Recently in Around the globe Category

I'm going to disagree with Jonathan regarding Iran. Some critics of Obama are praising him for finally indicating more clearly that he's "outraged" by the violence by the Iranian government -- as if he was previously indicating that he was heartened by it. I've written at greater length on the issue here.

But let's remember that much of that nation is pro-government. If violence continues, we'll soon have martyrs on both sides (if we already don't), and martyrdom is a powerful force in a nation such as that. The more that we talk now, at a moment when talk means nothing, the more someone will accuse us later of having "blood on our hands." Right now, it's the Iranian government that has blood on its hands. And when an opponent is destroying himself, why get involved? That only turns a suicide into a homicide.

This is my piece today for Foreign Policy mag's online version, part of a larger debate about "the Obama effect."

I'll go back to TS's request for "evidence" of Mark Steyn's bigotry.

Before giving specifics, I'll note that Steyn's comments consistently, over time, show a strongly anti-Muslim view that stingily refuses to give Muslim civilization any credit for its past successes. While Obama is trying to tell Muslims that they should re-embrace their own best principles, Steyn says Muslims have no principles to fall back on. Um, that's not a good way to engage them. Even if you believe they should all come to Jesus, I'm sure Diane would agree that getting them all defensive and angry about their tribal identity is not a good way to "share the good news." The mission committee doesn't teach that approach -- I know, I used to chair those kinds of committees in a former life.

As Philip Jenkins has written, people like Steyn demonize Muslims in much the manner that Protestants once demonized Catholics as representing a peril to America a century ago.

Here are the passages I question:

In his Cairo speech, he congratulated Muslims on inventing algebra and quoted approvingly one of the less-bloodcurdling sections of the Quran...

That's what the president did with Islam: He added sugar and sold it...

Rich thought that the president succeeded in his principal task: "Fundamentally, Obama's goal was to tell the Muslim world, 'We respect and value you, your religion and your civilization, and only ask that you don't hate us and murder us in return.'" But those terms are too narrow. You don't have to murder a guy if he preemptively surrenders....

The nonterrorist advance of Islam is a significant challenge to Western notions of liberty and pluralism.

I've complained about Steyn before, notably here with my brother:

This "red-egghead" approach is exemplified by Mark Steyn, a hero of the religious right. "With every passing month," Steyn wrote in a recent column, there are more Muslims and fewer Episcopalians, and the Muslims export their manpower to Europe and other depopulating outposts of the West. It's the intersection of demography and Islamism that makes time a luxury we can't afford."

In his new book, America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It, he escalates his argument that Muslims are breeding fast enough to destroy all civilization within little Mariam's lifetime. Steyn is careful not to prescribe bombings, beatings or final solutions. He leaves that to the fertile imaginations of his rabid following. He has perfected the mixed message sent by America's leaders to Muslims: We will deliver democracy to your doorstep, and we believe that democratic institutions will speedily bring peace and enlightenment to your nations; but we so fear your irredeemable madness that we think your grandchildren will corrupt our own centuries-old democratic institutions and will bring the West to a new Taliban-like state.

If you want to read more unfiltered Steyn, try this, which strikes me as bigoted.

Again, while I write about this urgent effort on the part of Muslims to reclaim the best in their heritage, Steyn argues loudly -- against either evidence or good taste -- that they have nothing good in their heritage. That helps nothing except his own desire to be a rabble-rouser.

Finally, my brother and I concluded our piece with this: "Scratch a conservative, flag-waving intellectual, and under the surface you will see an America-basher -- one who complains that America lacks character and resolve, one who has no confidence in America 's transforming power, one who cannot trust America to defend its principles when they are truly threatened."

And Steyn proves that anew in his latest piece, with these silly words: "A wealthy nation living on the accumulated cultural capital of a glorious past can dodge its rendezvous with fate, but only for a while. That sound you heard in Cairo is the tingy ping of a hollow superpower."

I'm attempting to back away from this topic in the future. I never believed President Bush was a bigot, but I did believe he received fevered counsel from bigots. But I have no interest in giving attention to fading figures like Steyn, because I suspect they are like parasites that feed on attention and will straddle whatever line necessary to get it (which he proves by snidely citing criticisms like mine in his "Reader of the Day" section).

The bad news is that the Iranian prez is bullying his rivals. The good news is that he finally came out against Hitler:

Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad accused his election rivals on Wednesday of adopting smear tactics used by Germany's dictator Adolf Hitler and said they could face jail for insulting him.

This New York Times piece is a fascinating look at an underreported aspect of the Mideast conflict.

I've written recently about concerned Pakistanis and Pakistani-Americans who are attempting to reclaim that country's future. One such group of progressives intend to rally at City Hall's South Lawn (200 N. Spring Street) on Saturday, May 30, at noon.

