Politblogo

Veiled complexity

Jill at Feministe has a good post on the problems with Western excitement over the Muslim hijab:

Feministe - Uncovering Iran: At the same time, though, we have to recognize that we are operating within a highly patriarchal social context, and I think we need to do what we have to in order to make sure that women from all backgrounds and walks of life can be heard. In my personal opinion, this does not mean making the hijab, or any sort of clothing, mandatory — but it also doesn’t mean banning the headscarf or other religious symbols in certain contexts, like France did a while back. It simply means recognizing women as people, not as coat-hangers or symbols. And it demands looking at things like the hijab as fully as possible, and seeing the many paradoxes that crop up when modesty is mandatory.

Now, I certainly think there are often problems with the motives of some people who don it.  But in Western media, there's a whole other lurid dimensions to the consternation over it, one which infantilizes Muslim women and papers over the complexity of the debate for propaganda purposes.  I wrote about this very effect before my most recent long blog-hiatus.

Actually, the very nature of the attitude and coverage of the hijab as a symbol of the frightening and mysterious nature of Islam, itself almost seeming analogous in presentation to the fear of the feminine, has the very effect of inducing the kind of identity politics one finds played out in the behaviour of many young Muslim women living in the West.  When one is told that one's very existence is a contradiction, one can either repudiate the contradiction or embrace it more fully, defiantly.  There are multiple paths to the hijab, but the latter is an motive that many who choose the hijab very likely hold.

Dinosaur carcasses are the answer

I don't subscribe to the Grope, so I rarely get its Op-Eds, but I still couldn't resist commenting on this teaser from today's Grope website for an opinion article called "Alberta's model economy" (no linky because I don't know how to get a permalink out of a Grope teaser page):

Key Harper adviser Tom Flanagan argues that the right question for other provinces to ask is not 'how can we get our hands on Alberta's wealth?' but rather 'how can we become as wealthy as Alberta?'

The answer to this question is obvious: hard, hard work.  Hard work finding digging deep tunnels.  Hard work finding dinosaurs, dragging them to the tunnels and stuffing them inside.  Hard work waiting millions of years for them to turn into black gold. 

You mean you haven't done this already?  You lazy bums, you non-Albertans.  Instead you want to (and this is the only part of the article I can see):

When Alberta experienced an oil boom in the early 1980s, we were smacked with the national energy program, designed to transfer Alberta's wealth to the consumers and voters of Central Canada. Today, in the midst of another oil boom, we see a new generation of proposals to achieve the same objective -- enact a carbon tax, change the equalization formula, encourage Alberta to "recycle" its money by investing in other provinces.

Those meanies.  Trying to steal Alberta's hard work.  The hard work that the people of Alberta did, putting those decomposing dino carcasses under the ground.  Fred Flinstone would be rolling in his grave.

Canada invaded by army of bad fashion statements

Hi, folks.  Don't worry: I haven't gone and died again.  I've returned to Ottawa for a few days, and in the meantime, I've had some internet connectivity issues.

But Canada.  *sigh*  O Canada.  What have you been doing while I was away?  After I got back, I discovered that some cheap talk radio hate jockeys had promoted this "wearing red on Friday" thing.  To Support Our Troops.  Has Canada been taken over by the dreaded students' council weenies?  There's little I hate more than students' council fascism.  Which is, apparently, what happens when I'm not around.

I won't, of course, be bullied, not that I care.  No, I do not support the mission that Our Troops are on.  Otherwise, I support them as I support any other human being.  That's it.

Equally bizarre, however, was the tedious Unocal ex-employee who came to Ottawa wearing the get-up that a few international fashion critics thought looked sexy.  The erstwhile Mayor of Kabul (if that) will, of course, flog it to death.  It's really very typical to this South Asian---the belief that self-conscious aping with a twist of cultural kitsch will ingratiate yourself with the white people.

Even more odious was his lecture to us on our alleged necessity in Iraq, probably knowing full well what a destabilizing role our presence likely plays and whose interest it serves.  And yes, you got that right: I'm not a big fan of Hamid Karzai.

And I do not get why Jack Layton was so desperate to undo the recent "snub" by Mr. Karzai.  Why would you waste cred on such an insignificant figure?

