Pakistan news by Juan Cole

Thanks to R. for sending the most comprehensive and analytical piece on Pakistan I've read in a while, written by Juan Cole:

http://www.juancole.com/2010/01/gates-strikes-out-in-pakistan.html

Is it just me or has coverage on Pakistan been slipping almost parallel to the White House's failing policies in Af-Pak?

One year later, the same story

Glenn Greenwald’s wrote a perceptive piece in today’s Salon about what the Supreme Court did right in the Citizens United case. Although I’m still mulling over whether or not I completely agree with his arguments, I’m concerned here with a sentence tucked away in his article:

“And one can't help but note the vile irony that Muslim "War on Terror" detainees have been essentially declared by some courts not to be "persons" under the Constitution, whereas corporations are.”

One year after Obama declared that he would close down Guantanamo, detainees are still being held without trial – indefinitely. Here’s the real kicker: Obama has decided to continue detention without due process for these detainees.

Almost sounds like one of the many failed policies employed by our last president. In his defense (if one can be made), when President Bush opened Guantanamo, he was faced with a terrified and vulnerable nation, and an uncertain global political environment. In short, given US’s history and actions towards Italians, Jews, and Japanese (among others), racism and racial profiling against Muslims was inevitable.

But it has been nine years. And I am, once again, left to question how, after countless debates over war and foreign policy, after actually fighting two wars, we can still ignore racial politics and blatant injustice? The least that needs to happen here is an actual trial for each of the detainees.

As a side note, a few people on Facebook did not deem today’s story about Gitmo detainees held without trial worthy, since there are so many other issues to worry about (unemployed, health care, bad economy). I hate to say it, but civil liberties is still a right reserved for only some groups in the U.S.

Redirecting our focus

Temptation is seductive, and nothing is as tempting as postulating simplifications in a complicated and confusing world. In the midst of two major wars that are becoming increasingly difficult to justify, it is enticing to define just two known enemies: Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

Thankfully, as intellectuals, politicians and journalists, our understanding of war and global politics has become a bit more nuanced than an us versus them strategy.That is why the U.S. is not just fighting with missiles, but also trying to “win heart and minds” of those in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. That is why the White House is working with moderate Taliban to fight radicals in the region.

The world is complicated.So why, when it comes to religion, is our discussion so simple? The argument that the Muslim fanatics who carried out the 9/11 attacks and who make up Al Qaeda and Taliban members do not represent Islam has been beaten to the ground. It is a dead horse. And yet I wonder if it has to be reiterated because the solutions our intellectuals pose do not recognize the basic core of this argument: Islam is not a single, solid entity. In his New York Times column last week, Thomas Friedman argued that what Islam needs is a civil war, similar to what the U.S. underwent and one that eventually led to the emancipation of slaves. He was concerned with jihadists marketing their message and recruiting new members via online mediums (Facebook and Youtube). In order to combat these “bad forces,” Friedman argued, moderate Muslims need to “look inward,” verbally and ideologically rise against these jihadists and once again reclaim a peaceful Islam.

Bravo. Except that Friedman has forgotten that Islam has been undergoing a literal and ideological civil war since Prophet Muhammad’s time. In the beginning, the main source of conflict was leadership after the Prophet’s death, from which the Sunni and Shia sects were created, each forming their own practices, belief systems and ways to fuse religion and politics. Later, sects formed under these main ones, and as the world’s understanding of citizen, state, and religion transformed, tensions arose among moderates, liberals, conservatives and orthodox, as they did in every religion.

The reason I need to provide a history lesson here is to iterate the repercussions of all these differences. They have evolved according to cultural, geographical and political settings. That is why, although Muslims may feel spiritually tied to fellow Muslims around the world, their political activism is defined by the socio-political context in which they live. That is why countless leaders have failed to unite Muslim states – or even Arab ones – and why the argument of “the Shia crescent” in the greater Middle East is filled with holes. That is also why, although they are loud, Muslim extremists will not “win” and define what Islam is. This religion, like Christianity and Judaism, is personal and forever transforming.

Friedman is correct, however, in asserting that Muslims need to become more active, but they need to be so within their countries and societies. For our sake, our society would do well to acknowledge those moderate voices that have been fighting against an extremist reading of their religion.

A clinical professor of psychiatry has been circulating an e-mail claiming that the Muslim fanatics are ruling and the supposed “peace-loving Muslims are irrelevant” in society’s discussion of war. It is comical, in one sense, but frightening to realize our dialogue has been ignoring these moderate Muslim fighters, as if by default, Muslims are remaining silent.

