The international capitals of global power were buzzing last week with the news that the French president Nicholas Sarkozy has requested China to start purchasing European government bonds to provide much needed finances to the struggling economies of the beleaguered European Union including economic bellwethers like Italy, Spain and Ireland. As a student of history, my first reaction to this news was what a difference a century makes in terms of historical shifting of positions.
Think about this about a historical shift, the country that we call today as the People’s Republic of China was under the ignominious position of being under the yoke of the same countries of Europe who are today asking China for help. In the beginning of 20-th century, the Chinese were not allowed to set their feet on the soil of sudden areas inside places like Beijing which were called “Legation quarters”. After the defeat of the Chinese forces in the Boxers rebellion (1898-1901) by a coalition of the Western powers, the Chinese were asked to accept terms by which the Chinese were not able to settle in places like the “Legation quarters” in cities such as Shanghai and Beijing as well as being subject to the approval of others to procure or prepare arms to defend themselves against the encroachments of the very same powers. The British had forced the Chinese thanks to their superior naval power to consume Opium and hand over important ports like Hong Kong for the provision of important trade routes. Two great powers of the early 20-th century; the Czarist Russia and the Japanese empire had fought with each other basically for the control of the lucrative Chinese territory. The dominant powers of the day saw China as a huge market for consuming their products and a source for cheap raw materials and far cheaper human labor, the latter was used extensively for building the vast American railway system in the late 19-th century.
The whole first half of the 20-th Century saw China going through one calamity after another; first the republican revolution which ended the monarchy and installed the republican Kuomintang regime in the early 1910-s, then the brutal and ruthless Japanese invasion which started in 1930 and ended only after the surrender of Japan at the end of the second world war and produced horrors like “the rape of Nanjing” as aptly described by Iris Chang in her book on the shameful event; these tragic events were followed by the bloody and fratricidal civil war which saw the birth of the modern-day People’s republic of China and then it was the time for the new China to get itself involved into wars in its neighborhood like those in Korea and Vietnam while at the same time she was embroiled in experiments like the cultural revolution and the great leap forward. China lost about 100 million souls in all these conflicts in the violent episodes of the 20 –th century and its economy was barely the size as of India even well in 1940-s. It was impossible to consider China being asked for help in the economic discussions of Europe even at the beginning of the 21-st century. So what were the factors that made to realize so much of a paradigm shift and how would China respond with these offers?
There is a serious debate going on around the intellectual circles in the World about the exact reasons why China was able to reverse its position in the World compared to what it was a century back. One reason that should be highlighted is that the Chinese policymakers from the time of Deng Hsiao Ping understood the benefit of greater trade and commerce around the World. They had understood clearly that China possessed two historically great advantages whose careful exploitation would entail great economic leverage that have been missing in China compared to her Western counterparts. China had the biggest market in terms of population and a hardworking, crafty and most importantly from an industrial viewpoint, an extremely cheap labor class. What China lacked were in terms of sufficient capital and corresponding technology to usher in a new age of industrial revolution. The decision by the Chinese leadership to seek détente with the West at the height of the cold war and the subsequent Chinese admission to the WTO should be viewed in this context. And as the Chinese leadership thought and decided, history has proven them right. China which once in the 20-th century had an economy roughly 20 times less than that of the United States is well poised to take over the United States in the coming 2/3 decades. China boasts a leviathan reserve of $3.2 Trillion dollars in terms of foreign reserves which is the main reason that Monsieur Sarkozy seeks Chinese help in calming the stormy fiscal seas through which Europe finds herself traveling now.
The most important question of the 21-st century is what will China do with its newfound power and influence? Historically China is not a missionary nation alike West in the sense that it does not seek to export and if possible impose Chinese law, language, culture and way of life over the nations whom it does business with. China’s main two important rules of conduct in terms of foreign policy has been that a strict adherence to non-interference in the matters of others and doing business without any pre-condition or pre-conceived notion. These are the two major points that have ensured China can do business with almost all the countries in the planet.
What China can offer to the likes of Monsieur Sarkozy is that in exchange of China pulling European fiscal chestnuts out of fire , Europe should grant the Chinese the rights to own farmlands and cultivate them , set up businesses , invest freely without the usual European hassling rules and regulations and employ cheap Chinese labor in these ventures. These Chinese ventures in Europe would in turn allow the most important thing that the European economies have been lacking so far which is fresh consumer demands. This could be a win-win scenario for both the parties in question.
Monday, October 31, 2011
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
While the East sleeps, the West rules
My first reaction after watching Dominic Strauss Kahn affair was to ponder about a little bit and then ask myself a question, what made this ripe, old man do what he has done ? Then I realized this man could think about ... well getting away with all those since he knew he was the head of one of the biggest lending institutions in the World , thereby outside the normal course of law , unaccountable by the normal processes of the law.
The main reason that rich and powerful men like DSK could think of getting away with these kinds of crimes is… well, they are the only game in the town. The IMF and its Bretton-woods twin World Bank are the two most important lending institutions in the World, a place where everyone goes for money when their budget balance sheets are finally in red.
The normal prescription of the IMF and the World Bank to their unfortunate patients (read nations in need of balancing their budgets) is similar: cut down your expanses which often boils down to closing down schools for your children, stopping the treatment of the poor in the hospitals and throwing out the needy elderly without their pension benefits and increase taxes on your people. It is said that “a tree is known by the fruits, it bears”. Well, the IMF has a lot of fruits to its credit, the Argentine crisis, the Asean tigers’ crisis and the recent crisis in Greece , Portugal , Spain and the list can go on and on.
Even after selling so many rotten fruits to the public, the IMF can hope to get away and even the maligned DSK can hope to fight for another day is because there is no other player in the market to compete against the ideas the IMF and the World Bank represent.
Let me be very clear here my readers. The West when she is convinced that she has an idea, she would move heaven and earth to implement that idea and will do everything in her power to make the whole world accept that idea. When the West advises us non-Westerners about the virtues free-market economics, make no mistake that she is convinced about her ideas and she will use all the means at her disposal to make everyone of us adhere to those ideas. Unfortunately, we in the “East” (by “East” I mean those who happen to be outside the realm of the privileged club comprising of EU, US, Japan, Australia, Canada and Israel) have to face the consequences if we happen to be at the wrong end of the implementation of those ideas for example say when an Western World Bank economist becomes the economic advisor of an African country without ever setting foot on the soil of that nation and his policies lead to the sad demise of the economy of that country. The people in that country suffer and the World Bank economist just goes for another assignment.
Now this leads to us to the question; why are we in the “East” not doing anything to prevent all these? The historians tell us that the “East” for example China and India led the World in terms of wealth and trade during most of the times of recorded history except say may last two-three centuries of Western domination. Even now days China and India are the two fastest growing economies in the World, the fastest growing economy in Europe happens to be Turkey, in the Latin America Brazil’s economic growth surpasses that of many of her North American counterparts but still why do the global “East” have to listen to the dictates of those World Bank pundits and those IMF experts even when we know those “advises” (read dictates) have only led to ruin for many of us? The answer, in my view is simple: while we in the East look to be numero uno in terms of GDP growth rates, those in the West look to create ideas and propagate them to us. Since we in the “East” neither create any ideas of our own nor have the conviction to implement and propagate those ideas, we are left to follow what the West gives to us.
Here is my solution to it. I believe this is high time for the major economies in the “East” i.e. China, India, Russia, Brazil, Turkey, South Africa, Indonesia should come together and create an alternative global financial organization. The above list of the countries must be and should be expandable. I propose that we call this organization “global cooperative bank”. The main function of this institution will be to promote collaboration among different underprivileged (those whom the West shuns for many reasons) countries in the “East” and to help them with their finances and development without the strings and riders, the IMF and the World Bank attaches. This institution could help by investing in the much-needed infrastructure and education projects in Africa, West and Central Asia and Latin America which the West has shunned for various reasons. The fruits of the investments should be shared equally between the underprivileged countries and the investors.
I know there are serious differences between many of us in the “East” but I do believe that we need to come together on this otherwise the West will continue to follow the policy of dividing and ruling over us. And, Yes I know that it will be difficult implementing an organization such as the one I have proposed but I have full confidence if the best of minds from the “East” can come together then surely we will be able to implement alternative ideas like the one I have proposed. I have full confidence in the best of minds in the “East”. And I have strong grounds for my confidence. Last time I checked, I found many of the countries in the “East” for example China and India were running huge trade surpluses over their Western counterparts which goes to show that there are very many goods and services which we in the “East” can produce and export with much lesser cost and assured quality. So if we can do that there is no reason we can not produce ideas which present a better alternative to the World.
There will be two major benefits of the same. The “East” will be able to have her own narrative which it can propose to the West and the West will be able to understand the follies of her own ideas and correct them.
The basic axiom that the market economics fundamentalists teach us is that competition brings improvement in quality of the overall system. I believe the West needs to face some good decent competition in terms of ideas from the “East” and then only we can see a sea change in the global system as we know it. But without that it will be the status quo running on where the East sleeps and the dignity of her women gets compromised by the rich and powerful in the West.
The main reason that rich and powerful men like DSK could think of getting away with these kinds of crimes is… well, they are the only game in the town. The IMF and its Bretton-woods twin World Bank are the two most important lending institutions in the World, a place where everyone goes for money when their budget balance sheets are finally in red.
The normal prescription of the IMF and the World Bank to their unfortunate patients (read nations in need of balancing their budgets) is similar: cut down your expanses which often boils down to closing down schools for your children, stopping the treatment of the poor in the hospitals and throwing out the needy elderly without their pension benefits and increase taxes on your people. It is said that “a tree is known by the fruits, it bears”. Well, the IMF has a lot of fruits to its credit, the Argentine crisis, the Asean tigers’ crisis and the recent crisis in Greece , Portugal , Spain and the list can go on and on.
Even after selling so many rotten fruits to the public, the IMF can hope to get away and even the maligned DSK can hope to fight for another day is because there is no other player in the market to compete against the ideas the IMF and the World Bank represent.
Let me be very clear here my readers. The West when she is convinced that she has an idea, she would move heaven and earth to implement that idea and will do everything in her power to make the whole world accept that idea. When the West advises us non-Westerners about the virtues free-market economics, make no mistake that she is convinced about her ideas and she will use all the means at her disposal to make everyone of us adhere to those ideas. Unfortunately, we in the “East” (by “East” I mean those who happen to be outside the realm of the privileged club comprising of EU, US, Japan, Australia, Canada and Israel) have to face the consequences if we happen to be at the wrong end of the implementation of those ideas for example say when an Western World Bank economist becomes the economic advisor of an African country without ever setting foot on the soil of that nation and his policies lead to the sad demise of the economy of that country. The people in that country suffer and the World Bank economist just goes for another assignment.
Now this leads to us to the question; why are we in the “East” not doing anything to prevent all these? The historians tell us that the “East” for example China and India led the World in terms of wealth and trade during most of the times of recorded history except say may last two-three centuries of Western domination. Even now days China and India are the two fastest growing economies in the World, the fastest growing economy in Europe happens to be Turkey, in the Latin America Brazil’s economic growth surpasses that of many of her North American counterparts but still why do the global “East” have to listen to the dictates of those World Bank pundits and those IMF experts even when we know those “advises” (read dictates) have only led to ruin for many of us? The answer, in my view is simple: while we in the East look to be numero uno in terms of GDP growth rates, those in the West look to create ideas and propagate them to us. Since we in the “East” neither create any ideas of our own nor have the conviction to implement and propagate those ideas, we are left to follow what the West gives to us.
Here is my solution to it. I believe this is high time for the major economies in the “East” i.e. China, India, Russia, Brazil, Turkey, South Africa, Indonesia should come together and create an alternative global financial organization. The above list of the countries must be and should be expandable. I propose that we call this organization “global cooperative bank”. The main function of this institution will be to promote collaboration among different underprivileged (those whom the West shuns for many reasons) countries in the “East” and to help them with their finances and development without the strings and riders, the IMF and the World Bank attaches. This institution could help by investing in the much-needed infrastructure and education projects in Africa, West and Central Asia and Latin America which the West has shunned for various reasons. The fruits of the investments should be shared equally between the underprivileged countries and the investors.
I know there are serious differences between many of us in the “East” but I do believe that we need to come together on this otherwise the West will continue to follow the policy of dividing and ruling over us. And, Yes I know that it will be difficult implementing an organization such as the one I have proposed but I have full confidence if the best of minds from the “East” can come together then surely we will be able to implement alternative ideas like the one I have proposed. I have full confidence in the best of minds in the “East”. And I have strong grounds for my confidence. Last time I checked, I found many of the countries in the “East” for example China and India were running huge trade surpluses over their Western counterparts which goes to show that there are very many goods and services which we in the “East” can produce and export with much lesser cost and assured quality. So if we can do that there is no reason we can not produce ideas which present a better alternative to the World.
There will be two major benefits of the same. The “East” will be able to have her own narrative which it can propose to the West and the West will be able to understand the follies of her own ideas and correct them.
The basic axiom that the market economics fundamentalists teach us is that competition brings improvement in quality of the overall system. I believe the West needs to face some good decent competition in terms of ideas from the “East” and then only we can see a sea change in the global system as we know it. But without that it will be the status quo running on where the East sleeps and the dignity of her women gets compromised by the rich and powerful in the West.
The day that de-Americanized America
I remember very clearly an ad on CNN, just days after 9/11. The ad said something like this; “do not forget it is not PLA, it is not Al-Qaida , it is not Hezbollah or Hamas that we are fighting ; what we are fighting is hatred” , then the announcer of the ad stopped a little bit and then added “and it is winning…”
At the time of 9/11, I was just another 19-year old just about to start my life in college; but that particular ad had remained fixated in my memory and as I start to write this just two hours before the 10-th anniversary on 9/11 would commence, the message of that ad still remains fresh in my mind.
Leaders of America had the support of the whole world behind them after 9/11, so much shocked and horrified the World was at those attacks that even the Islamic republic of Iran , the avowed enemy of America ; had offered them cooperation and a permanent end to hostilities in exchange of equal treatment.
What was the reaction of President Bush? Instead of accepting the gratitude of the World, he acted with a mindset to remake the World. He declared Iran as part of an “axis of evil” and followed up with sanctions and covert operations for “regime change”. America would remake the World into her own democratic image, he thundered to the World in his now famous 2002 “axis of evil” address. Maybe it was the outburst of that quintessential American attitude called “American exceptionalism” which always considers itself as part of a divine mission to outdo all wrongs in the World as well as converting the whole World into America’s image.
But what about the American people? What about the average American? Why did he not come to the same understanding the rest of the World had about some of the policies that his leaders were taking on his name? 9/11 not only changed America but it also changed the average American. The average American went into a retreat into a make believe world where he restricts his education about the world to the posts in social networking sites and demagogic websites. In the end, the average American did not bother much when Iraq was invaded on false pretexts, when those obscenities from Abu Gharib shocked the World, when those who caused the global economic recession in 2008 went home with their compensations intact. In the end, in the land of consumerism and individualism, the average American converted himself from a citizen into a consumer and individual. And the reason why it happened? It was the same old reason as shown in that ad after 9/11, it was the sense of hatred; it was the sense of fear; it was the sense of “being wronged” ; it was this sense which did not allow America to become normal and has not allowed her to become normal ever since. The primitive sense of taking revenge and the more primitive sense of existential fear had overpowered the average American so much that he remains stuck to his viewpoint about a cruel World coming to destroy his beloved America.
