Monday, July 19, 2010

The Dominion of Fear.

My brave comrade Lauryn Oates, writing in Butterflies and Wheels: "This fear is something that has deep roots in Canadian culture, perpetuated through academic institutions, the media, even the peace movement. It has long been fashionable in the halls of western arts faculties to view all the world through the lens of post-colonialism. In classrooms across the country students of political science, anthropology, literature and other disciplines learn to see the developing world as unflinchingly hostile to foreign interference, as the wounds of conquest by imperial powers continue to heal. Through this lens, universal values do not exist. Young Canadians are taught to challenge their own western perceptions and to be culturally sensitive. Buzzwords like “ethnocentrism” abound, and all kinds of activities take on the metaphor of colonialism, whether international development projects or scientific research."

Meanwhile: You are working with the government. We Taliban warn you to stop working for the government otherwise we will take your life away. We will kill you in such a harsh way that no woman has so far been killed in that manner. This will be a good lesson for those women like you who are working. The money you receive is haram [forbidden under Islam] and coming from the infidels. The choice is now with you.

Elsewhere: Sima Samar, head of Afghanistan's Independent Human Rights Commission, is asking Canadians to stay engaged in Afghanistan on the simple grounds of helping fellow humans in great need. She said some people are afraid they are imposing "Western values" on Afghanistan, especially when it comes to equality for women, when no such distinction should be made. "Excuse me, these are human values," she said, winning applause. "These are universal values for all of us."

Up in the Okanagan Valley, 13-year-old Alaina Podmorow continues to do more for her Afghan sisters than the establishment "progressive" movement in Canada, combined, has managed to do. Chapters of Little Women for Little Women in Afghanistan have sprung up around the country and fundraisers have been held in many cities. The groups have raised about $160,000 from the public and almost the same amount again in matching funds from the federal Canadian International Development Agency, the foreign-aid wing of the federal government.

My latest essay in the Calgary Herald, Majabeen is Unafraid:

Majabeen is dark-eyed, raven-haired and 17. She's the oldest of the 29 girls at the Omid-e-mirmun orphanage in Kabul, Afghanistan. She is going to go to university to be a doctor. When Majabeen was small, her father died in a car accident, her mother remarried, and the new husband wanted nothing to do with Majabeen or her younger sisters Qamaria and Zamaria. So the girls were abandoned. That was six years ago, and that's how these three sisters ended up here.

You would have no inkling of this sad story upon meeting Majabeen or her sisters. You would not know, either, that the two-storey brick house where they live is an orphanage. . .

Update: My dear friend Brian Platt writes: The right to education is universal,” I’ll say, “everywhere, for every person, at all times.” “Yes, but Brian . . .” they respond solemnly, and then proceed to enlighten me about the neo-conservative program to dominate the world, the neo-liberal agenda to smash the welfare state, and corporate schemes to brainwash us with advertising. Today when you urge one of my fellow progressives to support the right to education in Afghanistan, the response you inevitably get is “Yes, but . . .”

25 Comments:

Blogger The Plump said...

In the meantime, in the corridors of power, tragedy looms

2:32 AM  
Blogger dmurrell said...

Excellent column, Terry. I agree with everything -- except the title. "Dominion of Fear". I think "The Racist Dominion" or "The Anti-Human Rights Dominion" would be more apt.

As you point out, our politically-correct education system emphasizes "white" or "Western guilt" -- over having nations take responsibility for their actions. Thus Canada's left refuses to criticise atrocities by the Taliban, or despotic actions by Muslim nations (Iran, Sudan's Darfur).

Reading the Globe and Mail, for example, one frequently comes across the phrase "while male" -- always in a derrogatory manner. Amongst the liberal elite, there is a race-obsession that surprises even me. And, as ususal, the mental thinking underpinning race-obsession -- and defending human rights abuses -- is not all that strong. Racists are not the brightest lights in society.

Racism? Anti-Semitism? Anti-human rights advocacy? There is too much of it in elite, left-wing thought here.
-- David Murrell
Economics, UNB, Fredericton, NB

2:41 AM  
Blogger Terry Glavin said...

Tragedy indeed looms - as it has been for some long while, but the Guardian seems to have just noticed, and sees no tragedy in it.

