Afghan invincibility -- an attack on the myth

I stumbled across this skeptical look at the myth of Afghan invincibility just now. I have to say that I share the skepticism myself. Otherwise sensible people have said that even Alexander the Great  could not beat them. It's statements like this that rang an alarm for me. Alexander the Great beat everybody. Exactly how much control he and his successors and other pre-modern conquerors exerted in Afghanistan is a reasonable question; but if we grant the Afghans (if we can call them Afghans back then) were not beat by Alexander or really ruled by  Greek kings, then we will end up granting invincibility to many other peoples, people who live in rough terrain usually, as well. 

Here is an excerpt from Christopher Petersen at Through a Glass Darkly on this subject:

Not too long ago during some significant downtime for the platoon I indulged in a Rambo movie marathon which of course included Rambo III whose events in the movie occur during the latter end of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. It is easily the worst in the franchise (Rambo II remains my favorite even with its over the top, cartoonesque action sequences) for a number of cinematic reasons, but my principal problem with the film has to do with its simplistic portrayal of the Afghan people. Stallone's film falters for me because it engages in a gross romanticisation of the Afghans (the movie is in fact dedicated to them) by presenting them as a monolithic group of people who desire nothing more than to be left alone and to be free; honorable warriors who can do no wrong and who've never been defeated in war. It's this last emphasis on Afghan invincibility that I find particularly irksome and problematic historically.
However, this isn't a myth that's sui generis to Rambo III; rather it's a widespread belief held by the public and policy makers alike that has persisted since at least the 1980s and has been neatly packaged in such references to Afghanistan in popular thought as "the graveyard of empires". The narrative of the myth goes something like this: Alexander the Great had great difficulty in conquering this region as did the Muslims and Mongols; the British were defeated several times by the Afghans; the Soviets with its huge technological advantage were beaten by the Afghans by nothing more than WWI enfield rifles; and the United States is now finding that it too cannot conquer this country or its people. Now just to be clear I in no way wish to disparage the unique fighting ability of these people for they have indeed proven themselves on the battlefield repeatedly. Nevertheless, this notion that they have never been conquered or defeated is a myth and one that needs demolishing.
Unfortunately, there is a difficulty in attempting to survey a military history of Afghanistan because of the problem in pinpointing precisely when one can properly speak of a group of people called Afghans (even today this is problematic because you have a cluster of ethnic groups living in Afghanistan such as Pashtoons, Tajiks, Nuristanis, Uzbeks, et al.) because of its history of heavily mixed ethnic groups, tribal affiliations, and fluctuating borders. In addition, what we think of today as the political entity of Afghanistan didn't come into existence until the mid 19th century and even then its borders were essentially determined by British and Russian interests during their "Great Game" in Central Asia and not according to what would have been best demographically and/or geographically.
But for simplicity's sake let us assume that the Afghan people are those who have generally occupied the region that today encompasses the borders of modern Afghanistan since time immemorial. Given this condition an accurate military history of this region would run as follows:
1.) From what historians and archaeologists have been able to determine the region of modern day Afghanistan first came under subjugation during the conquests of Darius I and the Persian Empire circa 500 BCE.
2.) Alexander the Great defeated the Persian empire and subsequently, though with some difficulty, conquered this vast region c. 330 BCE. Upon his death the Macedonian empire split among several rulers, and Seleucus, a former Macedonian officer under Alexander, took it upon himself to govern the region that encompasses modern day Iran and Afghanistan.
3.) The Mauryan Empire (an ancient Indian empire) under Chandragupta defeated the remnants of Seleucus' dynasty and conquered most of Afghanistan in roughly 200 BCE.
4.) Sometime in the late 1st century BCE the Scythians, a Steppe peoples, migrated into Afghanistan and subdued the various tribal groups there.
5.) The Parthians, as part of their war with the remnants of the Seleucid dynasty, invaded and conquered Afghanistan (and India) and effectively maintained control of the region well into Late Antiquity. (Technically, it was the Indo-Parthians who ruled during this period, but historians consider them to be at least nominally a part of the larger Parthian empire.)

And there's plenty more where that came from.

Makes the case

A dissent from the Globe and Mail's endorsement:  Anyone but Harper.

My father, the hero -- a story from Syria (later revealed to be a hoax)

An amazing story out of Damascus.  -- which turned out  to be a hoax.

Two security guys show up in the middle of the night to arrest, harass, brutalize or rape Amina, a known gay/lesbian activist.  The following scene unfolds (excerpted and emphasis added):

"We have enough [reason to arrest you]," the same one says. "Conspiring against the state, urging armed uprising, working with foreign elements."
"Uh huh, which ones?" [says Amina]
"The Salafi plot," the other one says, his accent marks him as straight from a village in the Jebel Ansariya. "Making sectarian plots."
"Really?" my father interrupts. "My daughter is a salafi?" he starts laughing. "Look at her: can't you see that that is ridiculous? She doesn't even cover any more ... and if you have really read even half of what she has written, you know how ridiculous that is. When was the last time you heard a wahhabi, or even someone from the brotherhood say that wearing hijab is the woman's choice only?"
he pauses, they don't say anything.
"I did not think so," he goes on. "When was the last time you saw one of those write that there should be no religion as religion of the state?"
Again nothing.
"When was the last time you saw them saying that the gays should be allowed the right to marry, a man to a man or a woman to a woman?"
Nothing.
"And when you say nothing, you show," he says, "that you have no reason to take my daughter."
They say nothing. Then one whispers something to the other, he smiles.
"Uh huh," the man says, "so your daughter tells you everything, huh?"
"Of course," my father says.
"Did she tell you that she likes to sleep with women?" he grins, pure poison, feeling like he has made a hit. "That she is one of those faggots who fucks little girls?" (the arabic he used is far cruder ... you get the idea)
My dad glances at me. I nod; we understand each other.
"She is my daughter," he says and I can see the anger growing in his eyes, "and she is who she is and if you want her, you must take me as well."
"Stupid city-fuckers," says the same guy. "All you rich pansies are the same. No wonder she ends up fucking girls and kikes" (again, the Arabic is much rawer ,,,)
He steps towards me and puts his hand on my breast.
"Maybe if you were with a real man," he leers, "you'd stop this nonsense and lies; maybe we should show you now and let your pansy father watch so he understands how real men are."
I am almost trembling with rage. My dad moves his head slightly to tell me to be silent.
"What are you?" he says. "Did the jackal sleep with the monkey before you were born? What are your names?"
They tell him. He nods
"Your father," he says to the one who threatened to rape me, "does he know this is how you act? He was an officer, yes? And he served in ..." (he mentions exactly and then turns to the other) "and your mother? Wasn't she the daughter of ...?"
They are both wide-eyed, yes, that is right,
"What would they think if they heard how you act? And my daughter? Let me tell you this about her; she has done many things that, if I had been her, I would not have done. But she has never once stopped being my daughter and I will never once let you do any harm to her. You will not take her from here. And, if you try, know that generations of her ancestors are looking down on you. Do you know what is our family name? You do? Then you know where we stood when Muhammad, peace be upon him, went to Medina, you know who it was who liberated al Quds, you know too, maybe, that my father fought to save this country from the foreigners and who he was, know who my uncles and my brothers were ... and if that doesn't shame you enough, you know my cousins and you will leave here.
"You will leave her alone and you will tell the rest of your gang to leave her alone. And I will tell you something now because I think maybe you are too stupid to figure this out on your own. You are alawiyeen; do not deny that, I know you both are. We are Sunni. You know that. And in your offices and in your villages they are telling you that all of you must stand shoulder to shoulder now because we are coming for you as soon as we can and we will serve you as they have served ours in the land of the two rivers. So you are scared. I would be too.
"So you come here to take Amina. Let me tell you something though. She is not the one you should fear; you should be heaping praises on her and on people like her. They are the ones saying alawi, sunni, arabi, kurdi, duruzi, christian, everyone is the same and will be equal in the new Syria; they are the ones who, if the revolution comes, will be saving Your mother and your sisters. They are the ones fighting the wahhabi most seriously. You idiots are, though, serving them by saying 'every sunni is salafi, every protester is salafi, every one of them is an enemy' because when you do that you make it so.
"Your Bashar and your Maher, they will not live forever, they will not rule forever, and you both know that. So, if you want good things for yourselves in the future, you will leave and you will not take Amina with you. You will go back and you will tell the rest of yours that the people like her are the best friends the Alawi could ever have and you will not come for her again.
"And right now, you two will both apologize for waking her and putting her through all this. Do you understand me?"
And time froze when he stopped speaking. Now, they would either smack him down and beat him, rape me, and take us both away ... or ...

the first one nodded, then the second one.
"Go back to sleep," he said, "we are sorry for troubling you."
And they left!
...