America was always considered a land of abundant opportunities for the worthy to take; it was the land where you can think about taking your chances in life that you want to take. America believed about opening herself to the World. Now what has happened ever since that fateful day? America did not allow its ports to be operated by Dubai Port City because it feared that terrorists might snick in; America closed its doors to the people of Gaza when they elected Hamas in a democratic election in 2006; President Bush is alleged to have even threatened to bomb the Al-Jazeera offices because he was not happy with the news.
In short, 9/11 was a day that made America stop being America. It was the day that de-Americanized America.
At the time of 9/11, I was just another 19-year old just about to start my life in college; but that particular ad had remained fixated in my memory and as I start to write this just two hours before the 10-th anniversary on 9/11 would commence, the message of that ad still remains fresh in my mind.
Leaders of America had the support of the whole world behind them after 9/11, so much shocked and horrified the World was at those attacks that even the Islamic republic of Iran , the avowed enemy of America ; had offered them cooperation and a permanent end to hostilities in exchange of equal treatment.
What was the reaction of President Bush? Instead of accepting the gratitude of the World, he acted with a mindset to remake the World. He declared Iran as part of an “axis of evil” and followed up with sanctions and covert operations for “regime change”. America would remake the World into her own democratic image, he thundered to the World in his now famous 2002 “axis of evil” address. Maybe it was the outburst of that quintessential American attitude called “American exceptionalism” which always considers itself as part of a divine mission to outdo all wrongs in the World as well as converting the whole World into America’s image.
But what about the American people? What about the average American? Why did he not come to the same understanding the rest of the World had about some of the policies that his leaders were taking on his name? 9/11 not only changed America but it also changed the average American. The average American went into a retreat into a make believe world where he restricts his education about the world to the posts in social networking sites and demagogic websites. In the end, the average American did not bother much when Iraq was invaded on false pretexts, when those obscenities from Abu Gharib shocked the World, when those who caused the global economic recession in 2008 went home with their compensations intact. In the end, in the land of consumerism and individualism, the average American converted himself from a citizen into a consumer and individual. And the reason why it happened? It was the same old reason as shown in that ad after 9/11, it was the sense of hatred; it was the sense of fear; it was the sense of “being wronged” ; it was this sense which did not allow America to become normal and has not allowed her to become normal ever since. The primitive sense of taking revenge and the more primitive sense of existential fear had overpowered the average American so much that he remains stuck to his viewpoint about a cruel World coming to destroy his beloved America.
America was always considered a land of abundant opportunities for the worthy to take; it was the land where you can think about taking your chances in life that you want to take. America believed about opening herself to the World. Now what has happened ever since that fateful day? America did not allow its ports to be operated by Dubai Port City because it feared that terrorists might snick in; America closed its doors to the people of Gaza when they elected Hamas in a democratic election in 2006; President Bush is alleged to have even threatened to bomb the Al-Jazeera offices because he was not happy with the news.
In short, 9/11 was a day that made America stop being America. It was the day that de-Americanized America.
Is the Immigrant the new anti-Christ for the West
The West is under the grip of a fear. From the recent political success of the far-right politician Geert Wilders in the Netherlands to the banning of minarets in Switzerland and the Hejab in France; from the statement by British Prime Minister David Cameron that “multi-culturalism has failed” to an obscure pastor from Florida coming to the forefront of the public attention by burning out the copies of Qurans, the student of history can draw a clear pattern that is the continents of Europe and America are under the grip of an uncanny feeling of fear , the fear of losing its identity to an alien entity that is the immigrant.
The newest nemesis to the continent of Enlightment
The European soul had always stood for homogeneity. It has been a continent that has prided itself upon its culture, its civilizational achievements and how it has defined its own worldview and has implanted its ideas through conquests and colonization all over the globe. Europe as a civilization can certainly consider itself proud because after all it is the continent which has given to the World the fruits of Enlightment in terms of concepts like nation state and freedom of thought. However throughout History Europe has showed one unique quality, a sense of fear from what it considers “the Barbarians at the gate”, a sense of terror that sudden calamities from outside which no one has ever thought of may come and destroy everything that the continent has built over so long with so much blood and tears. This could be a legacy from a continent which saw its existence repeatedly threatened by the ravaging armies of Attila and Alaric from the ancient times or it could well be the legacy of the dark reign of the “Black death” over the dark ages, that has created a permanent impression of fear of anything unknown in the minds of Europe. Because of this mindset Europe has always been fearful and suspicious of anything that it considers alien to its own parameters.
Europe also needed an enemy, the image of a powerful “other” to unite its own house and create the necessary fighting zeal to defeat and destroy the “other”. Thus when the Popes called for crusades they were not only calling the Christendom to destroy its opponents but at the same time they were trying to unite the disparate fighting tribes that made most of the Europe at that time. Closer to our times whenever the Western Empires needed to rally their population they would define an enemy in terms of backwardness and depravity as in the case of the British wartime slogan of “halt the Hun” which talked about Germans as the modern day successors of ancient Huns who wrote destruction to the Roman Empire thereby urging Britons to rally around the flag.
After the devastation of the two World Wars, Europe needed to allow people outside Europe to come into it and take part in the reconstruction. The economic immigrants were expected to come and work in Europe and get better paychecks but they were also expected to either not bring their own cultural beliefs with themselves or restrict those cultural beliefs to the peripheries of their tiny communities or for better to assimilate themselves into the civilizational mainstream of Europe by giving up their existing identities. Thus was born the concept of “Guest Worker”. In short Europe welcomed the immigrants from the developing World because it needed them for its economic purposes but at the same time expected those immigrants not to bring with them any cultural or civilizational ideas of their own to Europe itself.
This worked well for the first generation of immigrants who mainly immigrated to Europe from the 1950-s to the 1970-s. It was a time when European countries were strong in manufacturing thereby they needed the cheap labor from the developing World including West Asia and North Africa. The immigrants got the jobs they were looking for and were thereby happy to oblige to the demands of European mainstream to keep their cultural traits and beliefs to themselves. But as Europe slowly decided to shift its economic focus from manufacturing to services starting in the 1980-s. things started to change for the immigrant communities. They lost the jobs as manufacturing factories started to gradually close down and they found themselves lacking the needed skills to integrate themselves to the new European economies. Although some European immigrant communities for example the Indian communities in Britain did adopt themselves to the new realities and were able to get back the material benefits they were looking for. But for most of the West Asian and North African immigrant communities in Europe this was the beginning of the troubled times. They had lost the jobs that they were brought into doing in the first place and for most of the host societies they could never be completely assimilated to become complete Europeans. This was the case for the Turkish communities in Germany, Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities in Britain and North African communities in France. These communities also found their cultural practices and religious beliefs sharply rebuked and ridiculed by the most extreme elements in the host societies such La Pen in France, Pim Fortyun in the Netherlands and the British National Party in the UK.
Thus the immigrant communities felt themselves under the position of an acute identity crisis and they sought solace in their faiths to make senses of themselves and find a new identity for themselves. Thus came into prominence groups like “Hizb-ur-tahrir” or “Al-Qaida” who talked about creating a holistic identity that resembled closely to the cultural beliefs for the disaffected and increasingly ghettoized youth in the immigrant communities.
In the aftermath of 9/11, the “war on terror” and the economic stagnation in many prominent European nations, the European mainstream turned more inwards and it saw a large immigrant population, alienated and demanding its rights, thus it suddenly felt the same fear that it has experienced throughout its existence , a fear of losing its own identity to outsiders. Undoubtedly, the lower demographic credentials of the native European populations Vis a Vis the comparatively healthy demographic credentials of the immigrant communities added to the feeling of anxiety and fear in the European communities of being numerically overwhelmed by what the European mainstream considered as “aliens”.
Thus the European mindset now sees itself largely in a position whereby it is under severe financial difficulties and fighting to preserve its sense of cultural uniqueness intact from what it considers “illegal aliens”. This is the reason behind the rise of so-many ultra-right, nativist political movements in Europe and unlike in good times the European mainstream is largely acquiescing to these movements.
Overall, in the European context, it is very important for the immigrant communities in places like UK, France, Netherlands and Germany to actively present practically implementable solutions to the myriad economic, social and political problems the native communities in these countries are facing. It is also the responsibility of the host communities to listen carefully and if possible implement the solutions the immigrant communities are willing to present to the host communities. Stigmatizing or creating ethnically biased attitudes about the host or immigrant communities are not going to help neither the host nor the immigrant communities.
The newest nemesis to the continent of Enlightment
The European soul had always stood for homogeneity. It has been a continent that has prided itself upon its culture, its civilizational achievements and how it has defined its own worldview and has implanted its ideas through conquests and colonization all over the globe. Europe as a civilization can certainly consider itself proud because after all it is the continent which has given to the World the fruits of Enlightment in terms of concepts like nation state and freedom of thought. However throughout History Europe has showed one unique quality, a sense of fear from what it considers “the Barbarians at the gate”, a sense of terror that sudden calamities from outside which no one has ever thought of may come and destroy everything that the continent has built over so long with so much blood and tears. This could be a legacy from a continent which saw its existence repeatedly threatened by the ravaging armies of Attila and Alaric from the ancient times or it could well be the legacy of the dark reign of the “Black death” over the dark ages, that has created a permanent impression of fear of anything unknown in the minds of Europe. Because of this mindset Europe has always been fearful and suspicious of anything that it considers alien to its own parameters.
Europe also needed an enemy, the image of a powerful “other” to unite its own house and create the necessary fighting zeal to defeat and destroy the “other”. Thus when the Popes called for crusades they were not only calling the Christendom to destroy its opponents but at the same time they were trying to unite the disparate fighting tribes that made most of the Europe at that time. Closer to our times whenever the Western Empires needed to rally their population they would define an enemy in terms of backwardness and depravity as in the case of the British wartime slogan of “halt the Hun” which talked about Germans as the modern day successors of ancient Huns who wrote destruction to the Roman Empire thereby urging Britons to rally around the flag.
After the devastation of the two World Wars, Europe needed to allow people outside Europe to come into it and take part in the reconstruction. The economic immigrants were expected to come and work in Europe and get better paychecks but they were also expected to either not bring their own cultural beliefs with themselves or restrict those cultural beliefs to the peripheries of their tiny communities or for better to assimilate themselves into the civilizational mainstream of Europe by giving up their existing identities. Thus was born the concept of “Guest Worker”. In short Europe welcomed the immigrants from the developing World because it needed them for its economic purposes but at the same time expected those immigrants not to bring with them any cultural or civilizational ideas of their own to Europe itself.
This worked well for the first generation of immigrants who mainly immigrated to Europe from the 1950-s to the 1970-s. It was a time when European countries were strong in manufacturing thereby they needed the cheap labor from the developing World including West Asia and North Africa. The immigrants got the jobs they were looking for and were thereby happy to oblige to the demands of European mainstream to keep their cultural traits and beliefs to themselves. But as Europe slowly decided to shift its economic focus from manufacturing to services starting in the 1980-s. things started to change for the immigrant communities. They lost the jobs as manufacturing factories started to gradually close down and they found themselves lacking the needed skills to integrate themselves to the new European economies. Although some European immigrant communities for example the Indian communities in Britain did adopt themselves to the new realities and were able to get back the material benefits they were looking for. But for most of the West Asian and North African immigrant communities in Europe this was the beginning of the troubled times. They had lost the jobs that they were brought into doing in the first place and for most of the host societies they could never be completely assimilated to become complete Europeans. This was the case for the Turkish communities in Germany, Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities in Britain and North African communities in France. These communities also found their cultural practices and religious beliefs sharply rebuked and ridiculed by the most extreme elements in the host societies such La Pen in France, Pim Fortyun in the Netherlands and the British National Party in the UK.
Thus the immigrant communities felt themselves under the position of an acute identity crisis and they sought solace in their faiths to make senses of themselves and find a new identity for themselves. Thus came into prominence groups like “Hizb-ur-tahrir” or “Al-Qaida” who talked about creating a holistic identity that resembled closely to the cultural beliefs for the disaffected and increasingly ghettoized youth in the immigrant communities.
In the aftermath of 9/11, the “war on terror” and the economic stagnation in many prominent European nations, the European mainstream turned more inwards and it saw a large immigrant population, alienated and demanding its rights, thus it suddenly felt the same fear that it has experienced throughout its existence , a fear of losing its own identity to outsiders. Undoubtedly, the lower demographic credentials of the native European populations Vis a Vis the comparatively healthy demographic credentials of the immigrant communities added to the feeling of anxiety and fear in the European communities of being numerically overwhelmed by what the European mainstream considered as “aliens”.
Thus the European mindset now sees itself largely in a position whereby it is under severe financial difficulties and fighting to preserve its sense of cultural uniqueness intact from what it considers “illegal aliens”. This is the reason behind the rise of so-many ultra-right, nativist political movements in Europe and unlike in good times the European mainstream is largely acquiescing to these movements.
Overall, in the European context, it is very important for the immigrant communities in places like UK, France, Netherlands and Germany to actively present practically implementable solutions to the myriad economic, social and political problems the native communities in these countries are facing. It is also the responsibility of the host communities to listen carefully and if possible implement the solutions the immigrant communities are willing to present to the host communities. Stigmatizing or creating ethnically biased attitudes about the host or immigrant communities are not going to help neither the host nor the immigrant communities.
Global movement of hopelessness and desperation
This year has seen a number of popular protests against the reigning systems raging across the world from Egypt to New york. Some of them have overthrown long established authoritarian governments as in Egypt and some continues to threaten the exisiting systems as in Greece. A curious student in history and culture would love to ask the question to himself what binds these protests together in an increasingly connected or should I say “globalized” world ? Here are few factors that I believe are responsible about these protest movements and how they may continue to influence us.
An increasingly hopeless people turns agitated
Having a look at some of the major countries like for example Greece , Spain , Italy , Egypt , Tunisia and the United States where the protests are taking place one can find a common pattern in these protest movements. It will be an understatement to say that the reasons of economic inequality and unemployement are the only reasons behind these protests. There is a sense in the wider world that the governing systems are unjust and those who are in the position to make decisions regarding the lives and livelihood of the people are just not interested in making decisions that reflect the best interests of the people. This is particularly true in countries like Greece and Spain where the governments of these countries are talking about harsh financial austerity packages which brings about increasing taxes and cuts in education and medical care; all measures which have to be bore by the shoulders of the common people. As a natural reaction there are lots of emotion in the streets of Athens , Madrid and Rome against their governments as well as the multilateral institutions like the EU and IMF. In United States the famous American dream seems to be turning into nights of despair and desolation for many people. Every recent economic statistics from America suggests that the last two decades have seen the incomes of the middle and lower classes remain stagnant and the incomes of the richest sections of the population have grown considearbly higher. The modern American narrative has been to promise Americans of a better life than their parents if they happen to work hard enough. But since the present generation of middle and lower income Americans have not seen any substantial increase in their incomes and livelihoods there is a feeling of hopelessness amongs the American people. The feeling of hopelessness has been strengthened by the feeling that the American government is not playing the role of the honest broker that it should play in the capitalist economy. People have started to believe that the bankers and financiers instead of ending up behind bars have gone home with much fatter and bigger paychecks after their reckless policies which brought the financial ruin of 2008.