Torture sophistry on video

Violet Socks is driven insane by the ultimate cognitive dissonance in George Bush demanding "clarifications" to the Geneva Convention, "clarifications", of course, meaning "sophistry".  liberal catnip has a video from Keith Olbermann's show with an extended excerpt from a press conference with Bush justifying himself before a press conference in the Rose Garden. 

I sympathize with the law expert dude at the end of the Olbermann clip, but he is naive to imagine that this sort of thing is new.  The founding of the United States itself required an unbelievable amount of cognitive dissonance on the part of folks like Jefferson.  Nevertheless, it's likely that this episode exhibits an unusual level of pathetic comedy.  Sophistry is like that.

Taking Afghanistan out of context

One of the things you hear from supporters of involvement in the Afghanistan imbrioglio is how much the country's people NEED Canada.  "Do you want the women to be re-enburqulated?  The whosits to be oppressed!  For shame!" they cry to those of us who suggest that maybe our involvement is counterproductive. 

From the Bread and Roses discussion board, someone posts a link to Eric Margolis' column on Common Dreams, originally published in the Toronto Sun.  Now, my American readers should know that the Toronto Sun belongs to a chain of virulently right-wing---and mostly trashy with their Sushine Girls near the front---tabloids that exists from coast to coast, including francophone Québec.  Canada is united in its trashy culture, you see; it's the better parts that don't get along so well.

Nevertheless, they published the works of Margolis, a vitamin-supplement magnate who is also right wing on economic and social matters; but he usually makes wonderful sense on foreign policy issues pertaining to the Muslim world, since he's actually been there.

Anyway, the crucial component of his article for me is here:

U.S., British and Canadian politicians say they are surprised by intensifying Taliban resistance. They have only their own ignorance to blame.

Attacking Pashtuns, renowned for xenophobia, warlike spirits, and love of independence, is a fool’s mission. Pashtuns are Afghanistan’s ethnic majority; long-term national stability is impossible without their co-operation.

What the West calls “Taliban” is actually a growing coalition of veteran Taliban fighters led by Mullah Dadullah, other clans of Pashtun tribal warriors, and nationalist resistance forces under Jalalladin Hakkani and former prime minister Gulbadin Hekmatyar. Many are former mujahadeen once hailed as “freedom fighters” by the West, and branded “terrorists” by the Soviets.

The people who scold those of us who desire disengagement from this futile war have, at best, an extremely shallow view of the situation and its history.  You cannot Save The Womenz if you do not have cooperation of The People there.  And you do not.  The Pashtun peoples---who extend well beyond the artificial (but perhaps necessary) border with Pakistan---cannot abide a government in Kabul dominated by people whom they view with mutual hostility.  (Pakistan cannot either.)  The Pashtuns cannot abide a government that makes holidays in honour of people they hate.  You may want to Save The Womenz and Feed The Childrenz and Stop The Drugs, but you cannot.  The priorities will be dictated, as they usually are, locally, and you can only make it worse.

Nations: three vignettes

Some of you will remember "Prussian Blue", the twin girls who are, together, apparently the Spice Girls of the neo-Nazi world.  In a bout of idle Internet-surfery, I occured again upon their web site.  One of the things I discovered is that they have a little sister named Dresden.  I also took a look at their lyrics.  Let's just say that after reading them, you'd become a little more suspicious when someone invokes Norse mythology, and you'd feel more confident in a Wagner-Nazi ideological link!  But: this is a little less fair to Norse mythology than it is to Wagner.

These young ladies get letters of support every time the media gives them a justifiably horrified glance.  Some of these people claim that they'd never say such things in public.  They have jobs like bank tellars and the like.   So, if you're a darkie like me or a visible/seeming Joo, and you're at the bank, and you're being served by a white seeming-non-Jewish person, there's a chance that this person may be a closet neo-Nazi and believe that he'll have to shoot you in the coming race war.  Feel free to profile them as desired.