 Thanks to Syria Comment

Rick Mercer on the campaign -- Is Stephen Harper a hologram?

Asked by someone who followed him around in person.

There's much more well worth reading, it's a substantial piece.

Vote mobs

From the Ottawa Citizen: 
[Emphasis and Rick Mercer link SM]

In his April 22 column, “Vote Mob Mentality”, Michael Taube has insulted Canadian youth, and in my view as a participant, he has mischaracterized the nature and goals of campus Vote Mobs.
First of all, let’s lay one thing to rest: Comedian Rick Mercer was only the indirect inspiration for Vote Mobs.

The only thing Rick did was look us in the eye (us being the 18-25-year-old crowd) and appeal to us directly. “Vote,” he said, and that was all. The Vote Mob was conceived by students at the University of Guelph, and is, as Mercer himself said, “a perfect example of young people doing things in a brand new way.” They are not merely “a fun, easy and cheap way to get our youth interested in politics,” as Taube would have it.

They are also not an excuse to “put on some music, dress in matching costumes, paint [our] face[es], and make pointless YouTube videos.” Honestly Mr. Taube, do you think I need an excuse to do that? Because I could do that in my living room. I certainly didn’t go out into the cold in the middle of exam week because I had nothing better to do. In fact, let’s pause on that last note. All Vote Mob videos were filmed and edited during April, which is exam month for students.

This did lead to lower turnouts at the mobs, but the students who came out and participated in these videos represent the diehards, the enthusiasts, the political-junkies. They will not, I guarantee you, be staying home on May 2. Furthermore, the lack of partisan support in the Vote Mobs is not an indication of our lack of knowledge. It’s simply that non-partisanship was our rule. And to Taube’s question: “Do you really think any of the major leaders honestly cares that some 18-25-year-olds who wouldn’t ordinarily vote have suddenly been convinced by a comedian’s rant on TV?”

In a word, sir, No. The vote mobs, Mr. Taube, Mr. Harper, Mr./Ms. Member of Parliament, are not for you. They’re for me. For us. For the 18-25-year-old crowd. We’re not convincing you, we’re convincing ourselves. We’re convincing ourselves that we really do matter and that we really do have potential political clout. We also mob to remind ourselves, and to tell other youth, that we are the problem. The fact that our political power goes unrealized is a problem only we created and only we can solve. Politicians don’t listen because we don’t vote. When we dance, scream, and yell “VOTE!” we’re not talking to you, Sir, we’re talking to each other.

I don’t really care whether or not the party leaders see our video. What I want is for youth across Canada to see it. They’re the reason I left my books in the library to go out in the cold and jump around, not you, not the adults, not the political leaders.

I find it incredibly sad that some see Vote Mobs as an indication of something wrong with either youth or Canada. If we were protesting anything, it was apathy. If we were celebrating anything, it was Canada and democracy. In light of events across the world, for example, the protests in Egypt, 300 young Canadians rallying in front of their school, singing O Canada and waving signs that say “Vote” is an indication of all that’s right in Canada.

Finally, Mr. Taube, let me address your statement that, “while no one is expecting all young people to have PhD-level understanding of the Canadian political system, a decent amount of knowledge would be nice.” What a blatant insult to the intelligence of Canadian youth everywhere.

Until my peers vote en masse, I don’t expect attention. But I do expect — from both my politicians and my newspapers — common courtesy. You have failed in this simplest of tasks, proving that youth are not as dumb as you make them out to be. We at least know when we’re being insulted.

Michelle Reddick is a third-year student at McGill University and a vote-mob participant.

Read more: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/vote/4678398/story.html#ixzz1KlEGrZiN

Syria as the key to the Middle East

I can't tell if my readers are fascinated or bored by my coverage of the Arab Spring.  I continue to forward material anyway.  I will need it next year for History of Islamic Civilization.  There is also the fact that a lot of predictions and claims are being made about the meaning of it all, and it will be interesting to see how those hold up.

Today I offer you a link to a  very meaty aggregation of pieces on Syria, from Joshua Landis' Syria Comment.  I will just excerpt one article from the Daily Star of Lebanon by Rami G. Khouri which I hereby enter in the great Arab Spring Prediction Contest.

Assad’s big problem is that Syrians continue to express greater populist defiance of the regime, rather than compliance with either its political promises or its hard police measures. The core elements of the regime that he and his father have managed for over 40 years are now all being challenged openly and simultaneously, including the extended Assad family, the Baath Party apparatus, the government bureaucracy, and the numerous security agencies. These form a multi-layered but integrated power system whose center of gravity and policy coordination is the president. We are unlikely to see a Tunisian or Egyptian model of the security agencies abandoning the president to drift and be thrown out of power, while they remain in place. In Syria, either the entire system asserts itself and remains in control – with or without real reforms – or it is changed in its entirety.

Here is where the Assad government and power structure play on some of their assets. The two most significant ones are that: 1) most Syrians do not want to risk internal chaos or sectarian strife (a la Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen or Somalia) and might opt to remain with the Assad-dominated system that has brought them stability without democracy; and, 2) any changes in regime incumbency or policies in Syria will have enormous impact across the entire region and beyond, given Syria’s structural links or ongoing political ties with every major conflict and actor in the region, especially Lebanon and Hizbullah, Iraq, Iran, Turkey, Israel, Palestine and Hamas, the U.S. and Saudi Arabia. Regime overthrow in Syria will trigger significant, cumulative and long-lasting repercussions in the realms of Arab-Israeli, Arab-Iranian, inter-Arab and Arab-Western relations, with winners and losers all around.

For some, this makes the Assad regime the Middle Eastern equivalent of the banks that were too big to allow to collapse during the American economic crisis three years ago, because the spillover effect would be too horrible to contemplate. The specter of sectarian-based chaos within a post-Assad Syria that could spread to other parts of the Middle East is frightening to many people. Yet many, perhaps most, Syrians indicate with their growing public protests that they see their current reality as more frightening – especially the lack of democracy, widespread corruption, human rights abuses, one-party rule, economic and environmental stress, excessive security dominance and burgeoning youth unemployment.

The epic battle between regime security and citizen rights that has characterized the modern Arab world for three long and weary generations enters its most important phase in Syria in the coming few weeks, with current Arab regional trends suggesting that citizens who collectively and peacefully demand their human and civil rights cannot be denied.

A tragic Civil War?

Ta-Nehisi Coates says no:

Yesterday, Robert Zimmerman was kind enough to link this podcast on the Civil War, and the reasons soldiers, Union and Confederate, offered up for fighting. It's a good segment which I heartily recommend, especially for those of us in the Effete Liberal Book Club. That said, one thing struck me about the conversation, which inevitably comes through any time smart people gather to discuss the Civil War. The conceded common ground was the following--The Civil War was a tragedy.

