Religion, Nationalism, and Terror

World Press Photo, 2007 Exhibition, Photo of the Year

Nathan Dvir/ Independent photographer
Naim Eliam, Palestinian resident of Jabalia Refugee Camp waiting at Erez Checkpoint with the body of his three-month old son, who died after treatment of congenital defect at Tel-HaShomer Hospital. The checkpoint was closed in this period due to Hamas having taken control of the Gaza strip. June 18, 2007. Digital photo.

The Year in Images - Photo Essays - TIME

Mourned
A member of the military accompanies Rachel Guy-Latham at a viewing of the body of her husband, Sergeant Thomas Lee Latham, 23, who was killed by an IED in Baghdad, Iraq in March. Anthony Suau for TIME.

Andrew Finkel, The many battles for Turkey’s soul, Monde diplomatique, English edition, September 2007

Turkey’s elections this summer have put both presidency and government into the hands of the post-Islamist AKP. The secularist old guard fears this unprecedented concentration of power and the idea that the AKP, which has handled economic difficulties gallantly, has become the natural party of government

By Andrew Finkel

Bill Clinton certainly never said: “It’s the future of the republic, stupid.” He only mentioned the economy. Yet many pundits were convinced that it wasn’t the Turkish economy that concerned voters during this politically hot summer, but the nature of its regime. More than one publication called the 22 July general election “the battle for Turkey’s soul”, although what was at stake, who represented God and who the Devil, was often left vague. Did the contest pit Islamists against secularists, democrats against autocrats, pro-Europeans against old-style nationalists, globalisers against protectionists, a new against an old elite, civil society against the military/bureaucratic guardians of the state, all or none of the above?

On the surface at least, Turks went to the poll a few months ahead of schedule because parliament was unable to carry out its constitutional obligation to elect a new president (1). This failure was all the more unexpected because the governing Justice and Development Party (AKP) had more than enough MPs. Up to the actual contest the question was not whether it could choose a president, but what name the party’s inner cabal would put forward. The real suspense had been over whether the prime minister, Tayyip Erdogan, would abandon his party for the presidential office or whether he would choose someone who would not irritate the sensitivities of Turkish establishment – someone whose wife did not wear the hijab.

In the end Erdogan went for broke. He stayed on as prime minister but nominated his closest political ally, foreign minister Abdullah Gul (whose wife does wear the hijab). Gul is important not just as the man who brokered the start of Turkish accession negotiations to the EU in 2005, but as the long-term architect of the AKP’s bid for the centre ground of Turkish politics. He helped lead the split from the more openly Islamic movement founded by Necmettin Erbakan, in whose government he had been a minister. And when the AKP swept into power in 2002, he became prime minister. In a rare act of political fealty, he kept the seat warm long enough for the more charismatic Erdogan to surmount his legal ban from politics, enter parliament at a by-election and take the job himself.

The AKP’s strategy since its inception has been simple. The party avoided mention of religion so as not to offend the constitution or Turkey’s secular elite. At the same time, it nodded at the conservative inclinations of its supporters. The body language said “trust us, we’re on your side”. The right to be more open about religion in public life was redefined as part of a more general struggle to make Turkey more fully democratic; and this prompted suspicions that for many AKP supporters, their own rights were more important than human rights in general. Even so, the rhetoric meant the AKP was less prone to Turkish nationalism and generally more tolerant of those who sought other rights, including the right to be Kurdish.

The American military, enlisting local Iraqi help in ending sectarian violence, has formed “Awakening” groups in neighborhoods. A member in the Adhamiya neighborhood of Baghdad guards a checkpoint.

Photo: Joao Silva for The New York Times

ALISSA J. RUBIN and STEPHEN FARRELL, In a Force for Iraqi Calm, Seeds of Conflict - New York Times, December 23, 2007

BAGHDAD — The thin teenage boy rushed up to the patrol of American soldiers walking through Dora, a shrapnel-scarred neighborhood of the capital, and lifted his shirt to show them a mass of red welts across his back.

He said he was a member of a local Sunni “Awakening” group, paid by the American military to patrol the district, but he said it was another Awakening group that beat him. “They took me while I was working,” he said, “and broke my badge and said, ‘You are from Al Qaeda.’”

The soldiers were unsure of what to do. The Awakening groups in just their area of southern Baghdad could not seem to get along: they fought over turf and, it turned out in this case, one group had warned the other that its members should not pay rent to Shiite “dogs.”

The Awakening movement, a predominantly Sunni Arab force recruited to fight Sunni Islamic extremists like Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, has become a great success story after its spread from Sunni tribes in Anbar Province to become an ad-hoc armed force of 65,000 to 80,000 across the country in less than a year. A linchpin of the American strategy to pacify Iraq, the movement has been widely credited with turning around the violence-scarred areas where the Sunni insurgency has been based.

