On Bowen's "Nothing to Fear," Pt. 2

Yesterday I discussed two of Bowen's three points, and today I'll finish discussing his final point.

This is the European/American fear of "unending struggle" with Muslims, the notion that Muslims will not adapt, as other immigrants have, but will always have "Islamic political victory as their goal" (par. 18).

In refuting this notion, Bowen goes on to describe how Muslims in Britian, France, and Germany have used each country's legal system to further their own agenda:

from the late 1980s on. That generation began to organize--using the opportunities and political styles characteristic of each host country--to achieve equal social, political, and religious rights.

Bowen acknowledges that this is not always just about gaining civil rights: "In creating sharia councils, British Muslims began to look 'separatist,' and some do call for greater authority for sharia mediation."

Ultimately, Bowen believes this is evidence of assimilation.

"In other words, these Islamic political actors have adapted to national opportunity structures" (italics are Bowen's).

How does Bowen not see how inadequate his argument is? To outline how Muslims use their adopted country's court system to further their own intersts--to work on importing the very practices that clash with their adopted country's values--is precisely what Europeans are afraid of!

It would be nice if Bowen's thinking actually shed some light on this situation, and gave hope for peaceful coexistence. I find his thinking unconvincing.

Actually, for the best evidence of peaceful coexistence, we should study American Muslims, because they are the most affluent and satisfied group of immigrant Muslims anywhere in the world. However, even they have a ways to go. As a group, they seem stand-offish, secretive, and mysterious to most Americans. We see this as their own doing. Yes, still a ways to go.

On John R. Bowen's article: "Nothing to Fear"

Last night I read John Bowen's essay, "Nothing to Fear: Misreading Islamic immigration to Europe," in Boston Review, vol. 35 no. 1, the Jan/Feb 2010 issue; pages 27-29. (Unfortunately, the essay is not available online.)

If I were to submit this blog post to Boston Review as a refutation to Bowen's essay, I might titled it "Cause for Concern."

In Bowen's essay, he argues that European and American political analysts are wrong about Islam and Muslims. He defines the points of the American argument as this: "Islamic shock, value conflict, and unending struggle." He warns, "We need to take this argument seriously and understand what is wrong with it. And...it is wrong on every detail that matters."

I don't have a problem with Bowen's definition of the argument, but I do disagree with the way he discounts European and American concerns, which I consider legitimate.

He addresses the first point - Islamic shock to the various European ways of life - by reminding us that European countries perpetrated against one another, "centuries of religious wars, revolutions and counter-revolutions, attacks on Belgian and Italian immigrants to France, and, of course, the events of the early 1940s, in which good French and Dutch people joined good Germans in denouncing and arresting Jews and transporting them to death camps."

None of us - Europeans or Americans - have forgotten these things. I'm not sure what Bowen means to accomplish my mentioning these events - because they do not mean that the culture brought by Muslims to their respective countries cannot "shock" them.

Bowen is well aware of recent steps taken by European countries against Islamic cultural practices: such as France's banning of scarves in public schools in 2004 (and the ongoing effort to ban the burqa and niqab altogether), and Switzerland's banning of building more minarets in November 2009 - not to mention the European Union's perpetual resistance to admitting Turkey into their integrated economic and political group (Turkey formally applied for membership in 1987). Reasons for not admitting Turkey into the E.U. are lack of: "equality between men and women, protection of minorities and freedom of religion"--this is specific E.U. criteria for membership. (As a "by the way," secular Turks themselves fear their religious compatriots since a Sunni Muslim was elected prime minister in 2003.)

Many European countries value their secular culture, and certainly at the top of such a list of countries would be France, with their national motto of "Liberté, égalité, fraternité." How can Bowen, or anyone else, not understand the alarm that many French citizens feel when they see signs of religious devotion (e.g., mosques, hijabs, and burqas) creeping into their society? Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that concern and fear legitimizes discrimination or hazing or anything like that. I'm sorry to say that it seems that anyone who is not pro-Muslim Bowen calls "anti-Muslim." I think this is unfair of him. He is trying to shame or stigmatize those (like myself) who are just trying to see the situation clearly.

