the elevators and tabloids making war cries at North Korea. PAC-3 interceptor missiles were put on line in Ichigaya in the heart of Tokyo.
Disguised missile or failed satellite?
That Japan is in a political downturn is undeniable, the easy-to-kick North Korea was of much less interest and right-wing fanatics didn’t fare nearly as well when things were going swimmingly for the nation.
But for true, and tragic signs of Tokyo’s economic downturn, one has to ride the rails. If you take the popular Chuo Line, a major east-west artery known for its fast trains that speed through local stations without slowing down, you may find your train delayed due to “self-destruction” on the tracks. It’s Tokyo’s suicide line, and while some barriers have been installed and stern admonitions issued that victim families pay for the cost of cleanup, social policy has not sufficed to curb the tragic trend.
Japan’s national suicide rate has remained above 30,000 for as long as the downturn, suggesting there is some kind of social dysfunction at work with a link to the economy.
In a face-conscious society known for its busy-bee industriousness, where one’s job is often synonymous with one’s identity, firing workers is arguably more hurtful and more fraught with social risk than in America where people change jobs often and enjoy more social mobility. Layoffs of contract workers are bad enough, now even full-time Japanese workers, for whom the exacting but remunerative dedication to a sole employer was part of the status quo social compact, are in danger of being let go of.
The once tightly-woven social fabric that made Japan a relatively crime-free society for so long is coming unraveled. Several bloody killing sprees, most notably in the “Akihabara indiscriminate knife attack” --Japan mercifully remains a society of few guns —have been attributed to layoffs at blue chip firms and their subsidiaries. This parallels a sickening spate of indiscriminate gun violence in the US which has taken dozens of lives in the last month alone.
But putting aside for the moment the possible relevance of a rising crescendo of desperate acts, it is not immediately obvious walking the streets, let alone stalking the high-life bars of Tokyo, that people are poor or in deep trouble, though economic statistics suggest increased distress. For one, poverty is relative, Japanese may have less than before, but it is still the second wealthiest country in the world and has a level of “poverty” that most Third World nations can only dream of.
If anything, the recent downturn is more vivid in New York where the shock is recent and the reversal of fortunes more dramatic, epitomized in the strange case of Bernie Madoff, trusted con man to millionaires. Tokyo, which has been in the doldrums for the tenure of at least half a dozen prime ministers, wears its downturn a bit more flippantly, --why shouldn’t the rich be out on the town enjoying life?-- they still have more than anyone else and plenty of yen to spare.
If there is a danger in US catching the dreaded “Japan disease” that editorial pundits like to ruminate about, the reduction of aggregate wealth is less scary than the increase of stark inequality and sharp urban hierarchy.
Japan is broken, but not particularly poor. It’s in the doldrums alright, newspapers are shrinking like elsewhere, local editions of Esquire and Playboy have gone out of business, the popularity of the ruling party and inept prime minister are hitting rock bottom. But none of that compares to the way “little” people are getting hurt; first rendered poor, then invisible.
What makes Japan’s downturn tragic is the self-punishing shame of society’s losers who become afraid to show their face; lock-ins are rampant and people too proud to be poor have literally starved to death in their own apartments. Out of sight, out of mind.
Japan, Incorporated, hums along while it discards people like unwanted rung-out rags, things looking superficially much as they always did, while those who have no political voice or fancy connections wither away in anonymity and quiet despair.
On the US side, trillion dollar taxpayer-funded bailout plans are of the bankers, by the bankers and for the bankers.
One only has to descend from the tower and get back on the streets again to feel the pain being inflicted on the public from on high.
pc
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Monday, April 6, 2009
Obama in Ankara: Full text of his speech to the Turkish parliament, April 6, 2009
From the field: Obama in Ankara: Full text of his speech to the Turkish parliament, April 6, 2009
A commentary on Obama's important speech will follow, but readers may appreciate having a copy of the full text. Read more on this article...
A commentary on Obama's important speech will follow, but readers may appreciate having a copy of the full text. Read more on this article...
Thursday, April 2, 2009
THE GLOBE GOES AFTER FREEMAN
BY PHILIP J CUNNINGHAM
“Freeman's only qualm about the killing of pro-democracy students at Tiananmen in 1989 was that the Politburo waited too long before ordering the People's Liberation Army to start shooting. Even a hard-headed realist ought to distinguish between the need to cooperate with China and a betrayal of America's true allies. Freeman was brought down by the wrong forces for the wrong reasons."
--Boston Globe editorial, March 30, 2009
It’s editorials like the one quoted above, in which the Boston Globe viciously attacks veteran diplomat Chas Freeman for alleging that the Israeli lobby influences US politics-- that makes me despair for the future of newspapers.
It makes the Boston Globe sound like a blog, and not a very good one at that, not so much a respectable rant written by a gentlemen in his bathrobe as a cheap, anonymous, ad hominem attack on a US statesman which doubles up as a veiled attack on China.
Does the Boston Globe really want to telegraph to the world its provincial and deeply prejudiced anti-China, pro-Israel lobby stance? It does that already in the stories it chooses to commission and highlight in its pages, need it be any more explicit?
One could make a cogent argument to the effect that China, not Israel, deserves a special relationship with the US. That it is in the interests of world peace and prosperity that the richest country with the biggest arsenal be at peace and constructively engaged with an up and coming economic giant that is the world’s most populous country.
As for the allegation that Chas Freeman wanted the PLA to shoot at civilians, it’s libelous and deliberately twisting nuanced things he has said on a complex topic.
I was on a campus in Beijing during the 1989 street protests and I joined fellow students in marching from a gated educational enclave to Tiananmen Square, fully expecting the police to stop the march and perhaps even to swing a few batons and toss some tear gas canisters to push us back. That we could march to the Square, day after day with impunity, then set up a tent city on the scale of Woodstock, was exhilarating and uplifting and rather odd.
One can make a good argument for governmental tolerance; letting the demonstrations take wing, letting students vent their grievances, establishing an honest dialogue or at least showing restraint until the demonstrators played themselves out, and that would have been my preference.
Conversely, in the realpolitik view that I think is in accord with what Mr. Freeman reports hearing from Chinese interlocutors, one could argue that firm police cordons and strict back-to-school orders observed fairly and consistently from day one might also have avoided a tragic showdown on the Square.
The point is, a firm but restrained handling of the unrest from the outset would have been preferable to what instead took place; mixed signals leading to a debacle. Government dithering, due to factional fighting as we now understand it, led one hand of the state to slyly encourage, the other hand to viciously crack down. This allowed things to escalate to the point that put thousands of lives at risk, in the end hundreds of demonstrators and scores of soldiers were killed in a melee of violence.
Just as liberal humanitarians might have wished for more tolerance, diplomatic realists such as Freeman bemoan, and not without wisdom, the lack of a benign crackdown at the outset; the point being that a large scale bloody uprising and military crackdown was in no one’s true interest, except perhaps for well-paid editorial writers in their New England armchairs who want to say tsk tsk to the Chinese government.
There were no winners at Tiananmen, it was a tragedy for all sides, soldiers included. The Boston Globe has no high moral ground in this instance.
Indeed, if recycling hateful cliches is the best the Globe’s editorial writers have to offer, --and it comes on the heels of an even more odious and withering ad hominem attack on the same foreign policy expert by the Washington Post— then maybe slashing staff and letting the moribund, increasingly insolvent opinion leaders stew in their own juice is just desserts.
It’s like raising the old canard about Iran wanting to “wipe Israel off the map,” a devious soundbite that Juan Cole and other linguists have demonstrated to be an inaccurate translation, but it keeps getting circulated anyhow. If it serves its purpose to rally readers in a desired direction, what matter the truth?
