The Iraqi Leadership and Nationalism

How to normalize Iraq?, so asks Ad Melkert, Special Representative of the U.N. Secretary General to Iraq and head of the U.N. mission in Baghdad, in this op-ed piece. He suggests that to get it right this time, regional and international stakeholders must start letting Iraqis make their own decisions and to stop perceiving Iraq “as if it would still need some form of “supervision.”

I am not worried about the Iraqis, who, having been subjected to tyrannical rule, must have formed an appreciation for political and economic liberties in the past few years. It is the Iraqi leadership that seems to be hindering the country’s march towards genuine democracy.

Newspaper accounts about the Iraqi leadership portray them as sectarian, pro-Iranian, or simply power-grabbers. The current prime minister, Nour al-Maliki,who is seeking reelection and Ahmed Chalabi who heads a commission to weed out candidates connected to Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party, are Shiites and are viewed by their Sunni counterparts as advancing a Shiite agenda in the region, with the support of Iran which, in turn, is suspected of deploying its own agents to effect the results of the elections.

Iraqi leaders deny these charges. They say that they are simply nationalistic, protecting the sovereignty of their country from internal and external threats. But how do they view nationalism that has so shaped their worldview and affect the policies they adopt for the country? Nationalism can be a dangerous sentiment when it slides into irrational sentiments that lead to myopia and close-mindedness. Patriotism, which is a better version of nationalism, means positioning one’s country from a position of strength, taking what it can to promote its national interests while giving what it can towards building a more stable, secure, and peaceful world. This hinges on statesmen of reasonable expectations and wise judgments.

With the March elections around the corner, and 6,000 candidates vying for political offices, the stakes are high. This is an opportune time for Iraqis to exercise their right to choose leaders across ethnic lines that will be promoting their interests while serving the common good. In an old piece I wrote four years ago about how to form a national unity government in Iraq, I argued that it should be one grounded not on a coalition of all parties representing ethnic loyalties but on the consent of all Iraqis, every single one of them.

The (Un)reasonableness of Man

This story about a young Peruvian mother suffering from a debilitating lung illness appeared on the front page of the Washington Post two weeks ago. But I think it’s worth revisiting as it offers a perfect example of the tension between human convention and natural law, between faith and reason that seems to be at the center of many religious and ethnic conflicts in different parts of the world today.

Maribel Perez, a wife and mother of two, has an illness that requires a lung transplant. Lacking in financial support, people around her (doctors, social workers, priests, politicians, and even strangers) rallied on her behalf and raised $60,000 for her treatment. The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center agreed to treat her.

But she had a change of heart. She refused treatment, to the surprise and disappointment of those who worked hard to save her. Maribel is a member of Jehovah’s Witness, and her religion forbids blood transfusion. According to the article, “’The religion teaches that blood is sacred, the seat of one's soul, and that in the Bible, God specifically prohibits the consumption of blood, whether by mouth or through veins in a transfusion.’ Many Jehovah's Witnesses carry cards explaining that in an emergency they are not to receive blood and that no medical practitioner will be held liable if they die as a result.”

After much thinking, however, she changed her mind even when that meant expulsion from her church: "”I began to think how much I loved my children, these marvelous gifts from God,’ she explained, gulping for air as tears rolled down her face. ‘God loves. He does not demand that we follow rules. The rules are ours.’ Her heart told her that God wanted her to choose life.”

Here is a perfect example of a believer’s dilemma over whether the human law that he subscribes to is indeed a reflection of the divine law. For how does one know which human laws embody the will of the divine? How does one differentiate between which human rules are mere products of customs and traditions and what God has proclaimed?
For many laws formulated by human beings claiming divine sanctions are unreasonable, cruel, and unjust. Parents refusing medical treatment for their children because their religion does not believe in medical science is one. Stoning a woman to death for wearing pants or for not wearing a veil is another. Preventing girls from getting an education is unjust and unfair. Female circumcision is barbaric. One could go on and on, and the question to ask is how could divine law be spiritually liberating to some and be oppressive to others? And if the voice of God has been erroneously interpreted by human agencies in the laws that they have made, why couldn’t we rebel against them without being subjected to human punishments?

To grasp the divine, we have to rely on our reason. Cicero calls it the natural law which is “right reason,” in accordance with nature. “It has the power of command that summons men to do their duties. At the same time, by its prohibitions it prevents them from doing wrong” [On the Commonwealth]. Cicero also views it as unchangeable and eternal, hence, applicable to all men: “what nation does not love courtesy, kindliness, gratitude, and remembrance of favors bestowed? What people does not hate and despise the haughty, the wicked, the cruel, and the ungrateful?” [Laws].