But the beating that day was a stark example of how rivalries and sectarianism are still undermining the Americans’ plans. And in particular, the Awakening’s rapid expansion — the Americans say the force could reach 100,000 — is creating new concerns.

The politics of the local in Iraq, by Charles Tripp, Le Monde diplomatque in English, January 2008

The many regional and sectarian leaders in Iraq now wield a power over ordinary citizens that the new national institutions cannot, and may not want to temper. Iraq may fall into a second violent civil war. Or it may become an imperial protectorate with a privileged military and sharp class divisions.

By Charles Tripp

Now that the first phase of the Iraqi civil war seems to have ended, it is time to consider the political processes it may have left in its bloody wake. It is crucial for Iraqis and others to get a sense of the stability and durability of present arrangements. Are they a mechanism for reconciling the ferocious enmities of the past five years in Iraq, or likely to lead to a more violent second phase of the civil war?

There have been two main patterns during these years of violence and massive population displacement.

One is the localisation of politics, grounded in the insecurities, fears and ambitions of ruthless local leaders across Iraq. This thrives on community feeling, which is sometimes tribal, sometimes ethnic and sectarian; it also springs from rivalry and jostling for power within a provincial arena.

The other pattern is the emergence of a politics at national level under US auspices, which has much in common with the politics of a protectorate. Both are dangerous for the future, but both may contribute to the emergence of a distinctive, likely troubled, Iraqi politics.

As an Iraqi put it, “the United States got rid of one Saddam only to replace him with 50”.

Readin’, Writin’ ‘n Creatin’ Science - Texas Observer blog, December 17, 2007

Sci·ence /noun/ def: knowledge or a system of knowledge covering general truths or the operation of general laws especially as obtained and tested through scientific method.

We had to go to Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary to make sure the definition for science had not changed in the past year, whew!

The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB) might want to check Webster’s too. Last Friday, the Board’s Certification Advisory Committee recommended that the Institute for Creation Research be given the power to grant Master’s degrees in science education.

Dominic Chavez, director of external relations for the coordinating board, says that the Board- appointed panel would give its positive recommendation to Commissioner Raymund Paredes and the Board for consideration at its next meeting January 24th.

“If it were granted it would be an interim step,” says Chavez of the authorization. “It’s a two year window where the the school can work in Texas, but they have to meet a number of criteria.”

Criteria? That might be tough when the Institute teaches that dinosaurs are only centuries old instead of millennia. Were our great great grandfathers dodging flesh-eating theropods in their Model Ts?

Evangelical video shows cadets pressured to be missionaries, The Raw Story, December 21, 2007

A video made by Campus Crusade for Christ, a Christian ministry group, shows Air Force Academy cadets being pressured to participate in religious activities and become “government paid missionaries when they leave.”

Mikey Weinstein, president of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), which released the video this week, says the video is “absolutely out of control.”

“You cannot engage the U.S. government to propel your religion,” said Weinstein.

The video, filmed in the summer of 2002, opens with tranquil shots of “Colorado’s most frequently visited man-made attraction.” The unnamed narrator describes the chapel in detail, which “resembles a formation of fighter jets shooting into the sky.”

While the narrator says that students receive a “well-rounded education” at the Academy, the video focuses mainly on how stressful the environment is and not so subtly suggests that cadets can find solace in religion.

“I do a lot of counseling … like any other college campus, there are a variety of needs that arise… spiritually and emotionally,” says Major John Dider, who “considers himself a chaplain first.”

“Our purpose for Campus Crusade for Christ at the Air Force Academy is to make Jesus Christ the issue at the Air Force Academy and around the world,” says Scott Blum, the former Academy Campus Crusade for Christ director, who had no previous military experience but — according to the video — always “knew that God called him to invest in the lives of military men and women.”

UNICEF: War has taken a toll on Iraq’s children, McClatchy Newspapers, 12/21/2007

BAGHDAD — More than four years after the United States invaded Iraq, the country’s children continue to face a litany of problems from disrupted educations to unsafe drinking water, detentions and violence, UNICEF reported Friday.

Violence and displacement often kept Iraqi children out of school this year. The organization estimates that 2 million educations were interrupted, especially among primary-school students.

The report says that only 28 percent of 17-year-olds in Iraq took final exams this summer, and fewer than half passed. However, UNICEF-supported programs to distribute classroom materials, rebuild schools and provide more learning opportunities benefited 4.7 million children, the agency reported.

Health took a hit, too, as children living in remote areas were faced with poor nutrition and diseases such as cholera. Those living in remote areas were often cut off from health services, although a door-to-door immunization campaign protected 4 million from polio and 3 million from measles, mumps and rubella.

The full report, based on statistics from UNICEF, Iraq’s government and the U.S. military, will be released in early 2008.