Why should what precious credibility the Globe or the Post has earned through the reliable writing of its reporting staff be sullied by editorial cheap shots and anonymous attacks?
The Wall Street Journal has made an art of such distinguished mud-slinging but I would hardly consider it an exemplar of good editorial policy.
There is a place for signed opinion and signed commentary in newspapers, but it increasingly seems to me that unsigned editorials, the sort of diktat from above that one associates with Pravda or the People’s Daily of old, are dinosaurs that should go the way of dinosaurs.
Given the economic downturn and pressures on papers to survive, I suggest the hacks who write unsigned editorials at the Washington Post, Boston Globe and other big papers be given their pink slips. Save the money for reporting or honest commentary. Forget about what the “Globe” thinks, or what the “Post” thinks, --do newspapers really think? Instead, keep a small editorial staff sufficient to sift through letters from readers and signed commentary with diverse authorship (not agented hack pieces and PR pabulum of the sort that the New York Times, owner of the Boston Globe, routinely trades in.)
I love newspapers. Delivering them was my first job, reading them gave me a rudimentary education in world affairs, saving old copies on historic dates a hobby and writing for them has been not so much remunerative as a pleasure in itself.
But hate speech of the sort emanating from editorial board rooms in recent years, the kind of speech that contributes to a country going to war or slapping sanctions on people they don’t know and don’t understand, is unacceptable. If newspapers don’t reinvent themselves in a more equitable fashion, they deserve to wither on the vine. Read more on this article...
“Freeman's only qualm about the killing of pro-democracy students at Tiananmen in 1989 was that the Politburo waited too long before ordering the People's Liberation Army to start shooting. Even a hard-headed realist ought to distinguish between the need to cooperate with China and a betrayal of America's true allies. Freeman was brought down by the wrong forces for the wrong reasons."
--Boston Globe editorial, March 30, 2009
It’s editorials like the one quoted above, in which the Boston Globe viciously attacks veteran diplomat Chas Freeman for alleging that the Israeli lobby influences US politics-- that makes me despair for the future of newspapers.
It makes the Boston Globe sound like a blog, and not a very good one at that, not so much a respectable rant written by a gentlemen in his bathrobe as a cheap, anonymous, ad hominem attack on a US statesman which doubles up as a veiled attack on China.
Does the Boston Globe really want to telegraph to the world its provincial and deeply prejudiced anti-China, pro-Israel lobby stance? It does that already in the stories it chooses to commission and highlight in its pages, need it be any more explicit?
One could make a cogent argument to the effect that China, not Israel, deserves a special relationship with the US. That it is in the interests of world peace and prosperity that the richest country with the biggest arsenal be at peace and constructively engaged with an up and coming economic giant that is the world’s most populous country.
As for the allegation that Chas Freeman wanted the PLA to shoot at civilians, it’s libelous and deliberately twisting nuanced things he has said on a complex topic.
I was on a campus in Beijing during the 1989 street protests and I joined fellow students in marching from a gated educational enclave to Tiananmen Square, fully expecting the police to stop the march and perhaps even to swing a few batons and toss some tear gas canisters to push us back. That we could march to the Square, day after day with impunity, then set up a tent city on the scale of Woodstock, was exhilarating and uplifting and rather odd.
One can make a good argument for governmental tolerance; letting the demonstrations take wing, letting students vent their grievances, establishing an honest dialogue or at least showing restraint until the demonstrators played themselves out, and that would have been my preference.
Conversely, in the realpolitik view that I think is in accord with what Mr. Freeman reports hearing from Chinese interlocutors, one could argue that firm police cordons and strict back-to-school orders observed fairly and consistently from day one might also have avoided a tragic showdown on the Square.
The point is, a firm but restrained handling of the unrest from the outset would have been preferable to what instead took place; mixed signals leading to a debacle. Government dithering, due to factional fighting as we now understand it, led one hand of the state to slyly encourage, the other hand to viciously crack down. This allowed things to escalate to the point that put thousands of lives at risk, in the end hundreds of demonstrators and scores of soldiers were killed in a melee of violence.
Just as liberal humanitarians might have wished for more tolerance, diplomatic realists such as Freeman bemoan, and not without wisdom, the lack of a benign crackdown at the outset; the point being that a large scale bloody uprising and military crackdown was in no one’s true interest, except perhaps for well-paid editorial writers in their New England armchairs who want to say tsk tsk to the Chinese government.
There were no winners at Tiananmen, it was a tragedy for all sides, soldiers included. The Boston Globe has no high moral ground in this instance.
Indeed, if recycling hateful cliches is the best the Globe’s editorial writers have to offer, --and it comes on the heels of an even more odious and withering ad hominem attack on the same foreign policy expert by the Washington Post— then maybe slashing staff and letting the moribund, increasingly insolvent opinion leaders stew in their own juice is just desserts.
It’s like raising the old canard about Iran wanting to “wipe Israel off the map,” a devious soundbite that Juan Cole and other linguists have demonstrated to be an inaccurate translation, but it keeps getting circulated anyhow. If it serves its purpose to rally readers in a desired direction, what matter the truth?
Why should what precious credibility the Globe or the Post has earned through the reliable writing of its reporting staff be sullied by editorial cheap shots and anonymous attacks?
The Wall Street Journal has made an art of such distinguished mud-slinging but I would hardly consider it an exemplar of good editorial policy.
There is a place for signed opinion and signed commentary in newspapers, but it increasingly seems to me that unsigned editorials, the sort of diktat from above that one associates with Pravda or the People’s Daily of old, are dinosaurs that should go the way of dinosaurs.
Given the economic downturn and pressures on papers to survive, I suggest the hacks who write unsigned editorials at the Washington Post, Boston Globe and other big papers be given their pink slips. Save the money for reporting or honest commentary. Forget about what the “Globe” thinks, or what the “Post” thinks, --do newspapers really think? Instead, keep a small editorial staff sufficient to sift through letters from readers and signed commentary with diverse authorship (not agented hack pieces and PR pabulum of the sort that the New York Times, owner of the Boston Globe, routinely trades in.)
I love newspapers. Delivering them was my first job, reading them gave me a rudimentary education in world affairs, saving old copies on historic dates a hobby and writing for them has been not so much remunerative as a pleasure in itself.
But hate speech of the sort emanating from editorial board rooms in recent years, the kind of speech that contributes to a country going to war or slapping sanctions on people they don’t know and don’t understand, is unacceptable. If newspapers don’t reinvent themselves in a more equitable fashion, they deserve to wither on the vine. Read more on this article...
Monday, March 30, 2009
Worldview
You can catch me with Jerome McDonald on Worldview discussing the Obama announcement on "Af-Pak" aka "Western Pakistan".
Read more on this article...
Sunday, March 22, 2009
On Khamenei’s Response to Obama
Farideh Farhi
Juan Cole already has a run down of some of the things Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei said in response to President Obama’s message on the occasion of Iranian New Year and the press coverage of it. I think Juan’s point about the speech not being a rebuff is on the money, but I do take issue with his characterization of the speech being more like a “grumpy old man response to Obama's call for engagement.”
I say this because I think the translations of the bits and pieces of the speech in the news (even the Persian language Farsnews upon which Juan relies) do not do justice to this carefully crafted response intended to set the parameters of US-Iran talks if they are to happen.
For those who can understand Persian, I recommend that you check Khamenei’s website. The Persian language section of the website - the site has translations in 12 other languages – has both the video of his speech as well as the whole text. The English section also has an abbreviated English translation which is decent but still does not relay the feel you get by watching the whole speech.