I think that ground is generally accepted by almost everyone, and for good reasons. Six hundred thousand people died in the Civil War, a shocking figure which doesn't really capture the toll that this sort of violence took on the country at large. And yet when I think about the Civil War I don't feel sad at all. To be honest, I feel positively fucking giddy.

And I don't think I'm abnormal because of this. Twenty-two thousand people died in the Revolutionary War, and we celebrate that with hot dogs and hamburgers every year. I'm sure that while Jews feel fairly horrible that the Holocaust happened, very few of them consider the fighting it took in order to liberate the death camps, "tragic." The Holocaust is tragic. Ending the Holocaust is not.

In that fashion, from my perspective, the most trenchant facts of the Civil War is not that it turned "brother against brother," or that it produced a plethora of great military minds, or even that it produced arguably our greatest leaders. In sum the most trenchant facts, for me, are as always t emanate from this:

Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin.

this:

Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner- stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth...

And this:

You cannot make soldiers of slaves, or slaves of soldiers. The day you make a soldier of them is the beginning of the end of the Revolution. And if slaves seem good soldiers, then our whole theory of slavery is wrong.

It's really simple for me. One group of Americans attempted to raise a country on propoerty in Negroes. Another group of Americans, many of them Negroes themselves, stopped them. As surely as we lack the ability to see tragedy in violently throwing off the yoke of the English, I lack the ability to see tragedy in violently throwing off the yoke of slaveholders.

For most Americans, the Civil War is sudden outbreak of a existential violence. But for 250 years, African-Americans lived in slavery--which is to say perpetual existential violence. I don't know what else to call a system that involves the constant threat of your children, your parents, your grandparents, being sold off, never for you to see them again. That is death.

Malcolm X was fond of saying that that there was no such thing as a "bloodless revolution." I don't know if that's true, but it surely was true of black people. The Civil War is our revolution. It ended slavery, and birthed both modern America, and modern black America. 

That can never be tragic to me.

Kangirsuk, Quebec, near Ungava Bay

The grad student who was my teaching assistant for History of Islamic Civilization is off to the real Canadian North in August to be one of two high school teachers in this village of less than 500 people.

Lots of my Nipissing University students get their first teaching jobs in such places.  I think it no bad thing that bright southern kids get to see what most of this country is like in this way.

Image:  a tourist pic.   Challenge:  find this place on a map.

A timely meditation on democracy

Phil Paine wrote a provocative "Seventh Meditation on Democracy" during the last federal election in Canada.  For this one, I'm reposting this excerpt (or you can read the whole thing here):

A few days ago, I was in the sub­way, and I over­heard a con­ver­sa­tion about our cur­rent national elec­tion. Two boys who, from their appear­ance, could have been no fur­ther along in school than grade nine or ten, were dis­cussing the tele­vised debates between the lead­ers of the five major polit­i­cal par­ties. What struck me, as I lis­tened in, was that the dis­cus­sion was cogent and intel­li­gent. One of the boys, who seemed the youngest, was par­tic­u­larly artic­u­late, and his opin­ions were not the sim­ple par­rot­ing of some adult he had heard, or the pur­suit of a party line. In fact, his analy­sis of the debate showed keener obser­va­tion and judg­ment than that of the pro­fes­sional com­men­ta­tors who dis­sected the debate after the broad­cast.

Now, I’m sure that these were excep­tional kids. It’s unlikely that there are many in their age group who share their inter­ests and skills. But it’s a sign that there is some­thing going on, under the sur­face of our soci­ety, that you would never guess by watch­ing tele­vi­sion or read­ing a news­pa­per. I grew up in a fam­ily where national and provin­cial pol­i­tics were argued at the din­ner table with gusto, and I have a clear mem­ory of the issues in an elec­tion held when I was ten years old. That was prob­a­bly an excep­tional envi­ron­ment. But I did not have access to the wealth of infor­ma­tion now avail­able on the inter­net. No amount of clev­er­ness is very use­ful if you have poor infor­ma­tion, so my capac­ity to ana­lyze was lim­ited. I doubt that I could have matched the sophis­ti­ca­tion demon­strated by the kids in the sub­way. Many peo­ple, of any age, are still prey to the tra­di­tional tools of obfus­ca­tion, button-pushing and appeals to prej­u­dice that politi­cians have suc­cess­fully deployed for cen­turies. How­ever, if some­one is fairly sharp, and raised with the infor­ma­tion tools now avail­able, they have a good chance of see­ing through these strat­a­gems. So you can expect there to start appear­ing a layer of young peo­ple who are rel­a­tively immune to the kind of silly-ass cam­paign­ing that our cur­rent gov­ern­ment relies upon. It will be very inter­est­ing to see what hap­pens when that layer of peo­ple, who were born with the inter­net, grows up and walks into the poll-booth. They will be dis­plac­ing a gen­er­a­tion that grew up with the much more pas­sive and homo­ge­neous medium of television.

One of the results may be that the elec­torate does some grow­ing up in a psy­cho­log­i­cal, as well as a phys­i­cal sense. One of the chief points that I’ve tried to put across in my “med­i­ta­tions on democ­racy” is that the core con­cept of democ­racy is self-respect. Self-respect is man­i­fested, in a healthy mind, by a will­ing­ness to take on the respon­si­bil­i­ties of an adult when one becomes an adult. The prin­ci­pal respon­si­bil­ity that an adult has is to gov­ern them­self. A child is born help­less, and must at first be con­trolled and guided by par­ents, in order to sur­vive at all. But, as the child grows older, the car­ing par­ent relin­quishes one aspect of con­trol after another, until adult­hood is reached, and the child becomes autonomous and self-governing. That is com­mon sense, under­stood by most peo­ple on the indi­vid­ual level. How­ever, on the level of col­lec­tive action, on the level of soci­ety, that com­mon sense les­son is rarely understood.

When peo­ple dis­cussing pol­i­tics talk about “lead­er­ship”, you know that they are encased in a prim­i­tive, pre-logical, and infan­tile state of mind. Peo­ple who seek lead­ers are sim­ply not grown up, and peo­ple who advance the claim of Lead­er­ship are attempt­ing to keep adults in a state of per­pet­ual child­hood. If to be an adult means to gov­ern one­self, then no adult should be seek­ing a “leader”. The pur­pose of democ­racy is not to “select a leader”. It is to select poli­cies. The mech­a­nism of democ­racy is not intended to choose some­one to gov­ern the peo­ple, but for the peo­ple to gov­ern them­selves. In ratio­nal demo­c­ra­tic thought, office hold­ers are not “lead­ers”, they are ser­vants. The pur­pose of an elec­tion is to 1) choose a pol­icy of admin­is­tra­tion and an over­all plan, 2) assign peo­ple to the rel­e­vant tasks, and 3) make sure they do what they are told to do. “Lead­er­ship” does not come into it. Vot­ers are not sup­posed to be “led”, they are sup­posed to be in charge. The last per­son I want to see hold pub­lic office is some strut­ting alpha-ape who claims the right to tell me what to do. If I see some­one run­ning for office who is flaunt­ing dom­i­nance sig­nals, claim­ing to have “vision” and telling me I need “lead­er­ship”, then my healthy, sane, adult response is to want to see such an ass­hole slapped down, hum­bled, and kicked out of pub­lic life. I want to see them replaced with some com­pe­tent per­son who will faith­fully carry out the instruc­tions they are given by the peo­ple. I am an adult, and a free man, so any­one who dares to claim to be my “leader” earns noth­ing but my con­tempt. My fun­da­men­tal her­itage as a Cana­dian is that the only legit­i­mate leader of me is me.