Bowen says the second point, the "conflict over values, is similarly shaky." He then moves through this list: Islamic intolerance of gays, forced marriages, and the oppression of women.

It surprises me that Bowen tries to cover this point by accusing those who make this argument of "block thinking," in which "the diversity of perspectives within a social group is collapsed into a single caricature." He explains further: "Today, in Europe and elsewhere, there is widespread assumption that all Muslims think one way and all non-Muslims another."

Bowen himself simplifies this circumstance in order to make it seem plausible.

He tries to equate mainstream Muslims with mainstream Americans, citing polls that show "Muslims are more likely...to be opposed to abortion, homosexuality, and suicide," while "A 2009 Pew study reported that...American Protestants and American Muslims disapprove of homosexuality in equal measure--60 percent. The gap is not between Islam and the West, but between more religious and less religious people."

The problem here is that American Muslims are probably more tolerant than all other Muslims, and that in many Muslim countries the penalty for being gay is death. Such is the degree of Islamic intolerance.

But what about the other points that Bowen brings up, forced marriages and the oppression of women? He doesn't address these, but moves on to the final point.

I suppose he is at a loss in how to address these? I would add to the list of conflicting values, freedom of religion and protection of minorities--yes, the very points that Germany says is preventing Turkey's admission to the E.U.

How are these differences in values to be reconciled? In Islamic countries these are not "values," they are Sharia law, and the fear is that if Muslims ever achieved a majority presence--in one of Europe's smaller countries, like the Netherlands--they would pass Sharia legislation. No more weed and prostitution in Amsterdam.

It frustrates me that Bowen tries to convice us that, really, there is no difference between Muslim values and Western values. It's true that not all Muslims are the same, but the truth is that Muslims--as a block--are shifted much more to the right than Westerners are. Their spectrum is narrower than ours. And whereas our spectrum might have 16 colors, theirs might have just 2 to 4.


I will address Bowen's final point tomorrow.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab - The Christmas Day (Would-Be) Bomber

Nossiter, Adam. "Lonely Trek to Radicalism For Nigerian Terror Suspect." New York Times, January 17, 2010.

This is a great background article on Umar Abdulmutallab, the Christmas Day Bomber.

His home was Kaduna, Nigeria. Journalist Adam Nossiter quotes a local about the character of the city, that led to a comment about Umar: "Kaduna city has a long history of religious extremism and intolerance. For 30 years there has been violence here...I don't think all his ideas came from Yemen."

What this means is that "extremist" Islam is not limited to "Af-Pak," al-Qaeda, and Yemen. It is much more widespread and pervasive - more mainstream.

This is what scholars and analysts like Irshad Manji, Robert Spencer, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and Christopher Hitchens (among others) have been telling us for years.

As a matter of fact, Nossiter also wrote an article about ongoing violence in Nigeria between Muslims and Christians. A few days ago there was a flare-up of violence (in which possibly hundreds are dead), but he says it's been happening since 2001.

This brings me back to my ongoing question about the nature of Islam: does it tend towards violence or is it the "religion of peace" that most claim it to be?

Nossiter acknowledges this tension from the outset of his article. (Remember that Umar's father called American officials to warn us that his son might be a threat.) Nossiter describes the tension as, "the struggle between father and son, between piety and radicalism," and "within Islam itself."

One of the things that compelled Umar's father to call him in, was Umar's note that he had found "the real Islam." This "real Islam" made a murderer out of Umar, even though his attempt was unsuccessful.

David Brooks On Haiti's Earthquake & Their Broken Culture

David Brooks's Friday, January 15 article on Haiti is spot-on. He begins by mentioning an earthquake of the same magnitude in San Francisco:

"On Oct. 17, 1989, a major earthquake with a magnitude of 7.0 struck the Bay Area in Northern California. Sixty-three people were killed."

