Perspectives

As I continue to think about the conflict in the Middle East I am trying to better appreciate the Iranian perspective. I suspect that last year's "leaked" US government statements about nuking Tehran probably caused this situation, especially after the US called Iran part of the axis of evil and made it clear that it was thinking about bombing or even invading the country... no country wants to end up like Iraq. Iran is trying to develop nuclear capabilities and is working on long-range missiles that could hit Europe, and the US is desperate to stop it. Even if another goal of Tehran is to occupy parts (perhaps all) of Iraq and vastly increase its domination over the Middle East, probably the immediate cause of its aggression against Israel is related to defending itself from the US.

Pinned down between Iranian missiles in the Gaza strip and southern Lebanon, Israel would make a heck of a hostage. Even if Israel prevails, the only way it can do so is to bomb Lebanese civilians with its US-funded military, which will increase hatred of the US in the Arab street. And Iran has set itself up as a Muslim protector and a major player, which will help it garner support when and if it is attacked by the US. Finally, as I reported in a previous post, Iran may be using this diversion to move along its nuclear program.

As to the Israeli perspective, Israel's immediate strategy is to disarm Hezbollah and make it impossible for Iran and Syria to send reinforcements. To that end, Israel bombed the Beirut airport and the Beirut-Damascus hiway. Hezbollah hid itself in the civilian population, which is why Israel is bombing civilian areas. As to its long range goals, Israel has made it clear that it wants a sovereign Lebanon that is free from Iranian and Syrian control.

Along with the rest of the world, I'm horrified by the widespread killing in both countries, but I think Israel has a strong case that its actions are a proportionate response and are justified:

- Israel tried all diplomatic methods to remove the military build-up on its border. Since 2000 when Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon and Hezbollah moved in, the UN has repeatedly demanded that Hezbollah leave the area and has called on the Lebanese government to remove them.
- Israel did not attack until it was attacked... many times over the last few years by Hezbollah in its hiding places across the Lebanese border. Throughout this conflict, Israel has been bombed continuously by Hezbollah.
- Before bombing civilian areas, Israel drops leaflets warning residents that the area will be bombed. Unlike Hezbollah, Israel is not bombing civilian areas because it wants to kill civilians; it is doing so because it is the only way to destroy Hezbollah's military capability and cut off reinforcements from Syria and Iran.
- It is vital to the security of Israel that it defeat Hezbollah. That's why the US is not asking for a ceasefire. There are two reasons why Israel can't hold back. One is that Hezbollah has an estimated 15,000 rockets in Lebanon aimed at Israel; as with the Cuban missile crisis, that situation can't be allowed to continue. The other is a deadly psychological consideration: if Israel doesn't win and win decidedly, it will look weak and its enemies will attack more ferociously.

Israel can and probably will beat Hezbollah, and the Lebanese might even kick out the foreign agitators who have been wrecking their country for decades. But lasting peace isn't possible until there is some sort of detente between the US and Iran. A US-Iranian peace accord might provide assurances that the US will not invade Iran, with Iranian concessions on its weapon build-up, or something like that.

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Threat and Opportunity

The Iran-Syria alliance has a lot to gain from their bold move to destabilize the Middle East. By instigating and arming Hamas and Hezbollah to provoke Israel, Iran has vastly increased its influence on the Arab street and has moved a step closer to unseating Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan and becoming the dominant power in the Arab world. (That would probably explain why the latter three countries condemned the Hezbollah attack on Israel.) But there's another way to look at this situation: things have been going quietly bad in southern Lebanon for the last six years, and we now have an opportunity to change their course.

By waging a proxy war, Iran has insulated itself from direct military reprisal. However, it is not guaranteed to escape unscathed. Iran's areas of vulnerability in this conflict include the following:

1. Hezbollah may be destroyed
The Israeli strategy is to destroy Hezbollah as a military presence in Lebanon. The Hezbollah presence in southern Lebanon amounts to only about 5,000 (very well-armed) soldiers, working with up to a thousand Iranian soldiers. It is going to be difficult to find them because they are shielding themselves in the civilian population, but they are still beatable. Israel might succeed on its own or a western-led peace process might finally put some teeth in the resolution to demilitarize southern Lebanon. If Hezbollah is beaten, Iran loses a fighting force it has put a great deal of energy into arming and supporting, and the possibility of Middle East peace is greatly increased.

2. World opinion may be starting to understand the Israeli dilemma
When Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon in 2000 Hezbollah was supposed to withdraw as well, but instead it continued to move missiles into the region - all aimed at Israel. So while some commentators are trying to paint Israel's bombardment of Lebanon as a land grab or a hate-filled killing spree, most analysts and governments see that Israel has its back against the wall and needs to solve the problem of tens of thousands of missiles pointed into its territory from just across its border.

