Akram's Razor - Reflections on Islam, Muslims & America

Local activism from abroad

This is quite random (not to mention old, as it's dated Nov 3, 2008), but having a background in ICT4D I found this report on a technology blog intriguing. It goes without saying that the Internet allows people to keep in touch in radically new ways while on the go and Skype is so widespread that its very name has become a handy verb for millions of Internet users, but who would've thought you could use the Internet to volunteer in a political campaign back home while sitting on another continent?

Wendy’s Blog: Skype for Obama, from Cairo to Colorado

I’m spending this election season in Cairo, Egypt, attending an ICANN meeting. Thanks to the Internet, that hasn’t stopped me from some final get-out-the-vote efforts. The time zones mesh up so that after meetings conclude here, I’ve been able to log in to my.barackobama.com, find a list of voters and a calling script, and call via Skype to remind them of polling places and encourage them to vote.

Isn’t the Internet grand? I’m at the ICANN meeting trying to keep ICANN from interfering with the flexibility that allowed that unexpected political outreach.

Lucky McCain's campaign didn't get wind of this. I can hear Palin's inevitable slogan now: "Obama campaign gets support from Al-Qaeda member."*

*  Swiftboat-ese for a person residing in the Middle East.

Report on the Arabic Blogosphere

Dustin over at His Peace Upon Us, a thoughtful and recommended new Christian blog dedicated to dialogue between Christians and Muslims, reports on  a very interesting study of the Arabic-language Blogosphere.  Its title is "Mapping the Arabic Blogosphere: Politics, Culture, and Dissent" and its authors are Bruce Etling, John Kelly, Robert Faris, and John Palfrey.

Dustin writes:

The Berkman Center for Internet Study and Security did a massive study on the Arabic blogosphere. Who blogs? What do they blog about? You can read the summary of the report at the Berkman Center site.

I found it interesting that they blog more about human rights than they criticize Western culture and values. That’s probably not what most would expect.

Very interesting indeed.

Haven't read all of the report, but 3 interesting details jump out at me:

• I'm not suprised that Saudi bloggers hold a decent sized chunk of the Arabic Blogosphere--They've got money, a strong sense of national idenity, and fewer distractions during their leisure time (e.g., cinemas are still verboten in ABBR title="Kingdom of Saudia Arabia">)--but judging by this report Kuwaitis seem markedly more active online than their fellow GCCers in Qatar, UAE and Bahrain. Forget the populations and populations' citizenship/foreigner breakdowns, but it surely this is disproportionate. (A prediction, given the Khaleeji Consumption Disorder epidemic: Soon we will hear of Gulf states rushing to  buy cutting-edge bloggers from Africa to write under their flags, like they do Olympic athletes.)

• Arabic Bahais. Not the first thing you think of, but they're out there, and very legitimately speaking out against the discrimination they face. (Speaking of which, there is something pathetic about the need some feel to harass these peaceful people. If you're offended by their rejection of Islam or concerned about the message its sends, try focusing your energies on giving them less reason for doubt instead of seeming to prove them right.)

• I might've overlooked something in the complete report, but I don't see any discussion of Arab Christian bloggers. I wonder what the explanation is for this apparent disparity. Are they not as active online? Did the researchers perhaps give inadequate attention to their networks?

What I'd really like to see is a study of the contemporary contours and groupings of the Salafi/Wahhabi corner of the Blogosphere, which has gone through a lot of changes (not to mention a huge amount of in-fighting) since their heyday online in the early days of the Internet, when it claimed or influenced some of the best known Islamic websites and fora.

I'm sure there are oodles of somewhat relevant "threat assessment" reports in the intel/security arena, but doing this right would be a very difficult undertaking even experienced researchers who master Arabic fully, as the ideological and doctrinal nuances are so fine (and, to many outsiders' eyes, trivial). The background required to really understand the changes isn't likely to be picked up just by lurking in their forums. (Perhaps Berkman needs to hire Umar Lee as a consultant.)

Update (2009-07-21): Had a typo in my excerpt from His Peace Upon Us. Wrote "KSA" instead of "Berkman Center site" at the end of the 1st paragraph.

Past thoughts on nonviolence

Am still mulling over Gorenberg's piece, but while those wheels make their glacial turns in my head, here's a snippet I wrote last year on this subject in reaction to one of Mark Steyn's trademark artful-but-intellectually-wanting rants against Muslims.

My thinking has evolved somewhat since then, but it raises some concerns that I think remain valid.

Akram's Razor - "The resurrection of Willie Horton in the age of Islamophobia ":

Then there's how baldly hypocritical Steyn's Gandhi-invoking rhetoric is given his conflict-stoking ways. You have to admire the cheek of hawks who loudly call for no-holds-barred confrontation and who mock peace activists as clueless idealists that can turn around and chide Muslims for not being pacifists like them.

You can be a great admirer, as I am, of Muslim pacifists like Abdul Ghaffar Khan and Jawdat Said while conceding that there are cases today where Muslim peoples are caught between Scylla and Charybdis that makes pacifism--which is never an easy path to walk--ineffective as a means of resistance to oppression.

Were people in most key conflicts involving Muslims today to embrace the noblest ideals of Gandhian non-violence in their struggles it is doubtful that their tactics would work as they have in the past.