However, this reveals that what happened in Haiti "is not a natural disaster story. This is a poverty story. It’s a story about poorly constructed buildings, bad infrastructure and terrible public services."

The difference in the death tolls is startling. The reason for the difference is sad.

Ultimately, Brooks reasons that a country is the product of its worldview, its own culture, and that all cultures are not equal:

it is time to put the thorny issue of culture at the center of efforts to tackle global poverty. Why is Haiti so poor?....Haiti...suffers from a complex web of progress-resistant cultural influences. There is the influence of the voodoo religion, which spreads the message that life is capricious and planning futile. There are high levels of social mistrust. Responsibility is often not internalized. Child-rearing practices often involve neglect in the early years and harsh retribution when kids hit 9 or 10....We’re all supposed to politely respect each other’s cultures. But some cultures are more progress-resistant than others, and a horrible tragedy was just exacerbated by one of them.

A society that is overwhelmingly "progress-resistant" is not only going to stagnate, to get frozen in history, but suffer consequences periodically, as in the case of this earthquake. It really is better follow standards of construction and prepare for disasters beforehand.

Consider Thomas Jefferson's point of view in this 1799 letter to Elbridge Gerry:

I am for encouraging the progress of science in all it's branches; and not for raising a hue and cry against the sacred name of philosophy; for awing the human mind by stories of raw-head & bloody bones to a distrust of its own vision, & to repose implicitly on that of others; to go backwards instead of forwards to look for improvement; to believe that government, religion, morality, & every other science were in the highest perfection in ages of the darkest ignorance, and that nothing can ever be devised more perfect than what was established by our forefathers.

Following Jefferson's grammar can be a bit difficult here, but the not is the important qualifier: he is not for "awing the human mind...to distrust of its own vision," he is not for going "backwards instead of forwards to look for improvement," he does not believe that "government, religion, morality, & every other science were in the highest perfection in ages of the darkest ignorance."

Early Americans like Jefferson - Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine - were followers and promoters of the Enlightenment, and thankfully they founded this country on rational principles that have kept us moving forward. Hopefully we will not give in to the forces of irrationalism.

Primitive and superstitious religions may seem harmless, but Haiti is finding out right now that's not true. Voodoo, which is prevelant in Haiti, Brooks says, "spreads the message that life is capricious and planning futile."

I don't think Brooks is shaming Haitians for what happened, so much as he is describing cause and effect. It is the realistic assesment they need (and that we need to hear) so that they can improve their society, make it safer.

There might be those people who want to "defend" the Haitians and question: "But maybe they don't want what you're talking about!"

But if such people listen to what Haitians have been saying (by reading the news), such people will hear them angry and disappointed by their lack of disaster services, the Haitians do not enjoy the suffering and death they're experiencing now.

Brooks's criticism may sound harsh, but I believe it's needed. Ignoring flawed thinking for the sake of politeness or to spare hurt feelings is not as important as saving lives. And as impolite as it is, it's important to admit that some worldviews just don't work that well.

Haiti: Blame the Victim

There is little controversial about the disasterous earthquake in Haiti so far. The devastation is awful. Many are saying that 100,000 people or more might be dead. This estimation could be premature, only time will tell.

However - maybe I shouldn't be surprised - but Pat Robertson said that the earthquake happened because Haitians made a deal with the devil.

Something happened a long time ago in Haiti and people might not want to talk about it. They were under the heel of the French, uh, you know Napoleon the third and whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said we will serve you if you’ll get us free from the French. True story, and so the Devil said OK it’s a deal.

Ha ha, where does he get this stuff? How does he know this? Was he there when the deal went down? What book did he read it in?

Haiti came to be from a slave revolt against the French in 1804. The Seattle Times provides a good thumbnail history of the country.