David: See the article the Plump links to and ask yourself what is "left wing" about the establishment view here. It's the NDP view, yes, but I see nothing "left wing" about it. In Afghanistan, it has always been the view of the far right.

7:49 AM  
Blogger Terry Glavin said...

PS Plump:

As for the Guardian's discovery of Brahimi, see: http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2010/02/09/terry-glavin-surrender-by-any-other-name.aspx

"To give you an idea where the peace-talks lobby will take us, Canada’s New Democratic Party is proposing a scheme that would have us triangulate with the Taliban by sending certain “eminent persons” to bow and scrape in such places as Islamabad and Riyadh. And just who are these eminent persons?

"Lakhdar Brahimi is the Arab League functionary who took over the UN’s shop in Afghanistan after 9/11. Brahimi still says the Taliban should be welcomed back to Kabul: 'As long as you kept your womenfolk at home, they left you alone.' And then there’s Mokhtar Lamani, who clinched a 2002 “family values” pact between the Organization of the Islamic Conference and the White House that banned gay rights groups from international conferences on racism, and blocked birth control programs for women in poor countries."

Nothing 'left-wing' about these people.

8:04 AM  
Blogger Aymenn Jawad said...

Terry, as a general question, plase tell me why you support the present Afghan strategy? Are you simply ignorant of the following:

1. Supporting Hamid Karzai's corrupt regime full of war criminals and drug lords only distances Afghans from the government and aids Taliban recruitment?

2. A Pashtun insurgency has arisen in response to the prolonged presence of foreign troops and the presence of an Afghan National Army that is largely composed of non-Pashtuns?

3. The Pakistani military and intelligence play a double game with the West as part of an expansionist policy of ''strategic depth'' and that even if the ''surge'' were to remove every last Taliban militant from Afghanistan, they could always just retreat into Pakistan as they did in the period 2002-2004?

4. The West ignores point 3., and wastes billions lavishing aid on Pakistan?

5. The last person to bring unity to Afghanistan was Abdur Rahman Khan, who employed methods of total warfare, ethnic cleansing, and forced conversions to Islam (in the case of the Kafirs of Kafiristan)?

6. Consequently, the best strategy is simply to find a way to engage the Pakistani military and intelligence to abandon ''strategic depth'', and then safely withdraw?

Please stop clinging to your fantasy that this nation-building you propose is going to work. The fact is, the Afghan government silences critics within of human rights abuses (Malalai Joya, whose advocacy of a simple immediate pull out is stupid) and does not even want to protect the rights of Muslim apostates.

Sincerely,
Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi

3:07 PM  
Blogger Terry Glavin said...

Dear Aymenn:

When you can think of a way to ask a question that doesn't make dumb assumptions, fanciful assertions, and is neither insulting nor shirty, go ahead and ask, and I might just take the time to try and answer you.

5:54 PM  
Blogger Khalid said...

But it is so racist and imperialist not to respect Taliban culture of Islam and respectful protection of their women. Who are we western colonialists that want to impose our values on the 3rd world poor? Didn't the British take their oil in 1948 and then mined all their bauxite and tantalum? Didn't Europe get rich and prosperous by stealing their raw materials?

Obviously the agenda for Nato is to dominate Afghanistan so BP and Haliburton can build a pipeline from Khazakistan oil fields and ship oil to Saudi Arabia.

Women's education is all OK, but it should not be done under the guise of multinationals stealing their raw materials. The priority of Afghani women is to gain their freedom from foreign domination.

/sarc

12:01 AM  
Blogger Aymenn Jawad said...

Excuse me Terry, but what were the 'dumb assumptions' and 'fanciful assertions' in my question? Which of points 1 to 6 do you dispute? Please do not think I was trying to insult you. However, it appears that you spend a lot of time and energy trying to convince people to support the war in Afghanistan, even when it is clearly an inept strategy.

I suggest you begin by reading Matthew Hoh's excellent resignation letter, and pay particular attention to the bullet points on page 2 (http://www.docstoc.com/docs/13944018/Matthew-Hoh-Resignation-Letter). In addition, please see this article I wrote (http://hudsonnewyork.org/1406/assessing-afghanistan).

1:03 AM  
Blogger RadicalOmnivore said...

"But it is so racist and imperialist not to respect Taliban culture of Islam and respectful protection of their women."

Oh ferfuksakes!