In case of north Africa , the sense of hopelessness have been doubled with the popular sense of impotence to do anything about the corrupt governence in their countries. The suicide of Mohamed Bouazizi illustrates this point very well. These have been the reasons that are driving the protests in these countries.
Practical solutions are required
The global movement of hopelessnes and desperation can protest all day long on the streets but until and unless they come up with practical solutions in an organized way they will not be able to solve their issues that they are looking so earnestly. The economic and social issues facing the countries in question are diverse in nature so their solution could not be monotonous. For example , the people in Egypt need to find a way to face the possible starvation that is looming over their fates in not too distant horizon. What Egypt needs desperately is more cultiviable land to feed its hungry populace. The would-be rulers in Egypt (if the military junta currently controlling Egypt allows free and fare elections) need to find out ways to bring back the billions of dollars that are currently residing in swiss bank accounts of friends of Mr. Mubarak and then use those resources to find out cultiviable lands around the World mainly in countries like Australia , Canada and the US and elsewhere. These are the types of solutions the would-be rulers in places like Egypt and elsewhere needs to think and come out with. One thing is sure that once even some practical solutions can be implemented to the problems of economic inequality then in the modern age of facebook and twitter similar approaches can be learnt and used by people in rest of the World.
Notes
1. Global Peace Index : http://www.visionofhumanity.org/wp-content/uploads/PDF/2011/2011%20GPI%20Results%20Report.pdf
2. Riding the wave of discontent : Stephen M. Walt : http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/10/17/riding_the_wave_of_discontent
An increasingly hopeless people turns agitated
Having a look at some of the major countries like for example Greece , Spain , Italy , Egypt , Tunisia and the United States where the protests are taking place one can find a common pattern in these protest movements. It will be an understatement to say that the reasons of economic inequality and unemployement are the only reasons behind these protests. There is a sense in the wider world that the governing systems are unjust and those who are in the position to make decisions regarding the lives and livelihood of the people are just not interested in making decisions that reflect the best interests of the people. This is particularly true in countries like Greece and Spain where the governments of these countries are talking about harsh financial austerity packages which brings about increasing taxes and cuts in education and medical care; all measures which have to be bore by the shoulders of the common people. As a natural reaction there are lots of emotion in the streets of Athens , Madrid and Rome against their governments as well as the multilateral institutions like the EU and IMF. In United States the famous American dream seems to be turning into nights of despair and desolation for many people. Every recent economic statistics from America suggests that the last two decades have seen the incomes of the middle and lower classes remain stagnant and the incomes of the richest sections of the population have grown considearbly higher. The modern American narrative has been to promise Americans of a better life than their parents if they happen to work hard enough. But since the present generation of middle and lower income Americans have not seen any substantial increase in their incomes and livelihoods there is a feeling of hopelessness amongs the American people. The feeling of hopelessness has been strengthened by the feeling that the American government is not playing the role of the honest broker that it should play in the capitalist economy. People have started to believe that the bankers and financiers instead of ending up behind bars have gone home with much fatter and bigger paychecks after their reckless policies which brought the financial ruin of 2008.
In case of north Africa , the sense of hopelessness have been doubled with the popular sense of impotence to do anything about the corrupt governence in their countries. The suicide of Mohamed Bouazizi illustrates this point very well. These have been the reasons that are driving the protests in these countries.
Practical solutions are required
The global movement of hopelessnes and desperation can protest all day long on the streets but until and unless they come up with practical solutions in an organized way they will not be able to solve their issues that they are looking so earnestly. The economic and social issues facing the countries in question are diverse in nature so their solution could not be monotonous. For example , the people in Egypt need to find a way to face the possible starvation that is looming over their fates in not too distant horizon. What Egypt needs desperately is more cultiviable land to feed its hungry populace. The would-be rulers in Egypt (if the military junta currently controlling Egypt allows free and fare elections) need to find out ways to bring back the billions of dollars that are currently residing in swiss bank accounts of friends of Mr. Mubarak and then use those resources to find out cultiviable lands around the World mainly in countries like Australia , Canada and the US and elsewhere. These are the types of solutions the would-be rulers in places like Egypt and elsewhere needs to think and come out with. One thing is sure that once even some practical solutions can be implemented to the problems of economic inequality then in the modern age of facebook and twitter similar approaches can be learnt and used by people in rest of the World.
Notes
1. Global Peace Index : http://www.visionofhumanity.org/wp-content/uploads/PDF/2011/2011%20GPI%20Results%20Report.pdf
2. Riding the wave of discontent : Stephen M. Walt : http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/10/17/riding_the_wave_of_discontent
When the Outsourcing nation meets the exceptional nation
The two countries that regularly score well over others in terms of positive attitude towards Uncle Sam are Israel and India. Yet the popular American attitude towards Israel and India has been of very contrasting nature indeed. To the average American the land of Israel represents the holy land of milk and honey and the people of Israel represents as “God’s chosen people”. A majority of Americans continue to believe that the second return of Jesus will take place and Israel is the necessary catalyst to it. No American politician can afford to anger the very powerful groups promoting Israeli positions in America and America must risk her own reputation, moral and enmity of the rest of the World in order to shield Israel from the retributions of the rest of the World.
Now let us contrast the attitude of Uncle Sam towards Israel and to that of India. Indian corporations are regularly accused of violating US visa procedures though there may be some justifications to it, Indians are seen as “job-thieves” in the eyes of the average American, Indian leaders and policy makers are regularly slapped with paternalistic advises on how to run affairs in India by American policy makers whereas those very same American policy makers must listen to everything that rulers from Israel offers to them in terms of edicts and dictates.
The question remains what exactly the Israelis do right and what exactly the Indian communities are not doing right. Having a look at the number of political thinkers from Jewish background in the US and comparing them to the number of political and strategic thinkers from Indian background in the US will be enough. The main issue is that thinkers from Jewish background regularly think and present their agendas to the American scene. They can do the same since they have an agenda, a plan, a worldview as well as the conviction to convince others about the righteousness of their cause. And they are regularly able to convince others about the righteousness of their causes thanks to their successes in American context. The American neo-conservative thinkers are a prominent example of the same. Mostly from Jewish backgrounds these people did the ideological groundwork for much of the foreign policy objectives of the Bush administration including the now infamous war in Iraq.
It is true that the Indian communities also have achieved a high level of material success in America but these successes have stayed mostly within the realm of material and business fields. There have been very few Indian Americans who are willing to come out with a unique worldview as well as a plan of action that will set the agenda America in terms of American foreign policy or wider social policies. Fareed Zakaria may be an exception in this regard but exception only proves the normal. Also compared to prominent Jewish thinkers like Norman Podhoretz, Henry Kissinger, Richard Pearl, and Daniel Pipes and so on the contribution to the course of thinking behind US policy making, the Indian American contributions come up way short.
In the end, the major difference between the Jewish communities in America (and elsewhere) and their Indian counterparts ultimately is that the Jewish communities are not happy with only material success but they have got their own unique agenda as well as a vision and they have turned out to be the ones who have made their vision largely America’s vision, too. The Indian communities at this point of history seem to be too much bothered about their personal material pursuits and are unwilling or unable to present a clear-cut vision and Worldview in America. The Jewish communities think and make America think on their terms whereas Indian communities simply care about their material pursuits.
As a consequence, many prominent Americans campaign for the release of someone like Jonathan Pollard who is serving Jail terms for stealing America’s secrets and selling them to Israel whereas there are very few influential voices present in the United States who can cry out in favor of the Indian companies whenever they are accused of either “job-stealing” or immigration procedural violations.
Now let us contrast the attitude of Uncle Sam towards Israel and to that of India. Indian corporations are regularly accused of violating US visa procedures though there may be some justifications to it, Indians are seen as “job-thieves” in the eyes of the average American, Indian leaders and policy makers are regularly slapped with paternalistic advises on how to run affairs in India by American policy makers whereas those very same American policy makers must listen to everything that rulers from Israel offers to them in terms of edicts and dictates.
The question remains what exactly the Israelis do right and what exactly the Indian communities are not doing right. Having a look at the number of political thinkers from Jewish background in the US and comparing them to the number of political and strategic thinkers from Indian background in the US will be enough. The main issue is that thinkers from Jewish background regularly think and present their agendas to the American scene. They can do the same since they have an agenda, a plan, a worldview as well as the conviction to convince others about the righteousness of their cause. And they are regularly able to convince others about the righteousness of their causes thanks to their successes in American context. The American neo-conservative thinkers are a prominent example of the same. Mostly from Jewish backgrounds these people did the ideological groundwork for much of the foreign policy objectives of the Bush administration including the now infamous war in Iraq.
It is true that the Indian communities also have achieved a high level of material success in America but these successes have stayed mostly within the realm of material and business fields. There have been very few Indian Americans who are willing to come out with a unique worldview as well as a plan of action that will set the agenda America in terms of American foreign policy or wider social policies. Fareed Zakaria may be an exception in this regard but exception only proves the normal. Also compared to prominent Jewish thinkers like Norman Podhoretz, Henry Kissinger, Richard Pearl, and Daniel Pipes and so on the contribution to the course of thinking behind US policy making, the Indian American contributions come up way short.
In the end, the major difference between the Jewish communities in America (and elsewhere) and their Indian counterparts ultimately is that the Jewish communities are not happy with only material success but they have got their own unique agenda as well as a vision and they have turned out to be the ones who have made their vision largely America’s vision, too. The Indian communities at this point of history seem to be too much bothered about their personal material pursuits and are unwilling or unable to present a clear-cut vision and Worldview in America. The Jewish communities think and make America think on their terms whereas Indian communities simply care about their material pursuits.
As a consequence, many prominent Americans campaign for the release of someone like Jonathan Pollard who is serving Jail terms for stealing America’s secrets and selling them to Israel whereas there are very few influential voices present in the United States who can cry out in favor of the Indian companies whenever they are accused of either “job-stealing” or immigration procedural violations.
When the philosopher meets the software engineer
I know my readers will be jumping out of their PC-s or laptops or thinking about switching over to any other links in their blackberries after they read the title of this article. What in the World, they will think, this guy is talking about? Philosophy has got something in common with Software Engineering after all? Is not Philosophy a boring, dull, time-killing thing for ripe, old men with big, white beards? And is not software engineering a thing for cool dude, millennial-s? But there is something that binds philosophy with software engineering. Well to describe it in one single word is “reductionism.”
Let me explain the term a bit more. When we want to do a task, from the simplest of the tasks which includes doing shopping in our neighborhood grocery stores or even say eating our lunches with our hands or to the most extreme like sending a man to the moon, we tend to break our whole big job part into small tasks i.e. we reduce our overall objective into small goals which we can do with ease and after we are able to perform all those small goals we can say that the whole task is done. That is in essence the core concept of “reductionism”. This particular method follows one of the earliest truths of problem solving: it is always easy to solve a complex problem by breaking it into separate parts and then solving those parts individually.
The “reductionism” is considered one of the oldest and most common methods through which mankind has started to solve its various problems from finding out how the world works out to running and managing a project successfully. When Philosophers try to find out the answer of a particular question or the scientists try to explain a thing what they tend to do is to divide it in smallest possible parts, then explain away the smallest part and afterwards try to explain similar parts in the same way, and then combine all the parts together to come out with the overall theory. Say for example if I say that all human beings die after 60. Now to explain let me say John died at 65, Ramesh died at 61, Rahim died at 75, Ariel died at 71 and Novjyot died at 77. Now all my sample persons die after they have been alive for a minimum of 60 years on the earth. So based upon all of my samples, I can conclude my earlier claim that all human beings die after 60.
Even in our software projects, we tend to follow the same way. In any of our project strategies and project plans, we tend to divide the whole project execution into four basic parts:
1. What are we going to do (objective of the project)
2. How we are going to do it (approach for the project)
3. When are we going to do it (estimations and timelines for the project)
4. Who amongst us are going to do what (team role definitions and team structures)
Once we are through achieving all these parts then the overall project goes smooth and focused and if even one of the parts is not properly addressed then the whole project can go for toss.
Reductionism is not only in the realm of the philosophers and scientists but it is widely used in political and strategic fields also. One of the major strategies of the Roman Empire used to be “divide et impera”(divide and rule) i.e. divide your enemies into separate camps thereby weakening them and then they are easily conquerable. This strategy says that if you have an enemy to conquer and the enemy is most difficult to conquer then first try to create confusion and division within the enemy camp and then once you are successful in dividing the enemy camp then you can easily conquer them.
Even in literature and popular fictions we can see many examples of the same techniques of reductionism. Do you remember that Eeshop’s fable from your childhood whereby a dying farmer asked his sons to first break some sticks one by one and then asking them to break those sticks after putting them together? That story meant that reductionism inside families and society can ruin the whole thing.
So as we can see now more and more how common we cool, hip, software engineers are in our approach to finding solutions to our problems to the philosopher with a bored face and bearded chicks as well as a politician with sharp brains and crooked hearts. So reductionism i.e. solving problems by breaking it into parts is the way through which we cool , hip software engineers are attached with the bearded , boorish philosophers.
Let me explain the term a bit more. When we want to do a task, from the simplest of the tasks which includes doing shopping in our neighborhood grocery stores or even say eating our lunches with our hands or to the most extreme like sending a man to the moon, we tend to break our whole big job part into small tasks i.e. we reduce our overall objective into small goals which we can do with ease and after we are able to perform all those small goals we can say that the whole task is done. That is in essence the core concept of “reductionism”. This particular method follows one of the earliest truths of problem solving: it is always easy to solve a complex problem by breaking it into separate parts and then solving those parts individually.
The “reductionism” is considered one of the oldest and most common methods through which mankind has started to solve its various problems from finding out how the world works out to running and managing a project successfully. When Philosophers try to find out the answer of a particular question or the scientists try to explain a thing what they tend to do is to divide it in smallest possible parts, then explain away the smallest part and afterwards try to explain similar parts in the same way, and then combine all the parts together to come out with the overall theory. Say for example if I say that all human beings die after 60. Now to explain let me say John died at 65, Ramesh died at 61, Rahim died at 75, Ariel died at 71 and Novjyot died at 77. Now all my sample persons die after they have been alive for a minimum of 60 years on the earth. So based upon all of my samples, I can conclude my earlier claim that all human beings die after 60.
Even in our software projects, we tend to follow the same way. In any of our project strategies and project plans, we tend to divide the whole project execution into four basic parts:
1. What are we going to do (objective of the project)
2. How we are going to do it (approach for the project)
3. When are we going to do it (estimations and timelines for the project)
4. Who amongst us are going to do what (team role definitions and team structures)
Once we are through achieving all these parts then the overall project goes smooth and focused and if even one of the parts is not properly addressed then the whole project can go for toss.
Reductionism is not only in the realm of the philosophers and scientists but it is widely used in political and strategic fields also. One of the major strategies of the Roman Empire used to be “divide et impera”(divide and rule) i.e. divide your enemies into separate camps thereby weakening them and then they are easily conquerable. This strategy says that if you have an enemy to conquer and the enemy is most difficult to conquer then first try to create confusion and division within the enemy camp and then once you are successful in dividing the enemy camp then you can easily conquer them.
Even in literature and popular fictions we can see many examples of the same techniques of reductionism. Do you remember that Eeshop’s fable from your childhood whereby a dying farmer asked his sons to first break some sticks one by one and then asking them to break those sticks after putting them together? That story meant that reductionism inside families and society can ruin the whole thing.
