Tuesday, January 13, 2015

Ideology and Conflict


Old Gadfly:  Gentlemen, have you read George Friedman’s geopolitical assessment of the Paris shootings? 


Dr. Friedman reinforced my own understanding that religion and secularism (e.g., the progressive movement) are forms of ideology.  I hope we will be able to discuss the implications of Dr. Friedman’s assessment in future conversations.  Meanwhile, with permission from Stratfor, Dr. Friedman’s assessment is republished below:

A War Between Two Worlds

by

George Friedman

January 13, 2015

Stratfor Geopolitical Weekly

The murders of cartoonists who made fun of Islam and of Jews shopping for their Sabbath meals by Islamists in Paris last week have galvanized the world. A galvanized world is always dangerous. Galvanized people can do careless things. It is in the extreme and emotion-laden moments that distance and coolness are most required. I am tempted to howl in rage. It is not my place to do so. My job is to try to dissect the event, place it in context and try to understand what has happened and why. From that, after the rage cools, plans for action can be made. Rage has its place, but actions must be taken with discipline and thought.

I have found that in thinking about things geopolitically, I can cool my own rage and find, if not meaning, at least explanation for events such as these. As it happens, my new book will be published on Jan. 27. Titled Flashpoints: The Emerging Crisis in Europe, it is about the unfolding failure of the great European experiment, the European Union, and the resurgence of European nationalism. It discusses the re-emerging borderlands and flashpoints of Europe and raises the possibility that Europe's attempt to abolish conflict will fail. I mention this book because one chapter is on the Mediterranean borderland and the very old conflict between Islam and Christianity. Obviously this is a matter I have given some thought to, and I will draw on Flashpoints to begin making sense of the murderers and murdered, when I think of things in this way.

Let me begin by quoting from that chapter:

We've spoken of borderlands, and how they are both linked and divided. Here is a border sea, differing in many ways but sharing the basic characteristic of the borderland. Proximity separates as much as it divides. It facilitates trade, but also war. For Europe this is another frontier both familiar and profoundly alien.

Islam invaded Europe twice from the Mediterranean — first in Iberia, the second time in southeastern Europe, as well as nibbling at Sicily and elsewhere. Christianity invaded Islam multiple times, the first time in the Crusades and in the battle to expel the Muslims from Iberia. Then it forced the Turks back from central Europe. The Christians finally crossed the Mediterranean in the 19th century, taking control of large parts of North Africa. Each of these two religions wanted to dominate the other. Each seemed close to its goal. Neither was successful. What remains true is that Islam and Christianity were obsessed with each other from the first encounter. Like Rome and Egypt they traded with each other and made war on each other.

Christians and Muslims have been bitter enemies, battling for control of Iberia. Yet, lest we forget, they also have been allies: In the 16th century, Ottoman Turkey and Venice allied to control the Mediterranean. No single phrase can summarize the relationship between the two save perhaps this: It is rare that two religions might be so obsessed with each other and at the same time so ambivalent. This is an explosive mixture.

Migration, Multiculturalism and Ghettoization

The current crisis has its origins in the collapse of European hegemony over North Africa after World War II and the Europeans' need for cheap labor. As a result of the way in which they ended their imperial relations, they were bound to allow the migration of Muslims into Europe, and the permeable borders of the European Union enabled them to settle where they chose. The Muslims, for their part, did not come to join in a cultural transformation. They came for work, and money, and for the simplest reasons. The Europeans' appetite for cheap labor and the Muslims' appetite for work combined to generate a massive movement of populations.

The matter was complicated by the fact that Europe was no longer simply Christian. Christianity had lost its hegemonic control over European culture over the previous centuries and had been joined, if not replaced, by a new doctrine of secularism. Secularism drew a radical distinction between public and private life, in which religion, in any traditional sense, was relegated to the private sphere with no hold over public life. There are many charms in secularism, in particular the freedom to believe what you will in private. But secularism also poses a public problem. There are those whose beliefs are so different from others' beliefs that finding common ground in the public space is impossible. And then there are those for whom the very distinction between private and public is either meaningless or unacceptable. The complex contrivances of secularism have their charm, but not everyone is charmed.

Europe solved the problem with the weakening of Christianity that made the ancient battles between Christian factions meaningless. But they had invited in people who not only did not share the core doctrines of secularism, they rejected them. What Christianity had come to see as progress away from sectarian conflict, Muslims (and some Christians) may see as simply decadence, a weakening of faith and the loss of conviction.