Thomas, the Christian proponent of natural law, defines it as man’s participation of the eternal law through his reason. It is at work in the order in the universe, in the society of men, and in their dealings with each other.

Since each of us is equipped with reason, we can indeed determine the reasonable from the unreasonable, the just from the unjust, civilization from savagery.

The Iranian Opposition: “What Now?”

The Iranian opposition is demoralized these days, too weak to withstand the powerful tools employed against them by the Iranian regime. The government has successfully blocked Internet sites, arrested protesters and sentenced them to death, and deployed its Revolutionary Guards to quell student rallies and street protests. In this WP article, Iranian activists have been asking about what had happened to their movement but were hoping for new strategies with which they could recoup and reorganize. For sure, their unity in number has been diminished as evidenced by thinning street protests. “I hope they can come up with new strategies, but I have no idea what those should be,” says a blogger who is also a member of an organization of Web activists. “But I guess the government would just repeat what they do normally; declare each protest illegal and flood the streets with security forces . . . In the end, the street is the only place where we can show how many people we are, but few people are ready to go to prison or get hurt,” he said.

Indeed, in countries where freedom of speech and expression is curtailed, the street has become the battleground for expressing dissent. As Natan Sharansky puts it, “freedom is rooted in the right to dissent, to walk into the town square and declare one’s views without fear of punishment and reprisal.” After all, public expression of dissent in order to succeed must have a grassroots mooring.

But the streets of Tehran or any of its town squares are not safe these days. Not if the Revolutionary Guards are standing in the way. The best place for the opposition to go seems to be the underground. The other is the information superhighway, if they can find another ramp to go back to it. These places, real and virtual, offer opportunities for the opposition to still be able to wage their battle and yet escape the repressive hand of their cruel government.

Information-gathering in Afghanistan

It is astounding to know that eight years into the war in Afghanistan, the military is not getting the right intelligence it needs to prosecute the war effectively. That’s the claim of a new study published by the Center for a New American Security. According to the authors, in this article published by the Washington Post, the U.S. intelligence community has been providing information that “is only marginally relevant to the overall strategy," focusing on IEDs and digging dirt of insurgents. One of the co-authors, Maj. Gen. Michael Flynn “in a scathing critique of the quality of information at his disposal,” has argued that what the military needs is to understand local politics, economics, religion, and culture that drive the insurgency.

And so the military has launched a new approach to intelligence-gathering in Afghanistan, one that involves sending analysts out in the field to describe in detailed narratives the local conditions in key districts of Afghanistan.

I hope it is not too late to do this as military operations are already underway. For how could fighting and intelligence-gathering take place at the same time, and yet be effective? Anyway, about five years ago, I drafted a research proposal on the importance of co-opting communities in the war against terror through technological tools with which to build quick, spontaneous, and virtual network of support among community members (alas, I did not get a hearing). I thought that villages should be made focal points of global security policy as it is there where terrorist plots are being hatched. The dynamics at the village level have been overlooked, and yet it is there where terrorists seek haven. Reaching out to village folks, engaging them in conversations, asking them about their life experiences as they go about the business of living despite threats to their lives and property, would probably have given us the right information from the very beginning out of which we could have devised an effective strategy.

Meanwhile, one of the military analysts who is taking part in this intelligence-gathering mission wonders how the new information can change the equation of things: "My biggest question is, once they get the new data . . . how are they going to use that information to really change the situation here?"

Well, perhaps with the new information, the military would at least begin to understand what that Afghan, who was interviewed for this article, had in mind when he said: “We’re afraid of the Taliban, and we’re afraid of the Marines.”

Filipino Communists Are Nothing But Extortionists

For all their idealism and abstract notions of a perfect classless society for the country’s poor and oppressed, the Philippine communist rebels have become a rogue group of criminals and terrorists, engaged in exacting “revolutionary taxes” from businesses and politicians who are afraid of them. Putting aside the launch of their communist revolution for the moment, they are now in the business of selling protection, mafia-style. In a report compiled by the Armed Forces of the Philippines,

the NPA (New People’s Army – the armed revolutionary wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines) extorted the most from logging concessionaires, around P8.166 million as of May. Agribusiness and fishpond owners gave P6.345 million while mining companies shelled out P5.437 million. Commercial establishments, on the other hand, contributed P4.844 million.

The NPA also extorted money from the transportation sector (P3.277 million), construction companies (P2.824 million), private individuals (P2.189 million), politicians (P1.792 million), telecommunications firms (P1.59 million), contribution from allies of insurgents (P560,000), the internal revenue allotment of local governments (P34, 600), and quarry operators (P27,000).

Collecting P70 million pesos last year, revolutionary taxation has not only become a source of sustenance for the life of the insurgency, it has become a lucrative business for them as well!