3. Syrian influence in Lebanon could be diminished
If Israel can rout Hezbollah from southern Lebanon, it might weaken the strangle-hold on the Lebanese government that is enjoyed by Hezbollah and Syria. The effect of this conflict on long-term power structures in the region is largely going to be determined by how the peace is brokered. With most western and many Arab countries seeing that this was Iranian-Syrian aggression, the eventual cease-fire, with possible deployment of UN peacekeeping forces and new UN resolutions, may address the issue of Syrian influence in the democratic country of Lebanon.

4. The Iran-Syria alliance could be weakened
Politically, Iran seems invulnerable, but it relies a great deal on Syria, and Syria is very vulnerable. Iran is the dominant power, but Syria has the important ties with Arab militias. The military wing of Hamas is headquartered in Damascus. As Daniel Byman wrote in 2003 in the journal Foreign Affairs, "Although Syrian leaders do not have Tehran's close ideological and personal ties to Hezbollah, Damascus' leverage is actually much greater. Syria serves as a conduit for Iranian military supplies and often determines the timing, location, and scope of Hezbollah attacks. Moreover, Syrian intelligence on Lebanon is superb; unlike the United States and Israel, Damascus knows the identity and location of Hezbollah's core leadership. Syria also... has demonstrated its skill and ruthlessness by disarming every militia there except Hezbollah. Damascus essentially exercises a veto over Hezbollah's operations, as it has demonstrated by shutting down strikes against Israel when it has suited the regime's purposes."

As the New York Times reported today, "The United States and its Arab allies might persuade Syria to end its decades of supporting terror and reconsider its close ties with Iran."

5. Iran's true goals are being exposed
In the last couple of weeks, many media articles have reported on the Iranian troops that are currently fighting with Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, the enormous amounts of money the Iranians are pouring into Hezbollah, the Iranian-made rockets being shot into Israel, and Iran's motivation in destabilizing the region. Daniel Schorr wrote in the Christian Science Monitor this week that Iran is using this war to divert attention from its nuclear program. (One piece of evidence for this is that Hezbollah invaded Israel on the first day of talks in Paris about the Iranian nuclear program.) Finally it may become common knowledge that what's going on is not about Israeli-Palestinian land negotiations (although those are extremely important); it's about who will control the Arab world.

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Boycott of Chapters, Indigo, Coles and Starbucks

To Heather Reisman, CEO Indigo:

I am boycotting Indigo, Chapters, Coles and all Starbucks coffee shops for the month of June in protest of your censorship of the June issue of Harper's magazine. I am posting this email on my blog and calling on other Canadians to join me in this boycott.

Your book chain is too large and influential in the Canadian publishing industry for you to start censoring individual publications you don't like. Your actions could (and likely will) make publishers afraid to publish controversial material in the fear that you will censor them.

I hope you will revise your censorship policy.

Sincerely,
Yappadingding@hotmail.com

cc: info@starbucks.com

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I sent that email to Chapters-Indigo and Starbucks today. By the way, Starbucks is not (as far as I know) involved in the censorship by Chapters-Indigo (which also owns Coles), but since the two companies are partners in the stores, I figure it might be effective pressure to also boycott Starbucks. I urge you to please join me in this boycott - we cannot stand still while the country's dominant book seller dictates what can be sold in Canada. This is not the first time Heather Reisman has banned a publication.

For more information, see:

- Globe article: Indigo pulls controversial Harper's off the shelves
- The Cartoons: Mohammed Image Archive
- CanadianJournalist blog
- Harper's (there is a delay of a couple of months before Harper's posts articles online)

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The Cartoon Controversy

The cartoon controversy is one of those things that might not bear close inspection. In previous blogs I have tried to understand the Muslim perspective and think my way into a happy solution. After spending more time reading and thinking about it, I am starting to back away from my previous tolerant stance. I think sometimes we have to stand up and say that something is wrong.

It's wrong that people are in hiding fearing for their lives over these cartoons. It's wrong that almost every media outlet is afraid to publish them for fear of violent reprisal. It's wrong that violent protests have destroyed embassies and killed people. It's wrong that book editors, film makers and politicians are being murdered because Muslims are offended by something they said. It's wrong that Danish imams published a booklet about the cartoons that included fake cartoons that are offensive and there's no scandal. It's wrong that moderate Muslims are condoning the violence.

I went to a lecture today called "Interfaith Dialogue & Diplomacy: The Cartoon Controversy" given by a PoliSci professor (who is from Pakistan) at the Centre for International Governance Innovation.

