The Voice of Reason

The Politics of Number Pads

2006-02-14T11:49:00.000-05:00

I was bored and started typing in random words into my cell phone number pad. It's on that setting where the computer guesses at what words you're trying to spell. The first set of words especially had to do with religion.

Key christian muslim moslem judaism islam dictionary dual aunt citag east god shiv whose coal puppy

Perhaps you can guess what the latter words were supposed to be. Hint: notice how many have four letters. I especially like "citag." Man my math teacher can sure be a citag...

My phone is a Nokia. Who says the Swedes have forgotten religious politeness?

U.S. Wars, U.S. Money

2006-02-05T10:47:00.000-05:00

You say tomato, I say tomato.

The National Review notes that of all America's wars, the two in Iraq are the "least expensive." The Guardian says that the cost of "The Long War" (The War on Terror having gone through more names than Prince or P. Diddy) will soon rival Korea and Vietnam, even taking modern dollar values into account. Yet neither, presumably, has their facts wrong. The trick is (as always) with the measurement: The Guardian figures are total adjusted dollar amounts, but the Review is calculating the financial cost in terms of percentage of GDP.

This latter, then, shows not so much the relative expense of the war as the enormous increase of America's wealth over the years. Now, it's like pocket change to them to conquer a country and get no profit out of it. They can afford to be a spoiled rich kid who goes out and buys a BMW and crashes it the next day. Except for the descision makers it's not so dangerous, since they're not the ones doing the fighting.

Take another look at the NRO figures. There are 11 "major" (key word) wars listed, over a 230 year period or so. Over a third of those wars occurred in the last 56 years - and that's not counting Grenada, Kosovo or even Afghanistan. Nor is it counting the wars waged on the behalf of the U.S. by client states around the world. It makes me wonder whether these post-war wars happened precisely because the U.S. became so rich and so powerful. Would the terror attacks have happened without American hedgemonic moves? Would as many people be wanting a piece of it as the most powerful country in the world?

Any number of proverbs about the mixed-blessings of wealth come to mind.

Hamas's Victory

2006-01-29T19:50:00.000-05:00

I predicted, following the news reports, that Hamas would do well, but I didn't expect a victory any more than anybody did. That's what you get for trusting the press (but watch me do it again anyway... it's like coke).

The issue of the beliefs of the Palestinian people are as highly charged as ever, and this is a blow to those of us who support them and their struggle for a state as a general principle. By voting in a party that is at the very least prone to fanaticism, it suggests that they are dangerous and underserving of a state. That's certainly how David Horrowitz takes it (courtesy The Rougue Jew). Indeed, I've noticed that some leftist discourse prefers to avoid this point and focus on the embarassment to the Bush doctrine that this entails (at Juan Cole, for instance. This makes me nervous and reminds me of this discourse:

It's rare that I agree with Pat Buchanan on Mid-East issues, but on this one I favor his view to that of Bush and even Israeli conservative Natan Sharansky, whose book on this topic President Bush read and touted. Unlike the Bush fantasy, democracy does not overcome tyranny and terror in the Muslim Mideast: it solidifies it, as [the Hamas victory] proved for the umpteenth time.

"Democratic" elections in the Mid-East--unless heavily "swayed" by our money and troops, as in Iraq--always result in fundamentalist Islamic theocratic disasters for our country, when a benevolent dictator of our liking would be much preferred. Even in Iraq, Islamic shariah law rules.

I wonder if Debbie Schlussel puts "Democratic" in quotation marks because she believes that elections in the Middle East can never be democratic, or because they should always be under American influence? Does she know that Sharansky didn't consider Abbas's election democratic either? It doesn't matter, really: this is pure right-wing ranting; a celebration of violence that ultimately Bush and Sharansky and Cheney support, and it's pure naivity to think otherwise. No, we must remain committed to a vision of democracy across the world, one that hits the magic combination of popular will and individual freedom, but more to the point, it must be accomplished with a minimum of violence. Otherwise, we will see more nationalist movements winning the polls.