6:24 AM  
Blogger Terry Glavin said...

Aymenn:

First dumb assumption: I "support the present Afghan strategy." Then you come back with another, that I spend "a lot of time and energy trying to convince people to support the war in Afghanistan."

I'm going to be a nice guy and give you an answer anyway.

I'm against the "war" in Afghanistan. That's why I favour killing Talibs. No negotiation but this one: Put the gun down or we'll blow your head off.

I claim allegiance to no "strategy" except to fight to provide the Afghan people time and space to build up the society that three decades of war and clerical fascism destroyed.

Matthew Hoh is just another useless Yank. The idea that the problem is a Pashtun "insurgency" against foreign troops is groundless and silly. You want the Yanks to take on the Pakistani military-industrial complex? Fine by me, bomb away, although I don't particularly care about the "western security interests" you worry about in your Hudson post.

The victory I want will go to the Afghan people.

8:39 AM  
Blogger Aymenn Jawad said...

Terry:

You write:

''That's why I favour killing Talibs. No negotiation but this one: Put the gun down or we'll blow your head off.''

In other words, you support the present strategy. Namely, using foreign troops to defeat the Taliban. That's what I meant by your support for the present 'war' in Afghanistan. Is it not obvious to you that the Taliban is gaining ground all the time? Why might that be?

And you are a fine one to talk about making 'dumb assumptions' and 'fanciful assertions'. When in my article did I state that we should 'bomb' the Pakistani military? What I wrote was:

The only viable alternative strategy is what might be called "Pakistanization:" The U.S. must abandon the idea that Pakistan is a true ally, and confront the Pakistani military and intelligence on their double game. This should probably not be done too offensively unless the U.S. wants to alienate the military and intelligence and lose any half-hearted cooperation that already exists.

We might try to persuade the Pakistanis to abandon "strategic depth," and instead assume responsibility for cutting off support for Islamist militant groups such as the Taliban. It might be useful to try to speak in terms of Pakistan's own interests: in Waziristan, for example, Pakistan is now having to confront groups like the Tehreek-e-Taliban. Members of such groups were originally intended to serve Pakistani interests as part of "strategic depth," but have now turned on their former masters.

Pay particular attention to the phrases like 'should not be done too offensively' and 'we might try to persuade'. To suggest that I implied a military confrontation, as you did, is ludicrous.

''Matthew Hoh is just another useless Yank. The idea that the problem is a Pashtun "insurgency" against foreign troops is groundless and silly.''

Oh, Terry Moyvin' Glavin. Hoh was in the heart of the Pashtun areas of Afghanistan for months: he saw this Pashtun insurgency himself, he spoke with locals, he worked on reconstruction projects. Your own experiences, if any, do not compare to his and mine: you just sit in the comfort of your home in Canada. The Pashtun insurgency does not comprise the entire insurgency, but a good part of it, and it resents the presence of foreign troops.

Face it, you only dismiss Hoh as a 'useless Yank' because you cannot answer him. This is difference between you and me: I favour a strategy that will be in the best interests of the Afghan peoplem namely, ridding the Taliban of its main source of support and thereby isolating it, whilst putting an end to the Pashtun nationalist insurgecy. On the other hand, you want to ignore the root behind the Taliban's strength, whilst propping up for the sake of 'nation-building' a regime that is second last in the Corruption Perception Index, consists of drug lords and war criminals, silences Malalai Joya for criticising the poor progress in women's rights, and makes a mockery of the concepts of rule of law and human rights, as well as counter-narcotic efforts. i.e. You favour doing everything that fuels the insurgency and only allows for further destabilisation of the region. Hardly ameliorates the suffering of individual Afghans, right?

10:49 AM  
Blogger Aymenn Jawad said...

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10:50 AM  
Blogger Aymenn Jawad said...

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10:50 AM  
Blogger Aymenn Jawad said...

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10:50 AM  
Blogger Aymenn Jawad said...

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10:50 AM  
Blogger Aymenn Jawad said...

Terrry, please excuse the numerous deletions. The previous comment I made appeared multiple times on the site.

10:53 AM  
Blogger Terry Glavin said...

"On the other hand, you want to ignore the root behind the Taliban's strength, whilst propping up for the sake of 'nation-building' a regime that is second last in the Corruption Perception Index, consists of drug lords and war criminals, silences Malalai Joya for criticising the poor progress in women's rights. . ."

