Religion, Nationalism, and Terror

Munson: Zakaria should have foreseen that the outrage provoked by the occupation of Iraq would benefit the militant Islamists it was supposed to weaken. He did not. Moreover, he fails to mention that many foreign-born Americans bring with them the myopias they were born into. Some Indian-born Americans, for example, are supporters of militant Hindu nationalism. Zakaria is nonetheless right to stress that an understanding of how others see us is an essential ingredient of a sensible foreign policy.

Fareed Zakaria: The Power of Personality, Newsweek.com, December 24, 2007

I’ve spent my life acquiring formal expertise on foreign policy. I’ve got fancy degrees, have run research projects, taught in colleges and graduate schools, edited a foreign-affairs journal, advised politicians and businessmen, written columns and cover stories, and traveled hundreds of thousands of miles all over the world. I’ve never thought of my identity as any kind of qualification. I’ve never written an article that contains the phrase “As an Indian-American …” or “As a person of color …”

But when I think about what is truly distinctive about the way I look at the world, about the advantage that I may have over others in understanding foreign affairs, it is that I know what it means not to be an American. I know intimately the attraction, the repulsion, the hopes, the disappointments that the other 95 percent of humanity feels when thinking about this country. I know it because for a good part of my life, I wasn’t an American.

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.

Anthony Gottlieb, I’m a Believer, New York Times Book Review, December 23, 2007

In 2001, rumors started to hit the blogosphere that Antony Flew, a British philosopher born in 1923, had found God after six decades of atheism. At first Flew denied the reports. But in May 2004 he told a conference in New York that he had indeed changed his mind and become a believer. A flurry of online pundits debated the meaning of this shocking conversion.

Now, in a book written, according to its title page, “with” Roy Abraham Varghese — of whom more later — Flew tells the story of his “discovery of the divine.” This sounds like a victory for the faithful in the God wars: a welcome riposte to the atheist tomes of Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris. Although Flew is not “the world’s most notorious atheist,” as the subtitle of “There Is a God” claims, and never was, even in his native Britain, he ought to count as quite a catch. Now retired from the University of Reading in Berkshire (he has also taught at Oxford and in Scotland, Canada and the United States), he is the author of several cogent and elegant works of philosophy, including accomplished critiques of religion. In many public debates he has vigorously made the case for unbelief. But I doubt thoughtful believers will welcome this volume. Far from strengthening the case for the existence of God, it rather weakens the case for the existence of Antony Flew.

The book has five main parts: a preface and an appendix by Varghese; an intellectual autobiography and an account of his case for God, attributed to Flew; and another appendix, on the historical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus, by N. T. Wright, the Anglican bishop of Durham. Varghese is an Indian-born business consultant who founded the Institute for MetaScientific Research in Texas, and writes and edits books on the interplay between science, religion and philosophy. He helped organize the conference at which Flew announced his conversion and is the author of a book, “The Wonder of the World,” that Flew recommends. Varghese has also written “God-Sent: A History of the Accredited Apparitions of Mary,” which argues that more than 50 such apparitions cannot be explained away as hallucinations and that there is better evidence for them than there is for any ostensible U.F.O. sighting.

MEMRI, December 21, 2007

A polemic has recently erupted between noted Egyptian sociologist and reformer Dr. Sa’ad Eddin Ibrahim and Iraqi liberal authors over the war in Iraq. The controversy centered on recent articles by Ibrahim comparing the Iraqi resistance to the Vietnamese fighters at Dien Bien Phu and to the Algerian FLN. In response, a number of Iraqi liberals - Dr. ‘Abd Al-Khaliq Hussein, Kazem Habib, and Iraqi Kurdish author Hosheng Broka - rejected Ibrahim’s historical comparisons, and accused him of supporting Ba’thist and Al-Qaeda terrorists responsible for crimes against the Iraqi people.

The following are excerpts from Sa’ad Eddin Ibrahim’s articles and the Iraqi authors’ responses to them:

Sa’ad Eddin Ibrahim: “Foreign Occupation Must Inevitably Give Rise to National Resistance”

On October 27, 2007, Dr. Sa’ad Eddin Ibrahim published an article titled “Vietnam and the Search for Iraq’s Future” in the Qatari daily Al-Raya and in the Egyptian opposition daily Al-Masri Al-Yawm. The article, written during a visit to Vietnam, was a reflection on U.S. Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez’s recent statement that the Iraq war was “a nightmare with no end in sight,” interspersed with reflections on the author’s student days as an anti-Vietnam War activist. [1]

It was Sa’ad Eddin Ibrahim’s follow-up article, “From Vietnam to Algeria to Iraq,” that became a source of controversy, as it seemed to express sympathy for the Iraqi “resistance.” Following are excerpts:

“As I was traveling in Vietnam with my wife and son… I called to mind stories from the past. I remembered the biographies of the great historical leaders of this poor Asian country who led a popular resistance against three foreign occupying forces in the 20th century - Japan, France, and the U.S. - and was victorious over them all, despite the heavy sacrifice of its people’s blood.