But back to the issue of Palestinian public opinion: is it an endorsement of the Hamas charter, strightforward and simple? Or does the opinion (shared by this press review, and, shudder, even Bush) that this is an anti-corruption vote hold weight? Does anyone ever introduce a second rhetorical question to which they don't mean to answer "yes"?

Again, the comparison with Canada's Tories is fruitful. Canadian and Palestinian voters have a reputation for supporting somewhat radical causes, and so do not vote for religious parties as a rule. Then, a door opens: corruption in the ruling party. What to do? Campaign on their personal character (if they're pious, they must be honest, right?) and "efficient government." Be really loud and big so that the press treats you and only you as the real opposition party. When people ask you about your theocratic ambitions, mumble something about the "values" of the people. Nothing too extreme, a repeal of gay marriage here, an imposition of hijabs there, but no total sharia law - yet. Who can say no to that? A vote is just a second's opinion being expressed. It can change: just look at the fortunes of the Liberals at the start of the campaign, and of Fatah at the start of the Palestinian campaign:

TWO THIRDS AMONG PALESTINIANS, ISRAELI JEWS AND ISRAELI ARABS SUPPORT THE MUTUAL RECOGNITION OF ISRAEL AS THE STATE OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE AND PALESTINE AS THE STATE OF THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE[...]

[I]f elections are held today, 47% would vote for Fateh while only 30% would vote for Hamas. Three months ago, 44% said they would vote for Fateh and 33% for Hamas.
With the Israeli withdrawal, Palestinian priorities are shifting towards economic conditions, fighting corruption, and enforcing law and order. Here too, Fateh seems to gain indirectly from disengagement. Most Palestinians believe Fateh is more able than Hamas to deliver improved economic conditions (priority # 1 for Palestinians today), reach a peace agreement with Israel, and enforce law and order. Hamas, however is perceived as the most able to fight corruption (priority # 2 for Palestinians today).

That's from September 2005. Time did not favour Fatah, as it turned out, or perhaps the poll is flawed. But it seems peaceful ideas are still grounded in Palestinian opinion. The party Palestinians voted for was called "Change and Reform," not "Kill All the Jews." In any case, they may have merely wanted Hamas powerful enough to protest but not able run amok, and, being fooled by the reports giving Fatah the lead, overcompensated. That's what Canadians on the whole wanted, and there, significantly, the poll results leading up to the election were accurate. Maybe the Palestinian electorate is having as rude an awakening as Sharon will have.

Speaking of whom, maybe there is hope in this result after all. The war criminal who became a dove may yet provide a model for Hamas, as it becomes more of a political party and less a terror network. Already, they are talking about forming a proper army, which will presumably be under the control of parliament, and, therefore, be somewhat democratic. No more random guys with guns running around, and while I cannot see the other armed factions being too pleased with coming under Hamas's umbrella, they might hedge their bets towards their faction coming into power later. That's the best thing about electoral democracy: there's always another chance.

Actually, the ball is really in the West's court now. We have to decide whether to negotiate with the new government or not. I must say, there isn't much to talk about until it recognizes Israel. We can't have every word out of Olmert's mouth getting "I'm sorry, did somebody say something?" as a reply. In the meantime, there is still Abbas, and when Fatah calms down, they'll realize that since he has already promised not to run again, he is no electoral liability, and meanwhile he remains Fatah's biggest source of power.

I leave you with a sad note from that poll:

55% of the Israelis and 53% of the Palestinians know that a majority in their society supports a mutual recognition of identity. These levels of awareness indicate that this step has acquired normative legitimacy in both societies. However the two publics seem to be less aware of the support for such a mutual recognition in the other public: 50% of the Israelis believe there is majority support for such recognition among Palestinians; and only 43% among Palestinians believe that most Israelis support it.