Unfortunately, Pat Robertson represents a certain group, a subset of Christians (and probably others), who tend to blame people when misfortune befalls them. Somehow they have sinned against God and God punishes them for it. The strange thing is - according to Robertson's thinking - that many Haitian people today are being punished for a deal they never personally made or are probably aware of.

Of course, I don't believe such a deal is possible. How do you make a deal with an imaginary being? Why, supposedly, are people held accountable for such a deal - more than 200 years later - who have no knowledge of such a deal?

Such are the results of superstitious and non-rational thinking.

Hitchens' Position On Invading Iran

I think Andrew Sullivan got Christopher Hitchens wrong in a recent interview by Michael Totten.

Sullivan accuses Hitchens of wanting to gratuitously invade Iran. Hitchens anticipated this during the interview and explains himself:

They'll say I'm asking for war, but I'll say no. I'm not. I'm recognizing that someone is looking for war. We should be firm enough to say "Alright." We didn't look for it. We've tried everything short of war for a long time. Everything. We went to the International Atomic Energy Authority and found them cheating everywhere. Their signature on the Nonproliferation Treaty is worthless. We have the names of members of the Iranian government who are wanted for sending assassins to Europe and Argentina. We know what they've been doing to subvert Lebanon, to make trouble in Iraq.

The important thing to pay attention to here is attitude. I think Hitchens' explanation here proves he does not have an attitude of superiority or authoritarianism - an attitude of unaccountability, really. He demonstrates awareness and concern for Iran's violations of multiple international agreements.

I believe Sullivan gets another point wrong. He rhetorically questions: "does Hitchens really believe that the US invading a Muslim country for the third time in a decade would help us drain the swamps of anti-American hatred?" His point being that (I paraphrase Sullivan here) global Muslim opinion is the critical factor in the war with Islamist terror.

Certainly we want to do everything we can to reduce anti-American feelings - but I don't think this is "the critical factor" in our struggle against Islamists. Ultimately, we have to do the right thing - as long as it is within our ability. Interventions are not chosen willy-nilly or without consideration to our own interests, and that's as it should be, because our resources, while large, are still limited, and we're feeling our limitations acutely these days.

Let me clarify: anti-Americanism is a factor in our struggle, but it is not the most important factor. Hitchens is considering the humanitarian factor: the egregious violations of Iranians human rights: "the Iranian Revolutionary Guards...go out into the street and rape and blind and kill young Iranians," they are "stoning women and blinding girls. They rape boys in jail."

I don't think Hitchens has the arrogant attitude Andrew Sullivan accuses him of having.

Peaceful Muslims?

A piece of news brings up a puzzling issue for me I've mentioned before on my blog. Many times I hear that "Islam is a religion of peace," but so often I read about violence done by the hands of Muslims.

Consider this news from Malaysia: "four churches were firebombed early Friday, escalating a dispute over whether Christians here can use the word 'Allah' as their translation for 'God'."

James Hookway reports this in his Wall Street Journal article "Churches Attacked as Tensions Rise in Malaysia."

"Many Malaysian Muslims say the term Allah is exclusive to their faith."

"'For non-Muslims to use this word is an unnecessary provocation,' said Faisal Aziz, president of the National Union of Malaysian Muslim Students."

According to the article, Malaysia actually had to resort to a court decision to allow Catholics to use the term 'Allah' for the word God. Certainly disagreement is permitted in this world, but it is generally regarded as not legitimate to resort to violence as a means of persuading someone, or a group of people, to your point of view. And since we hear so much that "Islam is a religion of peace," I would think that Muslims especially would eschew violence.

Something else puzzles me, too. I usually hear from Muslims that Allah and God are the same; that there's no difference between them. Two words for the same concept. The God of Abraham is the same for Jews, Christians and Muslims. I actually disagree with this, and it seems that I am in agreement with Malaysian Muslims on this point - just not on the right to use violence to disagree.

Comments on "Dreaming Up America": Part 2

I really like what Banks has to say about The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. He notes that novelist Ralph Ellison called them "our sacred documents," and Banks guesses that "Perhaps it's because of the poetic, almost biblical language" of the documents.