Cana­di­ans are sup­posed to know this. We are not some back­ward tribe of sav­ages danc­ing around a golden calf and wait­ing for a crack­pot Mes­siah to tell us what to do. We are sup­posed to be grown up enough not to be impressed by a tai­lored suit, a jut­ting jaw, or a man­u­fac­tured pub­lic­ity image. The polit­i­cal sys­tem we have built, slowly and pru­dently, out of dis­parate tra­di­tional sources — England’s slowly evolved par­lia­ment, New England’s town meet­ings, native Cana­dian coun­cils, the long fight for uni­ver­sal fran­chise, notions of auton­omy, indi­vid­ual rights, social equal­ity, and self-rule — should not be per­mit­ted to lapse into some kind of mys­ti­cal monar­chy, after all our strug­gles. That is pre­cisely why, in our sys­tem, the prime min­is­ter is not the head of state, and his or her gov­ern­ment can be called to account at any time, or dis­solved by a vote of no-confidence. In fact, the pres­ence of a prime min­is­ter is a mere super­sti­tious holdover, an arti­fact of prim­i­tive hier­ar­chi­cal thought that is fun­da­men­tally incom­pat­i­ble with democracy.

The only valid func­tion of a prime min­is­ter in our sys­tem is to “form a gov­ern­ment”, i.e. to select a cab­i­net and over­see the admin­is­tra­tion of what­ever laws the assem­bled par­lia­ment chooses to pass. Oth­er­wise, he is merely a min­is­ter like any other, elected to rep­re­sent his local rid­ing. It is the assem­bled mem­bers of par­lia­ment who are sup­posed to be mak­ing deci­sions, not the prime min­is­ter. A par­lia­ment can func­tion bet­ter with­out the office, and if we man­age to evolve our sys­tem fur­ther, it will even­tu­ally be abolished.

Peo­ple con­sis­tently con­fuse (because they have been encour­aged to con­fuse) a polit­i­cal party with gov­ern­ment. But a party is merely a pri­vate asso­ci­a­tion of cit­i­zens, some hold­ing office and some not, that sup­pos­edly shares some par­tic­u­lar opin­ions about pol­icy. Mem­bers of par­lia­ment may choose to belong to a polit­i­cal party, but their role in par­lia­ment is to pro­pose, debate, and vote on leg­is­la­tion for the well­be­ing of the coun­try, as rep­re­sen­ta­tives of their con­stituents. They are not sup­posed to be cogs or func­tionar­ies of what­ever party they belong to, and they are sup­posed to be answer­able to the elec­torate, not to their party lead­er­ship. The fact that Stephen Harper, the cur­rent prime min­is­ter, is the leader of his party (a pri­vate orga­ni­za­tion) should never be con­fused with the fact that he has been instructed by the Head of State, Michaëlle Jean, to select a cab­i­net and carry out pub­lic administration.

But what, in this sys­tem, actu­ally neces­si­tates there being a prime min­is­ter?

In Turkmenistan, it's a day to celebrate Akhal-Teke horses

From the MSNBC site:

Turkmenistan's President Gurbanguli Berdymukhamedov smiles as he rides a horse with a dove on his shoulder in the capital Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, on Sunday, April 24. Wearing a blue caftan and shaggy sheepskin hat, Turkmenistan's president looked every part the accomplished horse-riding tribesman as he effortlessly cantered on his jewel-adorned stallion before cheering crowds.

The crowning touch came when a white dove gracefully landed on his right shoulder. 

No mention of kok-boru.

Music for Easter from the future

Again from TED.com, again thanks to Ken Stange.

Herbie Hancock

At TED.com, 2009:


Thanks to Ken Stange for the link.

What might be happening in Syria

Syriana by Robert D. Kaplan (Foreign Policy):

Syria at this moment in history constitutes a riddle. Is it, indeed, prone to civil conflict as the election results of the 1940s and 1950s indicate; or has the population quietly forged a national identity in the intervening decades, if only because of the common experience of living under an austere dictatorship? No Middle East expert can say for sure.

Were central authority in Syria to substantially weaken or even break down, the regional impact would be greater than in the case of Iraq. Iraq is bordered by the strong states of Turkey and Iran in the north and east, and is separated from Saudi Arabia in the south and Syria and Jordan to the west by immense tracts of desert. Yes, the Iraq war propelled millions of refugees to those two latter countries, but the impact of Syria becoming a Levantine Yugoslavia might be even greater. That is because of the proximity of Syria's major population zones to Lebanon and Jordan, both of which are unstable already.

Remember that Lebanon, Jordan, and Israel are all geographically and historically part of Greater Syria, a reason that successive regimes in Damascus since 1946 never really accepted their legitimacy. The French drew Lebanon's borders so as to bring a large population of mainly Sunni Muslims under the domination of Maronite Christians, who were allied with France, spoke French, and had a concordat with the Vatican. Were an Alawite regime in Damascus to crumble, the Syria-Lebanon border could be effectively erased as Sunnis from both sides of the border united and Lebanon's Shiites and Syria's Alawites formed pockets of resistance. The post-colonial era in the Middle East would truly be closed, and we would be back to the vague borders of the Ottoman Empire.

What seems fanciful today may seem inevitable in the months and years ahead. Rather than face a "steadfast" and rejectionist, albeit predictable, state as the focal point of Arab resistance, Israel would henceforth face a Sunni Arab statelet from Damascus to Hama -- one likely influenced by the Muslim Brotherhood -- amid congeries of other fiefdoms. The unrest in Syria brings the Middle East perhaps to a precipice. Peaceful or not, the future of the region will be one of weakened central authority. Mesopotamia at least has a historic structure, with its three north-south oriented ethnic and sectarian entities. But Greater Syria is more of a hodgepodge.
For most of history, prior to the colonial era, Middle Eastern borders mattered far less than they do now, as cities like Aleppo in northern Syria and Mosul in northern Iraq had more contact with each other than with the respective capitals of Damascus and Baghdad. The ruins of Hatra, southwest of Mosul in Iraq, a Silk Road nexus of trade and ideas that reached its peak in the second and third centuries A.D., attest to a past and possible future of more decentralized states that could succeed the tyrannical perversions of the modern nation-state system....

But the transition away from absolutist rule in the Middle East to a world of commercially oriented, 21st-century caravan states will be longer, costlier, and messier than the post-1989 transitions in the Balkans -- a more developed part of the Ottoman Empire than Greater Syria and Mesopotamia. The natural state of Mesopotamia was mirrored in the three Ottoman vilayets of Kurdish Mosul, Sunni Baghdad, and Shiite Basra. The natural state of Greater Syria beyond the constellation of city-states like Phoenicia, Aleppo, Damascus, and Jerusalem is more indistinct still.

European leaders in the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th were engrossed by the so-called Eastern Question: that is, the eruptions of instability and nationalist yearnings in the Balkans and the Middle East caused by the seemingly interminable, rotting-away death of the Ottoman Empire. The Eastern Question was eventually settled by the cataclysm of World War I, from which the modern Arab state system emerged. But a hundred years on, the durability of that post-Ottoman state system should not be taken for granted.

Image:  those uncertain boundaries as the French and British fantasized them, 1916.

More from Gulf War XX -- with soundtrack

https://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=518491293926#!/video/video.php?v=518491293926

Notice no snow.

More comment from Syria

Two items from Joshua Landis at Syria Comment.

First, Syrians Comment on Homs and Syria’s Future (20 April 2011).  Note the variety of views:

Ziadsouri: I just received bad news. A friend of mine lost his son last night in 7oms. He was a very good young man and a recent graduate of Mechanical Engineering. My friend told me his boy, just like the rest of population, had no hope for the future. My friend and family are in disbelieve. His oldest son, just 24 years, is gone because he dared to speak his mind. They all know who did it. The president’s (or his brother) men did it. They want justice. Does anyone here believe that justice will be served? BTW, my friend is a Christian and I am sure his boy was not an MB or a Wahabi. He was the future of Syria. This regime is killing our future.