So as we can see now more and more how common we cool, hip, software engineers are in our approach to finding solutions to our problems to the philosopher with a bored face and bearded chicks as well as a politician with sharp brains and crooked hearts. So reductionism i.e. solving problems by breaking it into parts is the way through which we cool , hip software engineers are attached with the bearded , boorish philosophers.
If they had senses , their hearts would also have melted away
“If they had senses , their hearts would also have melt away”
The membership count of the World of dreamers i.e. innovative and out-of-box thinking entreprenurs just got reduced by one count on Wednesday , October 5 , 2011 when Steve Jobbs , the founder of Apple computers i.e. one of the most famous brands ever known in terms of compuer technology.
The life story of this dreamer cum the no-nonsense editor is as dramatic as a beautiful bollywood storyline except that this one had a real tragic end without the familiar Indian-middle-class-family-women-crying happy-ending. The story begins when a certain Abdulfattah Jandali , a native of Syria , decided to travel to the United States to chase his dream of life i.e. do higher studies. There he somehow happened to cross the path of a certain Joanne Schieble , a German-American girl , and as they say in Bollywood , “when something is about to happen , the whole of the Universe just conspires to get it done” , the two fall in love and as it used to happen so often in that beautiful part of the World (and also happens so often now days) , the Syrian gentleman leaves the seed of his love in the womb of his beloved.
Now as so many times happen that the father of the girl did not agree in marriage , how could he accept a Syrian Muslim speaking a foreign tongue marrying his beautiful daughter. So the couple had a choice to make , either abort the baby or put him into an orphanage. After a long deliberation , they decided to take the second option.
A couple called Paul and Clara Jobbs , later adopted the child and Christened him as Steve Jobbs and the rest is history. The biological parents of Steve Jobbs married sometime later and they had a girl thistime within their wedlock , she is Mona Simpson , a famous novelist in her own rights. Steve Jobbs later went to build the relationship with her sister and mom but he never ever talked with her dad.
His dad was by this time ,a manager in a Casino in the United States and according to his own statement , he would have gone to grave but not take the initiative to make the first phone call to his son lest he thinks that his dad is coming to his once dejected son for his fame and fortune. In his own words , “"This might sound strange, though, but I am not prepared, even if either of us was on our deathbed, to pick up the phone to call him. Steve will have to do that as the Syrian pride in me does not want him ever to think I am after his fortune. I am not. I have my own money. What I don't have is my son ... and that saddens me."”
But Abdulfattah Jandali showed his love for his son in a different way , when the news got to him that Steve is fatally ill from cnacer , Jandali mailed him , his own complete medical history , hoping against hope that some miracle may happen.
But since this is not a bollywood story but a real world thing , the happy ending does not happen and as you know when Steve Jobbs took his last breath on this last Wednesday , his dad Abdulfattah Jandali was still waiting to hear from his son for the first time in his life.
That is why just after the world media broke the news about Steve Jobbs’s death , the youth in Syria have begun calling their apple made ipads and iphones as “isad”-s. Undoubtedly , had those devices had their own senses their hearts would also have melt away.
The membership count of the World of dreamers i.e. innovative and out-of-box thinking entreprenurs just got reduced by one count on Wednesday , October 5 , 2011 when Steve Jobbs , the founder of Apple computers i.e. one of the most famous brands ever known in terms of compuer technology.
The life story of this dreamer cum the no-nonsense editor is as dramatic as a beautiful bollywood storyline except that this one had a real tragic end without the familiar Indian-middle-class-family-women-crying happy-ending. The story begins when a certain Abdulfattah Jandali , a native of Syria , decided to travel to the United States to chase his dream of life i.e. do higher studies. There he somehow happened to cross the path of a certain Joanne Schieble , a German-American girl , and as they say in Bollywood , “when something is about to happen , the whole of the Universe just conspires to get it done” , the two fall in love and as it used to happen so often in that beautiful part of the World (and also happens so often now days) , the Syrian gentleman leaves the seed of his love in the womb of his beloved.
Now as so many times happen that the father of the girl did not agree in marriage , how could he accept a Syrian Muslim speaking a foreign tongue marrying his beautiful daughter. So the couple had a choice to make , either abort the baby or put him into an orphanage. After a long deliberation , they decided to take the second option.
A couple called Paul and Clara Jobbs , later adopted the child and Christened him as Steve Jobbs and the rest is history. The biological parents of Steve Jobbs married sometime later and they had a girl thistime within their wedlock , she is Mona Simpson , a famous novelist in her own rights. Steve Jobbs later went to build the relationship with her sister and mom but he never ever talked with her dad.
His dad was by this time ,a manager in a Casino in the United States and according to his own statement , he would have gone to grave but not take the initiative to make the first phone call to his son lest he thinks that his dad is coming to his once dejected son for his fame and fortune. In his own words , “"This might sound strange, though, but I am not prepared, even if either of us was on our deathbed, to pick up the phone to call him. Steve will have to do that as the Syrian pride in me does not want him ever to think I am after his fortune. I am not. I have my own money. What I don't have is my son ... and that saddens me."”
But Abdulfattah Jandali showed his love for his son in a different way , when the news got to him that Steve is fatally ill from cnacer , Jandali mailed him , his own complete medical history , hoping against hope that some miracle may happen.
But since this is not a bollywood story but a real world thing , the happy ending does not happen and as you know when Steve Jobbs took his last breath on this last Wednesday , his dad Abdulfattah Jandali was still waiting to hear from his son for the first time in his life.
That is why just after the world media broke the news about Steve Jobbs’s death , the youth in Syria have begun calling their apple made ipads and iphones as “isad”-s. Undoubtedly , had those devices had their own senses their hearts would also have melt away.
Assasination of Al-Awlaki-Winning the battle on the ground and losing the war of ideas
Last week the American people saw over their television the announcement of the assassination of one of their own by their popularly elected government. There was some jubilation in the traditional conservative circles in terms of like “Thank God, another one of them bites the dust” and some condemnation from the libertarian circles of the Obama administration for assassinating an American citizen without a proper trial.
For most Americans struggling with worries about from where the next meal is going to come ; the death of Anwar-Al Awlaki may be an event without any immediate consequence and in a far away land. But yet this particular event raises a fundamental set of questions which may yet turn out to be decisive in their significances over the long term.
First of all, groups like Al-Qaeda and people like Al-Qaeda do motivate and encourage their existing followers and potential recruits by posing fundamental questions with respect to ideology. The point that they want to make is that the United States is not unlike any hegemonic power and when push comes to shove she could be willing to transgress those very same rules that she preaches to the whole World. When President Obama signs the order to execute one of his own citizens without any course of law, he unwittingly follows in the footsteps of Gaddafi, Bashar Al-Asad, Mubarak, the likes of whom he has opposed because of their treatment of dissidents in their own country, thereby hollowing his own criticisms of those very same regimes. Next time when he decides to lecture the like of Bashar Al-Asad or the Bahraini monarch about the killing of innocent protesters they may throw the Al-Awlaki example back to him.
Secondly, to a West Asian audience in the revolutionary mood and looking for models and ideals to guide, this particular assassination just reduces the appeal of the American model one more notch. After all if the sole superpower which claims to be exceptional in nature and which preaches to the whole world about “rule of law”; goes down to the very level of those authoritarians whom the West Asian revolutionaries have been trying their best to throw to the dustbin of history then surely, then surely the revolutionary movements in the West Asia fighting for dignity and freedom in their own countries may decide to look elsewhere for guidance other than the American model which because of this assassination may not look like so exceptional at all from the regimes they have fighting against. The Turkish model or some other model may be something that they may find more attractive or suitable to work with.
Thirdly, and probably most importantly, this particular assassination shows the desperation of America. People like Al-Awlaki or Osama Bin Laden for that matter, throw ideological questions to the American superpower regarding the contradictions of American policies and practices. When America decides to suspend the rule of law and go down to the very same level of these terrorists whom she is in war with, she just not only fails to meet the ideological challenges head on, but she unknowingly makes those ideological counter-claims from the likes of Al-Awlaki of America being “arrogant” and “unprincipled” seemingly truthful. Already people may be concerned with questions like “would Obama have taken this decision had the terrorist been not an American with a West Asian background?” This is something American policymakers need to consider with much more careful deliberation and consideration. Otherwise they may win this battle on the ground of assassinating people like Al-Awlaki but they may lose the battle of ideas in the long run.
For most Americans struggling with worries about from where the next meal is going to come ; the death of Anwar-Al Awlaki may be an event without any immediate consequence and in a far away land. But yet this particular event raises a fundamental set of questions which may yet turn out to be decisive in their significances over the long term.
First of all, groups like Al-Qaeda and people like Al-Qaeda do motivate and encourage their existing followers and potential recruits by posing fundamental questions with respect to ideology. The point that they want to make is that the United States is not unlike any hegemonic power and when push comes to shove she could be willing to transgress those very same rules that she preaches to the whole World. When President Obama signs the order to execute one of his own citizens without any course of law, he unwittingly follows in the footsteps of Gaddafi, Bashar Al-Asad, Mubarak, the likes of whom he has opposed because of their treatment of dissidents in their own country, thereby hollowing his own criticisms of those very same regimes. Next time when he decides to lecture the like of Bashar Al-Asad or the Bahraini monarch about the killing of innocent protesters they may throw the Al-Awlaki example back to him.
Secondly, to a West Asian audience in the revolutionary mood and looking for models and ideals to guide, this particular assassination just reduces the appeal of the American model one more notch. After all if the sole superpower which claims to be exceptional in nature and which preaches to the whole world about “rule of law”; goes down to the very level of those authoritarians whom the West Asian revolutionaries have been trying their best to throw to the dustbin of history then surely, then surely the revolutionary movements in the West Asia fighting for dignity and freedom in their own countries may decide to look elsewhere for guidance other than the American model which because of this assassination may not look like so exceptional at all from the regimes they have fighting against. The Turkish model or some other model may be something that they may find more attractive or suitable to work with.
Thirdly, and probably most importantly, this particular assassination shows the desperation of America. People like Al-Awlaki or Osama Bin Laden for that matter, throw ideological questions to the American superpower regarding the contradictions of American policies and practices. When America decides to suspend the rule of law and go down to the very same level of these terrorists whom she is in war with, she just not only fails to meet the ideological challenges head on, but she unknowingly makes those ideological counter-claims from the likes of Al-Awlaki of America being “arrogant” and “unprincipled” seemingly truthful. Already people may be concerned with questions like “would Obama have taken this decision had the terrorist been not an American with a West Asian background?” This is something American policymakers need to consider with much more careful deliberation and consideration. Otherwise they may win this battle on the ground of assassinating people like Al-Awlaki but they may lose the battle of ideas in the long run.
The history repeats itself and How (Published in the Hindu as on 23-rd October,2011)
Published in the Hindu as on 23-rd October,2011
as on http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/open-page/article2562907.ece
History has a fascinating way of playing with the human actors in ways that the same actors are unable to comprehend. Human beings play their roles in the great stage of history without knowing that their actions in the present can draw parallels to the long-forgotten actors who have left the same great stage many years sometimes many centuries back. The story of the former Libyan leader Gaddafi also in many ways seem to draw a parallel with a long-forgotten character from the region of North Africa; i.e. the King of the ancient Numidia in what is called modern day Algeria; Jugurtha.
Jugurtha who was the nephew of King Micipsa , the king of Numidians , a powerful ally of the Roman power in North Africa during the late Roman republican period. Jugurtha came to power by removing an existing monarchy, i.e. that of his uncle’s sons or his cousin brothers. Gaddafi came to power after leading a coup to replace King Idris , the British-supported king who was the head of the monarchy that ruled Libya since the end of the Second World War.
Both Jugurtha and Gaddafi started their carriers as military leaders; i.e. Jugurtha started his carrier as a trusted lieutenant of the famous Roman general Sipio Africanus in his African campaigns and of course Gaddafi was a military officer i.e. colonel when he led the palace coup that ended the rule of King Idris.
Another interesting commonality between Jugurtha and Gaddafi is how both used their wealth to manipulate their Western counterparts. Both sensed that money is something that can easily role heads and trump other loyalties in the Western and particularly Romano-Italian political circles. Now days we hear many interesting tales of friendship between the Italian Prime Minister Silvio Barlusconi and Gaddafi which includes among other things lucrative deals for Libyan oil by Italian companies. Jugurtha also found out how often Roman statesmen fail to their desires and ambitions when offered with a sufficient amount of fortunee. He famously described Rome as "urbem venalem et mature perituram, si emptorem invenerit" ("a city for sale and doomed to quick destruction, if it should find a buyer,") Indeed he is said to have purchased the friendship of many Roman generals and senators who came to end his regime with the allure of money.
Both the men had also shown the audacity to take on the superpower of the day. In case of Jugurtha it was the provocation of killing the Roman Italians while attacking the city where his brother was hiding that earned him the enmity of the Roman power and in the case of Gaddafi it was his supporting of groups like the Irish Republican Army and the Palestinian Liberation Organization that earned him the anger of the modern superpower i.e. United States.
The method taken by the superpower of the day to dispose the challenges of Jugurtha then and Gaddafi now has also parallels in between them. In case of Jugurtha , the famous Roman general Sulla who was given the task of removing the threat of Jugurtha once and for all , decided to form alliance with some of the neighbors of Jugurtha whereas in case of Gaddafi it was some of his own countrymen (called as “rebels” by the mainstream International media) who were co-opted by the current superpower and their Western allies for bringing an end to the reign of the man whom the West has called “the mad dog of the Middle East” for a long time.
The end of Gaddafi is much less humilitaing than Jugurtha. Jugurtha was taken to Rome as a prisoner in chains and was paraded before the crowds before being thrown into the dungeon of Rome to rot. When Gaddafi received the last bullet in Sirte , he was actually spared the abomination of being taken to the Hague in chains and rot in his cell towards an uneventful death.
The post-Jugurtha scene is also quite interesting. The ambitious general Sulla who brought an end to the reign of Jugurtha that was troublesome to the eyes of the Roman power decided to fight his boss Marius who was given the main command of removing Jugurtha. Sulla ended Jugurtha;s reign thereby ending an embarrassment for the Roman ruling elite but it was his boss Marius who got all the credits. Sulla was aghast at this with his own boss and this was the beginning of a rivalry between these two men which would ultimately strike a blow at the very core of the Roman republic. Some years later when the time came for the Roman senate awarding the supreme military command to an worthy man; the candidates were only two i.e. Sulla and Marius, the senate first chose Sulla but when Sulla had left with his legions to fight in the East the same body decided to award the overall military command to Marius thanks to the latter’s intrigues with the senate. This led Sulla to turn his legions back on Rome and thus was the beginning of the first Roman civil war and a chain of events which would later go on to end the Roman republic and would lead to the beginning of the Roman empire. Sulla’s example would later lead to names like Pompeii, Ceasre and Augustus declaring themselves as the sole centre of power in Rome.