There is here a question of what we mean when we speak of things like Christianity, Islam and secularism. There are more than a billion Christians and more than a billion Muslims and uncountable secularists who mix all things. It is difficult to decide what you mean when you say any of these words and easy to claim that anyone else's meaning is (or is not) the right one. There is a built-in indeterminacy in our use of language that allows us to shift responsibility for actions in Paris away from a religion to a minor strand in a religion, or to the actions of only those who pulled the trigger. This is the universal problem of secularism, which eschews stereotyping. It leaves unclear who is to be held responsible for what. By devolving all responsibility on the individual, secularism tends to absolve nations and religions from responsibility.

This is not necessarily wrong, but it creates a tremendous practical problem. If no one but the gunmen and their immediate supporters are responsible for the action, and all others who share their faith are guiltless, you have made a defensible moral judgment. But as a practical matter, you have paralyzed your ability to defend yourselves. It is impossible to defend against random violence and impermissible to impose collective responsibility. As Europe has been for so long, its moral complexity has posed for it a problem it cannot easily solve. Not all Muslims — not even most Muslims — are responsible for this. But all who committed these acts were Muslims claiming to speak for Muslims. One might say this is a Muslim problem and then hold the Muslims responsible for solving it. But what happens if they don't? And so the moral debate spins endlessly.

This dilemma is compounded by Europe's hidden secret: The Europeans do not see Muslims from North Africa or Turkey as Europeans, nor do they intend to allow them to be Europeans. The European solution to their isolation is the concept of multiculturalism — on the surface a most liberal notion, and in practice, a movement for both cultural fragmentation and ghettoization. But behind this there is another problem, and it is also geopolitical. I say in Flashpoints that:

Multiculturalism and the entire immigrant enterprise faced another challenge. Europe was crowded. Unlike the United States, it didn't have the room to incorporate millions of immigrants — certainly not on a permanent basis. Even with population numbers slowly declining, the increase in population, particularly in the more populous countries, was difficult to manage. The doctrine of multiculturalism naturally encouraged a degree of separatism. Culture implies a desire to live with your own people. Given the economic status of immigrants the world over, the inevitable exclusion that is perhaps unintentionally incorporated in multiculturalism and the desire of like to live with like, the Muslims found themselves living in extraordinarily crowded and squalid conditions. All around Paris there are high-rise apartment buildings housing and separating Muslims from the French, who live elsewhere.

These killings have nothing to do with poverty, of course. Newly arrived immigrants are always poor. That's why they immigrate. And until they learn the language and customs of their new homes, they are always ghettoized and alien. It is the next generation that flows into the dominant culture. But the dirty secret of multiculturalism was that its consequence was to perpetuate Muslim isolation. And it was not the intention of Muslims to become Europeans, even if they could. They came to make money, not become French. The shallowness of the European postwar values system thereby becomes the horror show that occurred in Paris last week. 

The Role of Ideology

But while the Europeans have particular issues with Islam, and have had them for more than 1,000 years, there is a more generalizable problem. Christianity has been sapped of its evangelical zeal and no longer uses the sword to kill and convert its enemies. At least parts of Islam retain that zeal. And saying that not all Muslims share this vision does not solve the problem. Enough Muslims share that fervency to endanger the lives of those they despise, and this tendency toward violence cannot be tolerated by either their Western targets or by Muslims who refuse to subscribe to a jihadist ideology. And there is no way to distinguish those who might kill from those who won't. The Muslim community might be able to make this distinction, but a 25-year-old European or American policeman cannot. And the Muslims either can't or won't police themselves. Therefore, we are left in a state of war. French Prime Minister Manuel Valls has called this a war on radical Islam. If only they wore uniforms or bore distinctive birthmarks, then fighting only the radical Islamists would not be a problem. But Valls' distinctions notwithstanding, the world can either accept periodic attacks, or see the entire Muslim community as a potential threat until proven otherwise. These are terrible choices, but history is filled with them. Calling for a war on radical Islamists is like calling for war on the followers of Jean-Paul Sartre. Exactly what do they look like?