One interesting one:

I am a Black woman and I have a lot of pride in my race but I don't wish any ill will toward any other race. I think you girls are talented and you should keep your race pride alive. Be proud of your accomplishments and always thank GOD for giving you the gift of musical ability and having the support from your parents to persue your dreams. Your website is really cool and if I were your demographic I would pick up your CD. I read the lyrics and they are really good. Keep up the good work, and don't get discouraged and never forget where you came from. (A fan)

If this person really is black, one really wonders what was going through her head as she wrote this.  Is this some form of rhetorical judo based on fear?  It's normal for beleaguered groups to engage in that sort of thing.  Still, it's odd when the lamb goads the lion's self-pity.

---

Way back when the Web (as opposed to the Internet) was young, I had a slightly diffferent set of obsessions than I do now.  One of the things about which I was obsessed was the Helleno-Turkish conflect, particularly the intractable Cyprus problem.   So I used to follow, in that time, a (now defunct, deleted) Cypriot discussion board that was mostly populated by expats of the region in America.  It was run by Greek Cypriot in the California tech industry (or something), who wanted Ordinary People to discuss solutions to the conflict given the failures of the leaders.

Now that the web is older, it generally knows better.  Or, at least, many people on it do. 

The most striking figure on this forum was this Greek-from-Greece, an ultra-ultra-nationalist, who had only vicious things to say about the innate barbarity of Turks and whose (unwittingly ironic) desire for Cyprus was that the Turkish Cypriot inhabitants be swept from the island or otherwise dissipated (even by "peaceful" means such as obligate assimilation, I assume).  Of course, he desired this regardless of what Greek Cypriots themselves wanted, which, to their credit, involved at its strongest some form of compensation for lost property and an apology.

The presence of interfering irredentists and ultra-nationalists from the motherland is not in itself very remarkable.  What is remarkable are as follows:

• A more reasonable Greek or Greek Cypriot once pointed out the fluidity of identity and the futility of establishing a firm definition of "Greek" by pointing out the existence of a Muslim Greek friend of his living in Greece.  Mr. Ultra-Nationalist responded by saying that if he ever met this person, he would kill him.  Because it's a worse crime to blur the definitions than it is to be a Turk.  And this Muslim Greek blurred the definitions---since proper Greeks, no matter whether they actually believe and behave as such, identify as Greek Orthodox Christians.
• Mr. Ultra-Nationalist, like most of the discussion board, was actually living in America.  He had a Chinese-American friend who had converted to Greek Orthodoxy and was learning Greek.  Mr. Ultra-Nationalist believed that this individual was acceptably Hellenic, despite the inconvenient Chinese origin.  A Muslim Greek is a vile concept, but a Chinese Greek is not.  (Actually, he usually used the word "Hellenic" and objected to the term "Greek", because---and this is true---the word "Greek" is what the imperialistic Romans called them.)

---

Anyone who knows me will know that I'm a big fan of science fiction novels.  One notable author that I usually like is Mike Resnick.  But Resnick is quite a troublesome writer in some ways.  He's a man who went to Africa or something on a lot of safaris or worked there or...well, I have no idea.  But he---a white dude---writes a lot about Africa, including very good allegories for African politics, such as Purgatory.

Now I say that he is troublesome, because sometimes he is a subtle defender of colonialism in a Kiplingesque way.  Not always---sometimes he's a clear critic of colonialism---but frequently one is left with the impression that he occasionally mourns the end of colonialism in Africa.  That is actually what makes him a good writer.  (Or maybe he is not mourning it, but trying to tell us that the end of colonialism has consequences too.)

One of his best works, however, is an anthology of a series short stories he published in magazines.  It's called Kirinyaga, and its background is a futuristic, advanced Kenya centuries hence.  In this rich, futuristic Kenya, very little traditional African lifestyles are left.  Most of the tribes have urbanized and modernized and live wealthy, capitalistic lives.  Except one.

And that one remnant of traditional life, kept on a reserve of their own making (one of the troubling theme that Resnick rides) is led by a witch doctor with a modern education.  This man persuades an international council to give him a whole terraformed planet in another solar system (remember, this is far-future SF) to which he can take his tribe and re-establish the cultural life of his tribe in an environment similar to ancient Kenya.