Their stated goals: to stop the Taliban movement in Pakistan; to embrace tolerance and acceptance for all there; to promote education and stability; and to denounce extremism in the name of Islam. You can write to the organizers at PeaceForPakistanRally@gmail.com.

I know there are cynics out there about who doubt that there is much compatibility between Muslims and the West. The quick case I'd make is this:
1. Human beings tend to play identity politics. When things go bad in our lives or our community, we do so with even more enthusiasm (as Eric Hoffer noted, the less we can claim excellence for ourselves, the more we claim ALL excellence for our tribe or religion or sports team. Because of problems in the Middle East and South Asia, we've seen identity politics there shift from love of country, within failing countries, to love of religion (where extremists can at least claim some hope of recreating a golden age that once existed).
2. If the West and the Muslim world were so inherently at odds, why was talk of a civilizational war so muted in the childhood of anyone over the age 30? Presidents from FDR to Reagan to the Bushes eagerly lined up to do business with Muslims in the Middle East, never worrying about incompatibility. The notion of a "civilizational war" is a recent development, a rallying cry for Mideast extremists and American talk-radio hawks who find it to be a wonderful ploy for maximizing their influence.
3. Identity politics depends on region and social conditions. Muslims act differently in Indonesia, the largest Muslim nation, than in Saudi Arabia, or in Orange County.
4. Being cynical about or combative against Islam only feeds into a dangerous polarization of societies. If people in the West condemn Islam as a whole, then progressive Muslims in Pakistan and elsewhere, who are plentiful if a bit quiet, will by the reality of identity politics feel polarized into the very camp that we in the West want them to stay out of. Finger-pointing against poorly understood neighboring religions may make some Westerners feel superior, but it's not good form or good strategy.

Did guys really stay home from the war just for Joan Baez? I'm aware of the old Aristophanes play and am amused to see it playing out out, as it were.

Will such a strike be effective? I don't think it will make much difference over the long haul. But evolutionary psychologists seem to tie much of human behavior to sexual selection -- in this case, males subconsciously believe that fighting battles and accumulating power will impress women and increase their chances of passing on their genes. (This serves as a motivator even once they're married or old.) You could argue that everything men do is an effort to attract women.

If women begin to indicate that they're not impressed by boys behaving badly, guys may need to rethink their strategy. But human behavior seems to involve a basic tribalism in which men and women both tend to feel threatened by rival tribes and parties; and for that reason, I'm going to guess that the strikes of 2009 will soon be forgotten.

Everything old is new again. Some women in Kenya are going on a one-week sex strike--withholding sex from their husbands or boyfriends as a means of making them stop their violent male behavior. The idea of using sex to motivate men is not new.

In Aristophanes' ancient Greek comedy, Lysistrata, the Trojan women attempt to tame their men by such a work action. Or, I guess, by giving them no action. In the 1960s there was a poster with Joan Baez in a seductive pose and the line, "Girls say 'Yes' to boys who say 'No.'" The clear meaning of which was that boys would be rewarded sexually for avoiding the draft. Presumably the opposite was also true, "Girls would say 'No' to boys who said 'Yes.''

This open use of sex as reward or punishment was later renounced by Joan and other feminists who didn't want to be as open in manipulating their men as a strike implied. Yet, in the real world women do civilize men and make us behave better than our boy testosterone-driven instincts urge. We do "act" civilized and wash, dress, open doors and try to be (or pretend to be) what our women want. You want Alan Alda? I can do that. You prefer Clint Eastwood? Okay on that too. Whatever we call, we all do it--men, women, gay and straight.

But does it work? Not so far. But the experiment has only been going on 2,300 years.
©2009 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.org

I've long liked Robert Gates, the sort of bipartisan, decent leader that needs to be a model for many others. Nice interview today with Fareed Zakaria, a far-too-rare moment of thoughtful analysis rather than partisan posturing.

I gave a talk last Monday at USC entitled, "Postcards from the World's Most Dangerous Place," looking at my time last summer in Pakistan, where my family built a school for underserved rural children in the Punjab. I also discussed being in the capital, Islamabad, last fall, when the Taliban blew up a hotel in town. A few days after my talk, the Taliban was reported to be taking root about 60 miles from Islamabad, where much of our family is based.

Jonathan and others have asked what I think of what's going on. As much as I love to bloviate, frequently unencumbered by facts or good taste, I think this is one of those times where it's best to say, "I don't really know." All of Pakistan's problems, including the rise of the Taliban, proceed in some way from its paranoia regarding India. But I can't say much about how dire the situation is at this time, for them or for us.

But for those who want a little more info, this is about as insightful as whatever you'll see.