Until now the stories of Jugurtha and Gaddafi have many things in parallel but whether the aftermath of the two stories will also have some sort of commonality or not it will be really interesting to observe. After all as I mentioned in the beginning, History has a wonderful way of making itself repeat in many ways that we can not comprehend. Let us think about this scenario. A look at the current situation of the American republic leads us to draw a straight line between the last days of the Roman Republic and the current situation in the modern American republic. In the situation of Rome during its last days, the existing institutions of power like Senate were beginning to get irrelevant since instead of exercising their independent authority they tended to follow whatever the richest and most powerful of the elites had to say. The election of Marius over Sulla’s prior election for the same post is a case in point. This particular irrelevance of the institutions of Rome would later go on to encourage ambitious and powerful men to first challenge these institutions and then make them subservient to their wishes. This would go on to the end of the Roman republic and the beginning of the dominance of a single leader in Rome i.e. the Emperor.
The current situation in the USA also has quite a few similarities with the late Roman republic. Since 9/11, the legislative institutions in the USA; the Senate and the Congress have largely transferred a lot of emergency powers at the hands of the executive i.e. the presidency. These emergency powers allow the current American president to order the assassination of American citizens on far away lands without a legal trial (as we have seen it in the case of President Obama ordering the assassination of US citizen Anwar Al-Awlaki in Yemen for allegedly being a terrorist) as well as keeping the stringent laws of surveillance into place. The current political situation also tells us that the two main political parties in the USA instead of following any independent positions of their own follow the guidelines as given by their powerful lobbies who help these American politicians to get elected in the first place with the contribution of their monetary as well as other support (as observed in the bipartisan support the Israeli leaders enjoy in Washington.) The overall political scene gives a picture of gradual decline and irrelevancy of the American legislative institutions. They do not seem to comprehend the economic or political problems faced by their nation and thereby unwilling to contribute to the solution for these problems. Now imagine what will happen if an American general in an emergency situation like a foreign war or a terrorist attack on American soil decides to declare these legislative organizations as worthless and declares himself the supreme ruler aka Sulla.
Does it seem too far fetched? But did I not tell you my readers that History tends to play the fascinating game that very few of us can comprehend.
as on http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/open-page/article2562907.ece
History has a fascinating way of playing with the human actors in ways that the same actors are unable to comprehend. Human beings play their roles in the great stage of history without knowing that their actions in the present can draw parallels to the long-forgotten actors who have left the same great stage many years sometimes many centuries back. The story of the former Libyan leader Gaddafi also in many ways seem to draw a parallel with a long-forgotten character from the region of North Africa; i.e. the King of the ancient Numidia in what is called modern day Algeria; Jugurtha.
Jugurtha who was the nephew of King Micipsa , the king of Numidians , a powerful ally of the Roman power in North Africa during the late Roman republican period. Jugurtha came to power by removing an existing monarchy, i.e. that of his uncle’s sons or his cousin brothers. Gaddafi came to power after leading a coup to replace King Idris , the British-supported king who was the head of the monarchy that ruled Libya since the end of the Second World War.
Both Jugurtha and Gaddafi started their carriers as military leaders; i.e. Jugurtha started his carrier as a trusted lieutenant of the famous Roman general Sipio Africanus in his African campaigns and of course Gaddafi was a military officer i.e. colonel when he led the palace coup that ended the rule of King Idris.
Another interesting commonality between Jugurtha and Gaddafi is how both used their wealth to manipulate their Western counterparts. Both sensed that money is something that can easily role heads and trump other loyalties in the Western and particularly Romano-Italian political circles. Now days we hear many interesting tales of friendship between the Italian Prime Minister Silvio Barlusconi and Gaddafi which includes among other things lucrative deals for Libyan oil by Italian companies. Jugurtha also found out how often Roman statesmen fail to their desires and ambitions when offered with a sufficient amount of fortunee. He famously described Rome as "urbem venalem et mature perituram, si emptorem invenerit" ("a city for sale and doomed to quick destruction, if it should find a buyer,") Indeed he is said to have purchased the friendship of many Roman generals and senators who came to end his regime with the allure of money.
Both the men had also shown the audacity to take on the superpower of the day. In case of Jugurtha it was the provocation of killing the Roman Italians while attacking the city where his brother was hiding that earned him the enmity of the Roman power and in the case of Gaddafi it was his supporting of groups like the Irish Republican Army and the Palestinian Liberation Organization that earned him the anger of the modern superpower i.e. United States.
The method taken by the superpower of the day to dispose the challenges of Jugurtha then and Gaddafi now has also parallels in between them. In case of Jugurtha , the famous Roman general Sulla who was given the task of removing the threat of Jugurtha once and for all , decided to form alliance with some of the neighbors of Jugurtha whereas in case of Gaddafi it was some of his own countrymen (called as “rebels” by the mainstream International media) who were co-opted by the current superpower and their Western allies for bringing an end to the reign of the man whom the West has called “the mad dog of the Middle East” for a long time.
The end of Gaddafi is much less humilitaing than Jugurtha. Jugurtha was taken to Rome as a prisoner in chains and was paraded before the crowds before being thrown into the dungeon of Rome to rot. When Gaddafi received the last bullet in Sirte , he was actually spared the abomination of being taken to the Hague in chains and rot in his cell towards an uneventful death.
The post-Jugurtha scene is also quite interesting. The ambitious general Sulla who brought an end to the reign of Jugurtha that was troublesome to the eyes of the Roman power decided to fight his boss Marius who was given the main command of removing Jugurtha. Sulla ended Jugurtha;s reign thereby ending an embarrassment for the Roman ruling elite but it was his boss Marius who got all the credits. Sulla was aghast at this with his own boss and this was the beginning of a rivalry between these two men which would ultimately strike a blow at the very core of the Roman republic. Some years later when the time came for the Roman senate awarding the supreme military command to an worthy man; the candidates were only two i.e. Sulla and Marius, the senate first chose Sulla but when Sulla had left with his legions to fight in the East the same body decided to award the overall military command to Marius thanks to the latter’s intrigues with the senate. This led Sulla to turn his legions back on Rome and thus was the beginning of the first Roman civil war and a chain of events which would later go on to end the Roman republic and would lead to the beginning of the Roman empire. Sulla’s example would later lead to names like Pompeii, Ceasre and Augustus declaring themselves as the sole centre of power in Rome.
Until now the stories of Jugurtha and Gaddafi have many things in parallel but whether the aftermath of the two stories will also have some sort of commonality or not it will be really interesting to observe. After all as I mentioned in the beginning, History has a wonderful way of making itself repeat in many ways that we can not comprehend. Let us think about this scenario. A look at the current situation of the American republic leads us to draw a straight line between the last days of the Roman Republic and the current situation in the modern American republic. In the situation of Rome during its last days, the existing institutions of power like Senate were beginning to get irrelevant since instead of exercising their independent authority they tended to follow whatever the richest and most powerful of the elites had to say. The election of Marius over Sulla’s prior election for the same post is a case in point. This particular irrelevance of the institutions of Rome would later go on to encourage ambitious and powerful men to first challenge these institutions and then make them subservient to their wishes. This would go on to the end of the Roman republic and the beginning of the dominance of a single leader in Rome i.e. the Emperor.
The current situation in the USA also has quite a few similarities with the late Roman republic. Since 9/11, the legislative institutions in the USA; the Senate and the Congress have largely transferred a lot of emergency powers at the hands of the executive i.e. the presidency. These emergency powers allow the current American president to order the assassination of American citizens on far away lands without a legal trial (as we have seen it in the case of President Obama ordering the assassination of US citizen Anwar Al-Awlaki in Yemen for allegedly being a terrorist) as well as keeping the stringent laws of surveillance into place. The current political situation also tells us that the two main political parties in the USA instead of following any independent positions of their own follow the guidelines as given by their powerful lobbies who help these American politicians to get elected in the first place with the contribution of their monetary as well as other support (as observed in the bipartisan support the Israeli leaders enjoy in Washington.) The overall political scene gives a picture of gradual decline and irrelevancy of the American legislative institutions. They do not seem to comprehend the economic or political problems faced by their nation and thereby unwilling to contribute to the solution for these problems. Now imagine what will happen if an American general in an emergency situation like a foreign war or a terrorist attack on American soil decides to declare these legislative organizations as worthless and declares himself the supreme ruler aka Sulla.
Does it seem too far fetched? But did I not tell you my readers that History tends to play the fascinating game that very few of us can comprehend.
The monster of hatred has strucked and it will strike again
Watching the horrors at the Oslo on the last Friday two factors can be analyzed about as behind this carnage. The first is the sinister role played by the propagandist websites and their influence over the minds over some of the young men in the Western countries. Ever since 9/11, there has been a steady rise in the hate-propagating websites in the West and the United States in particular. Websites such as JIhadwatch by Robert Spencer or Atlas Shrugs by Pamela Geller or even individual blogs like the one by Fjordman or “The gates of Viena” have been fairly popular and influential in promoting views of intolerance and bigotry among sections of Western youth. The main themes of these publications are that the West is involved in an existential struggle with Islam and the Muslim communities living in Europe are at worst fifth columnists in the Islam-West struggle and at best unwilling to assimilate into the norms of their host cultures. Another familiar pattern in these publications is in their belief that the “liberal left” which in many cases transpires to be the established elites in many of these Western societies are involved in a conspiracy with the Muslims to convert their societies into “Eurabias”. Indeed the self-admitted perpetrator of the carnage Anders Behring Breivik widely cited JIhadWatch founder Robert Spencer’s ideas in his manifesto “2083 – A European Declaration of Independence” as his inspiration. Now one of the main reasons that these publications have been able to win so many converts among the Western youth is because of the Internet. In the pre-Internet age, it would have been very difficult for these hate-propagating websites to get their ideas published by any descent publication let alone winning converts across the Atlantic in faraway Norway. Indeed this is one of the unfortunate aspects of the Internet that it allows people with irrational and biased ideas to bring those in the mainstream for affecting impressionable minds.
Talking about impressionable minds, it was in interesting to note that the self-admitted perpetrator decided to target the youth of his country’s ruling establishment. This brings us to the second main factor behind the carnage which is alienation between the ruling establishments in many of the Western countries like Norway and some sections of their youth population.
Talking about impressionable minds, it was in interesting to note that the self-admitted perpetrator decided to target the youth of his country’s ruling establishment. This brings us to the second main factor behind the carnage which is alienation between the ruling establishments in many of the Western countries like Norway and some sections of their youth population.
The rejection
The impact of small, obscure events in History sometimes leave a lot of impact with them that very few among us can either understand at the time or long afterwards. Sometimes even very small and seemingly without any particular significance can have big impacts upon the turn of events in history.
Sometimes even a very small and trivial thing like say a failed meeting can affect the history in a big way.
The scene is in the small desert town of Yaathrib in Arabia around 640 AD. There is a meeting going on in one of the small houses in the town. A middle-aged Arab was meeting with some of the residents of the town.
The man’s voice was measured and confident. He never spoke a word in hurry but always spoke softly and with a tone that others found soft but convinced about his views. His eyes radiated with energy and a sense of calmness that some people in the area thought reflected the way Prophets would look. He never hurried in his tone or in his gesture while presenting his viewpoint but always found enough time to organize his words in way that others did not need to think to understand his viewpoint. In short he was a man whom everybody in the town looked for guidance when in trouble and he knew how to shoulder that responsibility.
Talking with the man was a group of bearded men who looked confused and sometimes bitterly disappointed. Some of them hushed among themselves “oh by the name of Abraham, how can a man from the tribe of Ishmael talk about the same way the prophets did“. Some of the eyes of the men rolled around in disbelief “how could this man speak truth the same way our holy books say the Prophets spoke truth in their times”.
The man in question looked on at his bearded counterparts and he continued to assert his case. He was introducing himself as the last messenger of God and was constantly asking the rest of the men in room to accept him as such. But most importantly his voice was sure and confident when he talked about his grand plan. He wanted to create a unified community of those who worship the God of Abraham in the city and then propagate the same idea all over the World. He wanted the rest of the men in the room to accept his plan and help him implementing it. His eyes were beaming with great expectations and hope as he spoke.
The other men in the room started to look increasingly concerned. Some of them started to open their holy books and scurry through chapters, it seemed that they were not happy with what they themselves were thinking and just needed the holy book to support their contention.
The man increasingly understood the combative nature of the debate. His eyes which were shining brightly with hope of a genius who has just performed his masterpiece, now suddenly began to become sober with sudden realization that his ideas might not have appealed to his audience the way he would have believed in the beginning. Suddenly one of the bearded men looked at the man and said with a voice which seemed to have been coming from a long way away, “By the name of the God of Abraham, we know you are the prophet, by the God of Abraham, we also know we are not going to acknowledge your prophet hood because if we accept today that prophet hood can be bestowed upon a man from the children of Ishmael , then we will lose the status of being the only chosen people of the God of Abraham”. The man after hearing all these words, looked at those who had rejected him, his demeanor did not change, the colors and lines in his face did not darken and the glow that was radiating from his face continued to shine as he spoke with the same confident and unrushed voice which this time had also added a touch of sobriety to itself. The man said “I know I have been bestowed Prophet Hood by the God of Abraham, it is now my duty to spread his message throughout the World, even if you reject me today.”
“I know I am the last of the messengers that the God of Abraham has sent to the World. The angels of the very same God have told me so. And they also told me that you will never accept the truth. But irrespective of what you people say, I will continue to spread the message that has been bestowed upon me by the God of Abraham till eternity and no one can stop me from doing that.” He left the room as he finished his words.
So this was the story of the most significant rejection of History. This was the story that could probably have changed the World had the turn of events have resulted in an acceptance and not rejection. But ultimately it was the rejection and prejudice that won the day. The consequences that started from that rejection is there for all of us to see even after all these centuries have passed since that rejection took place.
Sometimes even a very small and trivial thing like say a failed meeting can affect the history in a big way.
The scene is in the small desert town of Yaathrib in Arabia around 640 AD. There is a meeting going on in one of the small houses in the town. A middle-aged Arab was meeting with some of the residents of the town.
The man’s voice was measured and confident. He never spoke a word in hurry but always spoke softly and with a tone that others found soft but convinced about his views. His eyes radiated with energy and a sense of calmness that some people in the area thought reflected the way Prophets would look. He never hurried in his tone or in his gesture while presenting his viewpoint but always found enough time to organize his words in way that others did not need to think to understand his viewpoint. In short he was a man whom everybody in the town looked for guidance when in trouble and he knew how to shoulder that responsibility.
Talking with the man was a group of bearded men who looked confused and sometimes bitterly disappointed. Some of them hushed among themselves “oh by the name of Abraham, how can a man from the tribe of Ishmael talk about the same way the prophets did“. Some of the eyes of the men rolled around in disbelief “how could this man speak truth the same way our holy books say the Prophets spoke truth in their times”.
The man in question looked on at his bearded counterparts and he continued to assert his case. He was introducing himself as the last messenger of God and was constantly asking the rest of the men in room to accept him as such. But most importantly his voice was sure and confident when he talked about his grand plan. He wanted to create a unified community of those who worship the God of Abraham in the city and then propagate the same idea all over the World. He wanted the rest of the men in the room to accept his plan and help him implementing it. His eyes were beaming with great expectations and hope as he spoke.
The other men in the room started to look increasingly concerned. Some of them started to open their holy books and scurry through chapters, it seemed that they were not happy with what they themselves were thinking and just needed the holy book to support their contention.