It is only through the Declaration of Independence - the extraordinary brilliance of it, both the precision and the vagaries of it - and the beautiful, delicate balancing act that the Constitution lays out between the three branches of the government - the executive, the representative, and the judicial - that we're able to bring together these conflicting elements that lie at the heart of the American imagination and the American past." (p. 20)

Later he reminds us that "Our brand of democracy has lasted for almost 200 years...It's the oldest continuous democracy on the planet" (p. 125).

These two documents are the map, the schematic, the architectual plans for our republic. Our structure and organization of our governmental system was contemplated and described in written language. This written language must be continually read and understood as lawyers, politicians, and judges pass away (retire and die) and new ones step into their positions. We, the people, trust them to understand it and follow its meaning honestly. Many do not, but this was anticipated, thus the system of checks and balances. The system must be large - composed of many individuals - so that the system can be self-correcting.

I skipped a chapter of Banks's on race, and another chapter he called "On Man and Machines" (which I like), to get to his chapter on the position of the president, which he titles "A Very Peculiar Institution."

Banks critically remarks that, "We choose presidents, but we do not choose them on the basis of their experience or even their political views. We choose them based on how well they tap into our basic beliefs, how expressive they are of our own deepest national mythologies" (p. 69).

The other day I read a blog post by Michael Brenner that relates to Banks's conclusion in a disturbing way. Apparently, Brenner has been brooding over Pres. Obama's behavior and decisions and has come to an unflattering conclusion:

There is no overarching strategy or underlying philosophy. He navigates with few or any fixed reference points. Images of him as a strong willed person with dedicated purpose are belied by his conduct on every matter of consequence (par. 4)....What he decided to do in AfPak, in Palestine, in Somalia, on extraordinary rendition and open-ended detention did not arise from some well defined conception of the world - much less a 'doctrine'....That interplay will take place within a presidential mental space that is constantly active but without direction. (par. 5)

Banks proposes that our president is

part pope, part chief executive, and part monarch, and yet he's not any of these things alone. There is a projection of religious or spiritual beliefs onto the president, a projection of belief in the president's possessing inherited, divinely endowed powers, like those of a monarch. But there is also trust and belief in the president as a pragmatic chief executive who gets things done. All these requirements are placed in our one and only president. Other countries divide them up. (p. 71)

Because our president doesn't have to take any kind of test about economics and history, it's certainly possible that what Brenner said about Pres. Obama (and all the jokes and anger about George Bush's ignorance) can be true. Our presidential campaigns are less tests of intellectual prowess and more dramatic auditions.

Banks ends his narration on an unfortunate note; an unfortunate message. He discusses advertising on television and its pervasiveness. He makes a good argument, rightly recognizing that "when we brought the television into the home, we basically brought the salesman into the home" (p. 110). He proposes (and believes) that the effect of this on children is, and will be, tremendously damaging.

"Having run out of people on the planet to colonize, run out of people who can't distinguish between beads and trinkets and something of value...we've ended up colonizing our own children....The old sow is eating its own farrow" (p. 110).

He concludes with the fearful prophecy that this is "very possibly the end of the Republic." This is the second to last sentence of his book.

This comes off as a bit "doomsday-ish" to me. I recognize it as a favorite game that is played by some: we're so terrible that we're self-destructing. I doubt it. Wasn't it Bill Clinton who said that what is right with America can always fix what is wrong with America?

I recommend this book because it is thoughtful and meant well, as well as thought-inspiring.

Comments On "Dreaming Up America" by Russell Banks

I just finished Russell Banks' first work of non-fiction, Dreaming Up America, (June 2008). It's a slim work, 127 pages. The New York Times didn't review it, but I found a favorable review on The Daily Kos, by SusanG.

