Once again, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad succeeded in making a mockery out of our media and foreign policy establishments. They just simply fell into his trap. All he needed to do was dole out “exclusive interview” privileges, and the media went gaga over him. As to how exclusive an interview is if it is done with every major media outlet in the country – ABC, NBC, Fox News, I do not know. Even Bret Stephens of the Wall Street Journal seemed smitten by Ahmadinejad’s cunning and guile during a breakfast meeting with journalists to the point that he even thought the Iranian leader was the smartest guy in the room (I hope he was just being sarcastic).
The foreign policy establishment didn’t do any better, either. Hoping that by welcoming him they could talk him into agreeing to stop Iran’s nuclear enrichment program, they accorded him diplomatic hospitality. The United Nations hosted him once again, providing him with a forum with which he launched his vitriol attacks against the enemies of his country. His latest pronouncement -- that the 9/11 attack was US-orchestrated -- is even more outrageous than the previous ones, prompting President Obama to issue a statement, calling the remark “inexcusable” and out-of-step with the Iranian people:” "’It was offensive. It was hateful. And particularly for him to make the statement here in Manhattan, just a little north of Ground Zero, where families lost their loved ones, people of all faiths, all ethnicities who see this as the seminal tragedy of this generation, for him to make a statement like that was inexcusable,’ Mr. Obama told BBC Persia, according to a transcript provided by the White House.”
So why do the UN, the State Department, and the media talk to this guy? Why do they take him seriously, dignify his existence, and provide forums for his irrational discourses? From the moment he issued a statement denying the Holocaust , that should have provided the international community, and, everyone for that matter, a clue that this guy should be ignored and marginalized.
If the right solution to the Iran problem is regime change, the best way to begin is for the outside world to view this man as a joke. As it is, the way we give in to his publicity-seeking stunts, the joke is on us, really. He is mocking us, and we refuse to see it.
Sunday, September 26, 2010
The Mindanao Peace Talk
When the Philippine government’s chief negotiator welcomed the latest announcement of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, a rebel group that is negotiating on behalf of the Filipino Muslims in Mindanao, that it is no longer seeking independence from the Philippines and is instead seeking a status similar to a US state, one can’t help but think that this peace talk is off to a bad start. Just the day before this announcement, the rebel group was seeking a sub-state status. The chief negotiator, Dean Marvic Leonen of the University of the Philippines Law School, was quick to add, however, that the rebel announcement Wednesday "will definitely pave the way to finding an understanding for a politically feasible arrangement that maintains the territorial integrity and the fundamental premise of people's sovereignty in one republic.”
How so, I wonder? The fundamental premise of the solution is that a change in structure will pave the way for the redistribution of the political and economic resources of the country, with Mindanao getting its fair share this time around. Hence, the idea of a sub-state, and now a federal arrangement that will afford the Mindanao Muslim leadership "state jurisdiction" over parts of Mindanao while leaving the bigger issues (foreign policy, national defense, etc.) to the national government.
If that is indeed the correct solution, then all regions of the Philippines should be subjected to the same federal arrangement, lest a region, like Bicol, for instance, be made to feel neglected (as what will surely happen if all resources are poured into Mindanao). If the intent of this approach is to correct alleged neglect and past injustices committed against the people of Mindanao, how could the solution lie in structures, in bureaucratic arrangements? ARMM has not worked out, so why would this one work? (ARMM stands for Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao which has its own government. Its leadership has been accused of committing massive graft and corruption.)
For this peace talk to succeed, the Philippine government must lay down the proper foundation for genuine peace. And this entails the surrender and disarmament of the MILF and other insurgent groups. Disarmament is first and foremost a necessary condition upon which genuine negotiations can proceed.
A structural solution will only institutionalize and legitimize secession. No matter how the rebels sugarcoat secession through structural solutions, everyone knows that the separation they are seeking for will only benefit themselves and the Muslim ruling elite, at the expense, of course, of the general Muslim population.
The republican solution is always there, for anyone to employ. An understanding of the duties and obligations of leaders and citizens that makes possible a government that rules by consent and that rules for the common good of all while recognizing the rights of each and every individual eliminates tribalism and elitist politics that are too common in Mindanao politics.
