Taking Sides

I had a great conversation with a friend the other day that focused on many things, but one of them was the foreign policies of the Obama administration and his predecessors. I  have discussed this subject on this blog before, but there are many subjects which have gone uncovered. This is also related to many of the subjects discussed by the new Zeitgeist movie which I will discuss after this post, and to the last post on Islamism and Egypt which I wrote last week.

If you have not had a chance to watch this video from my last post, please do, it may help to elucidate the arguments which follow. Or it may be better to watch it after reading this piece. Either way, take 20 minutes out of your day and watch it (caution to those with reaction to moderate to strong images of violence and some language)--

http://www.vbs.tv/watch/vbs-news/vbs-news-presents-taliban-in-pakistan-full-length

So, if only because the subject continues to come up, in the face of what is going on in Egypt and what has been going on in Afghanistan for almost 10 years, I thought it might be useful to some readers to see a short essay I put together (loosely as un-blog-related work), and then revised, responding to a famous piece by Wendell Berry written shortly after 9/11. I very much encourage you to take some time out and read Berry's somewhat brief article before continuing on to the rest of this piece. Mine is not remotely brief.


http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/214/



For those of you just skimming or ignoring- again, not recommended- let's go over what Berry is talking about really quick. Wendell Berry's essay delves into 2 principle points.

First, referring to our (the world's) international economic interactions, based on a Western Capitalist model,  he discusses the argument that our global system of free trade, built upon the growth of prosperity (which is) dependent upon the permanence of technological innovation, frantic consumption, and world marketing of the system, and the presence of global security to ensure it... is unsustainable. Dangerous even, for it favors growth over all other things, including people, especially those in countries which are forced to grow (sure, pun intended) dependent upon this system.

Berry points out that this global system is a breeding ground for inequality on an international and local scale because nations tend to support their own self interest regardless of the expense to other nations since there is little incentive in our world trade system for a nation, corporation, or individual to restrain greedy hands backed by raw power. Of course this "power" I refer to is the hard power (military) that sometimes must accompany soft power negotiations across the world; it is the reason we have a vast network of bases across the world-- to safeguard the "peace" of the global system of trade.


With me so far?

This argument is augmented by Berry's second point, mainly that such a global system can and should be confronted with an alternative. This alternative, to Berry, is Peaceableness, and it follows in the footsteps of the great non-violent, compassionate, compromising, and educated leaders of our time. Peaceableness starts with sustainability and information/education, demands restraint, and aspires to a higher moral calling. This goes beyond overarching policy considerations to Berry, and is reliant on an essential transformation of attitudes that penetrates down to the communal and individual level.


Ok, here is the commentary.


Regarding the first section- and I would argue that Berry is saying this, but not explicitly enough- it would have been really helpful if Berry had pointed more clearly to the link between the free-trade system that we enforce across the world- encumbering other cultures different from our own with a liberalism for which they had not prepared themselves nor necessarily requested- and the attacks upon our country on 9/11.

When I use "liberalism", (and now we wander somewhat questionably into the territory of Neoliberalism, but this represents too much to examine here) I mean two different philosophies in the "Western" sense, first (hereafter considered philosophy 1) referring to attitudes of Laissez-Faire economics and protection of persons with regard to their rights to property, and second (philosophy 2) to domestic and international movements for equal treatment under respective laws for differing social groups, classes, races, sexes, genders, etc, ostensibly for the purpose of allowing all humans to have the capacity to have access to the first philosophy. In a word, both of these perspectives are concerned with what we call "freedom" but perhaps "individualism" is a better fit-- ironically the first philosophy, using overtures of the second, seems to create foreign policies which end up looking very much like subtle and sometimes not-so-subtle Social Darwinism, which often runs contrary to substantial progress for the second philosophy. But now we are too far into the finer points.

It seems inconceivable that other peoples might reject our version of social progress- liberalism as described above-, but a progress forced upon any people is at serious risk for being one much maligned. It is not unlikely that given time all peoples may yet come upon some version of the same "progress" we have attained, meaning economic and social opportunity for all people. Let me give an example.