The power of non-violent resistance lies in the shame and aversion it inspires in mainstream observers who feel implicated in the conflict. This reaction is only possible in the context of media that attempt to accurately report on the human suffering of a conflict. A partisan or indifferent media shortcircuits the system. (As does one that disseminates bloodless, "Nintendo wars"; or one that eagerly enlists in a wartime government's disinformation campaigns.)

When the media systematically ignore or play down violence against one side of a conflict, folks back home in Peoria never have the chance to get revolted/shamed/irritated/outraged enough for non-violent resistance to have a chance at succeeding. Nonviolence requires vocal public support, which in turn requires public awareness. Yet like the old Zen koan about the tree in the forest, the sicing of dogs on Black civil rights worker by white policemen would never have "happened" were it not for the presence of TV cameras that forced mainstream viewers to confront the evil of the Jim Crow system in which they all played a part as citizens.

As much as one wants to advocate nonviolence, what good would adopting Gandhian tactics do in, say, Chechnya, where the Western media pays little attention to the ongoing slaughter and violation of human rights. Were Chechens to march, holding hands, on the Russian tanks singing Negro Spirituals, their foremost accomplishment would probably be to reduce wasted bullets. By the same token, in the Occupied Territories, unless a camera crews happen to be about the only folks granted the luxury of nonviolent protest are Western tourists. Palestinians who stick flowers into IDF gun muzzles are likely to catch a gun butt or rubber bullet in the face. So their options are a lot more limited than those of protesters in Western societies, where law enforcement and officialdom fear bad press.

Fair enough, but kindly direct me to all the non-Palestinian Gandhis out there today.

Needless to say, I don't often find myself tempted to link to The Weekly Standard on much of anything, let alone the Middle East peace process. Its editor Bill Kristol is, after all, a proverbial hawk and neocon, one of the thought (mis-)leaders whose Ahab-like ideological obsessions and truly abysmal geopolitical prognostications helped drag America over the cliff after 9/11 into a chasm of dangerous war-mongering and grossly unconstitutional lawlessness.

Nonetheless, the current issue has an cover article worth pondering by progressive Israeli Mideast analyst and activist Gershom Gorenberg entitled "The Missing Mahatma: Searching for a Gandhi or a Martin Luther King in the West Bank".

He reflects on the oft-lamented absence of non-violent resistance from the Palestinian struggle for independence today (though we must remember that the First Intifada was largely non-violent, a fact that didn't prevent Israeli forces from literally firing a million of rounds of ammunition on Palestinian protesters during its first 6 weeks). American media treatments of this topic--a veritable literary genre in the case of some benighted pundits--are often terminally myopic and hypocritical, and though Gorenberg is a kindred spirit I inevitably have some issues with his take. Still, his is a sensitive and thoughtful exploration of a difficult and mine field of a topic that deserves to be pondered.

The article begins with an fictional account set in the near future of a Palestinian imam leading protesters on a US Civil Right era-style march to pray at Al-Aqsa that ends violently and in an international PR fiasco that forces the Israeli government to negotiate with him etc. etc. It then analyzes the realworld historical factors that make this scenario seem so agonizingly fanciful. An intriguing historical footnote that he explores is the case of a 1980s Palestinian activist--now an American professor--who practiced non-violent resistance and was summarily deported by Israel (not to mention marginalized within the PLO before then).

I still need to digest the piece a bit more before I comment further, but in the meantime here are some observations on the problematic political backdrop of most MSM discussions of this as posted in my comment on Gorenberg's post announcing the piece on the South Jerusalem blog.

A sensitive and thought provoking analysis of a complex and important issue.

This question is near to my heart as a Muslim who believes in nonviolence, but I am often struck by how little moral standing so many of those who pose it to Palestinians have on the matter given how rare a commitment to nonviolence is.

As much as I hope and pray for a peaceful resolution to the conflict, I don’t think it’s a big mystery as to why a Palestinian Gandhi has yet to emerge. In how many other of the world’s conflicts have we seen such an ethic take root? Gandhi and MLK were extraordinary leaders whose charisma and vision could change the rules of the game. Such leaders don’t grow on trees.

Anywhere. Avrum makes a good point that I would extend far beyond the region: Where are the NON-PALESTINIAN Gandhi’s? Where are the leaders of American and European countries (which are not wracked by conflict, poverty and second-class citizenship) who promote nonviolence in anything other than empty rhetoric?

Are Americans, Britons, Frenchmen, Israelis, ad infinitum, any more demonstrably committed to nonviolence than Palestinians? Once you factor in circumstances, I’m not sure the answer’s a yes.

This doesn’t apply to Mr. Gorenberg’s piece, but I would argue that much of the MSM talk about the absence of a “Palestinian Gandhi” is so politically one-sided and morally inconsistent that it actually undermines the cause for peace in the Middle East. You don’t promote peace by chiding one side for not being Gandhian while the other is still actively pursuing its goals militarily.

Richard Silverstein at  Tikun Olam-תקון עולם and Paul Woodward at War in Context  have sharply critiqued aspects of the essay. I think the objections they raise are necessary, even if I would give Gorenberg more benefit of the doubt in terms of the politics of the piece.

It's a difficult subject to write about, especially given all the blinkered baggage the MSM brings to it, so my hope is that he follows it up with a discussion of some of its other dimensions and contradictions.

Israeli econ. blockade devastates 52% of Gazan households

Israel's curious pursuit of "peace" with Palestinians. Consider it a reverse Marshall Plan.

