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By Brian Ulrich, on March 13th, 2010 Morocco has suddenly begun expelling Christian missionaries whom it accuses of proselytizing:
“The largest incident took place at an orphanage for 33 abandoned children in the Middle Atlas mountains on Monday. Moroccan police showed up in the village of Ain Leuh, located 50 miles south of the ancient city of Fez, and separated orphans from their adoptive parents before delivering a grim piece of news: the Moroccan authorities had accused the volunteers of spreading Christianity – a crime in this overwhelmingly Muslim nation…
“But the expelled volunteers from Village of Hope orphanage insist they were operating within the law.
“‘The fact of the matter is we weren’t proselytizing,’ says Chris Broadbent, a New Zealander who managed the orphanage’s office until Monday, when he and his family fled to Spain. ‘We understood the rules.’
“At the orphanage school, the children spoke Moroccan Arabic, studied the Koran, and learned Muslim prayers as stipulated by Moroccan law, Mr. Broadbent says. Outside of the classroom, it’s true Christians were raising the children in Christian households, but Broadbent says this was a fact about which no Moroccan official could pretend to be surprised.”
Jillian York also has a round-up of reactions at Global Voices Online. Much discussion centers on whether the aid workers were teaching Christianity or evangelizing under the cover of charity work. My suspicion, however, is that the conflict comes from the ambiguity of such concepts in modern western Christianity.
Right now, I’m living in a very conservative, Christian area. Active involvement in religious organizations is the single biggest non-college commitment of Shippensburg University students. Many businesses have Christian music as their background motif, and discussion of religion is everywhere. Because of this, I meet a lot of people who are interested in missionary work, or at least hear about it and know what it is supposed to be.
Perhaps the best example of the point I want to get at came when I started discussing Spanish missionaries work in the Americas at the end of World History I last semester. Shippensburg students often have very weak vocabularies, so at one point I asked the class to explain what “missionary” meant. The first answer I got was, “Someone who goes somewhere to show an example of Christian living.” Specifically, this entails living for others by participating in the sorts of charity projects discusses in the Morocco pieces.
I meet a lot of college-aged and other young people who are interested in this kind of thing, or have done it themselves. To me, it seems clear that this form of missionary activity channels the same internationally focused idealism that joining the Peace Corps or those sorts of volunteer organizations does in more liberal areas. The impulses really are the same, people around here just tie it to religion because that’s the culture in which they were raised.
The ambiguity in all this comes up in how this ties into other concepts of missionary activity, particularly the direct and unambiguous proselytizing most people think of when they hear the word. The fact is, in theory of going somewhere to represent a Christian way of life, however defined, is to attract others to Christianity by example. The degree to which this is actually on an individual’s mind varies from case to case, of course, but it’s definitely in the background of a lot of these projects.
You can see how this creates a gray area for laws against proselytizing. It gets even more complicated when people talk about their religion with others. But how does one legislate a line where active proselytizing blends into just being whatever you think a good Christian should be and then talking to people who are interested in the religion within which you’re operating? The role of children in this is one thing, but at that point, you’re close to building a theological Berlin Wall around your population to keep them within the fold rather than just trying to control the behavior of outsiders within it.
I should say that, while running around trying to convert people to your religion doesn’t seem like a great use of energy, I also don’t think it should actually be illegal. However, given the motives and laws among various groups around the world are what they are, I suspect the ambiguities above are what lead to many of these conflicts.
(Crossposted to my blog)
By Brian Ulrich, on March 10th, 2010 This morning saw the death of Sheikh Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi, head of al-Azhar University, considered the world’s foremost seat of Sunni Islamic learning. Issandr El Amrani has an excellent overview of his career:
“Tantawi leaves a mixed legacy behind him: overall, the immediate verdict may be that he was too liberal for conservatives, too conservative for liberals, too compliant with the regime for those who want al-Azhar to be independent, and too independent for those in the regime who needed Azharite support to enact policy changes on issues as varied as Palestine, banking and TV game shows. The overall image is of a man besieged on all sides, but adept at fighting bureaucratic battles in the bloated, clerical civil service that al-Azhar has become.”