But they are not. They have been speaking out, from mosques to Muslim Student Associations, from newspapers to blogs. I have seen journalists in Egypt question the political conservatism in their country. I have read articles by young writers lamenting the loss of their nation to extremist forces, but believing that there is still a chance to fight back. I know of friends – women - who are pursuing studies in Islamic law to transform what they believe to be an oppressive system.

As peaceful as Islam claims to be, it is not without a constant struggle. Perhaps what our intellectuals should really be arguing is how to improve journalism, allow Internet access and increase literacy levels in countries in order for this debate to grow louder.

I had thought the biggest backlash against Muslims would last during those first few months after 9/11 took place. But eight years later, it is Islam itself that is getting the brunt of this backlash. Let us not fall into the temptation of simplification. Eight years and two wars later, let us say our society has grown wiser.

Unasked questions, missed answers

In his New York Times column earlier this year, Frank Rich commented on how the balloon boy incident sums up what type of society we have become:

"'They put on a very good show for us, and we bought it,' the local sheriff, Jim Alderden, said last weekend, when he alleged that 'balloon boy' was a hoax. His words could stand as the epitaph for an era."

Rich seemed to state best the destructive passivity our society has been leaning towards. And perhaps no one bears the weight of this guilt as much as journalists do. In the months before the Iraq War, journalists failed to question the Bush administration's decisions to go to war, silence that cost two countries.

Thankfully, Jane Mayer has compiled a list of questions about the details of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars in the New Yorker that remain unanswered.

Now that we have the questions, I hope someone is asking them.

In a world of mad men

“And who are you supposed to be?” a neighbor asks Don and Betty Draper after he hands their children Halloween candy. The question is seemingly innocent, but damning as well, because this one question finally voices Don Draper’s struggle over the past three seasons.

One is left to admire once again the genius of Mad Men’s team, because after the question is asked, almost accusingly, the camera shifts to not just Don Draper, but to a very uncomfortable Betty Draper as well.

I, like most avid Mad Men watchers, have been expecting the inevitable: when Betty finally discovers Don’s secret and accuses him, and we see the king dethroned (I must admit, my heart went out to the broken Don when his usually suave fingers betray him as he pulls out a cigarette). But I didn’t expect to feel sorry for Betty during this entire incident – feel sorry for her not because she is a trapped housewife, but because she, like Don, is looking at her life from the outside in.

Let’s face it: both male and female viewers get drawn into the machismo of the world of misogynist money-loving alcoholics. It is difficult not to love the moments when Don boldly brushes off anyone who talks to him. And I’m not entirely sure if it’s because of his troubled past, or because of the fact that his affairs occur as often as he pulls out a cigarette, but I always forgive Don’s extra-marital affairs. Thus I am ashamed to admit that when Betty clumsily slept with a stranger in the back room of a bar during the Drapers’ brief separation, I was disgusted with her and her disregard for her husband and children who spent the night in a hotel room awaiting the impending doom of nuclear war.

So I was surprised by my own realization while I watched this last episode of Mad Men: Betty makes me uncomfortable. I don’t know her anymore. I want her to be either a submissive and naïve housewife, or a carefree girl breaking lines of acceptability of the 1960s. But she’s teetering.

Although I knew Betty Draper was as “damaged” as the rest of them from the first season when her psychiatrist visits foreshadowed some instability, she remained boring: her suffocated life predictably led her to frequently yell at her kids, and frankly, she had nothing interesting to say to keep Don’s sole attention. After all, wasn’t it she who once explained her flawless housekeeping with, “My mother always said, ‘You’re painting a masterpiece, make sure to hide brush strokes”?

Betty Draper has always been in the margin of the world of Mad Men, and predictably so. But the beauty of this show is that her transformation from a perfect Stepford wife to a frustrated and lost woman has occurred in the margins as well, slowly and surprisingly. Anyone who closely watches this show realizes from her fledgling affair and her unexplainable episode after the Drapers come back home from Rome, that Don’s now unveiled secret affects Betty as much as it affects him, maybe even more so.

And she realizes it, too. I had to admire her sass when Don defends himself by pointing out that many people change their names:

Don: “You changed your name too.”
Betty: “Yes. I took your name.”

What Betty is afraid of is her identity being based on a man who doesn’t even know who he is, who claims to be someone else all together. And in that simple retort, she accuses Don: changing her name was never her choice, and now she doesn’t know who her name even belongs to.

Betty Draper is no longer going to be the perfect housewife blind to her husband’s vices, nor is she going to break all boundaries and define the new woman of the era. Instead, she teeters on that point of non-clarity and doubt that is not unlike those experienced by women now. While Joan and Peggy represent the struggle of choosing between career and family, and advancing in the workplace as a female, it is Betty that begins to scratch at the fundamental question that is no longer reserved for just men: who am I?