MIDEAST: Poverty in Gaza Hits "Unprecedented" Level (IPS)

In both the West Bank and Gaza, young people aged 15 to 24 are the most likely of any group to be unemployed, while the number of households in Gaza below the poverty line has reached an historic high of nearly 52 percent, according to a new report by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) issued Thursday.

There's more.

More like "Rest in peace."

Johann Hari: The loathsome smearing of Israel's critics

Examples like this is why I get such a kick out of the complaints about the supposedly inordinate influence of CAIR and Muslims in general in American politics. As if Muslims can generate a fraction of the heat constantly unleashed by all these pro-Israeli pressure groups.

But frank discussions of the predations against open debate by the imaginary yet curiously powerful and visible Israeli Lobby is to traffic in conspiracy theories, so I'll shut up. Conspiracy theories about pro Israeli pressure groups whose influence is legendary in Washington and who've even been demonstrated to be extremely conspiratorial (Does plotting to infiltrate Wikipedia count?) are offensive, you see. The only conspiracy theories permitted today are those concerning American Muslims and organizations like CAIR.

HT: Omer Subhani

Johann Hari: The loathsome smearing of Israel's critics - Johann Hari, Commentators - The Independent

In the US and Britain, there is a campaign to smear anybody who tries to describe the plight of the Palestinian people. It is an attempt to intimidate and silence – and to a large degree, it works. There is nobody these self-appointed spokesmen for Israel will not attack as anti-Jewish: liberal Jews, rabbis, even Holocaust survivors.

My own case isn't especially important, but it illustrates how the wider process of intimidation works. I have worked undercover at both the Finsbury Park mosque and among neo-Nazi Holocaust deniers to expose the Jew-hatred there; when I went on the Islam Channel to challenge the anti-Semitism of Islamists, I received a rash of death threats calling me "a Jew-lover", "a Zionist-homo pig" and more.

Ah, but wait. I have also reported from Gaza and the West Bank. Last week, I wrote an article that described how untreated sewage was being pumped from illegal Israeli settlements on to Palestinian land, contaminating their reservoirs. This isn't controversial. It has been documented by Friends of the Earth, and I have seen it with my own eyes.

The response? There was little attempt to dispute the facts I offered. Instead, some of the most high profile "pro-Israel" writers and media monitoring groups – including Honest Reporting and Camera – said I an anti-Jewish bigot akin to Joseph Goebbels and Mahmoud Ahmadinejadh, while Melanie Phillips even linked the stabbing of two Jewish people in North London to articles like mine. Vast numbers of e-mails came flooding in calling for me to be sacked.

Tikun Olam on Hamas & the "destruction of Israel" canard

Richard Silverstein over at Tikun Olam posted a gutsy debunking of the latest "evidence" being held by war-mongerers up as proof of Hamas (and, by unspoken but unmistakable extension, all who support the Palestinian right to self-defense) being frothing at the mouth with genocidal anti-Jew hatred. This kind of hysterical and offensively dehumanizing rhetoric is not only misleading and dis-informative vis-a-vis the realities on the ground in the conflict, but highly counterproductive to the cause for peace in that it obfuscates rather than illuminates.

Specifically at issue is a recent claim by the Israeli paper Maariv that a recent statement by Hamas committed it to, surprise, the destruction of Israel. The actual statement does not support this sweeping declaration.

The way this mother of all propaganda myths, that the Palestinians don't recognize Israel's right to exist, is relentlessly exploited by Arab-baiters and Islamophobes to achieve their own nefarious agendas reminds me of the way Khrushchev's infamous "We will bury you" line--which while hardly conciliatory was not a threat but an unsurprising prediction (i.e., that the USSR would outlive its ideological competitor)--was spun by American Cold War hawks as a grave threat and justification for jingoism and the promotion of the then nascent Military-Industrial State that now so dominates American foreign policy. President Eisenhower, in a moment of breathtaking statesmanship and prophetic foresight, warned  the nation about this constellations of destabilizing forces in his farewell address in 1961. (A little known, and profoundly frustrating fact: In his first draft of this speech, Eisenhower rightly dubbed this dangerous behemoth the "Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex". Tragically, he marred his courageous jeremiad by dropping Congress out of concern about embarrassing Congressional allies. In doing so, he inadvertently let the perhaps the most egregious and inveterate offenders off the hook, as Congress is the enthusiastic enabler of this endless orgy of pork and corruption.)

Tikun Olam-תקון עולם: Make the World a Better Place » Maariv Mistranslates Hamas, Stoking Fires of Anti-Arab Enmity

Again, we can argue whether Hamas has a faulty grasp of history. But the main point as far as Jerry Haber and I are concerned is that we not allow Maariv, JTA and the thousands of right-wing commentators who have grasped this botched translation job to argue that Hamas has gone from being in favor a unitary state combining Palestinians and Jews; to an exterminationist position advocating the elimination of Jews from all of Palestine.

Why is this important? Sure, pro-Israel ideologues are going to argue what's new and who cares. Hamas hates us. The statement whether accurately quoted or not merely confirms this. But I'll tell you why it is important. What people in political conflicts say matters. When words are put into someone's mouth that they did not say–this can matter even more. Demonizing Hamas by turning them into genocidaires serves the interests of the pro-Israel right. That's what JTA and Maariv have done. They may have done so inadvertently or carelessly rather than maliciously. But they have done so nonetheless. And given the powder keg of hatred that is the current Middle East what we don't need more of is provocation and distortion. Reality is bad enough without introducing incitement into the equation.