But how could they get away with murder? So when money changes hands, no one reports it? No security forces lurking around, hidden in some bushes in some jungles in some provinces in the Philippines to spy on ongoing transactions? Can’t the Philippine military stop this? Can’t local law enforcement agencies act as immediate responders? Are there no community programs in place using neighborhood watches and cellphones to report suspicious activities to the authorities?

This is absurd. Why this is even taking place staggers the imagination. No wonder, the communist problem in the Philippines has dragged on for decades, and crushing the movement has remained an elusive goal.

Immigrants and the “City on the Hill”

A link to a youtube video was forwarded to me this morning, featuring a UCLA presentation on gangs and violence by Juan Pacheco, a former gang member from Fairfax, VA, who, after serving time from his gang-banging days, went on to graduate from college and is now pursuing a medical degree. He was also proud to announce that from his meager savings, he, together with his sister, made their mother’s wish of buying a home come true – the stuff that the American dream is made of! His life’s narrative could be a source of inspiration to new and young immigrants, especially those who are finding it hard to fit in, were it not for the lingering anger and bitterness in his tone that betrays a lack of understanding and appreciation for America.

He began his story on a sentimental journey about his family’s early beginnings in America. Fleeing the political turmoil in El Salvador, his parents, professionals in their respective fields, decided to immigrate to this country, settled for menial jobs for the sake of providing a good life for their children. Somehow in young Pacheco’s life, this was not right. He expected to live a life of luxury similar to the one they left behind in El Salvador. Encountering hardships was something he did not expect, including feeling isolated and ostracized.

And so he joined gangs. To him, gangs “mirror the bad things in society.” “Gangs are caused by an ineffective society,” he said. America owes them, and owes them big. And it must pay. Finding a common identity and a common cause with his fellow Latino immigrants, he sought to exact justice that he and gang members thought had been denied them.

Their sense of injustice, however, springs from a sense of entitlement that is as misguided as it is misplaced . . . as if America owes them anything.

As an immigrant, I, too, have my own story of early beginnings in American living. Armed with my prejudices (thanks to my leftist professors who condemned everything American), I viewed things around me with a jaundiced eye. I loathed this new life and missed the old one that I left behind. Back there, I had a comfortable life. People waited on me. Here, I was nothing. Little did I know that America was stripping me of my aristocratic and class instincts. It was humbling, but it was also character-strengthening. I began to learn that in America egalitarianism informs the thinking and lifestyle of the people: everyone is equal in rights and liberties, whether you’re rich or poor. Everyone is entitled to the same opportunity as long as one is willing to work hard to get it. In this country, I realized, the only key to success is hard work. You can get anything you want and be anybody you want as long as you are willing to work hard for it. Many immigrants came to this country with nothing, and yet they made it big.

So in time I wondered why I was passing bad judgments on Americans when they had not done anything bad to me. In fact, they welcomed me. They didn’t have to. But they did. They allowed me to pursue my dreams. At the same time, they left me alone to be the person that I am: I could still eat Filipino food, shop at Asian markets, and attend festivities hosted by Filipino-American communities. America is allowing me to be me, and much more. It is not taking my cultural habits away from me. It is giving me the freedom to enhance them. It is allowing me to determine the course of my life. As Dinesh D’Souza, author of What’s So Great About America, puts it: in America, one is free to write the script of his own life.

Moreover, America stands for something that every human being desires: liberty, equality, a life of dignity and well-being that one can achieve through hard work, equal opportunity for all. These are the very things that attract immigrants to this “city on the hill.” Go ask each of them, and they will tell you the same story.

Juan Pacheco told the same story. But his premises were wrong. Could he not see that what he is today, what he has become, is as American as the American pie? I’m sure he could. Otherwise, he would not have announced with pride and tears in his eyes that he bought his mother a home, despite all odds – the stuff of which the American dream is made.

For Latin America, Culture Matters As Well

It is indeed curious that despite the introduction of democratization programs and market reforms in Latin America, tyranny and populism seem to be on the rise there. Tyrants with socialist leanings seem to win elections handily, on populist platforms. One wonders why many in the region support the likes of Chavez and tolerate a class structure that sustains a system of political patronage and unequal wealth distribution.

Policy prescriptions in the past have revolved around notions of destabilizing tyrannical regimes and implementing a free-market economy for the region. These are sound and reasonable policies to pursue. But one crucial area that seems amiss in current policy discourse is culture. I will submit that one of the reasons why Latin America is unable to counter tyranny and populism is because it lacks a liberal culture, the kind that can empower its citizenry against weak institutions and power-hungry leaders and can habituate them in the ways of self-rule.