The speech was quite long, first dealing with domestic affairs and focusing mostly on the need to curb the consumption of resources. But it gets interesting around minute 40 when he explains why his public support for President Ahmadinejad should not be construed as support for him as a candidate in the next presidential election. This is of course a big issue for Iran’s domestic politics and the fact that the leader himself had to address it was significant since Ahmadinejad supporters are working very hard to give the impression that he is his candidate
The move to the subject of US-Iran talks is abrupt and Khamenei makes clear that this is the only external issue with which he will deal, spending more than 20 minutes on it. It is a powerful speech, calmly delivered, and mostly devoid of usual jargon. He does talk about US policies that have harmed Iran and continue to harm it, including sanctions, freezing of assets, support for opposition and secessionist groups, and Baluchi insurgents - communications of whom with US operatives he says the Iranian government has intercepted.
But he mentions these as reasons why mere conciliatory speeches cannot be considered real change in American policy. More significantly, he mentions them in order to explain why the continuation of these hostile policies has to make Iran wonder whether President Obama’s gestures are of any value: “They say they have extended their hands towards Iran. If the extended hand has a velvet glove but under it is an iron cast hand, then this does not have a good meaning.”
This leads to the point: “They say come and talk, come and establish relations, they change slogans. Well, where is this change? Clarify this for us; what has changed? Have you unfrozen the assets of the Iranian people; have you lifted the oppressive sanctions…? We do not have any experience with the new American government and president; we will look and judge. You change, and we will also change our behavior too.”
He also makes a clever play on the usual way the American policy community talks about Iran, turning it against US and saying “I don’t know who really makes policy in the US – the president, Congress or behind the scene players.” But no matter who makes decisions in the US, Iran makes decision "rationally and not based on emotions." The bottom line is: “Our nation dislikes it when you again proclaim ‘talks with pressure’; we talk to Iran while we pressure them as well – threat and inducement. You cannot talk to our nation this way."
Juan Cole interpret complains about US foreign policy as “Iran’s initial bargaining position which include everything but the kitchen sink.” I don’t.
Khamenei’s speech actually shows how attuned he is to debates in Washington. He makes no calls for U.S. apology for past actions. His focus is today. No doubt he wants sanctions to be lifted, assets unfrozen, and attempts to undermine the Iranian government ended at some point as a result of talks with the U.S.
But his concern now is the argument forwarded by powerful circles in Washington that negotiations with Iran should be combined with increased pressure to make sure that Iran will give in at the end. It is this type of what he calls “condescending language, arrogant approach, and patronizing moves” that he rejects.
Clearly from his view, engagement in talks must be accompanied with some concrete steps that show Iran that the United States is interested in a process and give and take and not a process based on “either deception or intimidation.” Deception because the objective remains the same while the softer language is a mere tactical change. Intimidation because talks are combined with further squeeze of Iran.
He leaves no doubt that further squeezing of Iran leading up to talks and during the talks will be seen as a sign that President Obama’s rhetoric of change is a farce. As such the speech should really be seen as a carefully calibrated attempt to shape the debate in Washington on how to go about talking to Iran.
Read more on this article...
Juan Cole already has a run down of some of the things Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei said in response to President Obama’s message on the occasion of Iranian New Year and the press coverage of it. I think Juan’s point about the speech not being a rebuff is on the money, but I do take issue with his characterization of the speech being more like a “grumpy old man response to Obama's call for engagement.”
I say this because I think the translations of the bits and pieces of the speech in the news (even the Persian language Farsnews upon which Juan relies) do not do justice to this carefully crafted response intended to set the parameters of US-Iran talks if they are to happen.
For those who can understand Persian, I recommend that you check Khamenei’s website. The Persian language section of the website - the site has translations in 12 other languages – has both the video of his speech as well as the whole text. The English section also has an abbreviated English translation which is decent but still does not relay the feel you get by watching the whole speech.
The speech was quite long, first dealing with domestic affairs and focusing mostly on the need to curb the consumption of resources. But it gets interesting around minute 40 when he explains why his public support for President Ahmadinejad should not be construed as support for him as a candidate in the next presidential election. This is of course a big issue for Iran’s domestic politics and the fact that the leader himself had to address it was significant since Ahmadinejad supporters are working very hard to give the impression that he is his candidate
The move to the subject of US-Iran talks is abrupt and Khamenei makes clear that this is the only external issue with which he will deal, spending more than 20 minutes on it. It is a powerful speech, calmly delivered, and mostly devoid of usual jargon. He does talk about US policies that have harmed Iran and continue to harm it, including sanctions, freezing of assets, support for opposition and secessionist groups, and Baluchi insurgents - communications of whom with US operatives he says the Iranian government has intercepted.
But he mentions these as reasons why mere conciliatory speeches cannot be considered real change in American policy. More significantly, he mentions them in order to explain why the continuation of these hostile policies has to make Iran wonder whether President Obama’s gestures are of any value: “They say they have extended their hands towards Iran. If the extended hand has a velvet glove but under it is an iron cast hand, then this does not have a good meaning.”
This leads to the point: “They say come and talk, come and establish relations, they change slogans. Well, where is this change? Clarify this for us; what has changed? Have you unfrozen the assets of the Iranian people; have you lifted the oppressive sanctions…? We do not have any experience with the new American government and president; we will look and judge. You change, and we will also change our behavior too.”
He also makes a clever play on the usual way the American policy community talks about Iran, turning it against US and saying “I don’t know who really makes policy in the US – the president, Congress or behind the scene players.” But no matter who makes decisions in the US, Iran makes decision "rationally and not based on emotions." The bottom line is: “Our nation dislikes it when you again proclaim ‘talks with pressure’; we talk to Iran while we pressure them as well – threat and inducement. You cannot talk to our nation this way."
Juan Cole interpret complains about US foreign policy as “Iran’s initial bargaining position which include everything but the kitchen sink.” I don’t.
Khamenei’s speech actually shows how attuned he is to debates in Washington. He makes no calls for U.S. apology for past actions. His focus is today. No doubt he wants sanctions to be lifted, assets unfrozen, and attempts to undermine the Iranian government ended at some point as a result of talks with the U.S.
But his concern now is the argument forwarded by powerful circles in Washington that negotiations with Iran should be combined with increased pressure to make sure that Iran will give in at the end. It is this type of what he calls “condescending language, arrogant approach, and patronizing moves” that he rejects.
Clearly from his view, engagement in talks must be accompanied with some concrete steps that show Iran that the United States is interested in a process and give and take and not a process based on “either deception or intimidation.” Deception because the objective remains the same while the softer language is a mere tactical change. Intimidation because talks are combined with further squeeze of Iran.
He leaves no doubt that further squeezing of Iran leading up to talks and during the talks will be seen as a sign that President Obama’s rhetoric of change is a farce. As such the speech should really be seen as a carefully calibrated attempt to shape the debate in Washington on how to go about talking to Iran.
Read more on this article...
Saturday, March 21, 2009
THE BELLS OF TIANANMEN
by Philip J Cunningham
The June 4, 1989 Tiananmen crackdown, the exact statistics about which remain ambiguous, was unambiguously a tragedy for China, all the more painful because it was self-inflicted. From crushed bystander to lynched soldiers, from fearless young firebrands in the streets to frightened old men in the watchtower, the ill-conceived crackdown wounded the country as a whole.
Yet when people ask how many people died at Tiananmen, or want to learn more about the victims, it almost goes without saying that the question is about the people the Western media regards as having been “on our side.” PLA soldiers don’t really figure into the equation, they’re the anonymous “bad guys,” at best pawns in the background.
But last week, the silence from the other side was dramatically broken. Zhang Shijun, a former PLA soldier who was involved in the bloody June 4, 1989 crackdown at Tiananmen Square has courageously stepped forward to demand a government inquiry into a pivotal event that remains all but taboo in China even 20 years on.