The whole piece is worth reading for its detail and local insight. As a historian, of course, I’m interested in what the Tantawi era meant for al-Azhar’s development as an institution. El Amrani touches upon this:
“He leaves behind an unreformed al-Azhar — an institution that includes a university and a school system as well as a theological center — whose credibility has hit rock-bottom. This may be because Tantawi was too pliant towards the regime, or because of the growth of various trends in contemporary Islam that reject al-Azhar’s centrality. While the Muslim Brothers dream of restoring al-Azhar to its former (imagined?) glories, Salafists and groups like the Quranists would do away with its mediation of religion altogether. The debate over al-Azhar and the trahison des clercs is far from over. Whoever replaces him — perhaps Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa, another tentative modernizer — will have much work to repair al-Azhar’s standing and its vitality as a place of learning. It will also have to make difficult political decisions, especially on the issue of presidential succession, at a time when clerics are beginning to voice an opinion on the prospect of a Gamal Mubarak presidency.”
I suspect that the standard interpretation will be that Tantawi was the regime’s man by Midan Husayn. He was essentially Mubarak’s agent as Egypt’s Chief Mufti, and his reformist views should be seen in that light – not that they were necessarily insincere, but simply that they were what the regime wanted and Tantawi saw nothing wrong with allying himself with the government. This alliance, of course, may in some circles have hurt his message’s credibility as well as his own.
When I think of al-Azhar, however, I think beyond Egypt. I’ve seen Al-Azhar called the “Sunni Muslim Vatican,” but that’s a terrible analogy, as no formalized hierarchy establishes its position. A better analogy would be an Islamic Harvard in a tradition that emphasizes religious learning. Its status is based on multiple perceived indicators which are not necessarily directly tied to the quality of the education one gets there. Yet just as a Harvard degree carries cachet regardless of higher education gossip about the quality of the ivies vis a vis, say, the top tier of liberal arts schools in the U.S. Walking around al-Azhar, you can’t help but notice students from throughout the Muslim world, who will return to their countries with the prestige of an al-Azhar degree.
Of course, El Amrani is right that an assault on the ulama’s privileged authority in religious interpretation has been a key element of both liberal and conservative Islamic reform movements throughout the world since the 1800’s. In her excellent 1999 International Journal of Middle East Studies article “Religion and Politics in Egypt: The Ulema of al-Azhar, Radical Islam, and the State (1952-94),” Malika Zeghal addressed some shifts in the construction of religious education, but didn’t really tackle of extent to which Azhari claims to continued authority were accepted by the Egyptian public, much less how the issues with its administration and politicization have affected its stature around the world. The experiences of its students and their affect on their own communities are as much a part of al-Azhar in the world as is its moral authority in the Nile Valley.
(Crossposted to my blog)
By Eric Martin, on March 10th, 2010 Gregg Carlstrom offered the following theories regarding the motivations behind the recent spate of arrests of Taliban figures by Pakistani security forces :
On the Taliban arrests, there are two major theories about Pakistan’s motives. One says Pakistan rounded up “moderate” Taliban leaders, those who favored reconciliation talks, so they would be replaced by a more “extremist” faction loyal to the ISI. The other argues that Pakistan plans to use the detained “moderates” as conduits back to the Taliban. (I guess there’s a sort-of third theory, that the arrests stem more partly from Obama’s diplomacy, but there’s still an element of Pakistani self-interest there.)
Both of these theories are good for Pakistan. One is good for the United States. Neither is good for Afghanistan: In both scenarios, Afghan interests will be subjugated to Pakistani interests during reconciliation talks.
Patrick Barry reacts to Carlstrom by preaching the virtues of awareness with respect to Pakistan’s intentions/objectives:
One of the main critiquesof the previous administration’s Pakistan policy was that it paid little mind to understanding Pakistan’s motivations. This inattention allowed President Musharraf to play a double-game with the U.S., extending assurances that he was committed to routing the Taliban with one hand, while actively working against U.S. policy for the sake of Pakistan’s interests with the other. It would be a shame if this administration forgot that lesson, all because Pakistan decided to arrest some militants for reasons that are a mystery to us.
While Barry is right to counsel that attention be paid to Pakistan’s motives, vigilance alone is insufficient. Our policymakers should take it one step further and actually seek to accommodate Pakistani interests (which center around maintaining its influence in Afghanistan as a regional counterbalance to India – whose influence in Afghanistan has increased at the expense of Pakistan’s post-U.S. invasion).