Silverstein's succinct explanation of why this matters and why it warrants widespread consideration is dead-on. I'd add to his excellent points one more that is perhaps implied by the others.

This is not just about Hamas, or even the Palestinians. The double standards and hysteria that undermine MSM analysis of Hamas constantly bleed over into general discussions of Muslims and Arabs. Rare is the debate in Washington about the right of Palestinians to defend themselves against Israeli violence. (A bit of an understatement, as such evenhanded discussions of the Middle East appear in the Beltway with less frequency than Halley's Comet.) Yet rarer still is for such a debate not to culminate in the clicheed accusation of the defender of Palestinians being "pro-Hamas" and, ipso facto, pro-terrorism. In most cases, it's a dirty trick, a cheap diversionary tactic, employed to short-circuit legitimate and rarely heard debate, not to mention tar principled critics of Israeli policies as beyond the pale of civilized debate. But it's lethally effective--in a intellectually thuggish sort of way--at silencing dissent and intimidating others into ostracizing those thus labeled.

There are many problems with the way Hamas "support" is spun in American politics. The more obvious involve 1) how its reasoning (such as it is) ignores the, shall we say, paucity of "rooting options" for observers to almost any military conflict, 2) the many different possible motivations that can be behind "support" for Hamas or any other large, organizationally-complex and widely popular insurgent movement like it; and 3) the selective nature and constantly focus nature of "political support" in general.

To speak to #1, most conflicts involve two primary combatants, both of which fight dirty, and the Arab-Israeli war is no different.  Remaining scrupulously neutral is rarely an option and one's own background and affiliations are quite naturally determinative in most cases for one's allegiances. Even if one takes the demonization of Hamas at face value, to expect Arabs and Muslims not to instinctively side with it to some extent--even if only for the simple political reason that it claims to champion the Arab/Muslim cause--in this conflict is, I think, either astoundingly naive or betrays an incredibly blinkered view of the evidence (i.e., it overlooks how to neutral observers neither side appears wholly a victim or villain, and treats Israel's inevitably biased narrative of the conflict as self-evident). Putting aside the question of the legitimacy or lack thereof of Israeli justifications for what it does, do Beltway pundits honestly expect Arabs and Muslims to side with Israel in a conflict with fellow Arabs and Muslims?   When you get down to it, that is the absurd subtext to the sanctimonious outrage over widespread reluctance to endorse Washington's demonization of Hamas, however problematic a representative of Palestinian aspirations to freedom and equality  it may be.

For my part, I yearn to see to see credible, non-violent vehicles for change emerge, but that has yet to happen on either side, as Israel regularly engages in violence every bit as illegal and reprehensible  as Hamas, and often with a far higher body count resulting.  And the ever worsening dynamics of this conflict don't encourage the emergence of nonviolent political actors, either. (A fact that suits hardliners in control on both sides just fine.) So one is left having to choose the lesser of two evils, and I don't think that choice is self-evident to informed people who care about peace and justice in the region.

Call me crazy, but I don't think you can pursue peace by selectively condemning violence, by outlawing one side's crimes while whitewashing those of their (in this case, far more powerful) opponents.  When the international community begins to treat violence against Palestinians with the same standard as it does that committed by Palestinians, the kinds of absolute calls for demilitarization routinely targeted at Hamas will have moral authority.  Until then, it more often than not serves as hasbara by proxy and on balance probably undermines rather than furthers the cause of peace.

Issue #2 concerns how, whatever one thinks of it,Hamas is not simply a terror organization. Providing health clinics to the poor, employing large numbers of people in quasi-governmental bodies and fielding a range of candidates in elections aren't exactly the hallmark of terror cells. However one judges their military actions from a moral standpoint, they clearly are a complex, hybrid movement that manifests itself in a multiplicity of ways in Palestinian society. Even accepting the one-sided Beltway line on Hamas' violence,it is asinine to expect Palestinians to reduce Hamas to its military wing given its complex, multi-faceted role in their lives. Ergo, it is unjustified to treat all forms of political support for Hamas as an endorsement of terror. It just doesn't follow.

And #3 isn't rocket science. Support for someone or something at a particular point in time in particular circumstances does not mean unconditional support for the same in all times and circumstances. Most people don't draw up ledgers to tally the sum of merits and and demerits of given political actors before supporting them. Such choices arise out of gut reactions and based on passions stirred up by current events which may or may not be consistent with their broader values. But these subtleties and elementary insights into human psychology are conveniently forgotten by Islamophobic ideologues the success of whose fear-mongering campaigns relies on such simplistic, decontextualized charges.

But all these are fairly obvious, I think, to anybody with a reasonably open mind and commitment to fairness. What is not intuitive to those of us doomed to primarily consume the often woefully  superficial and unconsciously pro-Israeli MSM analysis of Hamas is that it has evolved and moderated over time in important ways. Despite the importance of this fact for the prospects for peace, these transformation has gone unacknowledged by Western and especially American observers in the MSM.