For a long time we have used the Taliban's treatment of women in Afghanistan as a specific reason why we must not allow them to come back into power, that is if the charges of supporting Al-Qaeda don't do it for you. We may decry the Taliban for it's treatment of women, but will installing a government that protects women's rights change the hearts and minds of the people? Is it impossible that allowing them to come to the same realization on their own may be better? Or worse, that their culture is not wrong for being different?

May I pause here for some additional potentially (though by no means intentionally) inflammatory dialogue?

I say the following things in good faith, making a comparison which is probably unfair, but I beleive helps to explain my point to an American audience; please be patient.

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Before you shake your head at this relativism that I am positing, consider some of the implications of, say, desegregation in our own country. Especially in the South, but in many parts of this country, Blacks were in a terrible position, oppressed, poor, and with little voice a century after the abolition of slavery. Some in America suggested that without the government intervening and forcing desegregation, nothing could be done about equality. But nothing happened; those in power did not act, fearing repercussions from an equally fearful electorate. Then, over the course of a decade and more, the groundswell that represented the many facets of the Civil Rights struggle forced the hand of authorities, and the desegregation process began. It was only after Americans forced themselves to come face to face with the racism in the country, that change began to occur, and this self realization was done largely at the grassroots level, not otherwise imposed. Some may argue that we should have stepped in sooner to stop such an oppression, and if the federal government had acted to impose these rules, it would have ended Black suffering sooner. But I think it took waiting for Americans to realize it themselves, for it to, unfortunately, get almost to the breaking point that allowed public opinion to go strongly for civil rights, that prevented even more very serious violence or even a race war. Because much of Black suffering was/is from the institutions, and those institutions are made up of people- change the institution all you want, and the people may never change their minds, or even act out against being forced, but allow social pressure to change the people's minds? And suddenly overt racism of the kind 50 years ago is virtually extinguished in this country. In my opinion it is also why the changes have lasted, without a strong backlash.



Let us suppose another example.  There is a school district in the rural Deep South which now must integrate by federal order. Is it better to force them to desegregate, or is it better to let them watch the rest of the nation shame them into not falling "behind the times"? Some will argue that without the federal order, the school will never desegregate, and that the federal order forces the change to occur faster and just as authentically. My essential argument, and yes this does come from my own observations about the world, and some relativism, is that the school district will decide to desegregate on its own over time, when the people who elect such a board realize what social, financial, infrastructural, moral, and associational benefits they are missing out on by continuing its policies. It is slower, and possibly involves more suffering (although in the long run this is up for debate) but it is probably much more genuine, and very likely reflects genuine attitude changes at the individual level. In the meantime the rest of us outside of the district get to reexamine our own attitudes and truly question whether our systems are more effective than the "other's" at achieving the goals of our own liberalism.

I acknowledge and recognize the validity of the other side of the argument for the subject above; do not think I am attempting to reduce in any way a situation of potent complexity. But my argument does gain strength when it is more closely applied to the analogy of foreign policy, fair or unfair as an analogy as it may have been. See, now imagine that the conflict isn't even domestic. It is thousands of miles away in a place where the culture hardly resembles ours, the languages are many and complex, and the expense of implementing overhead, top-down reforms is nearly prohibitive. Can we afford not to wait for an Afghani groundswell as we have seen in Egypt?
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Now that I've dealt with that aside, (if it frustrated you, please drop it and continue along in good faith with me) let us return to the argument at hand. The real truth regarding our attitudes about the Taliban in Afghanistan (again, here we return to Berry's main argument) is that philosophy #2 is not the main reason why American military forces are engaged over there.


Because although social progress is sometimes a byproduct of our economic interaction with other countries, it is not the primary reason we desire interaction, rather we seek resources, oil primarily, and while we seek these resources for the mutual benefit of both nations, we do so only as long as the benefit to our nation is greater. What I mean is, we are willing to aid Saudi Arabia in building infrastructure, but we also do have strong influence on who controls access to their oil (and its prices). We do not engage in equal business transactions; this is impossible because we wield much more political and economic influence than most countries with which we deal. And we ensure this state of being through our 'hard power', the global police of which Berry speaks, and this police enforces our economic law, our philosophical perspective, and our cultural preferences, regardless of disagreements locals may bring. After all they are rarely in a position to disagree, and will accept any help they can get to pull themselves up out of poverty, even at the price of what we would call their "freedom".