MajdKhaldoun: We all know very well who did it, it is secret service,working through Shabbeeha,defending the regime, they all criminal, and their end is coming soon.

Aboud: Today the regime completely and irreversibly sealed its fate. Homs has now joined the list of massacres perpetuated by the regime, alongside Dar’a and Baniyas. …. Don’t you think that every Syrian wants to believe that the young men in our army are incapable of murdering their own people? Or that we don’t yearn to passionately believe in and rally behind a leader who has our interests at heart? Don’t you think that every mother, father, brother and sister in Syria wants to believe that a bright future lies just beyond the horizon? When SANA put forward credibly sounding explanations that the abuses in Biyada were actually in Iraq, I was relieved. I believed them BECAUSE I passionately wanted to believe that such things do not happen in Syria. So imagine my shock, dismay and hot white anger when their explanation was proven to be a pack of clumsy lies,….We want to believe, but the regime has given us nothing to believe in except clumsy lies. What do you regime apologists expect an entire country to believe in? Roaming cars of shadowy armed men gunning down civilians?

Norman: Welcome to the new banana Republic of Syria.

Dima: I have the feeling that Bashar Al-Assad will not make it this time. He has wasted 11 years in doing very little for the Syrians.

Paul: biggest challenge for the leadership will be the economy. i have no idea how they will be able to manage this challenge. banks are in trouble. the economy is in the freezer. i hear few are even going to work

Mina: Another reason why people are not in the streets is that compared to the income of their parents, people are far better off now than 50 years ago.

Munif: my first cousin had his wedding yesterday ( actually saturday evening) in Damascus. My mother came down from Beirut and my sister flew in from Dubai, It was at the Nubala’ hall/restaurant. They ate and danced and had a great time. He flew off to his honeymoon. My mother and sister said there was absolutely nothing to indicate that Syria has the issues we see on you tube and on the news.

Fadi: The Syrian TV everyday now is broadcasting clips or interviews of life going on as usual in Syria with a title “Damascus today”, “Latakia today”. These are most reassuring! They should play more of them. The contrast of these clips of people going about their daily life is an extreme contrast to the sensational youtube videos.

louai: my family lives in Homs Adawya …they can here the Mreja’s Mosque they are calling for Jihad !! my family is NOT mukhabarat so please open your heart and believe ..we all want reform we all want change but not throw those people ..i personally believe Assad and don’t even want a change that is calling for Jihad.

Mina: I can’t see how to stop the things getting uglier without announcing elections.

Dima: I am in Homs and I know what is going on here maybe we haven’t taped what happened because we were really frightened by the calls for “Jihad” we are not accustomed to these things you know Syria.. i think that all people …now who call for “Jihad” are “salafieen” they call the gradnchildren of “Omar and Abo Bakr” how can i doubt what i see and hear?? this means only that they call for civilian war and now they are threatening Christians (next Friday).. do you think that they are really demonstrators who call for freedom and reforms?? By the way, they call for “Imara” and “Khalifa”.. i am sorry for our media that we Syrian people know the truth and we are the victims but they are unable to broadcast this fact as they should.

Paul: My friend george ….. from aleppo is convinced that Muslim Brother types will take over should regime fall. He says that those who live abroad have no idea what its like. This is not to say that mistakes were not made and that things must and will change. The replacement will be infinitely worse. Of course he is biased. He is christian and he is doing well. But we spent hours discussing the situation. Democracy advocates do exist but they will all be swept away by the religious establishment as soon as regime falls.

Sophia: I lived six years of the civil war in Lebanon and that left me with a life long trauma. At the end, it is the people who will pay for this dangerous game. Don’t get me wrong. I am all for reforms and against dictatorships but because of my Lebanese experience, if I were to choose between a peaceful dictatorship and a civil war, I will not hesitate. Nothing good comes from a civil war. Civil war kills hope, security and rights.

Nadeem: The regime does not have many friends nor does the armed thugs using religion as a cover to bring Syria closer to civil war. I am shocked by the brutality of criminals in Homs who killed in cold blood three army officers and three children. If the revolution allows terrorists to infiltrate its ranks they will lose sympathy quickly and strengthen the regime claim that many protestors are simple thugs who want to kill and destroy. The brutality of security services is not a new story, we have known that for 50 years,the new story is the murderous behavior of assassins in Homs, and other places, who may eventually strip this revolution from its peaceful character and taint the memory of those who died in the name of freedom. Expect the army and the security forces to use more force now,and that is exactly what those thugs want.

Paul: I think that history will be very unkind on the baath and this past 48 years. honestly, even if you wanted to destroy a country on purpose, you could not do a worse job. A bunch of ignorant, uneducated, arrogant, bloody, ruthless peasants in charge of a country for 48 years. a habibi. Over 80% of Homs today is inhabited by the flood if farmers who saw their lands destroyed by the incompetent policies of the Ba’ath.

Why Discuss: It is amazing how easily the common Syrians are blindly playing into the sectarian master plan without realizing that they are intoxicated by the illusion of an elusive freedom and a better future. How bitterly desillusionned they’ll be when they’ll wake up.

Amir from Tel Aviv: This regime is over. Nothing can save it now. Let me predict that by January 2012, Bashar is either in prison or in exile (London? Tehran? Tel Aviv?).

NZ: Look in the dictionary for “dignity”, “freedom”, “nepotism” and “corruption”. What is good for you is good for all.

Mr. President: I think the only solution is to wait until civil war begins and shows its real danger and pain to the majority Syrians and the world, move the army to crush it. Just as Assad senior did in Lebanon and Hama civil wars. As long as Syria keeps its loyal army intact and safe from western powers all will still be manageable.

Riad: Yes the regime is corrupt and yes the security forces are brutal, but can anybody with a straight face deny the obvious: the demonstrators are being infiltrated by thugs and terrorists. That is why Homs suffered tremendous destruction in the last 3 days. No country should allow armed gangs to spread terror and chaos, and this include both Shabiha and anti-government criminals. We need uniformed security officers and the regular army to protect us from both. Enough blood shed and enough destruction. most of my non Syrian friends are asking how Syrians can trust these groups if the regime is toppled. Syrians showed the world that they are brave but some Syrians broadcasted our third world status to a mostly unsympathetic audience. Good luck seeing any foreign money or tourism coming to Syria any time soon. I hope democracy and freedom banners can feed the hungry or bring jobs to the unemployed.

Revlon: Stories of mutiny have been substantiated. The allegiance of Armed forces, including the supposedly loyal Republican Guards to the Regime, in their confrontation with unarmed rising public, is precarious at best. It does not apply to the rank and file, who belong to the numerical majority of the Syrian people. The threat of wider mutiny, may explain the quantitatively and qualitatively limited involvement of Army in the current confrontation.

Souri: There is no need to say an “Alawi race.” I don’t think the Alawis can in any way be called a different race from the Sunnis. The Alawis used to live in Aleppo, Latakia, Tripoli, etc and they fled to the mountains only during the crusades. …. Before the crusades, most people in Syria were Chrisitan, Alawi, or Shia. The Sunnis were a minority in Syria. The Sunnis became a majority during the Ayyubid and Mamluke wars against the Crusaders. Sick religious scholars like Ibn Taymiyyah tried to take advantage of the wars against the crusaders and they convinced the Mamluke rulers to exterminate the Shia and the Alawis. Many of the racist prejudices that Sunnis hold on the Alawis were invented by this mentally sick scholar.

Husam: A month passed and Damascus and Aleppo are largely silent. This means a lot. The regime will build on this and I hope that we see positive and meaningful measures by the government to build trust. … I want deep changes in the security leadership and the removal of many figures that hurt Bashar and the country including his top aides and a crackdown on Shabiha. The only way to keep Damascus and Aleppo on Bashar’s side is to enforce security and end albaath and mukhabarat unchecked authority.