How so, I wonder? The fundamental premise of the solution is that a change in structure will pave the way for the redistribution of the political and economic resources of the country, with Mindanao getting its fair share this time around. Hence, the idea of a sub-state, and now a federal arrangement that will afford the Mindanao Muslim leadership "state jurisdiction" over parts of Mindanao while leaving the bigger issues (foreign policy, national defense, etc.) to the national government.
If that is indeed the correct solution, then all regions of the Philippines should be subjected to the same federal arrangement, lest a region, like Bicol, for instance, be made to feel neglected (as what will surely happen if all resources are poured into Mindanao). If the intent of this approach is to correct alleged neglect and past injustices committed against the people of Mindanao, how could the solution lie in structures, in bureaucratic arrangements? ARMM has not worked out, so why would this one work? (ARMM stands for Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao which has its own government. Its leadership has been accused of committing massive graft and corruption.)
For this peace talk to succeed, the Philippine government must lay down the proper foundation for genuine peace. And this entails the surrender and disarmament of the MILF and other insurgent groups. Disarmament is first and foremost a necessary condition upon which genuine negotiations can proceed.
A structural solution will only institutionalize and legitimize secession. No matter how the rebels sugarcoat secession through structural solutions, everyone knows that the separation they are seeking for will only benefit themselves and the Muslim ruling elite, at the expense, of course, of the general Muslim population.
The republican solution is always there, for anyone to employ. An understanding of the duties and obligations of leaders and citizens that makes possible a government that rules by consent and that rules for the common good of all while recognizing the rights of each and every individual eliminates tribalism and elitist politics that are too common in Mindanao politics.
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Communism: 'The Greatest Fantasy of Our Century'
Fidel Castro’s recent pronouncement that the Cuban model is not working should serve as notice to those who still cling to communism that their ideological struggle will lead them only to an empty promised land. That whatever it is they are still fighting for – a utopic vision of total classlessness -- is just that – a utopia. Cuba’s experience is but another concrete affirmation that social justice and equality based on socialized ownership of property is untenable.
This should give Filipino communists (and communists everywhere for that matter) a jolt: there is nothing there for you at the end of the communist rainbow. For three decades now, Filipino communists have subjected the “toiling masses” of Filipinos to their ideological high-mindedness. Equipped with a sense of moral and intellectual superiority, they have taken it upon themselves to wage a fierce revolution on behalf of and for the Filipino poor. They have considered it their duty to liberate the Filipinos from the shackles of U.S. imperialism as they believe it to be the root cause of all the problems of the Philippines. Once freed from imperial domination, they argue, Filipinos would be able to partake in a socialized and fair distribution of their country’s wealth.
The communists’ delusional fantasy revolves around the notion that the utopian vision will become a reality someday, that the future is knowable. The “iron laws of economic necessity” and the “scientific inevitability of history” could only lead to the realization of the communist revolution. To Marx, history is nothing but “a chain of cause-and-effect successions of certain types of society, following the preceding one with inexorable necessity.” The future is not open to possibilities, they say, and that the aims of the revolution will certainly come to fruition, giving birth to a society that is going to be completely free from material oppression. The certainty of the future gives communists a perspective on how to view the problems of the present: they are transitory and will soon come to pass. The future is more real than the present “because it is the ultimate destiny toward which everything present is moving” [Niemeyer, The Communist Mind].
It is this framework of thinking that encourages communists to get on with their ideological struggle. Despite hard evidence everywhere (the collapsed Soviet Union, a China that has hitched its economic destiny onto the free-market enterprise, and now Cuba’s broken model), the faithful ones continue with their fight. As to the reason why, Leszek Kolakowski has this explanation to offer:
. . . it is a certainty not based on any empirical premises or supposed “historical laws,” but simply on the psychological need for certainty. In this sense Marxism performs the function of religion, and its efficacy is of a religious character. But it is a caricature and a bogus form of religion, since it presents its temporary eschatology as a scientific system, which religious mythologies do not purport to be [Kolakowski, Main Currents of Marxism . . .].
But if that reasoning is not enough to convince these communists to give up their fight, just take a long, hard look at Cuba: their present predicament is the future you’ve been fighting for.
This should give Filipino communists (and communists everywhere for that matter) a jolt: there is nothing there for you at the end of the communist rainbow. For three decades now, Filipino communists have subjected the “toiling masses” of Filipinos to their ideological high-mindedness. Equipped with a sense of moral and intellectual superiority, they have taken it upon themselves to wage a fierce revolution on behalf of and for the Filipino poor. They have considered it their duty to liberate the Filipinos from the shackles of U.S. imperialism as they believe it to be the root cause of all the problems of the Philippines. Once freed from imperial domination, they argue, Filipinos would be able to partake in a socialized and fair distribution of their country’s wealth.