The man increasingly understood the combative nature of the debate. His eyes which were shining brightly with hope of a genius who has just performed his masterpiece, now suddenly began to become sober with sudden realization that his ideas might not have appealed to his audience the way he would have believed in the beginning. Suddenly one of the bearded men looked at the man and said with a voice which seemed to have been coming from a long way away, “By the name of the God of Abraham, we know you are the prophet, by the God of Abraham, we also know we are not going to acknowledge your prophet hood because if we accept today that prophet hood can be bestowed upon a man from the children of Ishmael , then we will lose the status of being the only chosen people of the God of Abraham”. The man after hearing all these words, looked at those who had rejected him, his demeanor did not change, the colors and lines in his face did not darken and the glow that was radiating from his face continued to shine as he spoke with the same confident and unrushed voice which this time had also added a touch of sobriety to itself. The man said “I know I have been bestowed Prophet Hood by the God of Abraham, it is now my duty to spread his message throughout the World, even if you reject me today.”
“I know I am the last of the messengers that the God of Abraham has sent to the World. The angels of the very same God have told me so. And they also told me that you will never accept the truth. But irrespective of what you people say, I will continue to spread the message that has been bestowed upon me by the God of Abraham till eternity and no one can stop me from doing that.” He left the room as he finished his words.
So this was the story of the most significant rejection of History. This was the story that could probably have changed the World had the turn of events have resulted in an acceptance and not rejection. But ultimately it was the rejection and prejudice that won the day. The consequences that started from that rejection is there for all of us to see even after all these centuries have passed since that rejection took place.
An absolute layperson’s takeaways from the concept of empire
An absolute layperson’s takeaways from the concept of empire
I have just completed the book “Empire” on the subject of British Empire by British historian Niall Ferguson. As a layperson who also happen to be an interested student in history , I asked myself what are the things I can take away from the system of an empire as Niall Ferguson depicts the system of British empire. These are the following points I would like to give special importance.
Why empires come into picture – There is no single cause behind the emergence of empires. Some empires come into existence because a powerful and strong leader wants to dominate others and achieve everlasting glory beyond his death. Most of the ancient empires can be categorized under this category. Hellenic empire came into being mostly because of the glory seeking by Alexander the great whereas in ancient China it was one Han emperor who conquered and thereby united all other warring tribes of China under the yoke of one united Han nation. The ancient Persian empires of Akamens and the Sassanids came into being chiefly because of the strong leaderships of men like Cyrus the great and Artaxerexes.
In the medieval world , the personal glory seeking was replaced by the zeal of spreading a faith acorss the oceans and seas. The early Islamic conquests and subsequent Islamic empires in Persia , Byzantine and Spain were based upon the main idea to propagate the faith. This tendency of creating empires based upon ideas continued in modern world also with the formation of Soviet Union. Even modern America can be considered as a sort of ideological empire based upon the concepts of Puritan beliefs.
The most common reason behind the creation of empires though is commercial. The tendency to seek raw materials as well as markets for exporting goods can be considered the most important reason over history for seeking empires. Most of the modern Western empires including the most important of them i.e. the British empire was created primarily upon these notions. In the case of the British , it was the need to compete with its European rivals like the Dutch and the Spanish in the beginning and later the French and much later the Germans that provided the basic drive for the British to seek overseas empires.
How to successfully run an empire : the art of collaboration – The British mastered this art. At the heyday of the British Raj in India only a handful (in early hundreds) of British civil servants and a relatively small British army (total approximately around 1,60000 , most of its footsoldiers were Indians) ruled hundereds of millions (around 350 million) Indian subjects. Even a formiddable foe like Adolph Hitler , was astonished by this appearent success by the British to rule so many with so few. The British had built up very useful collaborative relationships with the Indian Maharajas and Nawabs , so that these people were dependent upon the British for their existence and naturally they collaborated with the British furthering the British rule. The British also played the art of “divide and rule” masterfully by sometimes playing one tribe against another like deploying loyal Sikh and Gurkha regiments during the 1857 mutiny against the rebel Maratha and Muslim factions.The British had built up another very loyal base of support among the English-speaking and modernizing Indians in particular among the Bengali tribe. This was the group to whom , the British civil servants generally sub-contracted the job of running the day-to-day functionalities of the empire. The art of empireship here was to ensure that the native collaborators always end up with a small fraction of the revenues and other booties that come about while running the empire. The maintenance of the political status of the collaborator was also a very important task for the British. The British rulers of India ensured that the Maharajas , Nawabs and the Bengali babus were entrusted with just about enough revenues and titles which allow these important British assets in India to place themselves just above their native countrymen. As a result, these Maharajas , Nawabs and the Bengali babus accepted and cherished their subordination to the British Raj.
How to successfully run an empire : learning from past mistakes – It is one thing to build an empire and it is another thing to sustain it. The British empire sustained so long because the British were always looking for opportunities to learn from their mistakes and quickly correcting them. In the beginning of their Empire , the Dutch were the primary competitors of the British in India , the British had fought wars to dispose the Dutch but in the end failed to defeat them. They were astonished that how could a much smaller country like the Dutch ; which was basically a breakaway faction from the Spanish empire due to religious war ; could punch much above its weight. They later found out that it was the superior financial system of the Dutch whereby instead of imposing suffocating taxes upon the population the Dutch brought the necessary finances for war by borrowing money in terms of government bonds. They quickly adopted this technique and instead of fighting with the Dutch , merged their finances with them.This later helped the British to win the seven year war against the French.
Another great example of the British learning from their mistakes was that after losing her American colonies , Britain decided to allow more local autonomy to the English-speaking colonists in Canada , Australia , New Zealand and much later South Africa , all of whom were white Anglo-Saxon protestant communities. These colonies were allowed to become dominions whereby they were given a representative legislature through which they elected their own representatives through competitive elections and made their own rules instead of being dictated from London.
One of the primary reasons behind the 1857 mutiny was the missionary zeal showed by some British evangelists to spread their version of Anglizcized Christianity upon the Indians ; this threatened the traditional Indian sepoys , who feared about losing their age-old ways of life to their British masters and as a consequence they rose up in arms against the British rule in India. After suppressing the mutiny the British decided to put a stop to the missionary activities of the more-zealous missionaries. The East India company’s role of governing India was taken over by the British policymakers in London so as to ensure that no repeatation of the causes of 1857 mutiny ever takes place. The assertive , bleeding-heart missionary groups were discouraged to interfere in the body politic of India and the British left the Indians to their own conditions. This ensured that there were no major mutiny in the British Indian military for close to a century.
How to successfully run an empire : entrusting the experts – The British always did well to entrust the job of empire building to the local forces who were deployed in the areas in question. Whther it was the Buccaneers and pirates like Sir Henry Morgan or the unconventioanl generals like Robert Clive or for that matter pioneering men like Cycil Rhodes , Charles “Chinese” Gordon or T G Lawrence , the British empire was built upon the guiles and exploits of these men who were seeking glory and fortune overseas. The job of the policymakers in London was just to give them enough encouragement so that in the end, London can benefit from the exploits of these men.
Whenever the important job of decision making was entrusted to people without enough knowledge of the situation , the result was disastrous. The Boston tea party that ultimate led to Britain losing her American colonies came about as a consequence of imposing a transaction tax (although very small) on the continental colonists from faraway London without taking the consents of the people who were supposed to pay the taxes. Even during the American War of Independence , instead of depending upon the British loyalists for military leadership , the British entrusted a man from the mother country i.e. Lord Cornwalis to lead the British forces in America which ultimately led to Britain losing the War and losing her American colonies.In the initial buildup to the First World war , despite strong reservations from the experienced diplomats in the area , the British policymakers in London , led by Sir Winston Churchill decided to take unwise decisions like seizing the two Turkish state-of-the art Battleships the Reshadieh and Sultan Osman I which the Turkish government had paid for and entrusted the British to manufacture and hand over to them , leading Turkey to join forces with Kaiser’s Germany thereby expanding the theatre of what was essentially an European War and as a consequence creating more casualties and future complexities for the British to handle.
Why Empires Fall – There are two basic reasons which can be attributed to the downfall of the empires. The conflicts with their rival empires have historically brought about the downfall of the empires. The empires need to be careful to choose which wars to fight and which wars to stand down. The historians still debate whether it was wise enough for the British to participate in the two World wars which led them to confront aggressive empires like Germany and Japan who were on their ascendancy at the time. Although the British managed to end up in the winning side in both the World wars but ultimately it was the resultant drainage in terms of money and men that made it impossible for the British to continue to run their empire. This also leads us to the second most important reason behind the fall of the empires i.e. a lack of financial resources needed to run the empire. A very good example of this particular type of Empire collapse is the collapse of Soviet Union in our times. Although the Soviet Union did not have to face the humiliation of ending up in the losing side of any World War but it was the financial destitution of the Soviet economic system that ultimately led to the Soviets losing the cold war.
All the empires do possess one common characteristics , they are gigantic enterprises of men with respect to great ideas , endevors , dreams and visions. They produce colorful characters and towering leaders in their wake. Yet they are not flawless as they leave the global stage with collective scars on global human psyche like the Holocaust , Atlantic Slave trade and the genocide of the Natives in the Americas. Empires are more like individuals who want to be different than others , who want to reach the sky and fill up the stars with their glory but in the end when they leave the world , they find out that they cannot vanquish their own mortality to which his fate has consigned for him.
I have just completed the book “Empire” on the subject of British Empire by British historian Niall Ferguson. As a layperson who also happen to be an interested student in history , I asked myself what are the things I can take away from the system of an empire as Niall Ferguson depicts the system of British empire. These are the following points I would like to give special importance.
Why empires come into picture – There is no single cause behind the emergence of empires. Some empires come into existence because a powerful and strong leader wants to dominate others and achieve everlasting glory beyond his death. Most of the ancient empires can be categorized under this category. Hellenic empire came into being mostly because of the glory seeking by Alexander the great whereas in ancient China it was one Han emperor who conquered and thereby united all other warring tribes of China under the yoke of one united Han nation. The ancient Persian empires of Akamens and the Sassanids came into being chiefly because of the strong leaderships of men like Cyrus the great and Artaxerexes.
In the medieval world , the personal glory seeking was replaced by the zeal of spreading a faith acorss the oceans and seas. The early Islamic conquests and subsequent Islamic empires in Persia , Byzantine and Spain were based upon the main idea to propagate the faith. This tendency of creating empires based upon ideas continued in modern world also with the formation of Soviet Union. Even modern America can be considered as a sort of ideological empire based upon the concepts of Puritan beliefs.
The most common reason behind the creation of empires though is commercial. The tendency to seek raw materials as well as markets for exporting goods can be considered the most important reason over history for seeking empires. Most of the modern Western empires including the most important of them i.e. the British empire was created primarily upon these notions. In the case of the British , it was the need to compete with its European rivals like the Dutch and the Spanish in the beginning and later the French and much later the Germans that provided the basic drive for the British to seek overseas empires.
How to successfully run an empire : the art of collaboration – The British mastered this art. At the heyday of the British Raj in India only a handful (in early hundreds) of British civil servants and a relatively small British army (total approximately around 1,60000 , most of its footsoldiers were Indians) ruled hundereds of millions (around 350 million) Indian subjects. Even a formiddable foe like Adolph Hitler , was astonished by this appearent success by the British to rule so many with so few. The British had built up very useful collaborative relationships with the Indian Maharajas and Nawabs , so that these people were dependent upon the British for their existence and naturally they collaborated with the British furthering the British rule. The British also played the art of “divide and rule” masterfully by sometimes playing one tribe against another like deploying loyal Sikh and Gurkha regiments during the 1857 mutiny against the rebel Maratha and Muslim factions.The British had built up another very loyal base of support among the English-speaking and modernizing Indians in particular among the Bengali tribe. This was the group to whom , the British civil servants generally sub-contracted the job of running the day-to-day functionalities of the empire. The art of empireship here was to ensure that the native collaborators always end up with a small fraction of the revenues and other booties that come about while running the empire. The maintenance of the political status of the collaborator was also a very important task for the British. The British rulers of India ensured that the Maharajas , Nawabs and the Bengali babus were entrusted with just about enough revenues and titles which allow these important British assets in India to place themselves just above their native countrymen. As a result, these Maharajas , Nawabs and the Bengali babus accepted and cherished their subordination to the British Raj.
How to successfully run an empire : learning from past mistakes – It is one thing to build an empire and it is another thing to sustain it. The British empire sustained so long because the British were always looking for opportunities to learn from their mistakes and quickly correcting them. In the beginning of their Empire , the Dutch were the primary competitors of the British in India , the British had fought wars to dispose the Dutch but in the end failed to defeat them. They were astonished that how could a much smaller country like the Dutch ; which was basically a breakaway faction from the Spanish empire due to religious war ; could punch much above its weight. They later found out that it was the superior financial system of the Dutch whereby instead of imposing suffocating taxes upon the population the Dutch brought the necessary finances for war by borrowing money in terms of government bonds. They quickly adopted this technique and instead of fighting with the Dutch , merged their finances with them.This later helped the British to win the seven year war against the French.
Another great example of the British learning from their mistakes was that after losing her American colonies , Britain decided to allow more local autonomy to the English-speaking colonists in Canada , Australia , New Zealand and much later South Africa , all of whom were white Anglo-Saxon protestant communities. These colonies were allowed to become dominions whereby they were given a representative legislature through which they elected their own representatives through competitive elections and made their own rules instead of being dictated from London.
One of the primary reasons behind the 1857 mutiny was the missionary zeal showed by some British evangelists to spread their version of Anglizcized Christianity upon the Indians ; this threatened the traditional Indian sepoys , who feared about losing their age-old ways of life to their British masters and as a consequence they rose up in arms against the British rule in India. After suppressing the mutiny the British decided to put a stop to the missionary activities of the more-zealous missionaries. The East India company’s role of governing India was taken over by the British policymakers in London so as to ensure that no repeatation of the causes of 1857 mutiny ever takes place. The assertive , bleeding-heart missionary groups were discouraged to interfere in the body politic of India and the British left the Indians to their own conditions. This ensured that there were no major mutiny in the British Indian military for close to a century.
How to successfully run an empire : entrusting the experts – The British always did well to entrust the job of empire building to the local forces who were deployed in the areas in question. Whther it was the Buccaneers and pirates like Sir Henry Morgan or the unconventioanl generals like Robert Clive or for that matter pioneering men like Cycil Rhodes , Charles “Chinese” Gordon or T G Lawrence , the British empire was built upon the guiles and exploits of these men who were seeking glory and fortune overseas. The job of the policymakers in London was just to give them enough encouragement so that in the end, London can benefit from the exploits of these men.
Whenever the important job of decision making was entrusted to people without enough knowledge of the situation , the result was disastrous. The Boston tea party that ultimate led to Britain losing her American colonies came about as a consequence of imposing a transaction tax (although very small) on the continental colonists from faraway London without taking the consents of the people who were supposed to pay the taxes. Even during the American War of Independence , instead of depending upon the British loyalists for military leadership , the British entrusted a man from the mother country i.e. Lord Cornwalis to lead the British forces in America which ultimately led to Britain losing the War and losing her American colonies.In the initial buildup to the First World war , despite strong reservations from the experienced diplomats in the area , the British policymakers in London , led by Sir Winston Churchill decided to take unwise decisions like seizing the two Turkish state-of-the art Battleships the Reshadieh and Sultan Osman I which the Turkish government had paid for and entrusted the British to manufacture and hand over to them , leading Turkey to join forces with Kaiser’s Germany thereby expanding the theatre of what was essentially an European War and as a consequence creating more casualties and future complexities for the British to handle.