Anyway, this post ended up being far longer than intended. I will leave you with this excerpt from   Khaled Hroub's eye-opening analysis of Hamas' political development in openDemocracy.net, "Hamas's path to reinvention":

An internal shift from religion-based to politics-defined struggle is reshaping Hamas's identity. Khaled Hroub, author of "Hamas: A Beginner's Guide", explains how it has happened and criticises the west's failure to understand this key Palestinian trend.
9 - 10 - 2006

A remarkable yet mostly overlooked transformation has been taking place within the thinking and political practice of Hamas over the past few years. The process started long before the radical Palestinian movement's victory in the legislative elections of 25 January 2006 in the West Bank and Gaza. Its essence has been a shift in the justification behind Hamas's "hardline" positions: in particular, from their rejection of any concession over the "land of Palestine" on religious grounds (based on the claim that Palestine is waqf [endowment] for successive Muslim generations which no one has the right to compromise on), to a political and pragmatic argument for this stance.

Fat chance these important facts, nuances and developments will trickle "up" into the discourse of the MSM or Washington policy circles. If fanatical, irrational Jew-hating Palestinians don't exist, they must be created for the cameras. Otherwise, there might have to be dialog and meaningful concessions by the victors as well as the losers.  Perish the thought.

Update (2008-01-23): A few stylistic tweaks and fixed typos.

The emperors will never realize they're naked

so long as their tutors have a vested interest in them remaining so.

Perhaps this isn't an entirely fair association given how Prince Alwaleed happens unlike so many of his kith and kin at the top of Saudi society to be cosmopolitan, reform-minded and professionally accomplished in the real world, but for me this picture from an article on his even-by-gazillionaire-standards extravagant purchase of a jumbo jet  (CNN: "Airbus: Prince buys flying palace", found via Muse's comment to my recent post on the Gulf) nonetheless conjures far more than just Khaleeji excess, but the ultimately more sinister dynamic of the Khaleej's excessive reliance on outsiders unlikely to be willing (or even cognitively able) to advise them to do anything other than to buy more fancy stuff and services, regardless of whether these huge outlays actually contribute anything of concrete value to the citizens for whose benefit they are supposedly intended.

This is all the more the case when your advisors--though "tutors" seems more appropriate here--hail from parts of the world that specialize in high-end services and goods, I suspect. The likelihood of the swarms of Western advisors and consultants counseling their Gulf customers to keep it simple, focus on the basics, and do what worked for other developing countries that couldn't afford their services seems unlikely.

Doing research on an article on Saudi Arabia a while back, I was surprised to discover some of the ways that for all its manifest faults and contrary to all the hype from pundits, the Kingdom has for the most part played an exceedingly loyal, at times vassal-like, role vis-a-vis American geopolitical interests. Since the switch from British to American patronage in the 1950s, it has dutifully provided diplomatic support and funding to a variety of American geopolitical goals, especially its sundry anti-Communist campaigns in the Middle East and the Horn of Africa. (It even pitched in in funding America's anti-Sandinistra proxies in Nicaragua, the Contras.)  According to the memoirs of Aramco officials it secretly allowed oil to be supplied to the 6th Fleet in contravention of an Arab embargo during the 1967 war. It worked hand in glove with the US to fund Saddam's war against Iran, and then bankrolled and diplomatically brokered America's greatest victory against the Evil Empire, the Afghan Jihad.

Just to head off the predictable hecklers, one of the most prominent counter-examples, the oil embargo of the 1970s , was a brief departure from business as usual politically necessitated by the Nixon administration's active and high profile support of Israel in the 1973 war. A war was on and we were on the side of the Saudis' enemies--who'd forced a war with its weaker neighbors only half a decade earlier (as David Hirst's seminal The Gun and the Olive Branch proved 3 decades ago, 1967 was a war of choice by Israel, not pre-emptive self-defence; Israel's been if anything more bellicose than its neighbors, who were painfully aware of Israel's military superiority since the 1960s if not 1950s)--so it's really not very surprising that they should've responded. The notion that this was an irrational attack on Western civilization is disproven by fact that  not all of Europe was targeted. The UK and the France, which had not granted the US use of their airfields for sending Israel arms, were not included in the boycott.

As far as the rest goes, the 9/11 attacks were not government-sanctioned and extremely damaging to Saudi interests to boot. The "jihadi" movement to which the Kingdom contributed so much, happens also to be as much America's responsibility as Saudi's, and is now largely out of anybody's control, anyway. Finally, the meager, face-saving contributions to Palestinian groups whom the Saudi people (like much of the world) saw as freedom fighters are barely a drop in the bucket besides decades of buttressing American geopolitical supremacy (and, indirectly, Israeli regional dominance).

Then there's the rarely acknowledged economic Saudi contribution to the US economy, about which the Prince Nasir character in "Syriana" complains bitterly in a memorable scene (gist: I want to modernize, but we keep getting pressured into propping up American industries in politically sensitive states with unnecessary purchases). Along the way, it contributed a heck of lot of money and jobs to the USA economy, in some cases helping propping up American industry (e.g., its purchases helped some American aviation companies stay afloat during lean times in the 1980s).

But arguably the most important--and invariably overlooked--contribution made to the US economy by Saudi has been its unflinching support of the American dollar. It is largely thanks to Saudi influence within OPEC that the world buys oil with dollars (the origin of the term "petro dollar"), and the dollar therefore dominates currency reserves. The economic intricacies of this are far beyond me, but I've seen it argued by a credible (and, interestingly, European) economist that this fact alone contributes more to American influence than even its mighty military. Whatever the concrete contribution may be, it's clearly significant, and it's largely thanks to Saudi loyalty.