The communists’ delusional fantasy revolves around the notion that the utopian vision will become a reality someday, that the future is knowable. The “iron laws of economic necessity” and the “scientific inevitability of history” could only lead to the realization of the communist revolution. To Marx, history is nothing but “a chain of cause-and-effect successions of certain types of society, following the preceding one with inexorable necessity.” The future is not open to possibilities, they say, and that the aims of the revolution will certainly come to fruition, giving birth to a society that is going to be completely free from material oppression. The certainty of the future gives communists a perspective on how to view the problems of the present: they are transitory and will soon come to pass. The future is more real than the present “because it is the ultimate destiny toward which everything present is moving” [Niemeyer, The Communist Mind].
It is this framework of thinking that encourages communists to get on with their ideological struggle. Despite hard evidence everywhere (the collapsed Soviet Union, a China that has hitched its economic destiny onto the free-market enterprise, and now Cuba’s broken model), the faithful ones continue with their fight. As to the reason why, Leszek Kolakowski has this explanation to offer:
. . . it is a certainty not based on any empirical premises or supposed “historical laws,” but simply on the psychological need for certainty. In this sense Marxism performs the function of religion, and its efficacy is of a religious character. But it is a caricature and a bogus form of religion, since it presents its temporary eschatology as a scientific system, which religious mythologies do not purport to be [Kolakowski, Main Currents of Marxism . . .].
But if that reasoning is not enough to convince these communists to give up their fight, just take a long, hard look at Cuba: their present predicament is the future you’ve been fighting for.
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Is There Islamophobia in America?
Whoever introduced the notion of “hate and Islamophobia” in America’s national discourse has done this country a disservice. For one, it goes against the grain of what America stands for. America's spirit of tolerance is grounded on the key principle of equality, indeed, one of the principle pillars upon which this nation of immigrants was founded. The principle of equality requires that we respect each and every human being as our equal inasmuch as each is bestowed with God-given rights to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness -- natural rights that all men acquire by virtue of their being human. It is this very principle that enables immigrants in America to live in harmony with one another. It is the principle that afforded the civil rights movement an opportunity to offer a corrective to America’s unfinished business with slavery. Equality is what has prevented America from sliding into a country of ethnic and racial divisions so commonly found in countries reeling from ethnic conflicts.
Talks about hate and Islamophobia have put America on the defensive. When President Obama cast the debate on the GZ mosque issue in constitutional terms such as religious liberty, he put the US Constitution on the defensive. But the US Constitution is not on trial here. America is not on trial here. What he succeeded in doing was to change the subject of our national conversations, from whether belief-systems and subcultures of incoming immigrants eager to settle in this country could be made compatible with America’s culture of liberty, to whether America is acting contrary to its Constitution when it deals with these beliefs and whether Americans have become hate-mongers and Islamophobic!
John Esposito, professor of International Affairs and Islamic Studies at Georgetown University, thinks that indeed there is Islamophobia in this country. In this article, “Islamophobia in America: Where Do We Go from Here?,” he says that Islamophobia like anti-Semitism, hostility towards or discrimination against a person because of their faith or racial group, runs deep in our society.”
But it wasn’t so prior to 9/11. A recent NY Times article, “Muslims and Islam Were Part of Twin Towers’ Life,” tells the story of Sinclair Hejazi Abdus-Salaam, a construction worker who was hired to work at the World Trade Center before it was attacked. Being a Muslim, he wanted to know where he could do his daily prayers. He learned from his fellow Muslim workers about a prayer room on the 17th Floor of the south tower. He went there regularly for months, "first doing the ablution known as wudu in a washroom fitted for cleansing hands, face and feet, and then facing toward Mecca to intone the salat prayer." He noticed that on any given day, his companions in the prayer room “might include financial analysts, carpenters, receptionists, secretaries and ironworkers. There were American natives, immigrants who had earned citizenship, visitors conducting international business — the whole Muslim spectrum of nationality and race.”
If it seems we are experiencing racial and religious divisions in our country right now, it is because of those who have talked us into it. Labeling is a dangerous game. Whenever one gives a label or a name to something, he gives life to it; he makes it happen. Hate-mongering and Islamophobia have now become part of the American lingo.