Australian-Syrian: We just got a call from my aunty in Tartous. She said that at night they fear leaving their homes as Sunnis from the Hamidieh (not sure if i spelt that right) area outside Tartous are attacking them.

Souri: Assad was doing much better in the first few weeks than now. The course events are taking now does not bode well for him. My expectation is that the demonstrations will keep growing and growing …. I don’t really know what Assad is waiting for, but if he does not start dealing decisively with these demonstrations soon, this will make me suspect that he has decided to pursue a “local solution” for the Alawites…. The regime dealt harshly with the insurgents in Latakia and Banyas, but has not done the same in Deraa and Homs. This raises my suspicion about the possibility that the regime may prefer a local solution for the Alawites over an all-out civil war.

Vedat: The real problem for Bashar Assad is that his proclamations are starting to seem meaningless. ….I wonder how this must make him appear to those around him? Surely this is not lost on those in the military who worry about there own survival. The possibilities of a military coup should not be dismissed.

Zoubaida: I read your blog for years. Now I have to say it is over and I can’t take it anymore. I can’t read one more word about Syria you publish. I am going to unsubscribe, just like canceling my Facebook and shutting the TV. I did the same after 9/11. I couldn’t hear anymore. This is a nightmare and it is not ending. I hope God will prove you all wrong and that after the people causing this destruction to Syria get the freedom they want, we, the people get to keep the Syria we love. A Syria that is not part of a Great Israel or greater Turkey. Not part of a Irani / Iraqi Empire or Muslim brotherhood kingdom. I don’t know if prayers are heard but I am praying to God to prove you all wrong. None of you really care about Syria the place or the Syrian people. None of you care to preserve the little we have. We want our Syria back and away from your news. May God prove you all wrong, may God save and protect Syria.

Second, Landis interviews activist Ammar Abdulhamid:

Robert E. Lee and secession

For most purposes, I have given up on the New York Times. This article,
The General in His Study, from the opinion pages shows that they still can present exciting material.

Like many border-state families, the Lees and their friends were sharply divided on the issues. When Lee consulted his brothers, sister and local clergymen, he found that most leaned toward the Union. At a grim dinner with two close cousins, Lee was told that they also intended to uphold their military oaths. (Samuel Phillips Lee would become an important admiral in the Union navy; John Fitzgerald Lee retained his position as judge advocate of the Army.) Sister Anne Lee Marshall unhesitatingly chose the northern side, and her son outfitted himself in blue uniform. Robert’s favorite brother, Smith Lee, a naval officer, resisted leaving his much-loved berth, and Smith’s wife spurned her relatives to support the Union cause. At the same time, many of the clan’s young men, such as nephew Fitzhugh Lee, were anxious to make their mark for the South in the coming conflict, creating a distinct generational fault line.

Matters became more complicated when, on April 18, presidential adviser Francis P. Blair unofficially offered Lee the command of the thousands of soldiers being called up to protect Washington. Fearing that such a post might require him to invade the South, Lee immediately turned down the job. Agitated, he went to tell his mentor, Gen. Winfield Scott, the Army’s commander in chief. Another dramatic scene followed. Scott, though a proud Virginian, had dismissed as an insult any hint that he himself would turn from the United States. When Lee offered to sit out the troubles at his home, Arlington, the general told him bluntly: “I have no place in my army for equivocal men.” Greatly distressed, Lee returned to Arlington to contemplate his options.

Although his wife called it “the severest struggle of his life,” historians have long trivialized Lee’s decision. It was “the answer he was born to make,” biographer Douglas Southall Freeman put it. “A no-brainer,” said another. But daughter Mary’s letter, along with other previously unknown documents written by his close family and associates, belies such easy assessments. These newly found sources underscore just how complex and painful a choice it was to make.
The conventional wisdom holds, for example, that Lee disdained secession, but once his state took that step he was duty bound to follow. But these documents show that he was not actually opposed to disunion in principle. He simply wanted to exhaust all peaceful means of redress first, remarking in January 1861 that then “we can with a clear conscience separate.”

Nor was he against the pro-slavery policies of the secessionists, despite postwar portraits of the general as something of an abolitionist. He complained to a son in December 1860 about new territories being closed to slaveholders, and supported the Crittenden Compromise, which would have forbidden the abolition of slavery. “That deserves the support of every patriot,” he noted in a Jan. 29, 1861 letter to his daughter Agnes. Even at the moment he reportedly told Francis Blair that if “he owned all the negroes in the South, he would be willing to give them up…to save the Union,” he was actually fighting a court case to keep the slaves under his control in bondage “indefinitely,” though they had been promised freedom in his father-in-law’s will.
 ...

But what is most astonishing about Mary Custis Lee’s letter is that it shows how Lee made his decision despite the feelings of his own wife and children. Lee at first did not tell his immediate circle that he had resigned, and when the announcement finally came, he apologized. “I suppose you will all think I have done very wrong,” he lamented. Noting that she was the sole secessionist in the group, and that her mother’s allegiance to the Union was particularly strong, Mary described how the words left them stunned and speechless.

All those Lees fighting for the Union. I had no idea.

Thanks to Folo Watkins for alerting me.

Guy Halsall on the Staffordshire Hoard

My memory is not what it once was, but I don't recall commenting on this presentation on the Staffordshire Hoard. Guy Halsall, the speaker on this occasion, is a careful historian of late antiquity and the early Middle Ages, and has written a brilliant book on early medieval warfare, Warfare and Society in the Barbarian West 450-900.  This talk gives you an idea how well he handles the sparse and difficult evidence of the early medieval period.  I recommend you read the whole thing.

The Hoard also speaks to the nature of warfare itself. In Warfare and Society I argued, against a common view which claims that sieges were the main means of deciding the outcome of warfare, that the period 450-900 was one when pitched battles were unusually common. I drew attention not just to the frequency with which battles are mentioned in narrative sources but also to the need to see warfare in a broader, socio-economic context. There were factors concerning social structure and the élite’s dependence upon the army and military affairs for its legitimacy that pushed towards more frequent battlefield confrontation.  Moreover, highly-developed fortification is notably absent between the Roman Empire’s fragmentation and the ninth century; siege-warfare was not the elaborate science it would be later. This is not surprising. Settlements, other than monasteries perhaps, were not the foci for wealth that they would become. If loot and booty oiled the cogs of early medieval politics, which they did, though not to the extent that is often surmised, it was not going to be yielded through the seizure of sixth- to eighth-century towns.

The best way to make a significant profit from warfare was to defeat the enemy army in battle, because early medieval armies took their wealth with them. More and more the lesson is underlined that, particularly in the immediately post-imperial centuries, people wore their wealth, and that was nowhere truer than with warriors, except that they also rode theirs.  The price of a warhorse remained fairly (if you’ll excuse the pun) stable at about 10 solidi across western Europe between 450 and 900. It’s difficult to know what that really meant, the solidus usually being a somewhat abstract unit of account; suffice it to say that people swapped reasonably sized parcels of land for horses. These were then given lavishly decorated harnesses, bits, bridles and saddles – some of this seems to be represented in the Hoard. This, it’s worth pointing out, was a hugely risky investment; horses die distressingly easily on campaign. Looting the average Anglo-Saxon village – as we currently understand it – was not going to recoup such a loss.

An early medieval warrior’s own accoutrements didn’t cost a year’s income from a whole village, as sometimes claimed, but they certainly didn’t come cheap. They were adorned and decorated as much as possible. The sometimes-seen notion that things like the Sutton Hoo helmet represent ‘parade armour’ is misconceived. The early medieval warrior was a frightening and imposing, a glittering and plumed figure. I don’t doubt that in their own way these were every bit the dangerous strutting dandies that were their descendants in the Hussar regiments of a millennium later. The Staffordshire Hoard’s items emphasise this; the almost casual gilding and ornamentation of just about every object or surface that could be so decorated. The Hoard fascinates, it intrigues, but it does not surprise me.