She said that the belief in freedom of speech is not big "T" truth because it is not accepted by all. She argued that when we claim free speech we are claiming that our view of what is sacred is more important than another person's, and we can't do that. Now, there might be some justification for this argument within Muslim countries, although I'm dubious. There might even be some slight justification in the international community. But within western countries, freedom of speech is the law. It isn't some relativistic notion that we can choose to ignore if we have religious faith.

She admitted that each cartoon on its own was not offensive, but argued that the publication was offensive because the article was titled "Mohammed". She said that naming the article after the prophet was akin to walking into a church naked and constituted a great impropriety. She didn't really make the leap from impropriety to violence; in fact, she didn't really explain this whole bizarre line of reasoning at all. But she claimed that it explained (and implied that it justified?) the violent reaction.

I thought the speaker, Dr. Samina Yasmeen, said some offensive things. She described herself as an enlightened feminist, but she talked about the murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh as if it were completely understandable. She didn't outright condone it but she described the murder as a reasonable reaction.

And yet some in the audience seemed to think that she was too soft on the issue. One said that dialogue between Muslims and non-Muslims would never solve anything as long as atrocities were being perpetrated against Muslims. Just in case we didn't get who he was talking about, he added, "...atrocities which have been committed since 1948..." Now let's look at what he's saying: Palestinians are in conflict with Israelis, and that means that there's no point in any dialogue between any Muslims (about a billion of whom are not Palestinian) and anyone else. It is exactly when there is conflict that dialogue is most needed.

Another guy who identified himself as head of a local Muslim organization said that people in the west say they're open-minded but if they're truly open-minded then they must be open-minded about people who are closed-minded. I think he meant that westerners are a bunch of patsies who are so liberal that all the tolerance must come from them and none from anyone else, and to be liberal they must accept everything without question.

Around this point it dawned on me that if I keep backing up on these issues, I will be pushed and pushed and pushed until there is nowhere to go.

I had a question I wanted to ask but I was afraid to. I've read too many stories about people who spoke out and then got hurt. Jyllands-Posten originally published the cartoons to spark a dialogue about self-censorship due to fear of Muslim violence. And that's what we've got. And that's why we have to speak up and say it's wrong, and that's why sometimes we've got to do it anonymously.

I know this is a very sensitive topic, and I apologise if I've offended anyone.


The fake cartoons
When Danish imams wanted to stir up a reaction in Muslim communities, they created a pamphlet about the cartoons that included several fake ones (fake in the sense that they hadn't been published by Jyllands-Posten, the newspaper that solicited and published the cartoons). One of the fake cartoons shows a dog humping a man who is praying with his bum in the air, and the caption reads, "This is why Muslims pray." Another fake cartoon is a very crude drawing of a horned man exposing himself and holding children in his hands, with the caption, "A sketch of Mohammed as a demonic pedophile." You can easily pick out the fake cartoons because they are dark and fuzzy, as if someone ripped them out of a newspaper and scanned them, except in one case where the quality of drawing is no better than a child's. The real cartoons were drawn by professional cartoonists and look it. Also, the real cartoons aren't offensive.

The cartoons are reprinted here.

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Clash of Civilizations

It's so easy to get mesmerized by the invasion of Iraq and general strong-arm tactics of the US that I sometimes forget that this may not be the main front in the evolution of Arab-Western relations.

In my previous blog The Burqa, I detailed some of the upheaval in northern European countries surrounding tension between Islamic and non-Islamic communities. The Dutch, Danish, and others are having some tough times. Politicians have been murdered. Some laws that address the tensions seem to go too far.

We may be lucky that these tensions are coming to a head in northern Europe, which has long had a reputation as the most tolerant and progressive place in the world. My guess is that they'll work it out, tensions will subside, their societies will be better off for it, and they will provide a model for the rest of the world to follow.

After all, our society is firmly committed to multiculturalism. All kinds of disparate groups co-exist in Canadian society who don't assimilate, such as Old Order Mennonites, new age religious cultists and native Indians. I don't see why the most traditional, fundamentalist Muslims shouldn't be able to maintain their faith and co-exist just as well.

There have had to be some compromises. After losing a 10 year legal battle, Old Order Mennonites were forced to install electricity to refrigerate milk in their dairy barns, and they have to put orange triangles on the back of their horse-drawn buggies. So far Ontario has rejected Sharia law (though narrowly) and polygamy.

But consider the case of 81-year old Doukhobor Mary Braun, who burned down a British Columbia school in 2001 and refused to wear clothing at her trial. There were no major outcries against her anarchist-arsonist-nudist sect. In fact, there was a great deal of unsolicited support.