Mr. Zhang’s bold open letter to China President Hu Jintao is likely to make life difficult for him –he was reportedly arrested shortly after talking to reporters-- but if it doesn’t, it may help start a dialogue that can rectify that imbalance and round out our understanding.
It's hard to think of a grouping with more right to righteous anger than the Tiananmen Mothers, and their dedication to their lost sons and daughters is powerful and inspiring. But there are other grieving parents; families broken by June 4, 1989 that rarely get mention when the anniversary of the epic battle for “democracy” gets trumped up and trumpeted in the West.
Scores of PLA soldiers died too, mostly young men similar in age to the protesters they were ordered to quell. The hapless provincial soldiers, even if made of "lesser steel" in socioeconomic terms, even if denied the opportunity of university education and the privilege of residence in the capital, were kids with parents and grandparents too.
While the desire to take sides is understandable, and the need for closure –even outright denial-- is emotionally compelling, the complex truth of the tragedy has been too long obscured by speculative reporting and heated partisanship on the “democracy” side, countered by government secretiveness and a chilling silence on the other.
In political terms we might be tempted to dismiss Zhang Shijun and other soldiers as having been tools of an authoritarian state, at least partly culpable, to the extent that they were reckless and cruel in the way they carried out orders, and given the long view, we might even be tempted to write them off as being on the wrong side of history. But Zhang’s bid to be part of the conversation changes all that. Were the soldiers not fellow citizens, brought into the world with hopes and dreams of their own?
Given the mutually exclusive sympathies characteristic of violent events, acknowledging the view, let alone the hurt of the “other side,” especially if it is the “wrong side,” is in itself strangely controversial.
This was evident in sharply contrasting reports on the violence in Tibet last year. Beijing government claims, while fairly well documented, focused on Han victims, while Tibetan exiles made difficult to verify claims about violence against ethnic Tibetans, while downplaying Han casualties of the street riots.
The Orwellian state of affairs at present is that Tibet is now in lockdown and the information flow curtailed. Who’s to say what is or isn’t happening?
In the case of Beijing in 1989, civilian deaths, documented in the hundreds before information controls went into effect, were horrendous, all the more so because the introduction of war weapons into the mix was so incendiary, so unnecessary.
Bad policy had deadly consequences, some of it resulting in the “horrific scenes,” mostly involving unarmed civilians, that ex-soldier Zhang alludes to. But scores of soldiers were also killed on June 4, ripped to pieces, burned and bodily defiled, when a badly cornered crowd erupted in uncontrollable anger, as Tiananmen Square was retaken by force.
The image of a man standing in front of a tank eventually became a worldwide icon of defiance, but actions far more defiant, far more insane and far more brave and craven happened the day and night before that famous photo which was snapped. Leading up to that photographic moment of equipoise, tanks were trapped and thousands of vehicles torched and soldiers beaten to death by an unarmed but inconsolable mob.
The bells of Tiananmen will toll again this year to mark the twentieth anniversary of the tragedy. In China proper, the metaphoric peals will most likely be greeted by the usual deafening silence, a product of state-enforced prohibitions, inadequate information flow and popular indifference. What few commemorations do take place, in liberal Hong Kong and at gatherings overseas, are likely to be partisan in character, excluding the plight of the fallen soldiers.
Today, with dizzying death tolls being played up or played down or spun around in plain sight due to the machinations of propaganda and partisanship, we should remember that the tolling bell that John Donne famously made allusion to; we suffer not just from the loss of the people we identify as being on our side, but from the loss of others, too.
June 4, 1989 produced no winners, but reconciliation is possible with an open airing of the truth. There are political risks to be sure, especially at a time of economic downturn and rising unrest, but the sooner China has the conversation it needs to be at peace with itself, the better for everyone.
The author, who worked for BBC in Beijing during May and June 1989 is a visiting fellow at Cornell University and author of a memoir entitled Tiananmen Moon, to be published this May by Rowman & Littlefield.
Read more on this article...
The June 4, 1989 Tiananmen crackdown, the exact statistics about which remain ambiguous, was unambiguously a tragedy for China, all the more painful because it was self-inflicted. From crushed bystander to lynched soldiers, from fearless young firebrands in the streets to frightened old men in the watchtower, the ill-conceived crackdown wounded the country as a whole.
Yet when people ask how many people died at Tiananmen, or want to learn more about the victims, it almost goes without saying that the question is about the people the Western media regards as having been “on our side.” PLA soldiers don’t really figure into the equation, they’re the anonymous “bad guys,” at best pawns in the background.
But last week, the silence from the other side was dramatically broken. Zhang Shijun, a former PLA soldier who was involved in the bloody June 4, 1989 crackdown at Tiananmen Square has courageously stepped forward to demand a government inquiry into a pivotal event that remains all but taboo in China even 20 years on.
Mr. Zhang’s bold open letter to China President Hu Jintao is likely to make life difficult for him –he was reportedly arrested shortly after talking to reporters-- but if it doesn’t, it may help start a dialogue that can rectify that imbalance and round out our understanding.
It's hard to think of a grouping with more right to righteous anger than the Tiananmen Mothers, and their dedication to their lost sons and daughters is powerful and inspiring. But there are other grieving parents; families broken by June 4, 1989 that rarely get mention when the anniversary of the epic battle for “democracy” gets trumped up and trumpeted in the West.
Scores of PLA soldiers died too, mostly young men similar in age to the protesters they were ordered to quell. The hapless provincial soldiers, even if made of "lesser steel" in socioeconomic terms, even if denied the opportunity of university education and the privilege of residence in the capital, were kids with parents and grandparents too.
While the desire to take sides is understandable, and the need for closure –even outright denial-- is emotionally compelling, the complex truth of the tragedy has been too long obscured by speculative reporting and heated partisanship on the “democracy” side, countered by government secretiveness and a chilling silence on the other.
In political terms we might be tempted to dismiss Zhang Shijun and other soldiers as having been tools of an authoritarian state, at least partly culpable, to the extent that they were reckless and cruel in the way they carried out orders, and given the long view, we might even be tempted to write them off as being on the wrong side of history. But Zhang’s bid to be part of the conversation changes all that. Were the soldiers not fellow citizens, brought into the world with hopes and dreams of their own?
Given the mutually exclusive sympathies characteristic of violent events, acknowledging the view, let alone the hurt of the “other side,” especially if it is the “wrong side,” is in itself strangely controversial.
This was evident in sharply contrasting reports on the violence in Tibet last year. Beijing government claims, while fairly well documented, focused on Han victims, while Tibetan exiles made difficult to verify claims about violence against ethnic Tibetans, while downplaying Han casualties of the street riots.
The Orwellian state of affairs at present is that Tibet is now in lockdown and the information flow curtailed. Who’s to say what is or isn’t happening?
In the case of Beijing in 1989, civilian deaths, documented in the hundreds before information controls went into effect, were horrendous, all the more so because the introduction of war weapons into the mix was so incendiary, so unnecessary.
Bad policy had deadly consequences, some of it resulting in the “horrific scenes,” mostly involving unarmed civilians, that ex-soldier Zhang alludes to. But scores of soldiers were also killed on June 4, ripped to pieces, burned and bodily defiled, when a badly cornered crowd erupted in uncontrollable anger, as Tiananmen Square was retaken by force.
The image of a man standing in front of a tank eventually became a worldwide icon of defiance, but actions far more defiant, far more insane and far more brave and craven happened the day and night before that famous photo which was snapped. Leading up to that photographic moment of equipoise, tanks were trapped and thousands of vehicles torched and soldiers beaten to death by an unarmed but inconsolable mob.