Why Empires Fall – There are two basic reasons which can be attributed to the downfall of the empires. The conflicts with their rival empires have historically brought about the downfall of the empires. The empires need to be careful to choose which wars to fight and which wars to stand down. The historians still debate whether it was wise enough for the British to participate in the two World wars which led them to confront aggressive empires like Germany and Japan who were on their ascendancy at the time. Although the British managed to end up in the winning side in both the World wars but ultimately it was the resultant drainage in terms of money and men that made it impossible for the British to continue to run their empire. This also leads us to the second most important reason behind the fall of the empires i.e. a lack of financial resources needed to run the empire. A very good example of this particular type of Empire collapse is the collapse of Soviet Union in our times. Although the Soviet Union did not have to face the humiliation of ending up in the losing side of any World War but it was the financial destitution of the Soviet economic system that ultimately led to the Soviets losing the cold war.
All the empires do possess one common characteristics , they are gigantic enterprises of men with respect to great ideas , endevors , dreams and visions. They produce colorful characters and towering leaders in their wake. Yet they are not flawless as they leave the global stage with collective scars on global human psyche like the Holocaust , Atlantic Slave trade and the genocide of the Natives in the Americas. Empires are more like individuals who want to be different than others , who want to reach the sky and fill up the stars with their glory but in the end when they leave the world , they find out that they cannot vanquish their own mortality to which his fate has consigned for him.
A changed World-middle east a decade after 9-11-Part-2
Introduction
A decade has passed since the twin towers were brought down by one of the most gruesome and deadliest terrorist attacks in living memory. The World that was in presence on 9/10 is no more and the past decade has seen it change in ways that
could have not been imaginable even a decade prior to it. Let us look at how the
changes affected the region of West Asia which has got most attention than any
other part of the World in the last decade following 9/11. In my previous writing,
I discussed the changes that has taken place in the West Asian region in the decade
gone by. Now in this article I would like to discuss some possible scenarios that could
emerge into the coming decade ahead.
The emergence of a new Order
The Return of the Turks
The most significant event of the decade gone by has probably been the reemergence of Turkey as an independent player in the region. Since the founding of the Turkish republic and throughout the cold war, Turkey has been largely content to follow the roles and responsibilities that it was asked to play by its Western patrons. The ruling elite of Turkey which consisted largely of the Turkish Westernized military hierarchy as well as the Western-educated sections of Turkish intelligentsia , all favored this position whereby Turkey had largely restricted and relegated itself to a small regional player.
With the election of the Justice and Development party in Turkey in 2002, things have changed significantly. This new Turkish government decided to take an independent position vis a vis the West Asian and North African region. By taking this new direction Turkey is expected to play a broader and much prominent role in the region and beyond, something that has not been seen for a long time.
At present Turkey and Israel are logged in a conflagration over the Israeli blockade over Gaza. This also has to be seen in a broader angle whereby Turkey is looking to become an important player in the Eastern Mediterranean region. The Eastern Mediterranean is said to be enriched with natural gas and other vital mineral resources. At present Greek Cypriots and Israel are said to be in collaboration for exploration of these natural gas fields. As the patron of Turkish Cypriots, Turkey is expected to become involved in the matter. If Turkey wants to play its erstwhile historical role of maintaining order and stability in the Eastern Mediterranean region, then surely it has to confront the existing interests in the region. At present, Israel with its naval blockade over Gaza, does not allow any other player to establish itself in the regime. So one can only expect the conflagration between Turkey and Israel to continue in the coming decade over the issue of maintaining stability and order in the Mediterranean region.
The Turkish-Israeli conflagration has another wider angle. Since the Turks are looking to project themselves as a new power in the region, Turks would love to be seen in the region as the strong and just Muslim warrior fighting a just cause against the unjust Israel. So this is a significantly new angle to the equation of the wider region.
The recent “Arab Spring” has given the Turks a great opportunity to strengthen its ties with the people in the region. The Turks, who have got religious and cultural as well as historical ties with the region, would welcome the opportunity to connect with new set-ups in the region whereby popular participation is given more importance. The Justice and development Party considers itself as a movement challenging existing status quo in their own country whereby it took on the power of Turkish military and socialist elite and won. Understandably it wants to see the Arabs also do the same in their own countries. Despite some initial mistakes, Turkey has been steadfastly supporting the popular movements in the Arab countries with the hope that they will overthrow the ailing, archaic regimes in these countries and a new partnership would emerge between Turks and the people of the region, leading them to a new order, much more peaceful and prosperous in nature.
The main players emerge in the new great Game
As of today there are four major players in the region. They are Turkey, Iran, Israel and Saudi Arabia. Out of all the four major powers Israel and Saudi Arabia can be at best described as status-quo powers since the basic intention of these two powers is to preserve the existing order. For Israel , the preservation of the status quo is in terms of maintaining its hold over the territories it has occupied since the six-day war in the occupied West Bank and in the Golan Heights and for Saudi Arabian ruling elite nothing is much important than the continuation of the ruling of the House of Saud in the Hejaj region.
Turkey and Iran are the players who want to change the existing status quo in the region but the two do not have a singular approach in solving the problems due to their different historical experiences. The reactions of both the two countries towards the recent popular movements in the region are also variable. The two countries have differed significantly over the issue of popular uprising in Syria. Elsewhere both countries are more or less on the same wavelength when it comes to establishment of new and more democratic regimes in Egypt, Tunisia or elsewhere in the region.
It is almost a foregone conclusion that following the toppling of autocratic regimes in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia, there will be popular movements demanding a greater say in political as well as socio-economic participation in the gulf region. The Bahrain regime recently crushed another popular movement in its territory. The fact that the gulf regimes are mindful of popular discontent in their territories is evident from two examples, the Saudi leadership announcing more grants to its religious allies in the Kingdom and the Emirati and other Gulf establishments investing a lot on “hired guns” i.e. private security companies like Blackwater (now known as Xe) since they are no longer able to trust their own troops.
Both Turkey and Iran are expected to encourage and support popular movements demanding greater political participation in these gulf kingdoms in the coming decade. This is one of their significant ways to change the status quo in the region. However, there may be some competition between the two over influencing these nascent popular movements in the gulf region.
Role of the West
So far the role of the Western states towards the “Arab spring” has been mixed bag to say the least. They were taken aback when their allies in Egypt and Tunisia were toppled but they came back quickly with their support for the Libyan opposition. However I do not expect these Western states to support any popular movement in the Gulf States which may harm the status quo.
The West and the US in particular has a lot to lose in terms of influence in the post Arab Spring-West Asia. Historically, the American support of Israel has been the biggest impediment for improving the American image in the Arab world. If the USA goes on to stop the Palestinians to form their own state then there will be strong opposition from the newly democratic and free Arab countries. There is a strong possibility that if the USA does not encourage its allies in Gulf to significantly help popular participation in their affairs, there is a strong possibility that the popular hostility towards the US will continue to grow in the coming decade.
Turkey is in the best position to reap rewards from the Arab spring. As an emerging Muslim democracy with strong economic credentials as well as closer historical and spiritual ties to the region, Turkey seems to be in the best position to be recognized as a model by the newly emerging set-ups in the region. Iran would also be in a much more strengthened position since the Arab spring would also enable Iran to influence the new set-ups in the Arab world. This is clearly evident with the willingness on the part of the new governing council in Egypt to establish ties with Iran.
For historical and geo-political reasons it is quite likely that the West in general and the Americans in particular would side with the status-quo powers of Israel and Saudi Arabia to preserve their existing interests in the region. That would increasingly ensure a conflict of interest between the West and Turkey as well as the ongoing hostility between Iran and the West.
Conclusion
The end of the decade in the West Asia has seen new possibilities and new changes some of which have been hitherto unthinkable. The constant conflict between the status quo powers and their challengers will probably be the most significant feature of the new West Asia. However no one can deny the possibility of any unthinkable event from an unexpected quarter threatening to unhinge the whole balance of the region.
A decade has passed since the twin towers were brought down by one of the most gruesome and deadliest terrorist attacks in living memory. The World that was in presence on 9/10 is no more and the past decade has seen it change in ways that
could have not been imaginable even a decade prior to it. Let us look at how the
changes affected the region of West Asia which has got most attention than any
other part of the World in the last decade following 9/11. In my previous writing,
I discussed the changes that has taken place in the West Asian region in the decade
gone by. Now in this article I would like to discuss some possible scenarios that could
emerge into the coming decade ahead.
The emergence of a new Order
The Return of the Turks
The most significant event of the decade gone by has probably been the reemergence of Turkey as an independent player in the region. Since the founding of the Turkish republic and throughout the cold war, Turkey has been largely content to follow the roles and responsibilities that it was asked to play by its Western patrons. The ruling elite of Turkey which consisted largely of the Turkish Westernized military hierarchy as well as the Western-educated sections of Turkish intelligentsia , all favored this position whereby Turkey had largely restricted and relegated itself to a small regional player.
With the election of the Justice and Development party in Turkey in 2002, things have changed significantly. This new Turkish government decided to take an independent position vis a vis the West Asian and North African region. By taking this new direction Turkey is expected to play a broader and much prominent role in the region and beyond, something that has not been seen for a long time.
At present Turkey and Israel are logged in a conflagration over the Israeli blockade over Gaza. This also has to be seen in a broader angle whereby Turkey is looking to become an important player in the Eastern Mediterranean region. The Eastern Mediterranean is said to be enriched with natural gas and other vital mineral resources. At present Greek Cypriots and Israel are said to be in collaboration for exploration of these natural gas fields. As the patron of Turkish Cypriots, Turkey is expected to become involved in the matter. If Turkey wants to play its erstwhile historical role of maintaining order and stability in the Eastern Mediterranean region, then surely it has to confront the existing interests in the region. At present, Israel with its naval blockade over Gaza, does not allow any other player to establish itself in the regime. So one can only expect the conflagration between Turkey and Israel to continue in the coming decade over the issue of maintaining stability and order in the Mediterranean region.
The Turkish-Israeli conflagration has another wider angle. Since the Turks are looking to project themselves as a new power in the region, Turks would love to be seen in the region as the strong and just Muslim warrior fighting a just cause against the unjust Israel. So this is a significantly new angle to the equation of the wider region.
The recent “Arab Spring” has given the Turks a great opportunity to strengthen its ties with the people in the region. The Turks, who have got religious and cultural as well as historical ties with the region, would welcome the opportunity to connect with new set-ups in the region whereby popular participation is given more importance. The Justice and development Party considers itself as a movement challenging existing status quo in their own country whereby it took on the power of Turkish military and socialist elite and won. Understandably it wants to see the Arabs also do the same in their own countries. Despite some initial mistakes, Turkey has been steadfastly supporting the popular movements in the Arab countries with the hope that they will overthrow the ailing, archaic regimes in these countries and a new partnership would emerge between Turks and the people of the region, leading them to a new order, much more peaceful and prosperous in nature.
The main players emerge in the new great Game
As of today there are four major players in the region. They are Turkey, Iran, Israel and Saudi Arabia. Out of all the four major powers Israel and Saudi Arabia can be at best described as status-quo powers since the basic intention of these two powers is to preserve the existing order. For Israel , the preservation of the status quo is in terms of maintaining its hold over the territories it has occupied since the six-day war in the occupied West Bank and in the Golan Heights and for Saudi Arabian ruling elite nothing is much important than the continuation of the ruling of the House of Saud in the Hejaj region.
Turkey and Iran are the players who want to change the existing status quo in the region but the two do not have a singular approach in solving the problems due to their different historical experiences. The reactions of both the two countries towards the recent popular movements in the region are also variable. The two countries have differed significantly over the issue of popular uprising in Syria. Elsewhere both countries are more or less on the same wavelength when it comes to establishment of new and more democratic regimes in Egypt, Tunisia or elsewhere in the region.
It is almost a foregone conclusion that following the toppling of autocratic regimes in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia, there will be popular movements demanding a greater say in political as well as socio-economic participation in the gulf region. The Bahrain regime recently crushed another popular movement in its territory. The fact that the gulf regimes are mindful of popular discontent in their territories is evident from two examples, the Saudi leadership announcing more grants to its religious allies in the Kingdom and the Emirati and other Gulf establishments investing a lot on “hired guns” i.e. private security companies like Blackwater (now known as Xe) since they are no longer able to trust their own troops.
Both Turkey and Iran are expected to encourage and support popular movements demanding greater political participation in these gulf kingdoms in the coming decade. This is one of their significant ways to change the status quo in the region. However, there may be some competition between the two over influencing these nascent popular movements in the gulf region.
Role of the West
So far the role of the Western states towards the “Arab spring” has been mixed bag to say the least. They were taken aback when their allies in Egypt and Tunisia were toppled but they came back quickly with their support for the Libyan opposition. However I do not expect these Western states to support any popular movement in the Gulf States which may harm the status quo.
The West and the US in particular has a lot to lose in terms of influence in the post Arab Spring-West Asia. Historically, the American support of Israel has been the biggest impediment for improving the American image in the Arab world. If the USA goes on to stop the Palestinians to form their own state then there will be strong opposition from the newly democratic and free Arab countries. There is a strong possibility that if the USA does not encourage its allies in Gulf to significantly help popular participation in their affairs, there is a strong possibility that the popular hostility towards the US will continue to grow in the coming decade.
Turkey is in the best position to reap rewards from the Arab spring. As an emerging Muslim democracy with strong economic credentials as well as closer historical and spiritual ties to the region, Turkey seems to be in the best position to be recognized as a model by the newly emerging set-ups in the region. Iran would also be in a much more strengthened position since the Arab spring would also enable Iran to influence the new set-ups in the Arab world. This is clearly evident with the willingness on the part of the new governing council in Egypt to establish ties with Iran.
For historical and geo-political reasons it is quite likely that the West in general and the Americans in particular would side with the status-quo powers of Israel and Saudi Arabia to preserve their existing interests in the region. That would increasingly ensure a conflict of interest between the West and Turkey as well as the ongoing hostility between Iran and the West.
Conclusion
The end of the decade in the West Asia has seen new possibilities and new changes some of which have been hitherto unthinkable. The constant conflict between the status quo powers and their challengers will probably be the most significant feature of the new West Asia. However no one can deny the possibility of any unthinkable event from an unexpected quarter threatening to unhinge the whole balance of the region.
A changed World-middle east a decade after 9-11-Part-1
Introduction
A decade has passed since the twin towers were brought down by one of the most gruesome and deadliest terrorist attacks in living memory. The World that was in presence on 9/10 is no more and the past decade has seen it change in ways that
could have not been imaginable even a decade prior to it. Let us look at how the
changes affected the region of West Asia which has got most attention than any
other part of the World in the last decade following 9/11.
The shattered status Quo
The World before 9/11
Prior to 9/11, the American policy in the region can be summarized in the following terms:
1. The oil-producing countries in the region should continue to sell fossil fuels to the West at a fairly acceptable market price.