So as distasteful as I find the Kingdom on multiple levels, I find the claim that's consistently worked against "American interests" absurd. The government of KSA has been about as loyal--at times downright toadyish--as is possible to a frankly often imperialistic power whose foreign policies and interventions in their region have inevitably alienated and in some cases radicalized people in the region. All things considered, we've gotten more than our money's worth.

But back to the Beltway Bandits, or in this case Brussels bandits. (Hey, if "Eurotrash" can cover the Middle East, "Beltway Bandits" ought to embrace consultants from all Western capitols.)

Needless to say, I'm no expert on international development, but it seems to me that those countries that have managed to escape to a meaningful extent from postcolonial/neoliberal second-class citizenship did so not through Marshall McLuhan-esque PR campaigns ("UAE--we don't have a diversified economy, but we have the glitzy trappings of one. Just look at our Louvre!" or "Qatar--we don't produce our own world class Olympic athletes, but can bask in the reflected glory of those we bribe into running under our flag. "), but rather through economic productivity of some sort.

To some extent, this is an inevitable pitfall of business, I think. Consultants always have an inevitable (and, within reason, legitimate) interest in advising their clients to follow a course of action that leaves room for their continued employment, but I think there are additional dimensions to this dynamic.

I suspect that for a lot of Northern (as in First World, not Yankee, though the "carpet-bagging" metaphor has much relevance in my view) onlookers--especially those traveling the globe peddling expensive Western products and services--progress for developing countries is simply aping the lifestyles and values of the dominant economies of the North, preferably in a way that keeps many Western consulting and high-end goods companies well fed.

It's often the mirror opposite of what it purports to be, in effect amounting to wealth redistribution from developing economies to fat cats in well established ones.  So long as the external trappings of Western economic and cultural life are mimicked, everyone can pretend progress is being made and the MSM will  sing endless hosannas for  Gulf leaders'  great vision in spending so much of their countries wealth in trying to keep up with the Jones to the North. What economic interest do most Northern business observers have in demanding, "What's the objective contribution of this latest wasteful but prestigious project to your nation's development?" as they're probably too busy lining up at the feeding trough themselves to give that angle any thought.

And once their host goes broke, they'll just move on to greener pastures. The parties most likely to experience long-term growth are, as usual, the Western businesses. Long after the Gulf returns to fishing and animal husbandry,  they'll be watching interest compound back home on the proceeds of decades of overpriced services and over-engineered solutions designed for completely different circumstances.

This is, incidentally, why I'm so impressed by Negroponte's One Laptop Per Child campaign.  When you look at the details, you see that, for once, this is a ICT4D (Information & Communication Technology for Development) project that really puts practical benefits for developing countries first. It's not another pretext to sell the same old products designed for a completely different economy to people who can't afford bells & whistles or overpriced licenses. (This is why companies like Intel and Microsoft have tried in various ways to discredit it--it really offers a new paradigm that is geared towards developing countries needs, as opposed to Silicon Valley's product release schedules.)

Ironically, this inspiring initiative's savior might end up being none other than everyone's favorite Middle Eastern bete noire, Muammar Qaddafi, who I hear ordered a million of them for Libyan schools. He may be off his rocker, but his eccentricity and ego occasionally result in something positive. (Another example: He bankrolled the stunning and little known epic "The Lion of the Desert", which boasts an all-star cast and is perhaps the best antidote to Islamophobia that popular cinema has produced--I think it should be required viewing, along with "Reel Bad Arabs", for undergrads studying Islam--which also explains why Mustafa Akkad couldn't get a dime out of the Arab-baiting powers that be in Hollywood for it and had to turn to such an usual source. The surrealness of Qaddafi's involvement in this gorgeous film is only exceeded by what Akkad, who also made the stirring Islamic film about the life of the Prophet Muhammad (saw) "The Message", is  primarily known for in Hollywood.)

Okay, back to reading--more like laboriously looking up word after word in--Abu Talib al-Makki's dense "Ilm al-Qulub". (Someone please shoot me. He's too freakin' hard for a novice like me. Maybe Information Technology consulting wasn't such a stressful line of work after all...)

Update (23 Nov 07): Fixed some typos.

Update (25 Nov 07): Added a few paragraphs on the things that are cited as examples of Saudi treachery to American interests.

Update (2 Dec 07): Fixed more typos. Welcome Diggers.

Khaleeji Consumption Disorder and other postcolonial malaises

There is something profoundly disturbing about the way a few of the more "modern" nationlets of the Gulf seem to frantically write out lavish checks  to prove themselves to their former colonial masters and new geopolitical patrons.  You name it--if it's a sign of prestige in the eyes of Westerners, they rush out to buy it, it seems. To the extent of the absurdity bribing African athletes to temporarily become their citizens and run for them in the Olympics. I have no doubt that some of these lavish projects have some (if often secondary) legitimate goals, but the sums spent for  what amounts bragging rights is simply staggering.

To a great extent, these vices are the inevitable result of these societies' uneviable socio-historical circumstances.  It's well known that an abundance of certain natural resources often have the perverse effect of impoverishing and destablizing developing countries.  From Resource curse - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The resource curse or paradox of plenty refers to the paradox that countries with an abundance of natural resources tend to have less economic growth than countries without these natural resources. This may happen for many different reasons, including a decline in the competitiveness of other economic sectors (caused by appreciation of the real exchange rate as resource revenues enter an economy); volatility of revenues from the natural resource sector, and government mismanagement, or political corruption, provoked by the inflows of easy windfalls from the resource sector.