After all, awareness of motives only informs us of the reasons that Pakistan has played, and will play, spoiler. But the double-game, as well as the patient game, of frustrating U.S. designs will persist in some form or another unless and until Pakistan is satisfied that their prior proxy/ally/strategic redoubt is not converted from an asset to a liability vis-a-vis India. In seeking to broach a compromise acceptable to both the U.S. and Pakistan, the U.S. may be able to achieve some level of stability prior to departure, and ensure that Pakistan’s influence manifests in some less pernicious manifestation for the Afghan people and with respect to al-Qaeda’s presence. Without such an accord, the U.S. will either continue to spin its tires, or withdraw without exerting positive influence over Pakistan’s reassertion of influence.
As Carlstrom points out, Afghanistan will likely suffer in the process, but there is little the U.S. can do from half a globe away to change that equation when Pakistan sits right next door, with much shared culture, history, religion and ideology. Further, just as the U.S. has what it perceives as valid security interests in that region such that it demands other nations respect at the expense of their own, so too does Pakistan have its own perceived interests that they place above all others. No matter how much we insist, Pakistan will not substitute our interests for their own.
Thus, the goal should be to not only appreciate Pakistani motives, but to strike a balance that goes as far as possible in terms of protecting the Afghan people while remaining realistic about Pakistan’s vital interests. While unsavory in some ways in the sense that this process accepts some level of foreign interference in Afghanistan, what options aren’t unsavory or dependent on foreign patrons? A 20 year occupation by NATO troops? U.S. forces alone?
Besides, letting Pakistan attempt to cultivate influence in Afghanistan won’t be cost-free for Pakistan, nor will Pakistan be able to easily dominate its less populous neighbor. Alliances will depend on the realization of mutual interests on at least some level, and there are strong currents in Afghanistan that resent heavy-handed Pakistani interference - even within the Taliban movement. In fact, in his memoir, Abdul Salam Zaeef seems to harbor more resentment and animosity toward the Pakistanis than he does toward the Americans (despite his being detained and tortured at Bagram and Gitmo for several years).
Perhaps it would be prudent to get out of the way. There are few other feasible options regardless.
By Eric Martin, on March 9th, 2010 Peter Beinart is worried that if U.S. troops leave Iraq, the civil war will reignite and and all the hard work on the part of our selfless liberators will be for naught. His piece is all over the map (both literally and figuratively) and is as muddled a crie d coeur for the soon-to-be-abandoned Iraq as you’ll come across. Abandon. There’s that word again. But I digress.
Beinart begins his piece by reaching back into the history of benevolent democracy promotion to resurrect familiar Kiplingesque admonitions:
Sure, America has midwifed a democracy in Iraq. Yet when British troops left their African, Middle Eastern, and Asian dominions, they left behind many embryonic democracies, too. Most soon collapsed.
I’m not sure of the moral from these stories that Beinart wishes to impart on the reader. Is he suggesting that, as with his counsel for U.S. forces in Iraq, British troops should have stayed in those locales indefinitely? Didn’t the inhabitants have a say? Would longer dalliances have led to stronger democratic institutions not dependent on, and warped by, foreign interference? Beinart doesn’t expand.
One obvious and fundamental lesson would be that colonial rule, aggressive war and alien governance templates imposed from abroad are not conducive to the formation of durable democracies. For Beinart, however, acknowledging this truth would undermine the liberal hawk case for “war for democracy’s sake” that he so famously championed in the run-up to the Iraq war. So instead we get this vague and uninspired defense of colonialism and unprovoked war, and the inability of the natives to make good on the gifts bestowed at the barrel of a gun.
After praising the successof “the surge” - a policy whose primary objective was to foster lasting political reconciliation by giving Iraqi groups the room to negotiate outside of the paradigm of intense violence – Beinart provides a detailed, point by point recitation of the surge’s glaring failures:
Although security has dramatically improved, Iraq’s leaders have resolved barely any of the conflicts that nearly tore the country apart a few years back. There’s been no agreement on how to distribute oil revenue, on the distribution of power between the federal government and Iraq’s regions, or on the city of Kirkuk, which Arabs and Kurds both claim as their own. Stephen Biddle, a Council of Foreign Relations defense analyst with close ties to General David Petraeus, thinks the potential for civil war remains high, as does former Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi. As the International Crisis Group’s Peter Harling recently put it, “Nothing” has “been solved in Iraq, fundamentally.”