2. They should not do anything that makes Israelis feel endangered.
3. None of them should do anything rash like setting up of a nuclear-industry that may endanger this status quo.
The countries in the region generally adhered to these terms and conditions as dictated by the superpower of the day. Most of the countries like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Bahrain were happy to host American troops on their soil. Countries like Egypt and Jordan had extensive peace treaties with Israel and they in general followed those peace treaties consistently. Even the regime of Saddam Hussain which wanted to create its new rules and regulations in the region , was contained through sanctions and no-fly zones.There were countries like Iran and Syria who opposed these terms and conditions but in the end they did nothing which can be categorized as substantial for changing the status quo in the region. Even these countries such as Iran and Syria restricted their opposition towards these western terms and conditions by employing only small baby steps such as deploying fierce rhetoric at the United Nations or providing support to the groups like Hezbollah and Hamas who have been resisting against Israeli policies in Lebanon or in the occupied Palestinian territories. Even this provision of support towards Hezbollah or Hamas by Iran and Syria can in no way be considered as threatening the very existence of Israel let alone challenging the status quo of American power in the region. The example of Saddam had taught the independent-minded regimes of the region to restrict their opposition towards the American-imposed order only in superficial terms.
The World since 9/11
The changed popular perception about America: Before 9/11, the “American dream” was the most popular imagination in large parts of the West Asian populations including in countries like Iran. How popular America was in Iran can be gauged by the fact that after 9/11, it was the Iranian commoners who performed candle light vigils for the victims of 9/11 and even the Iranian government which has called America “the great Satan” offered a strategic peace deal to the Bush administration which included normalization of all relations and cooperation with the United States in Afghanistan in exchange for acceptance of the Islamic system in Iran. The American concept of Individualism that supports the right of the individual to live his life according to his own wishes and free from the dictates of the powerful state was something that was cherished by a population long suffering from archaic authoritarian rule and looking for opportunities for improving their lives. Although many conservative groups in the region detested the promiscuous lifestyles of some of the American popular cultural icons but the Average man on the street certainly did not consider America as “the great Satan” as some of the regional leaders claimed it to be.
One of the major objectives of the perpetrators of 9/11 was to ensure that America is perceived by the people in the region as the greatest existential enemy fighting against the Muslims since the days of Abu Jehl , the Crusaders and the Mongol hordes of Halagu Khan. They had calculated on a harsh and disproportional response from America in the aftermath of 9/11. President Bush obliged them by first spurring the Iranian offer of strategic détente when he called Iran as part of an “axis of evil” in his state of the Union address in 2002 and then in 2003 when he decided to Invade Iraq on the premise of Weapons of mass destructions. As more and more examples of the harsh and panicked American response (often bordering on brutality) to 9/11 came into the public fore, like the depraved activities in Guantanamo bay and in the Abu Gharib prison as well as the increasingly large number of civilian casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan at the hands of the American troops, the genuine public support that America had enjoyed in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 seemed to dissipate fast.
The increasingly hostile attitude that the Muslim communities and individuals faced in many parts of the Western world after the 9/11 events had also made a deep impact in the psyches of the people in the wider Western Asian region. The frequent and humiliating security checks at the airports, the extraordinary renditions of people and the torturous scenes from the prisons like Bagram, Guantanamo bay and Abu Gharib all have made permanent impact upon the psyches of the Muslims living in the West and elsewhere. The vicious propaganda and derogatory commentary coming from some Western intellectuals targeting Muslims also have seriously impacted in the formation of the Muslim mindset towards America and the West in general.
The persistent support that the successive administrations have provided towards Israel over the last decade even towards acts like the economic blockade of the Gazastrip, expansion of unilateral settlements in the West Bank, the operation Cast Lead and the most recent incident of Israeli killing of the Turkish peace activists in the Mavi Marmara vessel, also has created a perception of an America which is blind towards Israeli actions because of its “special relationship” with Israel.
As a result, American model and “American dream” have lost most of its hollowed ground in the minds of the people in West Asian region. A measure of this phenomenon is the surprisingly low support America has among the people of Turkey, one of the strongest pillars of American support in the region. America did not help the matters when it paraded a group of blindfolded Turkish soldiers in front of the Television cameras immediately after the Iraq invasion in 2003. It also did not help when the American leadership sat silent when Israeli soldiers gunned down Hakan Dogan , a 18-year old American citizen of Turkish descent onboard Mavi Marmara.
A new beginning for Turkey: The decade saw the emergence of a new beginning in Turkish foreign policy. Hitherto Turkey was content to play the role of the contractor
of Western policies in the region. But since the rise of the ruling Justice and Development Party from 2002, the Turkish policies have been set on a new course which wants to see the region from its own viewpoint and not from the eyes of its Western patrons. This apparently independent-looking Turkish policy, pioneered by Ahmet Dovutoglu, the foreign minister of Turkey, has been referred to as “Zero problem with the neighbors”. As a part of its independent foreign policy, Turkey has decided to expand and nurture more extensive political and economic ties to all of its neighbors including Iran and Syria, raising quite a lot of concerned-looking eyebrows in the Western capitals.
The aspect of Turkish foreign policy which has raised most concern in the Western World is the increasingly confrontational attitude Turkey has projected towards Israel, its erstwhile strong alley in the region. The Turkish spat with Israel started when the prime minister of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan walked out from the Davos forum in 2009 in protest of Israel’s operation cast lead on Gaza which has lead to a lot of civilian deaths in Gaza. The difference of opinion between Israel and Turkey turned to open hostility when an Israeli raid upon the Turkish vessel Mavi Marmara killed a number of Turkish peace activists including an 18-year old American from Turkish origin. Recently after the UN Palmer commission report on the incident, Turkey has decided to suspend all of its defense ties with Israel and has recalled its ambassador from Tel Aviv.
The influence of Iran grows: The US-invasion of Iraq removed the biggest thorn on the side of the Islamic republic, the regime of Saddam Hussain. The US also had removed another regional rival of Iran, Taliban from power in Afghanistan, only a year and half ago. Although there have been lots of speculations among pundits about the exact set of reasons behind President Bush’s decision to invade Iraq but surely allowing the Islamic republic to play a major role in the post-war political efforts in that country was not one of them. But this has been exactly the outcome of the US-led invasion in the country. Following both the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, parties with strong ties to Iran have come to power in Iran.
The rise of Hezbollah in Lebanon following the 2006 Israeli war in Lebanon and the victory of Hamas in Palestinian elections as late as in 2009 also has enabled Iran to influence events very close to the borders of its arch-foe, Israel.
The recent toppling of the secular regimes in Egypt and Libya would also enable Iran to build relations with the nascent popular movements in these countries. The Islamic republic has long sought to portray the secular pro-Western regimes in these countries as obstacles hindering an unified regional effort against Israel , so naturally it is no surprise that Iran is trying to foster stronger links with these post-Arab Spring set ups in the regions. The recent opening of the Suez Canal by the Egyptian authorities to allow two Iranian navy ships to pass through the passage is an indication of this changed approach.
The seculars fall, the religious rise up: The popular spontaneous movements that swept the Arab world for demanding change have seen secular governments being toppled in Tunisia, Egypt and in Libya. With the fall of these regimes, one can see the rise of religious-leaning groups like Al-Nahda in Tunisia and Muslim brotherhood in Egypt coming into prominence. The fall of the secular regimes have seen widespread chaos and uncertainty in the region; the religious parties can hope for more support from the masses in near future since they are the only ones with a strong organizational base as well as a consistent and coherent message and policy to solve the many problems that the people of the region suffer from. So clearly, the coming decade could see the religious parties rise in influence in most of these post-secular countries in the region.
A decade has passed since the twin towers were brought down by one of the most gruesome and deadliest terrorist attacks in living memory. The World that was in presence on 9/10 is no more and the past decade has seen it change in ways that
could have not been imaginable even a decade prior to it. Let us look at how the
changes affected the region of West Asia which has got most attention than any
other part of the World in the last decade following 9/11.
The shattered status Quo
The World before 9/11
Prior to 9/11, the American policy in the region can be summarized in the following terms:
1. The oil-producing countries in the region should continue to sell fossil fuels to the West at a fairly acceptable market price.
2. They should not do anything that makes Israelis feel endangered.
3. None of them should do anything rash like setting up of a nuclear-industry that may endanger this status quo.
The countries in the region generally adhered to these terms and conditions as dictated by the superpower of the day. Most of the countries like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Bahrain were happy to host American troops on their soil. Countries like Egypt and Jordan had extensive peace treaties with Israel and they in general followed those peace treaties consistently. Even the regime of Saddam Hussain which wanted to create its new rules and regulations in the region , was contained through sanctions and no-fly zones.There were countries like Iran and Syria who opposed these terms and conditions but in the end they did nothing which can be categorized as substantial for changing the status quo in the region. Even these countries such as Iran and Syria restricted their opposition towards these western terms and conditions by employing only small baby steps such as deploying fierce rhetoric at the United Nations or providing support to the groups like Hezbollah and Hamas who have been resisting against Israeli policies in Lebanon or in the occupied Palestinian territories. Even this provision of support towards Hezbollah or Hamas by Iran and Syria can in no way be considered as threatening the very existence of Israel let alone challenging the status quo of American power in the region. The example of Saddam had taught the independent-minded regimes of the region to restrict their opposition towards the American-imposed order only in superficial terms.
The World since 9/11
The changed popular perception about America: Before 9/11, the “American dream” was the most popular imagination in large parts of the West Asian populations including in countries like Iran. How popular America was in Iran can be gauged by the fact that after 9/11, it was the Iranian commoners who performed candle light vigils for the victims of 9/11 and even the Iranian government which has called America “the great Satan” offered a strategic peace deal to the Bush administration which included normalization of all relations and cooperation with the United States in Afghanistan in exchange for acceptance of the Islamic system in Iran. The American concept of Individualism that supports the right of the individual to live his life according to his own wishes and free from the dictates of the powerful state was something that was cherished by a population long suffering from archaic authoritarian rule and looking for opportunities for improving their lives. Although many conservative groups in the region detested the promiscuous lifestyles of some of the American popular cultural icons but the Average man on the street certainly did not consider America as “the great Satan” as some of the regional leaders claimed it to be.
One of the major objectives of the perpetrators of 9/11 was to ensure that America is perceived by the people in the region as the greatest existential enemy fighting against the Muslims since the days of Abu Jehl , the Crusaders and the Mongol hordes of Halagu Khan. They had calculated on a harsh and disproportional response from America in the aftermath of 9/11. President Bush obliged them by first spurring the Iranian offer of strategic détente when he called Iran as part of an “axis of evil” in his state of the Union address in 2002 and then in 2003 when he decided to Invade Iraq on the premise of Weapons of mass destructions. As more and more examples of the harsh and panicked American response (often bordering on brutality) to 9/11 came into the public fore, like the depraved activities in Guantanamo bay and in the Abu Gharib prison as well as the increasingly large number of civilian casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan at the hands of the American troops, the genuine public support that America had enjoyed in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 seemed to dissipate fast.
The increasingly hostile attitude that the Muslim communities and individuals faced in many parts of the Western world after the 9/11 events had also made a deep impact in the psyches of the people in the wider Western Asian region. The frequent and humiliating security checks at the airports, the extraordinary renditions of people and the torturous scenes from the prisons like Bagram, Guantanamo bay and Abu Gharib all have made permanent impact upon the psyches of the Muslims living in the West and elsewhere. The vicious propaganda and derogatory commentary coming from some Western intellectuals targeting Muslims also have seriously impacted in the formation of the Muslim mindset towards America and the West in general.
The persistent support that the successive administrations have provided towards Israel over the last decade even towards acts like the economic blockade of the Gazastrip, expansion of unilateral settlements in the West Bank, the operation Cast Lead and the most recent incident of Israeli killing of the Turkish peace activists in the Mavi Marmara vessel, also has created a perception of an America which is blind towards Israeli actions because of its “special relationship” with Israel.
As a result, American model and “American dream” have lost most of its hollowed ground in the minds of the people in West Asian region. A measure of this phenomenon is the surprisingly low support America has among the people of Turkey, one of the strongest pillars of American support in the region. America did not help the matters when it paraded a group of blindfolded Turkish soldiers in front of the Television cameras immediately after the Iraq invasion in 2003. It also did not help when the American leadership sat silent when Israeli soldiers gunned down Hakan Dogan , a 18-year old American citizen of Turkish descent onboard Mavi Marmara.
A new beginning for Turkey: The decade saw the emergence of a new beginning in Turkish foreign policy. Hitherto Turkey was content to play the role of the contractor
of Western policies in the region. But since the rise of the ruling Justice and Development Party from 2002, the Turkish policies have been set on a new course which wants to see the region from its own viewpoint and not from the eyes of its Western patrons. This apparently independent-looking Turkish policy, pioneered by Ahmet Dovutoglu, the foreign minister of Turkey, has been referred to as “Zero problem with the neighbors”. As a part of its independent foreign policy, Turkey has decided to expand and nurture more extensive political and economic ties to all of its neighbors including Iran and Syria, raising quite a lot of concerned-looking eyebrows in the Western capitals.
The aspect of Turkish foreign policy which has raised most concern in the Western World is the increasingly confrontational attitude Turkey has projected towards Israel, its erstwhile strong alley in the region. The Turkish spat with Israel started when the prime minister of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan walked out from the Davos forum in 2009 in protest of Israel’s operation cast lead on Gaza which has lead to a lot of civilian deaths in Gaza. The difference of opinion between Israel and Turkey turned to open hostility when an Israeli raid upon the Turkish vessel Mavi Marmara killed a number of Turkish peace activists including an 18-year old American from Turkish origin. Recently after the UN Palmer commission report on the incident, Turkey has decided to suspend all of its defense ties with Israel and has recalled its ambassador from Tel Aviv.
The influence of Iran grows: The US-invasion of Iraq removed the biggest thorn on the side of the Islamic republic, the regime of Saddam Hussain. The US also had removed another regional rival of Iran, Taliban from power in Afghanistan, only a year and half ago. Although there have been lots of speculations among pundits about the exact set of reasons behind President Bush’s decision to invade Iraq but surely allowing the Islamic republic to play a major role in the post-war political efforts in that country was not one of them. But this has been exactly the outcome of the US-led invasion in the country. Following both the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, parties with strong ties to Iran have come to power in Iran.
The rise of Hezbollah in Lebanon following the 2006 Israeli war in Lebanon and the victory of Hamas in Palestinian elections as late as in 2009 also has enabled Iran to influence events very close to the borders of its arch-foe, Israel.
The recent toppling of the secular regimes in Egypt and Libya would also enable Iran to build relations with the nascent popular movements in these countries. The Islamic republic has long sought to portray the secular pro-Western regimes in these countries as obstacles hindering an unified regional effort against Israel , so naturally it is no surprise that Iran is trying to foster stronger links with these post-Arab Spring set ups in the regions. The recent opening of the Suez Canal by the Egyptian authorities to allow two Iranian navy ships to pass through the passage is an indication of this changed approach.
The seculars fall, the religious rise up: The popular spontaneous movements that swept the Arab world for demanding change have seen secular governments being toppled in Tunisia, Egypt and in Libya. With the fall of these regimes, one can see the rise of religious-leaning groups like Al-Nahda in Tunisia and Muslim brotherhood in Egypt coming into prominence. The fall of the secular regimes have seen widespread chaos and uncertainty in the region; the religious parties can hope for more support from the masses in near future since they are the only ones with a strong organizational base as well as a consistent and coherent message and policy to solve the many problems that the people of the region suffer from. So clearly, the coming decade could see the religious parties rise in influence in most of these post-secular countries in the region.
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