The text is really the cleaned up transcript for a French documentary Banks was asked to provide narration and commentary for. The film, "Amérique notre histoire," is "about American history as told by American cinema - from 'The Birth of a Nation' to 'Black Hawk Down'," and is directed by Jean-Michel Meurice.

I haven't read any of Banks's 16 works of fiction, so I didn't experience the jarring unfamiliarity that Susan reports in her review (although I've seen both films that were made from the novels).

Dreaming Up America is the focused narration (almost ruminations) of Banks's well-informed and well-read view on America, and I found it pretty interesting. However, I do have some disagreements with it.

But let me start with some things I really liked.

Banks begins with the colonization of North America, and he reminds us that immigrants came as different groups from different European countries and with different goals. "The English colonists came to New England in search of religious freedom" - although not for others, I might add. They just wanted it for themselves. "The Dutch came to...New York, Manhattan, the Hudson Valley - strictly for commercial reasons...not for reasons of religion or freedom or politics." And finally, "The Spanish sailed into the Caribbean, to Florida, to the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, and into Mexico for gold, and had no particular ambitions to make a community or colony."

I like to remind my students that the English came as families, with women and children, and intended to make new lives for themselves, while the Spanish came as conquistadors, soldiers and mercenaries, and were just after wealth to bring back to Spain. (Anyone interested in this should read Bartolomé de las Casas A Short Account of the Desctruction of the Indies, which he wrote in 1542.)

So I heartily agree with Banks when he asserts that "when we speak of the values of the first colonists, we cannot lump them together. It depends on who we're talking about."

I start to diverge with Banks when he posits a major proposal: "We can think of there being three braided strands, or perhaps three mutually reinforcing dreams: one is of a place where a sinner can become virtuous, free from the decadence of the secular cosmopolitanism of old Europe; another is of a place where a poor man can become wealthy; and a third is of a place where a person can be born again." He thinks the last is the most powerful dream for today: "It's essentially the dream of being a child again."

With this proposal we have the dream of Cortez and de Leon (both Spanish conquistadors), and one from the English, the Puritan dream of the City on the Hill.

Certainly we can see Ponce de Leon's yearning for the Fountain of Youth in sub-groups of Americans today, Hollywood and various vain persons. Is this our strongest drive? I don't think so. I think it is the Dutch that he mentioned earlier and then forgot. With the Puritan work ethic, it seems to me that the Dutch and the English have given us the American Dream and our drive to work hard for our homes and our families, or to go into business for ourselves and succeed.

The part of the Puritan dream of "living a holy life under the eye of God" (p. 6), I believe is largely lost today. Maybe I've been jaded by all the recent reports of infidelity by sports figures and politicians. Mabye our society is better than that - and better than the reality TV shows portray. (When I think of contemporary Puritanism, I think of Marilynne Robinson and her collection, The Death of Adam: Essays On Modern Thought (1998). It's worth reading - and rereading.)

I've run out of time today, so I'm going to have to finish my thoughts on Dreaming Up America tomorrow.

Let's Remember Jefferson

"To think that we can save the Constitution without God's help when the government of the United States is corrupt is absurdity. We are in America's second Revolutionary War to save our freedom, which we paid for with blood. We need God's help and I'm not ashamed to ask for it."

-- Rex Rammell, Republican candidate for governor in Idaho. Go to the article...

I saw this on Andrew Sullivan's blog, which he posted without comment. But it seems worthy of some contemplation.

I hope no one falls for Rammell's appeal to imaginary persecution and strife. However, I know how prone Christians - especially fundamentalist Christians - are to such rhetoric.

In his speech, he also proclaims that "he disagrees with people seeking separation of church and state," and that he's "'tired' of people telling him he can't bring God into his campaign speeches."

The principle of the separation of church and state usually begins with Thomas Jefferson (and this is a very good place to begin). In 1779 he wrote the Virginia Statue for Religious Freedom, and in 1786 it passed in Virginia's legislature.

In an 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptists, Jefferson articulated the famous phrase that has become our principle: "I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof', thus building a wall of separation between Church & State."