Talks about hate and Islamophobia have put America on the defensive. When President Obama cast the debate on the GZ mosque issue in constitutional terms such as religious liberty, he put the US Constitution on the defensive. But the US Constitution is not on trial here. America is not on trial here. What he succeeded in doing was to change the subject of our national conversations, from whether belief-systems and subcultures of incoming immigrants eager to settle in this country could be made compatible with America’s culture of liberty, to whether America is acting contrary to its Constitution when it deals with these beliefs and whether Americans have become hate-mongers and Islamophobic!
John Esposito, professor of International Affairs and Islamic Studies at Georgetown University, thinks that indeed there is Islamophobia in this country. In this article, “Islamophobia in America: Where Do We Go from Here?,” he says that Islamophobia like anti-Semitism, hostility towards or discrimination against a person because of their faith or racial group, runs deep in our society.”
But it wasn’t so prior to 9/11. A recent NY Times article, “Muslims and Islam Were Part of Twin Towers’ Life,” tells the story of Sinclair Hejazi Abdus-Salaam, a construction worker who was hired to work at the World Trade Center before it was attacked. Being a Muslim, he wanted to know where he could do his daily prayers. He learned from his fellow Muslim workers about a prayer room on the 17th Floor of the south tower. He went there regularly for months, "first doing the ablution known as wudu in a washroom fitted for cleansing hands, face and feet, and then facing toward Mecca to intone the salat prayer." He noticed that on any given day, his companions in the prayer room “might include financial analysts, carpenters, receptionists, secretaries and ironworkers. There were American natives, immigrants who had earned citizenship, visitors conducting international business — the whole Muslim spectrum of nationality and race.”
If it seems we are experiencing racial and religious divisions in our country right now, it is because of those who have talked us into it. Labeling is a dangerous game. Whenever one gives a label or a name to something, he gives life to it; he makes it happen. Hate-mongering and Islamophobia have now become part of the American lingo.
Sunday, September 5, 2010
On Drug Legalization and Mexico’s Drug War
Proponents of drug decriminalization strongly believe that Mexico’s drug war could come to an end if marijuana were made legal. Drug legalization, they argue, could instantly eliminate crime and violence and reduce the loss of lives. By legalizing it, businesses surrounding drug smuggling would disappear, thereby diminishing the cartels’ immense profits (60 % of which come from marijuana) that are being used for recruitment, arms purchases, and bribes. In addition,
. . . legalizing marijuana would free up both human and financial resources for Mexico to push back against the scourges that are often, if not always correctly, attributed to drug traffickers and that constitute Mexicans' real bane: kidnapping, extortion, vehicle theft, home assaults, highway robbery and gunfights between gangs that leave far too many innocent bystanders dead and wounded. Before Mexico's current war on drugs started, in late 2006, the country's crime rate was low and dropping. Freed from the demands of the war on drugs, Mexico could return its energies to again reducing violent crime.
Of course, those who oppose drug legalization especially from this side of the border question the social costs that come with legalizing drugs inasmuch as legalization will increase drug consumption. Are these drugs inherently addictive? If so, what will be their long-term effects on individual health and social well-being? Will drug consumption lead to other kinds of crimes? Will it lead to lung diseases the way cigarette smoking does? Will drug consumption impact families and cause social problems that will lead to the creation of more welfare programs? James Wilson, professor of political theory and senior fellow at the Clough Center for the Study of Constitutional Democracy at Boston College, has brought up these arguments in this old article, “Legalizing Drugs Makes Matters Worse." In a book review published by the Claremont Review of Books, he argued that social taboos against drug consumption work: “more generally, addiction is less common when the values of the culture are hostile to it and more common when those values erode. One of the ways society makes its values clear is by making actions against those values illegal and reserving praise for people who act in accordance with them.”
To be convincing, proponents of drug legalization must offer a thorough cost-benefit analysis of drug decriminalization against drug prohibition, including estimates of future social costs that may possibly come with increased drug consumption. Likewise, those who continue to believe in the wisdom of drug prohibition must look into why the war on drugs seems to be not succeeding at all.
In a way, all this represents the classic tension between individual rights and the common good. Introducing individual responsibility into the equation that would make individual rights compatible with the common good is, of course, a winning combination.