Prior to 9/11 I wouldn't have worried so much about the future of Muslim/non-Muslim relations in the West. It's a tense time all around, but I'm starting to feel that the western intolerance may be temporary.

I'm not quite as sure about Muslim intolerance, but then I know a lot less. Two recent columns in Al Jazeera (link and link) make me a bit worried.

But we have to distinguish between issues in Arab countries and issues in western countries. For example, I'm appalled at calls to execute Abdul Rahm for converting to Christianity, and we should speak out against it: but that is the internal business of the Afghans. However, the murder of Pim Fortuyn is very much the business of Holland because he was a Dutch politician killed in Holland. Similarly, we have to be careful not to conflate Muslims in Pakistan who riot to protest Danish cartoons with Muslims in Toronto who have orderly protests.

There is a movement for reform in the Arab world. This special section in Al Jazeera pulls together a number of discussions about ways to reform Arab states and even Islam.

Of course, outside of domestic issues, the two big problems in Western-Arab relations are Israel and the US, and I don't know if there's any reason to feel that there's hope on those fronts.

I'm not sure how much Israeli/Arab peace is up to the Israelis. They have to protect themselves from the stated goal of genocide by their neighbors. While they have made some missteps in the peace process, they seem to have made a legitimate effort time and time again that was rebuffed. I don't think the situation can improve until the Palestinians want it to.

The US is a very different problem. I wouldn't be surprised if members of the current administration are prosecuted for war crimes one day, but their disastrous middle east policies could turn on a dime in the next election. However, the US practice of "spreading democracy" around the world, which also means spreading US business interests, is deeply entrenched and may not be called off so easily. Anyone around the world who has the strength to push back is going to want to do it, and that doesn't bode well for the world.

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The Burqa

Looking through Al Jazeera today, I came across the article Dismay about possible Dutch burqa ban.

The article starts out by stating that Dutch politicians are considering the ban because the burqa is a security threat. There seems to be justification for such a law in cases such as passport control. However, according to the article, the Dutch government is planning a total ban on wearing the burqa.

The Al Jazeera article is interesting because it provides a pro-burqa perspective. A photo of burqa-clad women walking in a group of fluttering light blue behind a US soldier in full body armor seems manipulative to me, but from another perspective it probably sums up the situation that Muslims face in the world today.

One day when I was living in East Africa I bought a day pass to a luxury hotel to use the pool. An Arab family was also there. The men and boys in the family swam in bathing suits, along with girls up to about age 10 wearing long sleeved t-shirts and long pants, while five older girls and women, completely covered in black burqas, sat on chairs nearby. Next to the burqas were three women from South Africa who were buck naked, stretched out on their backs on deck chairs, drinking a lot of beer and smoking. When they were done with a cigarette they would toss it over their heads onto the concrete, even though people were walking around barefoot. As the day went by, I realized that these two groups of women at either end of the propriety scale were at ease together. They didn't talk to each other, but they were friendly.

I still remember the first time I saw a burqa in Canada: I felt like I'd been smacked in the face. It was a shock, even frightening, to see a woman who wasn't allowed to show herself. It seemed a personal threat to my own freedom.

Why didn't I react like the boorish South Africans? Why don't the Dutch?

In the Dutch context, you have to consider the murders of Theo van Gogh and Pim Fortuyn. The Dutch filmmaker van Gogh said some absolutely disgusting things about Jews and the Holocaust. He was irreverant and rude about all religions. But it was his criticism of the Islamic treatment of women that got him murdered in 2004. Fortuyn was a Dutch intellectual and politician who openly challenged the intolerance of the Islamic community in Holland. He was assassinated in 2002 for this position, resulting in an upsurge in national concern about the issue.

Then there's the widespread Islamic violence in reaction to Danish cartoons. The Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten solicited the cartoons in 2005 to start a dialogue about self-censorship in the Danish press. The result has been self-censorship all over the world, in fear of violent reprisal. Take a look a the cartoons and decide for yourself whether they're offensive.

In 2004, Norwegian journalist Asne Seierstad published The Bookseller of Kabul, a best-selling expose of life under the burqa. After reading this brilliant book, no-one is going to fall for the line that burqas are harmless expressions of respect that do not curtail a woman's freedom.

And yet, despicable as they are, we can't ban the burqa. We can restrict immigration, we can do more to integrate immigrants, we can wage a PR war, but we can't forbid someone from wearing the clothing they choose, except for situations such as security.

Update, December 2006: A Canadian Arab named Tarek Fatah has a web site called Say No to the Burka in which he largely quotes articles by Muslim women against the burqa. I learned a lot from this site, including that in Turkey it is illegal for women to cover their heads in government offices and schools.

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