Several Supreme Court Justices have cited this statement in support of this principle.

Why is the separation of church and state important?

If one religion is favored by a government, over time, other religions and beliefs systems tend to be discriminated against. We can see this in history, and in Islamic theocracies today, where it is illegal to adhere to a religion other than Islam. For a person to be taxed, persecuted, or to face social pressures because of believing something other than the state or popular religion is morally repugnant.

Patience and Care With Iran

Kishore Mahbubani is Dean of the School of Public Policy at the University of Singapore. He has published articles in the scholarly journal Foreign Affairs, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal.

Yesterday I was watching "Fareed Zakaria GPS" on CNN, where Mahbubani was being interviewed, and he articulated a position I've asserted here in a couple of my postings: "The whole world is dreading an attack on Iran. That would be a disaster."

Why would I be against an American presence in Iran, but approve of our presence in Afghanistan and Iraq?

Those (Americans and Europeans) who don't see a difference between Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan, reveal their ignorance of these countries, which indicates a probable ignorance of most, if not all, Middle Eastern countries.

What makes me say this?

Because I can hear certain people saying, "Why have we sent our troops to Afghanistan and Iraq, but not Iran?"

I am imagining this protest as coming from a liberal who believes we should not have sent our troops to any country, and who is trying to uncover an inconsistent and arbitrary U.S. government policy towards these Middle Eastern countries.

(I would like to say I don't have anything against "liberals" or "conservatives" per se, I am only against incorrect or uninformed ideas.)

Each country poses a different set of circumstances, and each has a different relationship with the U.S. We became involved with Afghanistan after 9/11 because the Taliban harbored members of al-Qaeda (and now it can be argued that they have merged, that their ideas have become closer). Afghanistan, due to poverty, corruption, and weak government (and the strength of its tribal warlords), was unable to root out al-Qaeda (not to mention its oppressors, the Taliban).

For me to address Iraq is to invite all kinds of criticism, but I'll do it anyway. We had no right to invade Iraq for the reason George Bush gave.

But what if our government in 2003 had said we were going to invade Iraq because Saddam Hussein was an oppressive and inhumane dictator, and that it was in our interest to - not just depose - but eradicate in terms of his whole party infrastructure? (meaning we didn't want his sons or second-in-commands or advisors taking his place).

The most common argument I heard from my acquaintences in 2003 who were against our invasion of Iraq was that we should "stay out of Iraq's business," that it should be up to the people of Iraq to depose Hussein - that they needed to achieve democracy at their own pace, when they were ready for it.

There are two problems with this argument. First, there is no way the Iraqi people could have gotten rid of Saddam Hussein. He abused and slaughtered people at will for 30 years. He ruled unopposed and with impunity. It is estimated in a 2007 article in The New York Times Magazine that Hussein murdered about one million citizens under his care:

he murdered as many as a million of his people, many with poison gas. He tortured, maimed and imprisoned countless more.

I propose that it is completely unreasonable to claim that the Iraqi people could have deposed Saddam Hussein.

The second problem with the argument is that Iraq was somehow "not ready" for democracy. What a condescending view: that somehow the Iraqi people were developmentally behind, and could not achieve or understand democracy.

Look at the Kurds in northern Iraq. Once they were made safe from Saddam Hussein by our Air Force (after the First Gulf War) they rapidly constructed a democratic and prosperous society.

So what's different about Iran? The government is oppressive, true. But Iranians have shown they can and will fight the police and military. All they need is something, or someone, to tip the balance, to provide leadership, and it's very possible they could bring about a change in government themselves.

A New York Times article quotes Iranian filmmaker, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, today: "People of my country are killed, imprisoned, tortured and raped just for their votes...Every award I receive means an opportunity for me to echo their voices to the world, asking for democracy for Iran and peace for the world."