And since philosophy 1 comes intrinsically and intractably connected to philosophy 2, the policies involving both are practiced in a way that is dependent on this unequal relationship between countries, and leads inevitably to domination of the other, because we have decided that they involve inferior philosophies and inferior economies. Because these other ideas possibly threaten to rob us of the freedom to use our own liberalism to make the world safe for our opportunism, which has suddenly become a violation of our rights.

This is what "they" (sadly government officials oftentimes) mean when they say that the "Terrorists" hate your "freedom". They probably do hate that we have given ourselves the opportunity to live our lives in freedom because, with the permanently consumerist system we have enacted, it seems we must always exploit other countries for this lifestyle they hate us for. And if we run into trouble, our military is powerful enough to be used as a bargaining chip to help negotiations slide our way in many circumstances.


Ok, but let's ask this question. Let's say the system changed, Berry is now World Premier, wouldn't these enemies of ours still hate us regardless? Don't they want to impose themselves on us? Let's say we were to withdraw from all global 'entanglements' -one of Ron Paul's favorite terms- wouldn't we still invite attack because we are still a beacon of domestic freedom, and these enemies despise freedom, they oppose it on a philosophical and theological level, right? Plus, they attacked us; regardless of the world trade system, it's too late to change their minds, and meanwhile how did it suddenly become unreasonable for us to punish those who kill innocent people! We have a lesson to teach here. We'll put a boot in your ass, it's the American way. 


In this way our language regarding 9/11 is a confusing mixture of vengeful emotional rhetoric and noble defense, this part somewhat grounded in logic, of the cultural mores that define millions of people in "the West". But it seems that Berry and I both agree that both of these are a form of national self righteousness; they require one way to be right (ours) and another way to be wrong, speaking always in dichotomies- sometimes if only because God is on our "side". I ask the next question seriously, and I request that it be taken so. Need there be sides? Because as I see it, all people are just negotiating for a better life in the best way they know how. Many of us negotiate in violence or quietly support such negotiations with our taxes or votes or views and then become surprised when violence is turned back upon us. If we saw all people as people rather than representations of ideologies or sides we might be able to find solutions tailored to individual needs and comprehension of individual compulsion and drive.


Perhaps we like to comfort ourselves with this supposition of dichotomies, that we must fight the physical presence of the ideology which groups like the Taliban and Al-Qaeda espouse in order to protect ourselves from these ideas, but to me this brings into play Berry's second point. Such a supposition is a distraction from what is truly at stake, and education can resolve this point. In fact, I wish fervently that everyone would read some of the publications put forth by Osama bin Laden and sympathetic groups to his cause, to learn exactly what it is that they desire. We would learn that quite often the large majority of what they point to is transgressions caused by our occupation/destruction of what they view as their homeland and people, our exploitation of their resources, or our support of countries which do the same. It is a disturbingly logical case. They are giving us the recipe for their own dissolution. After all, do you think significant support of groups like Al-Qaeda would continue if our liberal global systems and our destructive policing of those systems couldn't be used as a recruiting tool? Because the other smaller parts of their rhetoric which reek of the same national, moral, and religious self righteousness that Berry and I so dislike seems so much weaker without the substance of our great transgressions used for justification. Think on this.

What if... Is is possible that they are speaking out in the only way they know how, the only way they feel the world will listen, in this global society where hard power dominates, and capitalism quashes the voice of the poor and disadvantaged? What would that say about us? What would happen to us if we dared to take the higher road and offer first to extend the olive branch instead of attack, to recognize some of their demands as legitimate, even to apologize when we feel an apology would make us weak, or when we feel after being attacked ourselves that they couldn't possibly deserve to have US apologize to THEM- THEY that killed innocents before our very eyes- but what if we did it anyway, because that was how we wanted to show our strength?

Could we be forgiven for the times we've taken the lives of innocents too? Would so many countries see an opening in our weakness to take an eye for an eye? Would the world turn against us then? Or at the very least, could the world's people possibly hate us more for such an act of patience and compassion than one of revenge and moral imperiousness?

I ask: Would we have everything to lose, or everything to gain?