The European inability to come to terms with the reality it has created for itself in this and other matters does not preclude the realization that wars involving troops are occurring in many Muslim countries. The situation is complex, and morality is merely another weapon for proving the other guilty and oneself guiltless. The geopolitical dimensions of Islam's relationship with Europe, or India, or Thailand, or the United States, do not yield to moralizing.

Something must be done. I don't know what needs to be done, but I suspect I know what is coming. First, if it is true that Islam is merely responding to crimes against it, those crimes are not new and certainly didn't originate in the creation of Israel, the invasion of Iraq or recent events. This has been going on far longer than that. For instance, the Assassins were a secret Islamic order to make war on individuals they saw as Muslim heretics. There is nothing new in what is going on, and it will not end if peace comes to Iraq, Muslims occupy Kashmir or Israel is destroyed. Nor is secularism about to sweep the Islamic world. The Arab Spring was a Western fantasy that the collapse of communism in 1989 was repeating itself in the Islamic world with the same results. There are certainly Muslim liberals and secularists. However, they do not control events — no single group does — and it is the events, not the theory, that shape our lives.

Europe's sense of nation is rooted in shared history, language, ethnicity and yes, in Christianity or its heir, secularism. Europe has no concept of the nation except for these things, and Muslims share in none of them. It is difficult to imagine another outcome save for another round of ghettoization and deportation. This is repulsive to the European sensibility now, but certainly not alien to European history. Unable to distinguish radical Muslims from other Muslims, Europe will increasingly and unintentionally move in this direction.

Paradoxically, this will be exactly what the radical Muslims want because it will strengthen their position in the Islamic world in general, and North Africa and Turkey in particular. But the alternative to not strengthening the radical Islamists is living with the threat of death if they are offended. And that is not going to be endured in Europe.

Perhaps a magic device will be found that will enable us to read the minds of people to determine what their ideology actually is. But given the offense many in the West have taken to governments reading emails, I doubt that they would allow this, particularly a few months from now when the murders and murderers are forgotten, and Europeans will convince themselves that the security apparatus is simply trying to oppress everyone. And of course, never minimize the oppressive potential of security forces.

The United States is different in this sense. It is an artificial regime, not a natural one. It was invented by our founders on certain principles and is open to anyone who embraces those principles. Europe's nationalism is romantic, naturalistic. It depends on bonds that stretch back through time and cannot be easily broken. But the idea of shared principles other than their own is offensive to the religious everywhere, and at this moment in history, this aversion is most commonly present among Muslims. This is a truth that must be faced.

The Mediterranean borderland was a place of conflict well before Christianity and Islam existed. It will remain a place of conflict even if both lose their vigorous love of their own beliefs. It is an illusion to believe that conflicts rooted in geography can be abolished. It is also a mistake to be so philosophical as to disengage from the human fear of being killed at your desk for your ideas. We are entering a place that has no solutions. Such a place does have decisions, and all of the choices will be bad. What has to be done will be done, and those who refused to make choices will see themselves as more moral than those who did. There is a war, and like all wars, this one is very different from the last in the way it is prosecuted. But it is war nonetheless, and denying that is denying the obvious.
Note: “A War Between Two Worlds” is republished with permission of Stratfor.
The newest book by Stratfor chairman and founder George Friedman, Flashpoints: The Emerging Crisis in Europe, will be released Jan. 27. It is now available for pre-order.

Tuesday, January 6, 2015

A Tale of Two Cities


“When I said we would take dead aim at the Tale of Two Cities, I meant it. And we will do it. I will honor the faith and trust you have placed in me. And we will give life to the hope of so many in our city. We will succeed as One City.”  -- New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio Inaugural Address, January 1, 2014

“What parents have done for decades who have children of color, especially young men of color, is train them to be very careful when they have ...an encounter with a police officer.” -- New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio to ABC News, December 7, 2014 following the Eric Garner Grand Jury Decision

Old Gadfly:  Mayor de Blasio spoke of two cities in New York, presumably speaking about the income equality gap.  Following the Eric Garner Grand Jury decision he claimed another example of two cities based on race.  What do you make of this?

IM:  Ironically, last night I watched the movie, Red Tails.

AM:  It’s an excellent movie, but more so, an important story.