The bells of Tiananmen will toll again this year to mark the twentieth anniversary of the tragedy. In China proper, the metaphoric peals will most likely be greeted by the usual deafening silence, a product of state-enforced prohibitions, inadequate information flow and popular indifference. What few commemorations do take place, in liberal Hong Kong and at gatherings overseas, are likely to be partisan in character, excluding the plight of the fallen soldiers.
Today, with dizzying death tolls being played up or played down or spun around in plain sight due to the machinations of propaganda and partisanship, we should remember that the tolling bell that John Donne famously made allusion to; we suffer not just from the loss of the people we identify as being on our side, but from the loss of others, too.
June 4, 1989 produced no winners, but reconciliation is possible with an open airing of the truth. There are political risks to be sure, especially at a time of economic downturn and rising unrest, but the sooner China has the conversation it needs to be at peace with itself, the better for everyone.
The author, who worked for BBC in Beijing during May and June 1989 is a visiting fellow at Cornell University and author of a memoir entitled Tiananmen Moon, to be published this May by Rowman & Littlefield.
Read more on this article...
Friday, March 20, 2009
And Happy Nowruz to You Too Mr. Obama!
Farideh Farhi
I must say that I am stunned by the tone and content of President Obama's message to Iran on the occasion of Iranian New Year or Nowruz. I am stunned because the message was great and on matters related to Iran I am not used to hearing what I like from Washington. So here are some quick thoughts.
Asides from being his gracious self, President Obama did several things that are significant. First and foremost was the fact that, unlike his predecessor, he did not attempt to drive a wedge between the people and government of Iran. He spoke explicitly to both the “people and leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” acknowledging their common history and culture. No more we love the people of Iran but hate their government taunt repeatedly brandished by the Bush Administration.
Second, he did not try to drive a wedge between the leaders of Iran. He addressed them all and in one brilliant move put to rest all the useless chatter about who the Obama administration should talk to. His focus was not on which Iranians the US wishes to talk to ("moderates" or "pragmatists") or should talk to (the ones who “really” wield power) but the fact that the two countries should talk on matters of mutual interest as well as about their differences.
Third, stating his commitment to meaningful diplomacy and avoiding demonizing rhetoric and peremptory demands, he simply stated the basic truth that the two long-time foes now face a chance for “engagement that is honest and grounded in mutual respect” and addresses concerns of both. The process, he said in no uncertain terms, “will not be advanced by threats.”
This is the closest anyone in the US has come to ruling out the military option regarding Iran. Obama did not ignore “serious differences that have gown over time,” but did not validate "those who insist that we be defined by our differences." His commitment was clearly to “diplomacy that addresses the full range of issues” as well as “constructive ties” between the two countries.
Some Iranians, no doubt, will find fault in the following paragraph, deeming it a bit patronizing if not insulting:
The United States wants the Islamic Republic of Iran to take its rightful place in the community of nations. You have that right -- but it comes with real responsibilities, and that place cannot be reached through terror or arms, but rather through peaceful actions that demonstrate the true greatness of the Iranian people and civilization. And the measure of that greatness is not the capacity to destroy, it is your demonstrated ability to build and create.
But the general tenor of the speech was so different from what the Iranians are used to hearing that my bet at this point is that this part will be mostly ignored. The Iranians have been calling for a serious conversation and Mr. Obama has now promised them one. Let’s see if it happens.
Read more on this article...
I must say that I am stunned by the tone and content of President Obama's message to Iran on the occasion of Iranian New Year or Nowruz. I am stunned because the message was great and on matters related to Iran I am not used to hearing what I like from Washington. So here are some quick thoughts.
Asides from being his gracious self, President Obama did several things that are significant. First and foremost was the fact that, unlike his predecessor, he did not attempt to drive a wedge between the people and government of Iran. He spoke explicitly to both the “people and leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” acknowledging their common history and culture. No more we love the people of Iran but hate their government taunt repeatedly brandished by the Bush Administration.
Second, he did not try to drive a wedge between the leaders of Iran. He addressed them all and in one brilliant move put to rest all the useless chatter about who the Obama administration should talk to. His focus was not on which Iranians the US wishes to talk to ("moderates" or "pragmatists") or should talk to (the ones who “really” wield power) but the fact that the two countries should talk on matters of mutual interest as well as about their differences.
Third, stating his commitment to meaningful diplomacy and avoiding demonizing rhetoric and peremptory demands, he simply stated the basic truth that the two long-time foes now face a chance for “engagement that is honest and grounded in mutual respect” and addresses concerns of both. The process, he said in no uncertain terms, “will not be advanced by threats.”
This is the closest anyone in the US has come to ruling out the military option regarding Iran. Obama did not ignore “serious differences that have gown over time,” but did not validate "those who insist that we be defined by our differences." His commitment was clearly to “diplomacy that addresses the full range of issues” as well as “constructive ties” between the two countries.
Some Iranians, no doubt, will find fault in the following paragraph, deeming it a bit patronizing if not insulting:
The United States wants the Islamic Republic of Iran to take its rightful place in the community of nations. You have that right -- but it comes with real responsibilities, and that place cannot be reached through terror or arms, but rather through peaceful actions that demonstrate the true greatness of the Iranian people and civilization. And the measure of that greatness is not the capacity to destroy, it is your demonstrated ability to build and create.
But the general tenor of the speech was so different from what the Iranians are used to hearing that my bet at this point is that this part will be mostly ignored. The Iranians have been calling for a serious conversation and Mr. Obama has now promised them one. Let’s see if it happens.
Read more on this article...
Thursday, March 12, 2009
The Long March in Pakistan
On March 12, 1930 Gandhi marched to Dandhi - stopping in forty plus villages - and speaking about swaraj and breaking the salt laws to show their inhumanity. Satyagraha is definitely at the heart of the nonviolent demand for the restoration of the Supreme Court deposed on Nov. 3, 2007 by Pervez Musharraf and specifically Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry on March 9, 2007.
Much has happened since then. Benazir Bhutto's return in October 2007 and her assassination in December 2007. The elections in February 2008 brought to power a new coalition of Pakistan People's Party to power with the swashbuckling widow Zardari taking over as President. A basic campaign promise was to solve the judicial crisis and reinstate the Supreme Court of '07.
None of the promises have been kept. Instead, the PPP regime has used the Dogar Supreme Court (cronies put in place by Musharraf) to throw out the opponent political party PML-N out of power in Punjab and restrict Nawaz Sharif and Shahbaz Sharif from electoral politics.
The Long March of March 12, 2009, leading up to a sit-in at the capital on March 16th, is the only way that the people of Pakistan can produce pressure on the civilian and military regime to pay attention to justice, to accountability and to democracy.
What shouldn't escape anyone's attention is that _THIS_ is what democratic, nonviolent, resistance looks like. This is fine. This is normal. This is what we should expect in a society where the government and the people are out of step. This is not a coup, nor the '79 revolution.
The Zardari regime has reacted as all cornered governments do: mass arrests, police violence on crowds, implementation of laws against critical speech etc.
The best place to follow developments is on Twitter. You should also follow the liveblog on Teeth Maestro. You should also look over this excellent background piece by Madiha Tahir at APP. You should read Sahar Shafqat's op-ed.
[x-posted on CM] Read more on this article...
Much has happened since then. Benazir Bhutto's return in October 2007 and her assassination in December 2007. The elections in February 2008 brought to power a new coalition of Pakistan People's Party to power with the swashbuckling widow Zardari taking over as President. A basic campaign promise was to solve the judicial crisis and reinstate the Supreme Court of '07.