Beinart cites these fears to support the contention that the U.S. military should remain in Iraq in large numbers past the withdrawal dates outlined in the SOFA. But his warnings belie his recommendations. The problem with the theory of the surge as fostering political reconciliation was that it had the dynamic exactly inverted. Iraqi politicians were not failing to reach a broad political reconciliation because of the fighting, they were fighting because they couldn’t reach that political reconciliation. Put a lid on the conflict and those divisions remain, as do the disparate objectives, historical grievances and competition for power that was what was driving the conflict.
But here’s the good news: Iraqis appear tired of large scale fighting. Much of the surge’s limited success in reducing violence stemmed from Iraqi decisions and other macabre trends not dependent on a temporary spike in troop numbers that came and went already. The various competing groups may just be able to cobble together a patchwork modus vivendi capable of forestalling a descent into chaos. But, as always, another year or two of large scale U.S. troop presence is not going to make or break the outcome, or affect the long term calculus involved for the various groups. They will either choose to compromise, or not, but the choice will be theirs, not ours.
After all, while our troops are supposed to be a force capable of interdicting violence, we should remember that the many tens of thousands of Iraqis that died in the civil wars/insurgencies, as well as the 4 million or so displaced, all suffered their respective fates with over 100,000 troops in country. Not only will Iraqis engage om their civil conflicts with or without us in country, but our presence past the SOFA deadline could ignite insurgent violence provoked directly and solely by our presence.
Regardless, the biggest risks for Iraq are structural, long term divisions and disparities that we can’t rectify within the confines of any limited timeline (if at all, and I have serious doubts), and yet we lack the resources to attempt a long term blocking pattern (a fact that Beinart himself acknowledges).
Nevertheless, Beinart marches on:
As a result, it’s a good bet that powerful people in the U.S. military will whisper in Obama’s ear that U.S. troops withdrawals must be slowed down, and that the SOFA must be reupholstered. Ricks, who like Biddle has close ties to the officer corps, says the U.S. will need 30,000 to 50,000 troops in Iraq for a long time if it wants to avoid a civil war that drags in the entire region.
My guess is that Ricks’ view will prevail. The military has invested epic quantities of money and blood in Iraq, and U.S. commanders don’t want it to be in vain.
What’s amazing about this analysis is that Beinart completely ignores and demeans the sovereignty of Iraq – despite his ostensible concern for the endurance of Iraq’s democracy. While praising one election, and expressing fears about the prospect for subsequent elections, Beinart completely strips the Iraqi people of agency - an opinion even – about such an essential decision as the presence of tens of thousands of foreign troops on Iraqi soil for years to come.
But it’s easier to ignore the Iraqis as their position is likely very problematic. As Gregg Carlstrom observes:
And if Ricks really thinks the Iraqi government will revise the status-of-forces agreement to extend the U.S. occupation — well, he’s wrong. Some Iraqi politicians might support that in private, but none will say so in public.
Right. Maliki’s rise to popularity was very much buttressed by his claim to having charted the course for American withdrawal. A major reversal now (or in the near future) would undermine his popularity – or the popularity of any successor faction (to the extent his competitors would be so inclined, certainly not the Sadrists).
Marc Lynch makes an excellent point:
The other main headline of the Iraqi election campaign has to be the overwhelmingly nationalist tone of all major politicians and the marginal American role in the process. The election campaign (as opposed to the results, which we still don’t know) showed clearly that Iraqis are determined to seize control of their own future and make their own decisions. The U.S. ability to intervene productively has dramatically receded, as the Obama administration wisely recognizes. The election produced nothing to change the U.S. drawdown schedule, and offered little sign that Iraqis are eager to revise the SOFA or ask the U.S. to keep troops longer. Iraq is in Iraqi hands, and the Obama administration is right both to pay close attention and to resist the incessant calls to “do more.” This doesn’t mean ignoring Iraq — the truth is, the Obama administration has been paying a lot more attention to Iraq than the media has over the last year. It means moving to develop a normal, constructive strategic relationship with the new Iraqi government, with the main point of contact the Embassy and the private sector rather than the military, and adhering in every way possible to the SOFA and to the drawdown timeline.