John F. Burns, Man Cleared in 1998 Northern Ireland Blast - New York Times, December 21, 2007

LONDON — A judge in Belfast on Thursday cleared Sean Hoey, a 38-year-old electrician, of murder and all other charges stemming from the car bombing in 1998 that killed 29 people and wounded more than 200 in the Northern Ireland town of Omagh.

The long-awaited verdict left investigators in Northern Ireland without a single conviction in the Omagh bombing, which was regarded as the worst atrocity in 30 years of sectarian strife in the British province. Prosecutors had asserted that Mr. Hoey was the principal bombmaker in the attack, which featured a 500-pound car bomb that exploded on Omagh’s main street at the height of Saturday shopping.

The bombing came less than four months after the Good Friday peace agreement in 1998 that led, earlier this year, to the restoration of democratic rule in Northern Ireland, under a governing coalition of Protestants and Catholics. At the time, the police and politicians said the attack had been carried out by a group calling itself the Real I.R.A., a splinter group of the overwhelmingly Catholic Irish Republican Army, which opposed the peace agreement.

Mr. Hoey was found not guilty on all 56 charges he faced in connection with the Omagh bombing and a series of other bombings and killings involving police and military targets in northern Ireland that preceded the Omagh attack. The verdict brought cheers from supporters of Mr. Hoey, who was released after four years of pre-trial custody, but relatives of the Omagh victims, many of them women and children, appeared stunned.

Daniel Gavron, Start with the unmanned roadblocks! - Haaretz, December 21, 2007

This week’s request from French President Nicholas Sarkozy, made at the conference of nations donating money to the Palestinian Authority, that Israel remove the roadblocks in the West Bank is hardly new. World Bank reports have been saying for years that the roadblocks are a major impediment to Palestinian economic development. Tony Blair, the Quartet’s special envoy, one of whose briefs is to help develop the Palestinian economy, has also made the same point several times.

Sarkozy, Blair and the World Bank are not talking about the checkpoints between Israel and the territories. They are referring to the barriers that prevent Palestinians from traveling and transporting goods between Tulkarm and Jenin, Nablus and Ramallah, Bethlehem and Hebron, and between all of those places and East Jerusalem. They are also talking about those barriers that block entry to and exit from almost every village in the Palestinian territories.

According to a report in Haaretz last month, there are 572 roadblocks in the West Bank, 97 of them manned. Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that the manned checkpoints do prevent terror, inasmuch as people passing through them are searched and questioned. These checkpoints may stop a potential suicide bomber from attacking targets inside Israel by halting him early on, and certainly help to protect the settlements in the territories from would-be attackers.

But what on earth is the function of the 475 unmanned obstructions? Is it seriously contended by anyone that a mound of earth, a ditch or a series of concrete blocks can stop terrorists from moving around? Do these barriers serve any function other than embittering the lives of the Palestinians? The sick and the elderly, pregnant women and people carrying shopping baskets undoubtedly find it more difficult to get in and out of their barricaded towns and villages. Indeed both B’Tselem and the organization Physicians for Human Rights have documented cases of sick people being unable to receive treatment because they couldn’t reach their doctors or clinics - while anybody planning a terrorist attack can easily clamber over the mounds, traverse the ditches or circumvent the blocks.

Michelle Goldberg, Mike Huckabee, conservative golem, Guardian, December 19, 2007

Leading conservative pundits have discovered that the Republican electorate is dominated by Christian fundamentalists, and they are shocked, shocked! Aghast at the rise of the backwoods populist preacher-turned-governor Mike Huckabee, now polling first in Iowa with only two weeks until the caucuses, they’ve suddenly divined the value of secular politics, of knowledge gained by studying something other than the Bible.

“There is a sense in Iowa now that faith has been heightened as a determining factor in how to vote, that such things as executive ability, professional history, temperament, character, political philosophy and professed stands are secondary, tertiary,” an alarmed Peggy Noonan wrote in the Wall Street Journal last Friday. “But they are not, and cannot be. They are central. Things seem to be getting out of kilter, with the emphasis shifting too far.”

National Review’s Rich Lowry concurred. “[N]ominating a southern Baptist pastor running on his religiosity would be rather overdoing it,” he sniffed. “Social conservatism has to be part of the Republican message, but it can’t be the message in its entirety.” In the Washington Post, Charles Krauthammer’s column was titled An Overdose of Public Piety. “This campaign is knee-deep in religion, and it’s only going to get worse,” he wrote.

GRAPHIC: Gene Thorp and Dita Smith - The Washington Post - December 15, 2007

Changing Baghdad - washingtonpost.com