While the neighbor smiles expectantly at the Drapers as he holds his bowl of candy, we come to realize that both Don and Betty struggle to answer this question. We trust that Don will be able to arrive at some answer, because he has the confidence to be a good liar. But Betty, well, I don’t know her. But I’m expecting this woman on the margins to continue surprising me.

What class?

Six months of the health care debate have left Americans tired of the constant bickering. The debate has been difficult to follow, as both Republicans and Democrats spew out facts and figures that are hardly trustworthy. From accusations of government-funded death panels to exaggerations of how much a public option will save in the next ten years, the health care debate has proved to be frustrating enough to find an end to the verbal war between the two parties, regardless of the outcome. Sadly enough, most Americans recognize that some reform in the health care system is necessary.

So where is the outraged public that is quick to call out its congressmen? Perhaps more importantly, where is this public that has often pointed out injustices in the country? Ultimately, the health care debate boils down to class lines, an obvious fact that has been layered on with other issues such as efficiency, access to care, Medicare fraud, insurance companies and holding hospitals accountable. But class is an issue that transcends partisan lines, and class is also a topic that Americans find difficult to broach within their own society. Perhaps at times not effectively, but American society has dealt with, and at least spoken about, race, immigration, and gay rights in this country. Yet, speaking about class differences is uncomfortable, and often coated with discussions of race. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, for example, the recognition of blatant class differences in the south fused with conversations about racism alive in the country.

Part of the reason for this lack of dialogue is precisely due to the fact that race and poverty are often companions, and racism is one of the most complex topics of the day. Yet, without separating the glaring issues in our society (that is, separating racism from class differences), neither dialogue will be effective. Class is a taboo topic - in public schools kids often try to hide these differences through clothes and accessories. In my college, the dialogue was effectively missing from the school's otherwise politically-aware chatter. Essentially, what results are students and practitioners invested in social, political and economic justice in developing countries, who are just not interested in the social injustice that plagues this country.

Perhaps if class differences became a discussion worth having, at least an issue that is recognized as a leading problem in this country, the health care debate wouldn't be much of a debate at all.

Bedknobs and broomsticks: when the world is upside down

When it hits close to home, ignore it. It's so much easier to fight oppression if you are not called out on similar injustices. As practical as the Iran regime has been in the past, its strong and supported leadership is wavering. It is resolving to hypocricies that led to a hatred of the Shah three decades before, which ultimately happens when a government realizes its in trouble.

In keeping with the spirit of the Islamic Republic's resolve to protect Muslims against injustice, Iran is holding a pro-Palestinian rally. But there's a small caveat: opposition supporters are not allowed to use the rally to protest against the government:

"Mr. Khamenei also pointed to the upcoming annual Pro-Palestinian rally on the last Friday of the Islamic month of Ramadan and warned the opposition not to use the opportunity to protest. Protestors had said they would take part in the rally, wearing green, the trademark color of Mr. Moussavi’s supporters, to show that the opposition movement was still alive. Mr. Karroubi vowed that he would participate as well." (NYT, 11 September 2009)

As far as fighting injustice goes, it works according to what seems like 2nd grade rules: I can tattle on you but you can't tattle on me. The current Iranian government has already closed down the offices of opposition leaders Karroubi and Moussavi, suggesting that the opposition is still strong and the government is quite afraid. Amidst the arrests, tortures and censorship, I hope someone at the Palestine rally will ask "what makes you any different?"

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Speaking of hypocricies, a little more laughable is Glenn Beck's recently received honor of being a key-holder of Mount Vernon, Washington as granted by the mayor. According to Beck, his childhood days in Mount Vernon represented the true spirit of America. The whole town filled sandbags when the nearby river threatened to flood.

“We were small enough to care about each other,” Mr. Beck said. “We were all in it together. It wasn’t about whose responsibility it was, whose fault it was, who you’d end up owing a favor to. You did it because it was the right thing. In Mount Vernon, you grew up knowing that you always had to do the right thing.” (NYT, 10 September 2009).

Hm, this sounds oddly similar to what President Obama said in reference to the need for a health care reform:

"It, too, is part of the American character -- our ability to stand in other people's shoes; a recognition that we are all in this together, and when fortune turns against one of us, others are there to lend a helping hand; a belief that in this country, hard work and responsibility should be rewarded by some measure of security and fair play; and an acknowledgment that sometimes government has to step in to help deliver on that promise." (Obama's health care speech, 09 September, 2009).

Apparently when a Republican says it, the helping hand is considered part of the American spirit. But when a Democrat says it, it's considered another tactic to spread socialism in the country. Or is it just because Obama is saying it?