None of the promises have been kept. Instead, the PPP regime has used the Dogar Supreme Court (cronies put in place by Musharraf) to throw out the opponent political party PML-N out of power in Punjab and restrict Nawaz Sharif and Shahbaz Sharif from electoral politics.
The Long March of March 12, 2009, leading up to a sit-in at the capital on March 16th, is the only way that the people of Pakistan can produce pressure on the civilian and military regime to pay attention to justice, to accountability and to democracy.
What shouldn't escape anyone's attention is that _THIS_ is what democratic, nonviolent, resistance looks like. This is fine. This is normal. This is what we should expect in a society where the government and the people are out of step. This is not a coup, nor the '79 revolution.
The Zardari regime has reacted as all cornered governments do: mass arrests, police violence on crowds, implementation of laws against critical speech etc.
The best place to follow developments is on Twitter. You should also follow the liveblog on Teeth Maestro. You should also look over this excellent background piece by Madiha Tahir at APP. You should read Sahar Shafqat's op-ed.
[x-posted on CM] Read more on this article...
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Iran’s Majles Strikes a Blow to Ahmadinejad’s Economic Plans
Farideh Farhi
While most of the recent Iran news has focused on the prospect of an Iran-US rapprochement, the country's domestic scene has been consumed with a major fight over economic policy. This week the fight came to a head as the whole Majles began deliberating on the country’s budget for the next fiscal year as well Ahmadinejad’s attempt to reform the country’s bloated subsidy system.
The best evidence for how contentious economic policy has become is the fact that only about 10 days left before the Iranian New Year – after which the whole country literally comes into a stand still for a couple of weeks – the details of the budget for the upcoming fiscal year beginning on March 21 are yet to be approved.
The set up for a confrontation began when Ahmadinejad introduced his budget bill to Majles rather late and he did so along with his very ambitious targeted subsidies bill which calls for the suspension of all energy subsidies, their replacement with direct cash subsidies to the lowest 7 income brackets, and sharp prices increases particularly for gasoline and diesel fuel.
Majles deputies, particularly those with a long history of expertise on economic issues, not only found the budget numbers unrealistic, at times even fabricated, but also worried about the connection between the proposed budget and presumed savings generated from ending subsidies and the inflationary impact of the government’s proposed hikes in energy prices.
Economists have been even more critical of government numbers. Mohammad Sattarifar, the former head of the Planning and Budget Organization, went as far as to say that the budget was not even worth analyzing because the administration will be forced to come back to Majles with many amendments and changes. He pointed out that the projected revenues from increasing energy prices does not even take into account the amount of energy consumption by the largest consumer of energy in Iran which is the government itself!
The proposed budget assumes revenues of about $34bn from price hike and subsidy cuts and a distribution of about ¼ of that amount as cash deposited directly to people’s bank accounts immediately after the June election. This time frame was promised to allay the fear that cash subsidies were intended to buy votes.
The large combined Majles committee created to examine the two bills considered government assessment of revenues as exaggerated but, after Ahmadinejad threatened to pull out his targeted subsidies bill in its entirety, agreed to lower the amount of expected revenues while still allocating the government the amount it said it needed to implement the cash subsidies program.
However, by the time the budget bill came to the floor of the whole Majles, prominent economists as well as the Majles Research Center had already voiced concern about the inflationary shock the drastic increase in energy prices would entail. The general outline of the budget was approved in a short session despite significant opposition but today the targeted subsidies component of the budget bill was rejected in its entirety in a 132-102 vote.
It must be considered truly ironic that a president elected on a social justice platform is now being accused by a coalition of prominent conservatives and reformists as the promoter of “shock therapy” that will harm the poor and middle class in significant ways (note the picture on top of this post reproduced from Alef website which is run by Ahmad Tavakoli, a prominent conservative deputy and head of Majles Research Center. It uses a hand to show the need to stop “shock therapy” written in Persian).
Left hanging is the fate of the budget which still needs to be approved in a more detailed fashion. As mentioned, Ahmadinejad's budget numbers are very much linked to subsidy cuts. His administration also took a “take it as is” attitude and refused to address Majles’ concerns about the inflationary impact of sudden price hikes. Now it is not clear how Majles' rejection will affect the budget and whether, as threatened, Ahmadinejad will abandon any attempt to make energy prices more realistic or begin working with Majles to reach a compromise on gradual price increases.
Timing is also a factor because the Guardian Council also needs to approve the budget by the end of the year. Its task is to make sure that - as demanded by the Constitution - all sources of spending are clearly specified. The Council’s spokesperson, Abbas-ali Kadkhodai, has already voiced his concern about the timing, stating that if the budget is not approved by the end of the year, by law the government cannot have any expenses on the first day of the upcoming year unless some sort of temporary appropriation is agreed upon on a monthly basis for necessary current expenses.
It is worth noting that the budget process in Iran is usually messy, quite raucous, and a source of open conflict between Iran’s legislative and executive branches. Even Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, without a doubt post-revolutionary Iran’s most powerful president, was often stunted in his budget plans by Majles. But the lateness and chaos that has characterized this year’s budget process – occurring in the midst of drastic drop in oil prices and global economic crisis - has taken the conflict to another level.
It has also highlighted the difficulty even conservatives have in accepting some of Ahmadinejad’s ideas and his rather aggressive style in dealing with people who worry about the impact of his policies.
Majles’ decisive rejection is a major setback for Ahmadinejad. The manner in which Ahmadinejad manages to work himself back into Majles’ good graces will be important in convincing key conservative players to back his candidacy for presidency. It is hard to believe that the events of this week have made conservative unity behind his candidacy more likely.
Read more on this article...
Monday, March 2, 2009
Bhasin: Pakistan- the Matryoshka Doll of terrorism
Madhavi Bhasi writes
Matryoshka Doll commonly referred to as Russian nested doll is a set of dolls of decreasing size placed one inside the other. Matryoshka is derived from the Latin root ‘mater’ meaning mother. As a breeding ground for terrorists and exhibiting different forms of terrorism, Pakistan can undoubtedly be likened to a matryoshka doll of terrorism.
Several national, regional and global developments presented Pakistan with grave challenges as a nation-state. The country was thrown into a state of political pandemonium with martial law, military coups, political assassinations and absence of democratic elections in the first decade. Religious scholars like Sayyid Suleman Nadvi and Prof. Hamidullah were invited to advise the Government on Constitution making, resulting in emergence of the Objectives Resolution 1949. The Resolution provided that future Constitutions of Pakistan would be modeled on the ideology and democratic faith of Islam. Hassan Abbas and Jessica (FRW) Stern in their book Pakistan’s Drift into Extremism, detail how the influence of Pakistan’s clergy shaped the country’s politics. Pakistan’s ‘religious identity’ came to dominate her foreign policy through the unresolved issue of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K). India’s charge of “sponsored terrorism” in J&K was refuted by Pakistan as diplomatic, political and moral support to the movement for Kashmiri freedom. Robert G. Wirsing in Kashmir in the Shadow of War, highlights how Pakistan’s fixation on Kashmir was viewed by many as a pan-Islamic geostrategic enterprise.
Extremism in terms of inspiration and manifestation graduated to a new level in Pakistan during the 1980s. Influx of jihadi ideology during the Soviet-Afghanistan war had tremendous fallout on Pakistan. External developments coincided with General Zia ul-Haq’s policies of embedding the Islamic ideology in Pakistan’s polity and society. The defeat of the Soviet forces in Afghanistan made a large mass of the jihadist element available for action in Kashmir. India has been drawing international attention to Pakistan’s terrorist activities in J&K since the late 1980s.