Latin America’s illiberal culture could be attributed to traditions left behind by imperial Spain who was the dominant imperial power in the region from the 16th to the 18th centuries. Specifically, the hispanization of church and politics created a political tradition of caudillismo, of rule by strongmen. To maintain a highly centralized control over her colonies, Spain sent governor-generals – military figures -- to rule the colonized and to rule with fear, commanding strict obedience from the people and utmost loyalty to Spanish kings.

Spain also used Catholicism to maintain its hold on her colonies. By giving political power to its missionaries and religious power to its rulers, Spain hispanized the Catholic Church, reducing it to a colonial tool with which to subjugate the colonized (although Spanish Scholastics invoking the teachings of natural rights, as embodied in the Ostiensian doctrine, sought initially to offer moral justifications for Spain’s colonial ventures), preaching other-worldliness, resignation, and passivity as the virtues that would get them to heaven. The rich for their part could buy salvation.

Given that Latin America’s politics had been shaped and dominated by military figures, on one hand, and, a religion that preached passivity and resignation, on the other, the proper ingredients for liberalism were never in place. This was compounded by a social tradition that was steeped in a “class system,” where power and privileges were bestowed in the upper-class at the expense of the lower-class.

All this is antithetical to the nurturing of an egalitarian ethos and the forming of a liberal character.

If Latin America is to succeed in countering tyranny and populism, parties concerned ought to look into the mindset and illiberal thinking behind its political traditions and focus on agencies that can help build a genuine foundation and appreciation for liberalism.

In Rebuilding Haiti (Or Any Failed State), Culture Matters

Among policy prescriptions being considered towards building a new Haiti, one that seems to escape everyone’s attention is the need to understand and examine Haiti’s debilitating culture. For despite all kinds of assistance and good intentions from outside, Haiti has remained a dysfunctional society. This illuminating piece, “Haiti and the Voodoo Curse: The Cultural Roots of the Country’s Endless Misery,” by Lawrence Harrison, explains why.

Bad policies, weak institutions, and corrupt leaders have been blamed for everything that has gone wrong in the country. But also, according to Harrison, Haitians have been acculturated to “a set of values, beliefs and attitudes, rooted in African culture and the slavery experience that resist progress.”

For one, the religious practice of voodoo that teaches a Haitian child that everything that happens is caused by spirits and that he is in constant danger would make anyone feel helpless and resigned to his fate. Couple this with a slavish mentality born of Haitians’ slavery experience, reinforcing a class system that gives power and privilege to a mulato upper class against an inferior class of black Haitians, could only produce a culture that is debilitating, stultifying, and resistant to progress.

This culture has to change if Haitians want to move forward and have a better life. How to change it into what and by whom is the challenge.

Charles Kesler, professor of government at Claremont McKenna College, looks to Aristotle’s founding of a city as an example of how culture can be shaped. In his article, “Culture, Politics, and the American Founding,” Kesler argues that culture must be shaped by reasonable standards, recognizing the sub-rational parts of human nature that prevail in a community and subjecting them to a higher goal. In an old paper I co-wrote about cultural separatism and the Muslim question in Philippine politics, I reiterated Kesler’s point:

In his Politics, Aristotle argues for recognizing the importance of culture and channeling culture to serve justice and the common good. He compares the process of founding a city (today we would say, a country) to a sculptor shaping a block of marble into a statue. The block of marble represents the “matter” of a city – “its location, population, ethnic stock, customs, economic skills and resources, distribution of wealth, levels of education, and so forth.” So to speak, the marble does not know that it is merely marble, whereas the sculptor makes it into something else by virtue of his ability to see and then shape what that marble can become. Aristotle recognizes that “matter limits the forms that can be combined with it” – that rulers “have to start from pre-existing way of life or culture” before they can make it something different or better. Whereas the residents of a city are likely to think their city and way of life the best one, or even the only one, the founder sees that it could be otherwise than it is; the statesman sees the city in light of something beyond and perhaps above it. So as the sculptor eventually imposes a new arrangement and character upon the marble, Aristotle argues, politics can rule over culture – that, indeed, it is the laws, offices, and common aspirations of a city that constitute its distinctive character, its regime, its very way of life.

Culture, therefore, can be shaped by politics, that is, by the reasonable ruling of a regime . . . This requires practical reason or prudence. This practical reason, however, if it is to escape the infinite regress of culturalism and other subrational motives, must be directed eventually by a theoretical reason – an understanding that sees in the light of the nature of the human condition that all cultures are merely cultures, that they are at best limited, partial answers to the question of how to cultivate the best properties of humans and minimize our vices.

Whoever is going to underwrite the rebuilding of Haiti has the perfect opportunity to reshape its culture . . . into something that will serve justice, the common good, and the flourishing of every Haitian.