Thanks again for telling me what I want, what I think, and what I suppport.

The "regime" didn't silence Joya for criticizing the poor progress in women's rights, by the way. She got chucked out of the Parliament for using unparliamentary language and she's been trading in those 15 minutes of fame ever since, and unlike Hoh (who did spend some quality time with Kandahari hillbillies, as if that should matter), I've spent enough time in Afghanistan with reformers, feminists, journalists and intellectuals to be sufficiently familiar with what they want from the "west" to be sufficiently confident to ignore the useless Yanks (which is to say most of them) who dominate the Afghan debate.

And I wan't putting words in your mouth as you were in mine. If it wasn't clear, let me make it clear. "Contain" the Pakistani contagion any way you like. Bomb the ISI hq in Islamabad if that's what it takes, for all I care.

11:02 AM  
Blogger Aymenn Jawad said...

Well, darling, you're putting up quite a fight here. I would love to debate you, or your buddies Lauryn Oates and Brian Platt, live on radio, or TV perhaps.

Not sure why you put the word 'regime' in quotation marks. Read Hoh's letter again, as well as my article: you'll find that Karzai stole last year's elections. Please tell me why you want to prop up this appalling 'government' that does not even respect the right to religious freedom? Is that something worth fighting for? Remember, it was only after intense pressure on dear Hamid Karzai that Abdul Rahman was even allowed to leave the country secretly. The Afghan law courts, which you want to prop up, wanted to kill him in accordance with the punishment mandated for apostates in the Hanafi school of jurisprudence.

Oh, and by the way Moyvin' Glavin, why don't you tell your readers about the billions in Western aid that have gone to Afghan officials who used the money to buy luxury villas in Dubai? You think we should prop up this corrupt 'regime'?

As for Malalai Joya, I don't agree with everything she says (e.g. that the US went in to Afghanistan to secure oil pipelines), but she was right to denounce openly in the Jirga the numerous warlords (and war criminals) who make a mockery of human rights. If you think she (as a democratically elected politician) deserved to be removed from Parliament for pointing out the obvious, you need to be reintroduced to reality. She is not the only Afghan feminist silenced by the Karzai regime you support. And she is not a self-publicist: she's done great things in running schools for girls.

''I've spent enough time in Afghanistan with reformers, feminists, journalists and intellectuals to be sufficiently familiar with what they want from the "west" to be sufficiently confident to ignore the useless Yanks (which is to say most of them) who dominate the Afghan debate.''

Hoh and I (with my own personal experience) have not denied that there are reformers, and feminists etc. in Afghanistan, but what you support doesn't help them. If you think their views are representative of society, you clearly live in a fantasy world. Look how the Karzai regime you support and the clerics who wield such power silence them. Look at the numerous death threats they receive. Everything you support undermines them. That's a simple fact.

11:25 AM  
Blogger Terry Glavin said...

You're not a fit subject to debate, Aymenn. Your method of debate is to insist that I want to prop up Karzai, then you mount a defence for that goofball Malalai Joya and then you tell me I'm the one living in a fantasy world. You're debating yourself. Go ahead - but do it in the shower where nobody else has to listen, okay? You're not welcome here.

12:20 PM  
Blogger Aymenn Jawad said...

''Your method of debate is to insist that I want to prop up Karzai, then you mount a defence for that goofball Malalai Joya and then you tell me I'm the one living in a fantasy world.''

What you wrote was:

''On the other hand, you want to ignore the root behind the Taliban's strength, whilst propping up for the sake of 'nation-building' a regime that is second last in the Corruption Perception Index, consists of drug lords and war criminals, silences Malalai Joya for criticising the poor progress in women's rights. .

Thanks again for telling me what I want, what I think, and what I suppport.''

You don't deny that your project of nation-building means backing Karzai's regime. So please don't think I am setting up a straw man. Unless,of course, you really think otherwise, then tell me what you believe should be done.

And what was it about my nuanced view of Malalai Joya you took issue with? The fact that she points out what's true about Karzai and is government? As I said, some of her opinions are wrong, but she is still very brave and does great individual work for Afghan girls. How many assassination attempts have you had to escape? The Taliban has attempted to kill her 5times. And yet you have the chutzpah to smear her as a 'goofball'.