Living in the Gulf years ago, I was told by a Pakistani teacher who worked in a private elementary school an anecdote that captures the tragedy and dysfunction of the situation.  Her student, who was local and probably 7 years old, dropped a crayon from his desk in the middle of class. To her shock, instead of picking it up he turned expectedly (and innocently) to his teacher, evidently expecting her to pick it up for him.  In the child's life up to that point, all people of her racial background were servants. What else could he expect, given that his teacher was Pakistani?

The tendency towards elitism and discrimination that accompany the importation of large amounts of labor in to small societies are easy to comprehend, as well, when you consider the mechanics. Think of the Gulf like a person both blessed and cursed to be born with silver spoon in his mouth--he has the world at his feet, but is impaired by poor life skills due to his never having having had to work normally for a living.  In a  lot of ways, he's a victim of the situation, as well. And the social arrangement has all sorts of dysfunctional affects and complexes.

That doesn't make such elitism any less disgusting, though. In what I find a new low of superficiality and irresponsible waste of resources, Abu Dhabi, is, like some overcompensating parvenu, wasting half a billion dollars just to be able to boast to the world that it has a "Louvre".  Yes, half a billion, just to get the name of the Louvre on an empty building. (Then they cough up another $750 million to fill it.) From Price of a Good Name? For Louvre: $520 Million - New York Times:

That is the amount that Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, agreed Tuesday to pay to attach the Louvre’s name to a museum that it hopes to open in 2012. And there is more: in exchange for art loans, special exhibitions and management advice, Abu Dhabi will pay France an additional $747 million.

Controversy over the Louvre Abu Dhabi has been swirling in France for the last three months, with critics charging that the French government is “selling” its museums. But only now have the full details of the nearly $1.3 billion package been disclosed.

As if anyone unwilling to give the new museum a chance because it's in Abu Dhabi  will be swayed by the official imprimatur. To those who sniff at its location, this will seem no more authentic than it would without the Louvre's dearly-obtained approval. The treasures that could be obtained with $540m would be more than enough to get art lovers and tourists' attention.

Now, I have no illusions about the Gulf being any holier than any other part of the Muslim world, but I can't help but contrast this with the Sunnah. The Prophet (S) tells not to waste natural resources even in a situation of a seeming infinite plenty ("Do not waste water even if performing ablution on the bank of a fast-flowing river.") and they're blowing half a billion just to borrow a prestigious brand name for a tourist attraction. Not exactly what I'd call responsible stewardship, or gratitude for God's bounty as most of the world (including their own laborers) continues to languish in poverty, privation, and insecurity.

[See this site on water management in Islam for intriguing examples of how disciplined the Prophet in his consumption of water, though he put a premium on cleanliness and had the resources of a nation at his disposal. And Sufistication has a thoughtful post on global warming and the environment from the Islamic perspective.]

I want to see the receipts showing a comparable contribution to alleviating world poverty.

If that's too altruistic to expect--look at how stingy the US is with economic aid--how about at least investing all this money wisely, in something of guaranteed utility to the citizens of the Gulf, like education and professional training for a citizenry lacking modern job skills? Seems to me that citizens of the Gulf's rentier states need community colleges far more than Ivy Leagues outposts, not to mention productive jobs where they're held to normal professional standards. Despite the incredible wealth and privileges the region enjoys, I think you have a  situation mirroring in key respects that which Booker T. Washington faced when he founded the Tuskegee Institute for former slaves during the Reconstruction era. That is, people lacking basic work skills and, more critically, the work ethic of economically productive societies (which I'd define for these purposes not in terms of GDP, but simply whether citizens  work for a living). And, to make the analogy even more painfully apt, the Gulf states even have their own form of Jim Crow for their hordes of imported laborers that run their societies.  Not an analogy many Khaleejis would appreciate, but one that they'd do well to ponder, I think.

I find the antics of Khaleeji leaders in this department really downright clinical at times.  Perhaps it's time for the American Psychatric Association's to incorporate this post-colonial disorder--a neurotic need to be perceived by the West as cutting edge--into its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (aka the DSM). Consider it Khaleeji Consumption Disorder. I realize that status consciousness comes naturally with wealth and status--to provide a rather mundane personal example, though I live in a college town with many people of modest means I was embarrassed I was last week to temporarily have a flapping plastic sheet instead of a window after my right passenger window regulator conked out last week--but it's supposed to be accompanied by a concomitant sense of Noblesse oblige.

I've heard that Sheikh Hamza has been known to ask attendees of his talks sporting t-shirts with prominent corporate logos, "Are you getting paid for that advertising?" or something along those lines. In a similar vein, I ask whether a person who pays an exorbitant $40 for a plain black t-shirt emblazoned with the logo of Channel proves himself a person of taste, or rather a trite imitator who lacks taste, originality and economic smarts? Seems the latter to me in most cases. The article notes: 

In a statement, Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al Nahyan said the accord reinforced Abu Dhabi’s vision of becoming “a world-class destination bridging global cultures.”

I think the high-flying corporate lingo ("world-class destination") betrays the real motivations involved. This is the same old crass, small-minded and ultimately self-defeating elitism that has  prevented the peoples of the Gulf from really benefiting from the astounding wealth they've been granted by God.