Each of the short stories is thus an episode in the life of this colony as told by the witch doctor.  In each episode, a "leak" in his cultural utopia starts to form, and he must patch it up.  For instance, an old woman, his closest ally, decides that she wants to retain her independence in her old age---and he, in order to prevent the corruption of the traditions he is trying to save, must stop her.  And he uses every power he has, including contact with the terraforming maintence services, to break her spirit.

A young woman wants to learn to read.  But he cannot allow anyone to become literate but the witch doctor. (If they want an education, they can freely leave---forever.)  Otherwise the ideas would poison his paradise.  So she devises more and more devious ways to get what she wants.  And he must thwart her at every turn.  Eventually he wins, with tragic consequences.

And what is most striking about the way that Resnick paints his reaction (and Resnick writes it very well)?  The witch doctor does not feel that any of the consequences are his responsibility.  Instead, he crucifies himself on the gentle cross of martyred self-pity.  The witch doctor communicates with his people through the use of parables---these pervade each story---and the responsibility for the consequences is entirely subsumed by the truth he creates with his parables.  Every episode raises the stakes by raising the potency of the parables he invents---and the potential damage caused by a leak in the cultural dam grows every larger.

I don't know to what extent Resnick's whiteness and mentality afflicts his writing in this story, but he is trying to tell us that there is no single national moment.  The witch doctor's attempts to stop time will always be futile and probably never reflected the ancient reality of the tribe.  His parables were like the ancient parables---but they were all designed not to educate, but to justify.  To screw down the lid of the pressure cooker of human creativity and independent desire. Eventually the parables must rupture.

I had no idea

Apparently, September 11th was Patriot Day in the You Ess.  I presume it was named after the PATRIOT Act.  Next they'll have something like President's...oh, wait, forgot.  (Of course, Canada has "Victoria Day" to commemorate a dead queen, so who are we to criticize?)

But still.  Next year, will it be "Die-Commie-Islamofascist-Scum Day"?

Commemorative denunciation

Being an American, the reclusive Dr. Violet Socks must, of course, properly commemorate the events on September 11th, 2001.  And she does so with gusto, issuing a denunciation of the 9/11...hijackers.  Well, not the hijackers you thought, at least.   I can only add that it can't be laid entirely at their doorstep, assuming we also hold enablers responsible; and a great deal of the US political establishment was ripe for this sort of thing.

belledame222 offers another, broader denunciation.

Confidential to Six Apart: You suck.  Haven't you ever heard of five nines?  I'm too lazy to leave TypePad, but, like, having the blog maintenance app down for half the morning when I wanted to post is teh suck.  Also you've cut off the stats app to save your servers' hides.  Thank heavens for SiteMeter.

The delicate gears of the machine

In the comments to my previous post, skdadl mentions an article by Luciana Bohne on the situation in Baluchistan (a Pakistani province) and its connection to US designs on Iran.  I googled it and found it.  Essentially, the accusation as I read it is that the US is attempting to destabilize parts of Pakistan to force Pakistan to arrange it's military strategy in a manner convenient for a US invasion of Iran. 

Of particular note is this:

An article by the Carnegie Endowment entertains the same thought, albeit to deny it: "The Baluch and the Pakistani think that Washington would like to use Baluchistan as a rear-guard base for an attack on Iran, and Iran is suspected of supporting Baluch [independence] activists in order to counter such a Pakistani-US plot. . . . Some Pakistanis perceive the US using its Greater Middle East initiative to dismantle the major Muslim states and redefine the borders of the region. Some Baluch nationalists charge the US with conspiring with the Pakistani government to put an end to Baluch claims. So far nobody has been able to prove any of these accusations."

This must be understood in light of the original state ideology of Pakistan and its founders.  The founders built their ideology around the experience of the Muslim intellectual classes in the subcontinent that had recently emerged from the long period in which the Muslim elite refused to participate in the institutions and education of the Kuffar who now ruled them.

The basic idea is thus: in effect, given the collapse of the large Muslim empires and the longstanding fact, in particular, of British domination of South Asia, the Muslim principalities were weak and ethnically divided and would emerge as such as the British empire was dismantled.  The Indian independence movement was blind to the specific history and needs of the Muslim population, and its success, laudable as it were, would threaten an entire cultural and historical perspective that had at least managed to survive the British.  At the same time, continuing British domination as well as educational and administrative backwardness were an unacceptable situation.