That you use such vitriol, however, doesn't surprise me. Your propensity to slander people who point out the inherent flaws in your strategy is duly noted, such as calling the incisive Matthew Hoh a 'useless Yank'.

Please take the time to read this article (http://www.andrewbostom.org/blog/2010/06/28/post-modern-coin-age-of-a-failed-policy%e2%80%94mcchrystal-tocqueville-and-the-koran/). I disagree with certain things this guy says, but take note of the failure of the nation-building project in Helmand. You can't just throw money and development aid at something full of corruption, and please show me how Afghanistan can have any sort of unity again, undone 30 years ago and brought about by a man who employed methods of total war, ethnic cleansing and forces conversions (if you don't believe me, just read any books on Afghan history, Sarah Chayes is remarkably candid about Abdur Rahman Khan and yet she praises him).

12:56 PM  
Blogger Terry Glavin said...

'Thanks again for telling me what I want, what I think, and what I support.'

That's what's known as sarcasm.

And if you think I'm hard on Joya, you should hear what Afghan feminists say about her.

2:19 PM  
Blogger Khalid said...

Radical Omnivore - not sure why you do not respect Taliban culture and Islam? As you should know, the Taliban have the right to protect their women and livestock from foreign (that is US and western capitalist) domination. Just ask any western intellectually deranged feminist, and they will support the authentic Taliban culture. Women education is all oh so great, but obviously Nato wants to educate them to western decadent culture of promiscuity.

(BTW, this is all in sarcasm - note the /sarc flag).

Cheers!

10:01 PM  
Blogger Aymenn Jawad said...

Okay Terry, let me get this straight: you support a project of nation building yet you don't approve of Karzai's regime? If that be the case, show me how this nation-building could be done. What you want will require an indefinitely long occupation, the establishment of a British-Raj-style civil service, and planning and managing the Afghan economy from abroad. In the meantime, the presence of foreign troops only stirs up the Pashtun insurgency even further (as Matthew Hoh and myself note), and the Taliban gains ground by the day. Terry, look, the way the war is being managed is not producing any results.

I agree with you that the immediate pull-out that Joya advocates is foolish, and I'm not surprised other Afghan feminists criticise her for that. That said, she has a point about the appalling nature of the present Afghan government (not as bad as Taliban, however) and that what NATO and others do at present is not helping. Please try to understand this, and if you feel I've insulted you, I am sorry, and I hope we can develop a cordial relationship. You are no doubt a sincere campaigner for human rights, and I agree with many other things you say (e.g. lack of condemnation by 'post-colonial' left of Taliban atrocities).

3:35 AM  
Blogger Terry Glavin said...

The phrase "what NATO and others do at present" is hopelessly ambiguous. NATO and others do a lot in Afghanistan, often in self-defeating and contradictory ways. Everyone goes on about a "western" strategy - I don't see one, and I'm not sure that a merely "western" strategy is what we want anyway.

I don't have a strategy to present to you for your evaluation, Aymenn, but I know that what's worth fighting for in Afghanistan is the rule of law, the development of Afghanistan's embryonic democracy and the defence of basic human rights - like universal access to primary education, for instance. That's what Afghans want. All the empirical evidence tells us this is so.

If NATO countries (and it's not only NATO countries that have soldiers there under ISAF) paid as much attention to ensuring fully free and fair elections in Afghanistan as their "security interests," and paid more attention to building a representative and corruption-free alternative to Taliban "justice," my guess is we'd be well ahead of the game, and the "local grievances" we keep hearing about as a growing cause of the so-called insurgency could be resolved without resort to violence and savagery. We wouldn't be clearing the field just to implant local iterations of Karzai's patronage networks.

If it's "root causes" you're after, there they are. There, and as you say, Pakistan, and increasingly, Iran.

I'm not suggesting that I've outlined an easier way forward. I just see no other way, and I know no Afghan democrat who sees otherwise.

7:11 AM  
Blogger Terry Glavin said...

You're a good man, Khalid.

Meantime Aymenn, rather than quiz me here you can read what I've already written about these very subjects:

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2009/09/30/terry-glavin-what-we-must-promise-afghanistan.aspx

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2010/02/09/terry-glavin-surrender-by-any-other-name.aspx

http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2010/02/01/AfghanistanExit/

8:22 AM  

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