Ethnicity and religion

2006-01-25T16:39:00.000-05:00

It's too late to write the Post a letter about this (and I cringe to think of the ecstasy of gloating over there anyway) so I will respond here. Jonas talks of the secular Marxist Palestinian terrorist/millitant organizations as fitting into a paradigm of Islamic violence (this article is mild about the idea, but read it together with this one). The July article introduces the concept out of the blue, and is moreover internally inconsistent, because it notes that the West encouraged Islamism as a counterweight to these tendencies. Very true, though of course many Muslims turned to Islamic politics after the failure of Marxism of their own accord. How something can be contrary to Islamism and represent it at the same time isn't made clear. (The section seems almost cut and pasted, suggesting maybe the the editor is to blame).

Two obvious remarks present themselves. The first is that Marxist violence was not limited to the Arab world. Second, not all Arabs are Muslim, and consequently not all Arab violence is Muslim in any sense of the word. Jonas himself mentions Habash, founder of the PFLP. He's Christian - in the census sense of the word, at least. As is his rival Nayef Hawatmeh, who seems to have been responsible for violence as well as peace overtures. More recently, Hamas has fielded a Christian candidate (Kudos LGF Watch):

Does the Church support you more than other Christian candidates?

No, it has a neutral position towards all of us.

How do you view Palestinian resistance?

All occupied peoples have to fight for freeing their lands. Freeing your occupied land is an internationally legitimate right.

I say to the Palestinians to use this right under the umbrella of the UN, but they have their own right to decide how, when and where to resist the occupation in order to get the ultimate political benefits of their resistance.

(He goes on to condemn bombings against civillians, but I've never known right-wing pundits to give those statements any credit when coming from Muslims).

Most interestingly, the founder of the Ba'ath movement, Michel Aflaq, is also Christian. Makes sense, really, as Tariq Ali said in Clash of Fundamentalisms: The post-colonial Arabic world was looking for an ideology to help them rebuild their countries, and Christians had every reason to worry that an Islamic nationalism would alienate or oppress them. Ethnic nationalism served as a safer alternative for Arab Christians.

In that article The Weekly Standard goes out of its way to give the Ba'athists an Islamic flavour, nonetheless. Alaq is quoted as praising Islam for what it has done for Arabs. Jonas, then, has a point, even if his analysis is simplistic and prejudiced. Arabic nationalism and Islamism do go hand in hand, at least to an extent, because Islam is part of the Arab "identity" that nationalists are trying to build, and the history to which Islamists look on with nostalgia is an Arabic one in Mecca. This might be part of the reason why Arabs are over-represented among Sunni Islamists, but then again, the Anglo-American domination of the Arab world has been much more dramatic and violent than their takeover of Indonesia, and more sustained as well. Like all nationalisms, Islamism is a reaction.

But what is true of Arabic nationalism is true of Anglo nationalism. Even if it's mostly secular, Anglo nationalism will always have a place in its heart for Protestantism, and, in general, Christianity. That's why Jonas's non-Christian friends in Benadors should think twice about supporting the triumphant Anglo tide that we see these days. Bringing ethnicity into politics and religion helps neither, and shows how arbitrary ethnic identities can be.

2006-01-23T12:50:00.000-05:00

Dear Readers,

This blog was started in response to reading one crap article on the Internet too many. Specifically, it was a remark on a blog called "Atlas Shrugs" about black people in New Orleans needing life preservers. But that was just one example of the undigested opinions that permeate the Web. This blog will do its utmost to investigate facts. Do not expect regular updates. Please do expect decent posts when they come, with citations to Web sites with reputations for delivering facts, and heck, maybe even some BOOKS. Now, more then ever, when even traditional media celebrate philodoxia instead of philosophia, we need Voices of Reason. Now, more then ever, on the eve of Hamas's election successes in Palestine and Canada, the unity of truth and opinion matter. I humbly endeavor to assist in bringing about this link.

At your service,

LaoK