It is quite possible that the Iraqi government will request that between 5,000-10,000 U.S. troops remain in Iraq passed the SOFA deadline in a training/advisory role. In fact, I’d say the odds are better than even. But a large scale presence is unlikely. And, most importantly, any such limited or large scale presence will be as dependent on Iraqi decisions as U.S. willingness - not based solely on the reluctance of U.S. military personnel to give up their position, and their whisperings in the U.S. President’s ear.
After all, you can’t raze a democracy to save it.
By Eric Martin, on March 8th, 2010 The residents of Iraq took to the polls Sunday for another parliamentary election. While the results in terms of voter preference won’t be known for several days, the turnout (in the 60% range) was solid, if not overwhelming (turnout was lower than the mid-70% seen during the last parliamentary elections in 2005, but up from the 50%+ turnout during the most recent provisional elections).
Despite the violence that claimed the lives of 38 Iraqis on election day (the result of multiple attacks carried out amidst a comprehensive security clampdown), Sunday was accurately described as ”relatively calm” – despite, further, the fact that “14 people were killed on Friday, 27 two days before that.” Yet that’s what passes for calm in a relative sense in Iraq when compared to what could be and what was. After all, despite the “success” of the surge, on average 300 Iraqis are still killed each month in political violence.
The fact that this achievement in body count reduction only takes on the faintest hint of success when compared to the horror of the prior monthly butcher’s bill, hasn’t stopped the usual suspects (and some slightly less typical) from claiming victory – and rewriting Iraq as a success (as if an eventual positive result could ever justify the unthinkable and immeasurable tragedy in lives lost and shattered, dollars spent and opportunity costs incurred in terms of neglecting other priorities). But that’s the thing.
To talk about success in this context is to pervert the applicable chronology of the war (the war started with the surge) focus exclusively on the benefits (a democratic Iraq, with Saddam dead and buried) exclusive of the costs (too many to list), and even then, based entirely (yet again) on best-case-scenario expectations (assuming smooth sailing ahead in terms of Iraq’s peaceful transition, and discounting the increased power and influence of Iran).
But other than that, mission accomplished! Daniel Larison is highly quotable on the subject:
Whenever possible, I refer to the Iraq war as a war of aggression, because that is what it is and has always been. One thing that has often puzzled me about the reflex to declare victory in Iraq, as a Newsweek cover story did recently, is that I don’t know what it could possibly mean to achieve a victory that anyone would want to celebrate as the result of a war of aggression. Tens and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and thousands of Americans are dead. Tens of thousands of Americans are injured, some of them severely, and Iraq now boasts one of the highest percentages of disabled people in the world. Millions of Iraqis were turned into refugees or displaced within their own country. All of this has come about because of a war that did not have to happen. All of this has come about because of a war we started. It is bad enough that our government unleashed this hell on people who had never actually done America any harm, but it is unconscionable that any of us celebrate what has been done as if it were something good and worthwhile.
Of course the new administration will try to make the best of it, claim progress and take credit for anything it can. That is in the political self-interest of this administration. Having inherited a mess that the political class has convinced itself was improving, it would not be advantageous to be the one overseeing the unraveling. The rest of us are not burdened by such considerations.
I don’t think it is particular noble to destroy another people’s country on the basis of unfounded, paranoid fears that its small, economically weak, militarily inferior government posed grave threats to the global superpower. There are many words that come to mind to describe this, but noble is not one of them. It is not especially noble to do this with no meaningful plan for restoring order and governance in the wake of the invasion. There is no nobility to be found in the afterthought of poorly constructing a democratic regime whose elections served as the trigger for massive bloodshed. Likewise, there was not much nobility when our government belatedly recognized its incompetence and failure long after it could do the civilian casualties any good and proposed a plan that would temporarily reduce violence long enough for the previous administration to get out the door. It is also hard to find anything noble in a sectarian-dominated governing coalition that oversees a politicized military and police force that has begun reviving the nastier bits of the old regime.
What a Danny Downer.