What is maybe more important, following my earlier numbers game, is just how much of the surplus from the agriculture of earlier Anglo-Saxon England was being – excuse the pun – ploughed into the dandification of warriors. When you think of that, the lack of impressive settlements, say, becomes easier to understand. It also confirms the wealth of Mercia. We ought not to be surprised about where the biggest find of Anglo-Saxon gold was located.

Battles were a huge risk – early medieval people knew that – but if you won the rewards were enormous. Taking an enemy army’s horses, let alone its weaponry and armour, would represent a major windfall.

Those who know my work on Charny's Questions may get a laugh from this early appearance of "who gets the horse?"

Image:  Helmet cheek-piece from the Hoard.

More medieval re-creation: Kingdom of Calontir War College 2011

President Lester Pearson

A visitor from another timeline wandered into the Islamic Civilization final exam to tell us that in his/her world, Pearson was the US President during the Suez Crisis.

These cross-time travelers are surprisingly common this time of year. I well remember when one came here to tell us how Elizabeth I said "England is worth a Mass."

I love this job.

Gulf Wars XX

Graduate Research Conference, April 19, 2011 at Nipissing University

 The conference will take place at the Monastery, Room M106
 
9:45-10:00
Welcome & Opening Remarks from Dean Bavington, MA History Graduate Advisor

10:00 – 11:00
Newspapers & History
Chair: Derek Neal

Whitney Croskery
“Constructing the Beastess: The Trial of Irma Grese and the British Media, 1945”

Rory Currie
"North Bay Ontario: The Victory Bond campaign during the Second World War”

11:00 – 11:15
Break

11:15 - 12:15
The Cold War in Foreign Policy and on the Big Screen

Chair: Steven Connor

Matthew Laur
“Multilateralism and Red Fear: Canada and the Indonesian Revolution”

Sterling Crowe
“Dying Hard: Popular Culture as Cold War Weapon, 1984-1989”

12:15-1:15
Lunch

1:15-2:15
The Local Angle: From Fisheries Management to Fishers of Men
Chair: Françoise Noël

Nancy Pottery
“Crises and Control: Fisheries Management on Lake Nipissing, 1968-2008”

Jakob Bauer
“Opposition from ‘Enemies’ and ‘Scoundrels’: Resistance to Rev. William Bell and his Religious Enterprise in Perth ON 1817-1833”

 2:15-2:30
Coffee Break

 2:30-3:30
Reading Discourses of Nationalism
Chair: Anne Clendinning

 Jordan Crosby
“The good Canadian nationalist first must be a good Imperialist: Sam Hughes and the South African War, 1899-1900”

 Ian Laplante
"The Violent Poetics of Space: Reading the Battle of the Bogside, 1969"

3:30 – 3:45
Closing Remarks from Nathan Kozuskanich, 2011-2012 MA History Graduate Advisor

The cinematic present tense

You know how when you are retelling the story of a movie you've seen, how you kind of naturally fall into the present tense?  Is there a name for that phenomenon?  Besides the one I've just made up?

Yes, this query is related to my essay grading.  I have a very consistent example of the use of the "cinematic present tense" right here.  (But I can't show you.)

A day late for the anniversary

Yes, Russia can be proud.

Thoughts while grading essays

not "this"

It occurred to me on the third essay that all of them would have been considerably improved and earned higher grades if my students did two things:


1. Introduced each quotation.  E.g.:

As the prominent French knight Geoffroi de Charny said in his Book of Chivalry, "He who does more is worth more."

2. Began no sentences with a bare "this."  E.g.:

This is very important.  Rather: This characteristic statement is very important.

Oh, the vagueness and confusion that could be eliminated by these two simple steps!
(Doesn't that last line sound like an Internet weight loss ad?)

Myths

Ta-Nehisi Coates on black Confederate soldiers:

The claim that blacks "served on both sides," which is made at the outset, is true in the most broadest sense of the word "serve," or in much the same way that both Usain Bolt and I both "run." Some 180,000 black people fought for the Union. Krick claims twelve for the Confederacy, and I'd be very interested in those specific cases.

It's worth considering how this claim lingers. James McPherson is a Pulitizer-Prize winning historian, one of the titans of his field. Bruce Levine wrote a highly readable investigation into the charge. Historians from the Park Service have debunked the myth. There is a website specifically devoted to further debunking the myth. And yet it does not simply linger, it thrives and actually spreads to reputable places like The Takeaway. The information is widely available. We simply can't cope with it.

That black people are participants in the spread of this myth doesn't mean much to me. I'm sure somewhere there are Jews who deny the Holocaust. All this says to me is that it is extremely painful--for blacks and whites--to face up to the fact that Civil War was about the right of white people to pilfer the labor of blacks. We really need to believe that our ancestors were better than this. But they weren't. And, as proven by our inability to accept the truth, neither are we.

All candidates' meeting Thursday 1 pm

Good Day,

On behalf of the student-organized Nipissing Voting Initiative, and in the run-up to the federal election, it is my pleasure to invite you and your students to a debate among the candidates for election in the riding of Nipissing-Temiskiming, this Thursday at 1PM in the Nipissing Theatre.

The debate will be moderated by Political Science student Andrej Litvinjenko, and will focus on issues of importance to the student voter demographic. This will be a significant opportunity to bring youth- and education-related issues to the center of the political agenda, with the aim of mobilizing the student vote here on campus.

If you or your students have questions you would like raised to the candidates, please submit them in advance to:

nipissingvotes@gmail.com

All questions must be attributed, and will be vetted beforehand. There will also be an opportunity to introduce questions in writing at the debate.

Following the event at 2PM there will be a reception at the Wall, with appetizers provided and opportunities to engage in political discussions about what kind of Canada you would like to be a part of. Both the debate and the reception are free, and all are welcome. Many thanks to the Office of the Vice-President Academic and Research for supporting this event.

Please pass this notice on to your students so that they can become better aware of the choices available to them in this election, with the encouragement to get out to vote!

all the best regards,

Toivo Koivukoski

Jenny Scheinman and Bruce Cockburn

Jenny Scheinman still couldn't quite believe that she was opening for Bruce Cockburn and playing with him in his set. But she held her own; this is the whole three-person band doing her song, "The Littlest Prisoner."

Lovers in a dangerous time

"...sometimes you're made to feel that your love's a crime."

Over a decade ago I took my son, a budding guitarist, to his first concert: Bruce Cockburn. Of course I knew Cockburn as a first-rate musician, or thought I did. But on stage with time and space to REALLY PLAY, he astonished me. I raved to my friend Phil my amazement at his genius.

"He's always been a genius," said Phil.

I saw Cockburn again last night. Still a genius.

Egypt: a rising or a setting sun, Mr. Franklin?

Former Army officer protests against Tantawi, Enan from arabist on Vimeo.

A former Army officer denounces the Army at Tahrir Square.

I rather hope the sun is rising somewhere!

Biggest honking computer war-game I've ever heard of: Manzikert

Or at least the logistics of Manzikert. Intellectually exciting, even if there is no combat.

A good journalistic account!

Before Pearl Harbor: The United States at War

Brad DeLong the economist blogger has been for quite a while been running a feature called Liveblogging World War II. In it he posts a document or news item from 60 years ago exactly.

What I've learned is that the USA was essentially at war well before Pearl Harbor.  Note today's entry, April 10, 1941:

USS Niblack (DD 424) drops depth charges against a German U-boat while attempting to rescue the crew of a torpedoed Dutch freighter.

And various belligerent statements by FDR about the war in Europe are also remarkable.