Pakistan’s association with terrorism was re-defined after the 9/11 attacks on the U.S. In the global war against terrorism Pakistan emerged as frontline state and pledged to sever ties with the Taliban, while supporting the U.S. war effort in Afghanistan. It was expected that as an ally in the global counter-terrorism effort, Pakistan would convincingly clamp down on terrorists operating from its territory. Pakistan sought to demonstrate its willingness in combating terrorism through a variety military offensives ranging from the Lal Masjid action to Operation ‘Zalzala’. But involvement in the global war against terrorism was a phase of ecdysis and terrorism continued to flourish in Pakistan.
In the past few months the nested doll of terrorism has sprung another surprise for the global community. Since the process of revelation is still underway, detailed features of the new form of terrorism are yet to be discerned. Nevertheless, the outlines are perceptible. The extremist elements harboring anti-Pakistan sentiments will be segregated from those combating American forces in Afghanistan and will be treated differently. In short, Pakistan reverts to the policy of co-existing with terrorist forces as long as the latter renounces the use of force against the Pakistani establishment. Indications of such a trend and its rationalizations are reflected in the recent policy choices by the Pakistani Government.
President Zardari’s Government has intensified attempts at making peace deals with militant outfits in the country. In April 2008, the Government secured the release of Pakistan’s Ambassador to Afghanistan, Tariq Azizuddin after finalizing a peace agreement with Baitullah Mehsud, leader of Tehrik-i-Taliban. The deal also included provision for withdrawal of Pakistani Army from areas of South Waziristan in return of commitment by the militants that government and security forces will not be targeted. While agreeing to make peace with Pakistan, Mehsud emphasized that jihad against U.S. forces in Afghanistan would continue unabated. This peace deal was preceded by an agreement with TNSM (Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi ) leading to the release of Sufi Mohammad, arrested in 2001 for sending volunteers to attack U.S. forces in Afghanistan. The TNSM was allowed to peacefully campaign for the implementation of the Sharia on the condition that government establishment will not be attacked.
As a logical progression to the 2008 agreement with TNSM, the government of North West Frontier Province (NWFP) signed the Swat Peace Deal on February 16, 2009. The Swat Accord allows TNSM to implement the Sharia in the valley while ensuring that Maulana Qazi Fazlullah’s faction would renounce the use of force against the Pakistani Government. After the Swat Deal, Pakistan’s Parliamentary Committee on National Security declared that this model would be replicated in other tribal areas if successful. A week later on February 23, the Taliban in Bajaur declared a unilateral ceasefire and the Government has responded by halting its operation for four days. It’s yet to be seen if this cessation of hostilities leads to another peace deal. Faqir Mohammad, a Taliban leader, explained that the ceasefire was ordered because it was in the ‘interest of Pakistan and the region.’ Meanwhile, three factions of the Taliban, Tehrik-i-Taliban, Hfiz Gul Bahadur Group and Mullah Nazir Group, declared the formation an alliance in Waziristan tribal area on February 21. The alliance could be an attempt to enhance the bargaining power of the Taliban in the future peace offers by the Pakistani government. Such developments point the emergence of a new form of terrorism in Pakistan; terrorism which is constrained in its scope and does not victimize its guardian.
This new form of terrorism has emerged from the intersection of two distinct developments. The first development is inspired by the unnoticed yet compelling suggestions on how the U.S. should deal with the extremist elements in Afghanistan. In October 2008, U.S. Army General David Petraeus stated that negotiations could be held with some sections of the Taliban as a strategy to check growing violence in Afghanistan. U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates echoed the same approach when he suggested that Washington could reconcile with sections of the Taliban if the Karzai government was willing. Secretary Gates however, categorically ruled out any possibility of negotiations with Al Qaeda. Developments on the ground appeared to follow the suggestions of General Petraeus and Secretary Gates. In late 2008 Afghan officials, including President Karzai’s brother, held talks with the Taliban in a dialogue brokered by Saudi Arabia. Though the negotiations did not yield any positive outcome it set the stage for future dialogue. Abdul Salaam, a former Taliban fighter has been appointed as the District Chief of Musa Qala in January this year. His appointment comes as a reward for defecting from Taliban and assisting the British forces to wrestle Musa Qala from Taliban control. Leaders of the Taliban are thus being rewarding for making peace with NATO forces in Afghanistan. This suggests that the U.S. favors a policy of negotiating with certain elements of Taliban in lieu of peace and stability. The Government of Pakistan is simply implementing a customized version of the U.S. strategy at a faster pace.
The second development contributing to the emergence of a new form of terrorism is the gradual distancing of the Taliban from the al Qaeda. Though rarely realized the Al Qaeda and Taliban are historically and ideologically distinct. The Al Qaeda is inspired by the more extremist Wahabi School of Islam and does not recognize national boundaries. The mission of the Al Qaeda is to establish the rule of pure Islam across the globe. The Taliban are ideologically linked to the Sufi and Deoband Schools of Islam and largely comprise of local fighters from tribal Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Taliban also favor spreading the message of pure Islam but their operational sphere is limited to Afghanistan and Pakistan. Nationalism is a strong sentiment among the Taliban which distinguishes them from the Al Qaeda.
This difference in ideology has become prominent in the past year. In February 2008 there was a statement by Taliban leader Mullah Omar that his movement wanted to maintain positive and legitimate relations with Afghanistan and its neighbors. Mullah Omar’s contention is the stationing of U.S. troops in Afghanistan and not the existence of Afghanistan under non-Taliban rule. In the words of Mullah Salam Zaief, Taliban’s Former Ambassador to Pakistan, “The conflict in Afghanistan doesn’t mean [the Taliban] has to confront the world…Taliban doesn’t want to rule the world.” As early as 2005 Ayman al-Zawahiri had pointed out that the Taliban members had retreated to their tribes and villages after the U.S. led invasion of Afghanistan and showed little attachment to the global Islamist struggle. In making peace deals with the Pakistani Government, the Taliban are attempting to regain local orientation and avoid entanglement in a never-ending global jihad.
The Government of Pakistan and the Taliban have thus come under the influence of two distinct developments which has got them to the negotiating table. Both sides are working out means of mutual accommodation. This however, complicates the task for the U.S. Anti-U.S. attacks in Afghanistan will continue to inspire the Taliban even if they stop subscribing to the ideology of global jihad. This new form of terrorism emerging out of Pakistan will not threaten the U.S. homeland but will continue to challenge the American forces in Afghanistan. Since peace and stability in Afghanistan is a critical objective of the global war on terrorism, Pakistan’s peace with Taliban implies mere alteration rather than elimination of the terrorist threat challenging the U.S. The latest form of the matryoshka doll is no less menacing.
Madhavi Bhasin
Senior Research Fellow at Jadavpur University
Read more on this article...
Matryoshka Doll commonly referred to as Russian nested doll is a set of dolls of decreasing size placed one inside the other. Matryoshka is derived from the Latin root ‘mater’ meaning mother. As a breeding ground for terrorists and exhibiting different forms of terrorism, Pakistan can undoubtedly be likened to a matryoshka doll of terrorism.
Several national, regional and global developments presented Pakistan with grave challenges as a nation-state. The country was thrown into a state of political pandemonium with martial law, military coups, political assassinations and absence of democratic elections in the first decade. Religious scholars like Sayyid Suleman Nadvi and Prof. Hamidullah were invited to advise the Government on Constitution making, resulting in emergence of the Objectives Resolution 1949. The Resolution provided that future Constitutions of Pakistan would be modeled on the ideology and democratic faith of Islam. Hassan Abbas and Jessica (FRW) Stern in their book Pakistan’s Drift into Extremism, detail how the influence of Pakistan’s clergy shaped the country’s politics. Pakistan’s ‘religious identity’ came to dominate her foreign policy through the unresolved issue of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K). India’s charge of “sponsored terrorism” in J&K was refuted by Pakistan as diplomatic, political and moral support to the movement for Kashmiri freedom. Robert G. Wirsing in Kashmir in the Shadow of War, highlights how Pakistan’s fixation on Kashmir was viewed by many as a pan-Islamic geostrategic enterprise.