Old Gadfly:  The story portrays heroism among a group of African-Americans from Tuskegee, Alabama, who fought for America even though they were treated as second-class citizens.  The obvious bigotry, even among fellow military men, did not deter these men from being free to fight for their country.  Sixty-six of these Tuskegee airmen died for America and in the process became one of the highest decorated units during World War II.  While these airmen have a legendary reputation, there were other African-American units in other branches of the military who also fought with heroic distinction.


AM:  Don’t forget the 54th Regiment Massachusetts Voluntary Infantry, the first black unit formed by freed slaves during the Civil War.  The movie, Glory, does an excellent job of capturing the bravery these men demonstrated in fighting to preserve the American ideal:  life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for all men and women.


IM:  Yet, even leading up to the American Revolution, black men freely fought alongside white men on the side of liberty.  Crispus Attucks was one such man, who was perhaps the first American killed in the Boston Massacre on March 5, 1770.  The Irish poet, John Boyle O'Reilly, created a poem in honor of a monument to Attucks.  Here is an excerpt:

And honor to Crispus Attucks, who was leader and voice that day;
The first to defy, and the first to die, . . . .
Call it riot or revolution, his hand first clenched at the crown;
His feet were the first in perilous place to pull the king’s flag down;
His breast was the first one rent apart that liberty’s stream might flow;
For our freedom now and forever, his head was the first bid low.


Old Gadfly:  Think about two lines in the poem.  The first line,His breast was the first one rent apart that liberty’s stream might flow” certainly speaks to not only the moral courage of Crispus Attucks, but also to the moral courage of the 54th Regiment and the Tuskegee airmen.  Then there is this line:Call it riot or revolution, his hand first clenched at the crown.”  Might this line speak to what motivates behavior in another city:  Ferguson?

IM:  The question recognizes a conundrum in our current culture.  We have no crown, unless our current President establishes one by diminishing the checks and balances in Congress or the Supreme Court. 

Old Gadfly:  So, against what do these people riot?

AM:  The system.

Old Gadfly:  What is the system?

AM:  Inherited customs, traditions, and institutions.

Old Gadfly:  What specifically is wrong with these elements of our culture?

IM:  I believe the flaws are manufactured to agitate the masses in order to organize them for revolution.  This is why poet O’Reilly’s line is relevant to what is happening today.  The crown is the American ideal—life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, individual liberty, and a constitutional republic.

Old Gadfly:  What is the logic for a revolution?

AM:  The logic is ideology, rooted in Marxism.

Old Gadfly:  Do you have any evidence to support the assertion?

AM:  Yes:  Eldridge Cleaver.  Cleaver was a radical Marxist and founding member of the Black Panthers in the 1960s.  He, like Bill Ayers, was never repentant for the harm he caused.  (I can’t help but to point out the hypocrisy of scandalizing a speech the new Republican whip gave to a supremacist group 12 years ago.  Today, we have a president that freely associated with Bill Ayers, a radical terrorist in the 1960s.)  While in prison, Cleaver authored a series of essays that became Soul on Fire.  In his book, Cleaver admitted that he was a serial rapist, initially “rehearsing” on black girls and women before getting more serious and aggressive with white women.  He was exiled for seven years in three different communist countries, Cuba being one of them.  When he returned to America, he admitted to a total misunderstanding of the dangers of communism, finally realizing the tremendous opportunities, freedoms, and equality that were so abundant in America.  He even converted from atheism to Christianity, and from Democrat to Republican.


IM:  The notable economist, social theorist, and political philosopher Thomas Sowell also spent the 60s as a Marxist.  While Sowell did not commit any crimes or promote violence, he quickly realized how dangerous the Marxist revolutionary ideology was and still is.  His writing is powerful—it reinforces the customs, traditions, and institutions that are what make American great.


Old Gadfly:  Dickens opened A Tale of Two Cities with the famous line, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”  It was a sobering observation of the French Revolution. 


Old Gadfly:  Does the Ferguson, Missouri mob behavior represent a mere riot or a symptom of a more sinister revolution?

IM:  I hope just a riot.  When I watched Red Tails, I had tears in my eyes as I realized how proud and brave the Tuskegee airmen were to fight for America and its potential to transcend current circumstances.

AM:  We have politicians calling for the transformation of America, not transcendence.  Perhaps France’s Jacobins and Robespierre are America’s progressives and Obama.
          Old Gadfly:   Excellent observation.  It is worth the time to evaluate history.  It can reveal how myopic and self-centered many of today’s Americans are.