The answer: Pakistan, the unity of the Muslim-majority principalities of India.  It was to be founded as a secular republic under principles that are, incidentally, uncomfortably similar to aspects of Zionism---a Western-style nation-state whose purpose is to preserve the history and primacy of South Asian Muslim culture in a socially, economically, and technologically modernizing framework. 

And after its founding, for a surprising length of time that most Westerners do not realize, things kinda sorta looked up for this particular nation-state, at least the urban part of what was then West Pakistan, the part that I am most familiar with.

Then the Cold War intervened, General Zia got into power, and the rest is history...

So what does this have to do with Bohne's report?  Well.  As she says, "Some Pakistanis perceive the US using its Greater Middle East initiative to dismantle the major Muslim states and redefine the borders of the region."  This is intensely significant to the region.  Because one of the most important implications of the Pakistani founding ideology, to some extent still held by the Pakistani ruling classes, is the historical necessity of pan-Islamic secular unity, political unity that is to supercede the ephemeral claims of tribe and culture.  Thus, a threat to Pakistan's territorial integrity, according to this ideology, is an attack on this very idea.

So if the US is attempting to destabilize a part of Pakistan, it's next to impossible for the Pakistani government to avoid acting.  Not only is the ideology at stake, but the practical reality is that the dismantlement of any part of Pakistan is destabilizing for the whole region.  And it's impossible to give willingly into local autonomy demands, no matter how merited, because to do so, would be to concede the ideological point of Pakistan's fundamental divisibility to India, and that is the real elephant in the room.  Bangladesh was one thing: but the ideology cannot accomodate India's claim to Kashmir, not to mention the vital strategic ramifications. 

And that means that Pakistan can't afford multiple hostile fronts---in particular, a stable Northern Alliance government in Afghanistan.  Not only will the Pathans in Pakistan reject that as an oppression of their Afghan brethren, but the Pakistani ruling class cannot abide that very destabilizing threat as long as it has the Kashmir issue to deal with.  An Indian-friendly government in Afghanistan would be a strategic disaster.

This is what the US is playing with if it is playing with Pakistan.  And anyone who wants to circumvent it has to understand that the road leads through Delhi and through Kashmir.   What the Pakistani elite can afford in terms of supporting global stability is inversely related to what it can afford in terms of local stability.  It's paradoxical, but there it is.  If a stable solution to the Kashmir matter can be found, Pakistan would be more willing to support local autonomy, and thus less susceptible to act as the US intends it to act.

Politically orphaned for a fool's errand

A quick note.  Lord Kitchener's Own (??!) is annoyed about the recent decision of NDP delegates to buck convention in favour of sense and endorse Jack Layton's apparent proposal to withdraw from Afghanistan.  My friend skdadl has delineated the pointlessness---and, of course, worse---of any involvement in Afghanistan at all.  (I didn't entirely agree with the way she put it, as you can see from the comments, but I agree with the overall intention wholeheartedly.)

Now, there are probably good reasons to leave any political party.  You'll notice that I certainly have no affiliation with one myself.  But to make Afghanistan the reason for leaving a party is kind of like, well, quitting a hockey team because the other members wouldn't join your campaign to make the NHL replace skates with soccer cleats on the ice...I mean, it's hard to come up with an analogy for a behaviour so odd.

Worse, this person who is someone else's "own" begs that he not be forced to abandon what are presumably his political principles and join the Conservative Party.  Afghanistan is, apparently, so important to him that he is willing to sacrifice his belief system on a fool's errand.  That's even worse than Esau: at least he got a wholesome meal out of it (and was evidently tricked).  The irony is that, well, if you sincerely believe that Afghanistan involvement is a good idea for Canada, then among mainstream parties, the Conservative Party is probably your best fit, what with the service to the empire and all that.

Oh, well.  Maybe there's some broader context that I'm missing here.  But otherwise, it's definitely rather strange.

Rather immediate update: an interesting bit of news from Eugene Plawiuk. Accords well with what I have thought of such projects.  Warning: you might get popup ads even if you have Firefox screen them.