By Brian Ulrich, on March 7th, 2010 Two posts I read today hint at some degree of increased strength for Khomeinist theories of government in Iraqi political. First there is Juan Cole:
“Ammar has a say in who serves as the Friday Prayer leader and sermonizer at the mosque of the shrine of Ali in the holy city of Najaf, a position of great influence. It is now held by Sayyid Yasin al-Musawi. Al-Musawi’s sermon on last Friday in Najaf contained a number of themes that suggest that ISCI may be returning to its Khomeinist roots. Al-Musawi praised political obedience to the Shiite grand ayatollahs, not just spiritual obedience. That sounded close to the Khomeinist principle of the guardianship of the jurisprudent, or rule of the ayatollahs, which prevails in Iran. And he warned of conspiracies against Iraqi independence, saying that these conspiracies were launched by ‘global arrogance and the secularists.’”
The Ammar in question is Ammar al-Hakim, leader of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq. The other post comes from Reidar Visser:
“Among the more overlooked aspects of the Iraqi parliamentary elections that take place on Sunday is the fact that Kazim al-Haeri, a hardliner cleric of Iraqi origin residing in Qum in Iran, enthusiastically supports participation.
“Haeri belongs to a particular class and generation of Shiite scholars: He is an old-school Khomeinist. Always loyal to the paradigm of wilayat al-faqih, he has written extensive treatises on the inviolability of the power of the supreme leader, not only inside Iran but throughout the Shiite world. He remained supportive of such views when Khamenei emerged as Khomeini’s successor in the first half 1990s; after 2003 he has formed an important (if not always stable) bridge between Iranian leaders and the Sadrists of Iraq. In this role, Haeri forms the juncture where orthodox Khomeinism and radical Sadrism of southern Iraq meet, and where Tehran has found its best vantage point for domesticating radical Iraqi trends and transforming them into tools of its own interests.”
I note this without comment.
(Crossposted to my blog)
By Eric Martin, on March 3rd, 2010 Elrond and Cirdan counselled Isildur to destroy the Ring immediately in the fires of Mount Doom. But Isildur refused, saying: “This I will have as weregild for my father’s death, and my brother’s. Was it not I that dealt the Enemy his death-blow?” -The Silmarillion: “Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age,” p. 295
The Obama administration not only appears disinclined to destroy the “rings” forged by the Bush administration, but they are arguing for more and bigger rings:
The line between speech protected by the First Amendment and aid to terrorists appeared elusive at the Supreme Court on Tuesday, and the justices’ lively questioning complicated rather than clarified matters. They discussed travel to Cuba, the Communist and Nazi Parties, Tokyo Rose, treason and whether it is a crime to teach a terrorist how to play the harmonica.
Solicitor General Elena Kagan defended the law at issue in the case, which bars providing material support to terrorist organizations, as “a vital weapon in this nation’s continuing struggle against international terrorism.”Even seemingly benign help is prohibited, Ms. Kagan said. [...]Ms. Kagan gave examples of prohibited conduct. A lawyer would commit a crime, she said, by filing a friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of a terrorist group. Helping such a group petition international bodies is also a crime, she added.Justice John Paul Stevens asked if there was an authentic risk that Mr. Fertig would be prosecuted were he to make a presentation on behalf of the Kurdish group at the United Nations. He seemed to expect a negative answer.But Ms. Kagan would say only that the matter would involve a “prosecutorial judgment.”
Think about that for a moment: the Obama administration is arguing that it is a crime for a lawyer to defend a group – or even write an amicus brief on behalf of a group! - that the administration declares (unilaterally, and without oversight) to be a terrorist organization. On their word. Accusation alone. Amazing. Actually, you can’t even make a public presentation at the United Nations – maybe, depending on the discretion of the prosecutor, which is a sure fire way to preserve individual freedoms.
Scalia (applying strict textualism, of course) waxes all “Say what you like about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude, at least it’s an ethos”:
“The Communist Party was more than an organization that had some unlawful ends,” Justice Scalia said. “It was also a philosophy of extreme socialism. And many people subscribed to that philosophy. I don’t think that Hamas or any of these terrorist organizations represent such a philosophical organization.”
As is his custom, he is spectacularly wrong. There are definite, if wrongheaded, philosophical and theological moorings binding groups like Hamas, and even and especially al-Qaeda. But no matter, the founding fathers clearly intended for the executive to have this power, etc.
(via BTC News)
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