. . . legalizing marijuana would free up both human and financial resources for Mexico to push back against the scourges that are often, if not always correctly, attributed to drug traffickers and that constitute Mexicans' real bane: kidnapping, extortion, vehicle theft, home assaults, highway robbery and gunfights between gangs that leave far too many innocent bystanders dead and wounded. Before Mexico's current war on drugs started, in late 2006, the country's crime rate was low and dropping. Freed from the demands of the war on drugs, Mexico could return its energies to again reducing violent crime.
Of course, those who oppose drug legalization especially from this side of the border question the social costs that come with legalizing drugs inasmuch as legalization will increase drug consumption. Are these drugs inherently addictive? If so, what will be their long-term effects on individual health and social well-being? Will drug consumption lead to other kinds of crimes? Will it lead to lung diseases the way cigarette smoking does? Will drug consumption impact families and cause social problems that will lead to the creation of more welfare programs? James Wilson, professor of political theory and senior fellow at the Clough Center for the Study of Constitutional Democracy at Boston College, has brought up these arguments in this old article, “Legalizing Drugs Makes Matters Worse." In a book review published by the Claremont Review of Books, he argued that social taboos against drug consumption work: “more generally, addiction is less common when the values of the culture are hostile to it and more common when those values erode. One of the ways society makes its values clear is by making actions against those values illegal and reserving praise for people who act in accordance with them.”
To be convincing, proponents of drug legalization must offer a thorough cost-benefit analysis of drug decriminalization against drug prohibition, including estimates of future social costs that may possibly come with increased drug consumption. Likewise, those who continue to believe in the wisdom of drug prohibition must look into why the war on drugs seems to be not succeeding at all.
In a way, all this represents the classic tension between individual rights and the common good. Introducing individual responsibility into the equation that would make individual rights compatible with the common good is, of course, a winning combination.
“Let Him Who Is Without Sin Cast the First Stone”
The fate and life of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, the Iranian widow sentenced to be stoned for adultery, hangs in the balance. In July, due to international pressures, Iranian authorities indicated they might not carry out stoning for the time being, but the woman could still face execution by hanging.
Stoning is an inhumane and cruel form of punishment. It is barbaric. The Vatican, in a public statement issued recently, condemned it as a brutal form of punishment. Sajad, the widow’s son, has made appeals to Pope Benedict XVI, and the Vatican is using its diplomatic channels to stop the execution.
Talks about hypocrisy and self-righteousness and unchecked clerical power on the part of Iran’s moral guardians may come across as Western pontificating. So, I’ll turn to prayers instead, hoping that Christ’s teaching on this subject may teach spiritual leaders of other faiths that God’s mercy is as human as it is divine.
1 Jesus went to the mount of Olives. 2 And early in the morning he came again into the temple, and all the people came to him; and he sat down, and taught them. 3 And the scribes and Pharisees brought to him a woman taken in adultery; and when they had set her in the middle, 4 They say to him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act. 5 Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned: but what say you? 6 This they said, tempting him, that they might have to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he heard them not. 7 So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said to them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her. 8 And again he stooped down, and wrote on the ground. 9 And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the oldest, even to the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the middle. 10 When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said to her, Woman, where are those your accusers? has no man condemned you? 11 She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said to her, Neither do I condemn you: go, and sin no more. [John 8:7]
Stoning is an inhumane and cruel form of punishment. It is barbaric. The Vatican, in a public statement issued recently, condemned it as a brutal form of punishment. Sajad, the widow’s son, has made appeals to Pope Benedict XVI, and the Vatican is using its diplomatic channels to stop the execution.
Talks about hypocrisy and self-righteousness and unchecked clerical power on the part of Iran’s moral guardians may come across as Western pontificating. So, I’ll turn to prayers instead, hoping that Christ’s teaching on this subject may teach spiritual leaders of other faiths that God’s mercy is as human as it is divine.
1 Jesus went to the mount of Olives. 2 And early in the morning he came again into the temple, and all the people came to him; and he sat down, and taught them. 3 And the scribes and Pharisees brought to him a woman taken in adultery; and when they had set her in the middle, 4 They say to him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act. 5 Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned: but what say you? 6 This they said, tempting him, that they might have to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he heard them not. 7 So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said to them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her. 8 And again he stooped down, and wrote on the ground. 9 And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the oldest, even to the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the middle. 10 When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said to her, Woman, where are those your accusers? has no man condemned you? 11 She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said to her, Neither do I condemn you: go, and sin no more. [John 8:7]
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