Let's not forget what Pres. Obama said in his "Cairo speech" in June 2009:

I know there has been controversy about the promotion of democracy in recent years, and much of this controversy is connected to the war in Iraq. So let me be clear: no system of government can or should be imposed upon one nation by any other.

That does not lessen my commitment, however, to governments that reflect the will of the people. Each nation gives life to this principle in its own way, grounded in the traditions of its own people. America does not presume to know what is best for everyone, just as we would not presume to pick the outcome of a peaceful election. But I do have an unyielding belief that all people yearn for certain things: the ability to speak your mind and have a say in how you are governed; confidence in the rule of law and the equal administration of justice; government that is transparent and doesn't steal from the people; the freedom to live as you choose. Those are not just American ideas, they are human rights, and that is why we will support them everywhere.

The two important words here are "impose" and "support." The U.S., and anyone else who is thinking of getting involved with Iran, needs to be patient and treat the situation with great care. To impose anything - or to be viewed as imposing anything on another country - is wrong. To support when support is wanted is the key.

Iranian Candidate Issues Challenge

Yesterday, Mir Hossein Mousavi, the candidate who ran against President Ahmadinejad June 2009, issued a challenge to the government. On Wednesday and Thursday, supporters of the government demonstrated and shouted for his death.










Mousavi said he is willing to die in the effort to gain civic and religious rights for the Iranian people, and that he "has no fear of becoming one of the martyrs."

This move ups the ante in the increasingly tight maneuvers between Iran's theocratic and oppressive government and the contemporary-minded Iranian people. If the government arrests and execute's Mousavi, who knows what the people will do?

We can only wait and see what the government's next move will be.

Opposition Leader Strikes Back

Islam in Europe: A Strained Relationship

"The more Europe’s Muslims establish themselves as a permanent part of the national scene, the more they frighten some who believe that their national identity could be altered forever."

The above statement is from Steve Erlanger's December 27, 2009 New York Times article, "French Mosque’s Symbolism Varies With Beholder." He is actually paraphrasing Vincent Geisser, "a scholar of Islam and immigration at the French National Center for Scientific Research."

This is a view I have read many times, and seems to be a foundational concern among Europeans about Muslims.

The cause for Erlanger's article is the plan for a new mosque in Marseille, France. An old man at a cafe, when asked how he felt about the new mosque, admitted, "There are a lot of them already, and this will bring more of them, and there will be trouble."

But there has already been trouble. Remember the riots in the banlieues (suburbs) of Paris in late 2005? Jacques Chirac was president at the time and he declared a state of emergency. For three months North African youth burned thousands of cars and burned buildings also, in protest of perceived social discrimination. Almost 3,000 youths were arrested.

The previous year France banned the hijab (a scarf around the head) in public schools, and the legislature has been considering banning (for what seems like the past year) any full covering of Muslim women, such as the burqa (where only the face and hands are visible) or the niqab (in which only the eyes are visible).

The population of France is 65 million, and it has the highest percentage of Muslims in Western Europe, at about 9 to 10 percent. (In the United States Muslims are between less than 1 to 2 percent of our population.)

The French have long been protective of their secular culture (the Academy Francais, for the past 400 years has charged itself with keeping the language pure and authentic). The rise of Islam within their borders, given the difference of values between the two societies (you can't get much further apart than secular and Islamic), has alarmed many.

France is not alone in its throes with Islam. Erlanger's article hits all the major contemporary conflicts between Europeans and Muslims: the recent banning of minarets in Switzerland, the Madrid train bombings in 2004, the killing of Dutch film director Theo van Gogh, the London bombings of 2005, and the violent protests that erupted over the Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, also in 2005.

I grew up thinking of Europe as the exemplar of permissiveness and liberal. It has been interesting to see the European reaction to the immigration of Muslims among them. America, for now, remains to be the country that allows the most immigrants inside its borders, and does not ban the hijab or the burqa. We don't allow the Muslims' call to prayer over loudspeakers five times a day though. If we allowed that, we would have to let everyone advertise over loudspeakers, and what a racket that would be.