Extremism in terms of inspiration and manifestation graduated to a new level in Pakistan during the 1980s. Influx of jihadi ideology during the Soviet-Afghanistan war had tremendous fallout on Pakistan. External developments coincided with General Zia ul-Haq’s policies of embedding the Islamic ideology in Pakistan’s polity and society. The defeat of the Soviet forces in Afghanistan made a large mass of the jihadist element available for action in Kashmir. India has been drawing international attention to Pakistan’s terrorist activities in J&K since the late 1980s.
Pakistan’s association with terrorism was re-defined after the 9/11 attacks on the U.S. In the global war against terrorism Pakistan emerged as frontline state and pledged to sever ties with the Taliban, while supporting the U.S. war effort in Afghanistan. It was expected that as an ally in the global counter-terrorism effort, Pakistan would convincingly clamp down on terrorists operating from its territory. Pakistan sought to demonstrate its willingness in combating terrorism through a variety military offensives ranging from the Lal Masjid action to Operation ‘Zalzala’. But involvement in the global war against terrorism was a phase of ecdysis and terrorism continued to flourish in Pakistan.
In the past few months the nested doll of terrorism has sprung another surprise for the global community. Since the process of revelation is still underway, detailed features of the new form of terrorism are yet to be discerned. Nevertheless, the outlines are perceptible. The extremist elements harboring anti-Pakistan sentiments will be segregated from those combating American forces in Afghanistan and will be treated differently. In short, Pakistan reverts to the policy of co-existing with terrorist forces as long as the latter renounces the use of force against the Pakistani establishment. Indications of such a trend and its rationalizations are reflected in the recent policy choices by the Pakistani Government.
President Zardari’s Government has intensified attempts at making peace deals with militant outfits in the country. In April 2008, the Government secured the release of Pakistan’s Ambassador to Afghanistan, Tariq Azizuddin after finalizing a peace agreement with Baitullah Mehsud, leader of Tehrik-i-Taliban. The deal also included provision for withdrawal of Pakistani Army from areas of South Waziristan in return of commitment by the militants that government and security forces will not be targeted. While agreeing to make peace with Pakistan, Mehsud emphasized that jihad against U.S. forces in Afghanistan would continue unabated. This peace deal was preceded by an agreement with TNSM (Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi ) leading to the release of Sufi Mohammad, arrested in 2001 for sending volunteers to attack U.S. forces in Afghanistan. The TNSM was allowed to peacefully campaign for the implementation of the Sharia on the condition that government establishment will not be attacked.
As a logical progression to the 2008 agreement with TNSM, the government of North West Frontier Province (NWFP) signed the Swat Peace Deal on February 16, 2009. The Swat Accord allows TNSM to implement the Sharia in the valley while ensuring that Maulana Qazi Fazlullah’s faction would renounce the use of force against the Pakistani Government. After the Swat Deal, Pakistan’s Parliamentary Committee on National Security declared that this model would be replicated in other tribal areas if successful. A week later on February 23, the Taliban in Bajaur declared a unilateral ceasefire and the Government has responded by halting its operation for four days. It’s yet to be seen if this cessation of hostilities leads to another peace deal. Faqir Mohammad, a Taliban leader, explained that the ceasefire was ordered because it was in the ‘interest of Pakistan and the region.’ Meanwhile, three factions of the Taliban, Tehrik-i-Taliban, Hfiz Gul Bahadur Group and Mullah Nazir Group, declared the formation an alliance in Waziristan tribal area on February 21. The alliance could be an attempt to enhance the bargaining power of the Taliban in the future peace offers by the Pakistani government. Such developments point the emergence of a new form of terrorism in Pakistan; terrorism which is constrained in its scope and does not victimize its guardian.
This new form of terrorism has emerged from the intersection of two distinct developments. The first development is inspired by the unnoticed yet compelling suggestions on how the U.S. should deal with the extremist elements in Afghanistan. In October 2008, U.S. Army General David Petraeus stated that negotiations could be held with some sections of the Taliban as a strategy to check growing violence in Afghanistan. U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates echoed the same approach when he suggested that Washington could reconcile with sections of the Taliban if the Karzai government was willing. Secretary Gates however, categorically ruled out any possibility of negotiations with Al Qaeda. Developments on the ground appeared to follow the suggestions of General Petraeus and Secretary Gates. In late 2008 Afghan officials, including President Karzai’s brother, held talks with the Taliban in a dialogue brokered by Saudi Arabia. Though the negotiations did not yield any positive outcome it set the stage for future dialogue. Abdul Salaam, a former Taliban fighter has been appointed as the District Chief of Musa Qala in January this year. His appointment comes as a reward for defecting from Taliban and assisting the British forces to wrestle Musa Qala from Taliban control. Leaders of the Taliban are thus being rewarding for making peace with NATO forces in Afghanistan. This suggests that the U.S. favors a policy of negotiating with certain elements of Taliban in lieu of peace and stability. The Government of Pakistan is simply implementing a customized version of the U.S. strategy at a faster pace.
The second development contributing to the emergence of a new form of terrorism is the gradual distancing of the Taliban from the al Qaeda. Though rarely realized the Al Qaeda and Taliban are historically and ideologically distinct. The Al Qaeda is inspired by the more extremist Wahabi School of Islam and does not recognize national boundaries. The mission of the Al Qaeda is to establish the rule of pure Islam across the globe. The Taliban are ideologically linked to the Sufi and Deoband Schools of Islam and largely comprise of local fighters from tribal Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Taliban also favor spreading the message of pure Islam but their operational sphere is limited to Afghanistan and Pakistan. Nationalism is a strong sentiment among the Taliban which distinguishes them from the Al Qaeda.
This difference in ideology has become prominent in the past year. In February 2008 there was a statement by Taliban leader Mullah Omar that his movement wanted to maintain positive and legitimate relations with Afghanistan and its neighbors. Mullah Omar’s contention is the stationing of U.S. troops in Afghanistan and not the existence of Afghanistan under non-Taliban rule. In the words of Mullah Salam Zaief, Taliban’s Former Ambassador to Pakistan, “The conflict in Afghanistan doesn’t mean [the Taliban] has to confront the world…Taliban doesn’t want to rule the world.” As early as 2005 Ayman al-Zawahiri had pointed out that the Taliban members had retreated to their tribes and villages after the U.S. led invasion of Afghanistan and showed little attachment to the global Islamist struggle. In making peace deals with the Pakistani Government, the Taliban are attempting to regain local orientation and avoid entanglement in a never-ending global jihad.
The Government of Pakistan and the Taliban have thus come under the influence of two distinct developments which has got them to the negotiating table. Both sides are working out means of mutual accommodation. This however, complicates the task for the U.S. Anti-U.S. attacks in Afghanistan will continue to inspire the Taliban even if they stop subscribing to the ideology of global jihad. This new form of terrorism emerging out of Pakistan will not threaten the U.S. homeland but will continue to challenge the American forces in Afghanistan. Since peace and stability in Afghanistan is a critical objective of the global war on terrorism, Pakistan’s peace with Taliban implies mere alteration rather than elimination of the terrorist threat challenging the U.S. The latest form of the matryoshka doll is no less menacing.
Madhavi Bhasin
Senior Research Fellow at Jadavpur University
Read more on this article...
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