More fundamentally, "bridging cultures", my tuchas! It would seem prudent to  bridge the yawning gulf between Khaleejis and their hordes of Tamil taxi drivers, Filipina maids and Pakistani construction workers first. (Or are Khaleeji decision-makers perhaps, contra the Quranic guidance provided below, really only interested in getting to know wealthy Western white tourists, finally proving themselves to the colonial masters of old?) Not to mention granting the foreign laborers who are their society's economic lifeblood the dignities and legal protections enjoyed by even the humblest of workers in Western societies.  I've seen this ugly side of Khaleeji life up close while working in the region.

All this reminds me of something I came across on a website dedicated to the late Saudi Prince Ahmed (:: Princeahmed.org ::):

As a man with a lifelong passion for thoroughbred horseracing, the late Prince Ahmed bin Salman gained worldwide attention in May of 2002 when his horse, War Emblem, won the Kentucky Derby. He once said that winning the Kentucky Derby was “one of the main ambitions of my life.”

Emphasis added. Now, for the record  I don't claim to know anything about Prince Ahmed. For all I know, he could have been saint who just loved horses and the thrill of competing. Still, this strikes me as a decidedly underwhelming goal for one's life, especially while most human beings--Muslim as well as non-Muslim--on the planet continue to live on scraps. I'm reminded of spoiled, care-free rich of The Great Gatsby and see a certain sad symbolism for the modern Saudi Arabia in this trite ambition. 

What a colossal waste of wealth and potential.  What a distraction from what's important. Prosperity and influence are as much tests from God as poverty and impotence, tests that have frankly been utterly failed utterly by many in the Gulf in my view.

Not that Saudis or other Khaleejis are the only ones to suffer from these failings. How many of us avoid remember what really counts in life and how many of us spend every waking moment chasing money?  And even if one limits one's field of vision to material things, how many of us start each day thanking God for our incredibly (and, it must be noted, unearned) good fortune to have been born in such a land of plenty? (And don't get me going on how many Americans, especially on the Right, today embrace cold--and utterly un-Christian--Malthusian worldviews that rationalize poverty, suffering and inequality in the name of airy notions of "efficiency" or "personal responsibility".) 

Forgetfulness of God's mercies and the resulting narcissism are universal maladies. As a Muslim, I just find them especially evident, galling, and hypocritical in the Gulf, with all its "Islamic" pretensions.

Some years ago, I read about how Saudi Arabia has a shockingly high rate of congenital disorders resulting from excessive rates of intermarriage, seemingly out of snobbery and clannishness. (We're talking about Najdi Saudis not even considering Hijazi Saudis, much less other Arabs or, Heaven forfend, South Asians or Africans).  It's so serious and widespread that according to the article university teachers can sometimes guess the region a student is from by their visible energy level visible--those from particularly insular and elitist areas of the country are visibly more fatigued during class. 

To me it seemed a dramatic illustration of what can happen when you consciously disregard God's moral guidance.

O you men! surely We have created you of a male and a female, and made you tribes and families that you may know each other; surely the most honorable of you with Allah is the one among you most careful (of his duty); surely Allah is Knowing, Aware.
The Quran (Surah al-Hujurat 49:13)

No mention of fancy buildings there. But there are a lot of allusions to honesty, fairness and justice.

I'll be a lot more impressed with the Gulf's "progress" when we   don't have oppressive, utterly un-Islamic conditions for foreign workers like  this  

A riot by 700 workers from Bangladesh has thrown new focus on what human rights groups call the slave-like conditions many Asian workers endure across the affluent Persian Gulf, including salaries of just dollars a day or no wages at all.

and  this.

When Sultana Akter, 19, daughter of Mukteruddin of Netrakona, arrived in Ma-Hawa-Maktab, a Saudi Arabia branch office of Akbar Enterprise, a recruiting agency based in Dhaka, she was taken to the house of an Arab named Ahammad on July 27. As soon as she reached the house, her mistress ordered her to wash clothes. When Sultana said she was very tired and hungry after the long travel, the callous mistress started beating her.

Yes, I know that Gulf governments are making efforts to end abuses, but it's damn late in the game. These problems should never have been possible in the first   place. Foreign laborers--especially women--in the Gulf should have had the basic economic  rights and social protections enjoyed by Gulf nationals all along. These abuses are the inevitable  consequence of a system of legally sanctioned exploitation and disenfranchisement. In fact, it's so bad that to call the plight of foreign laborers in the Gulf "second-class citizenship" is actually euphemistic, as   there is no pretense of them having any claim to form of equality.

I want to see the the ameers of the Gulf boasting to the international media not about the latest glitzy prestige projects but of real strides in bringing about equality and justice in their own societies, and for working to put their God-given wealth to a higher purpose than currying  favor with the international BCBG. That would be real leadership and vision.

The eerie familiarity of Ehud Olmert's problems

Doesn't this report about embattled Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert have an eerily familiar ring to post-9/11 American ears?

IPS : Peter Hirshberg - Noose Tightens Around Olmert

It [a government report] accused him of going to war "hastily", of lacking a "detailed military plan", and of "a serious failure in exercising judgment, responsibility and prudence." Political leaders, public figures and most of the country's leading columnists have repeatedly called on the prime minister to resign. But Olmert, who has also been dogged by a series of corruption allegations since he won election a year ago, has stubbornly refused to budge, saying he has no intention of quitting. He has said he will stay in office to fix the failings of the war.

For all its faults, Israel's political system appears to understand the necessity in a democracy of holding leaders responsible for gross misconduct or incompetence. I'm not sure we retain that commitment in the States anymore

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