Image: USS Niblack

And what about Iraq?

They want their share of Arab Spring.

Juan Cole:

In Iraq, masses began converging from the south and from Diyala province in the east on Baghdad, heeding the call of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr for a million-person demonstration to mark what the Sadrists and many Sunnis see as 8 years of American military occupation. April 9 is commemorated by the pro-American politicians as the day Saddam fell, but the Sadrists and Sunni oppositionists see it as a black day on which Iraq lost its independence to Washington. Small Sunni crowds in Falluja and in Adhamiya in Baghdad got a head start by rallying on Friday, chanting against the United States and saying it had imposed Iranian rule on Iraq (yes). Among the demands of the largely Shiite demonstrators planning to come out on Saturday is that no US troops remain in Iraq after Dec. 31, 2011, and that there be no US bases in that country. Despite falling out of the news in the United States only 6 years after this country was electrified by the parliamentary elections that brought the Shiite Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution to power, Iraq has continued to be a hot news story. Just a few days ago, Sunni Arab guerrillas set off a bomb that killed 55 persons in front of the provincial government building in Salahuddin Province, north of Baghdad in the Sunni Arab belt.

The Global Americana Institute brings you Thomas Jefferson in Arabic

Juan Cole announces:

I am excited to announce that the Global Americana Institute has, in partnership with Dar al-Saqi of Beirut brought out a volume of selected writings of Thomas Jefferson in Arabic. It was elegantly translated by Professors Mounira Soliman and Walid Hamamsy of Cairo University and is entitled in Arabic the equivalent of Revolutionary Democracy: How America became the Republic of Liberty.

It has a powerful, brief introduction by prominent Arab intellectual Hazem Saghieh, an editor of al-Hayat newspaper, which expresses admiration for Jefferson’s political thought while not attempting to paper over his personal foibles. Saghieh notes that post-World War II Arab thought has been strangely unengaged with liberal democratic ideas, especially in their American incarnation, but that that is a shame since figures such as Jefferson have much to offer. Of course, elite Arab families know English and travel to the United States, and don’t need this translation. But below that five percent at the top of society with regard to wealth and education, there is now a vast literate Arab middle class numbering in the hundreds of millions, who could not deal with Jefferson’s antique English but could read this translation. At least some of them will be interested in doing so.
Al-Demouqratiya-al-Thawria

Al-Demouqratiya-al-Thawria

I am hopeful that the book will find an eager reception in Egypt, Tunisia and other countries yearning for democracy in the Arab world, and in a way, it could not have come out at a better time. Jefferson could be good for them to think with, a colleague from across the centuries and the Atlantic.

We are enormously grateful to kind donors who made this project possible, including Andrew O’Shaughnessy, Saunders Director of the Robert H. Smith International Center for Jefferson Studies, the Center itself, and the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, as well as SNL Financial LC with offices around the globe including Islamabad, Pakistan and Ahmedabad, India, as well as many individual donors who gave through Paypal or credit card.

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I was inspired to pursue this project by the September 11 attacks and their aftermath, moments of a ‘clash of civilizations,’ or at least a clash of some narrow forces within each civilization. I thought we needed some bridges. It pained me to read the gross mischaracterizations of the United States and its values that were common in the Arabic press and blogosphere. I had long been aware, and annoyed by, the relative paucity of Americana in Arabic bookstores. I carried out exhaustive bibliographical searches and while there are lots of obscure journal and newspaper articles of previous decades, what you can get your hands on in an actual bookstore or at a book fair today is quite limited. The US State Department has a translation program in Amman, Jordan and in Cairo, Egypt, which does excellent work, but there is room for more such endeavors and the list of what is translated is so short that there isn’t much danger of overlap.

Postscript:

Journalists sometimes ask me if there isn’t something Orientalist or imperialist about translating Americana into Arabic. It is a fair question, but it seems to me not a very useful one. First of all, I started studying Arabic when I was 19, and I have spent my life with the great Arabophone authors, from al-Ghazali to Naguib Mahfouz, from Abu Hayyan al-Tawhidi to Nawal Saadawi. I myself translated three books from Arabic into English by Lebanese poet and novelist Kahlil Gibran. I am grateful for what they have given me and how they have enriched me, and I don’t consider myself colonized by them. Intellectual interchange is not a zero-sum game, as medieval Muslim intellectuals delighted in pointing out. The Qur’an itself says, 49:13 (al-Hujurat), “We created you from male and female and made you peoples and tribes that you might know one another.” And the Prophet Muhammad is said to have commanded, “Seek knowledge, even unto China.” In the glory days of classical Islam, there was a translation movement seeking to put Greek philosophy and Sanskrit astronomy into Arabic, not a sullen fundamentalist fear of intellectual interchange.

Second, translation of the great works of Western literature has been central to the Arab renaissance and modern Arab culture. I wrote my MA thesis on Rifa`ah al-Tahtawi, who translated loads from 19th-century French. Early Egyptian nationalist Ahmad Lutfi al-Sayyid translated John Stuart Mill. Pioneering Egyptian novelist Taha Hussein translated Shakespeare. Arabophone literature interacted mainly with the colonial metropoles of France and Britain, and the distant United States was seldom an object of interest for them. With the rise of Arab nationalism and Muslim fundamentalism from the 1950s forward, Washington was often seen as being on the wrong side of history by Arab authors, and that sentiment discouraged translation, especially of political thought.

But the United States has been a major force in the world for many decades, and it is frankly bizarre that it is so little represented in Arabic translation. I don’t fool myself that such books will be best-sellers, but I do hope that interested Arabophone intellectuals will benefit from them and interact with them, and gain a fuller appreciation of the depth and texture of the United States, beyond just political maneuvering and Hollywood.

Music from space

This wonderful piece of video has already appeared in two blogs I subscribe to, but it deserves wide circulation, so I'm here to do my part.

Democracy abused in Canada -- too much even for the National Post

It's Harper, of course.  Matt Gurney tells the story:

During a stop last Sunday in London, a 19-year-old political science student at the nearby University of Western Ontario, Awish Aslam, joined a Conservative rally where the Prime Minister was to speak. She registered online (as did a friend who accompanied her) and upon arrival, signed in and went inside. After 30 minutes or so inside the event, both women were approached by a man who asked them to follow him. He took their name tags, tore them up and escorted them out of the event. His explanation, according to Aslam: “[He told us,] ‘We know you guys have ties to the Liberal party through Facebook.’ He said . . . ‘You are no longer welcome here.’”

The ties to the Liberal party? Michael Ignatieff had already made a stop in London, and Aslam had attended that rally, too. At the event, she had her photo taken with the Liberal leader, and posted it on Facebook. According to Aslam, she intended to visit every party’s rally. This is the first election in which she is eligible to vote, and clearly, she has an interest in politics. Exposing herself to a wide variety of views and opinions is entirely logical, and something we need to encourage more young voters to do — make informed political choices, get involved in the process, and value the right to vote in its proper context as the civic duty of a knowledgeable citizen. Aslam was entirely within her right as a citizen to meet with Mr. Ignatieff, and then Mr. Harper. It is unconscionable that anyone on the Harper campaign team felt otherwise.

Are people with “ties” to the Liberal party to be treated like the enemy and expelled from events? Obviously, the Prime Minister needs security. But it’s supposed to be security against threats to his life, not security against ever having to be near someone who took a photo with a politician from a different party. Unless, of course, it’s Conservative policy that anyone who has been in direct proximity to Ignatieff is a national security risk.

You have been warned.

Image:  The mortal danger of young democracy.

Joshua Landis on the not-quite-yet revolution in Syria

Landis talks about the relative calm in Syria, and its limits:

Even if the government in Damascus remains powerful for the time being and Syrians cling to the stability it promises, there can be little doubt that we are witnessing a profound break from the past. The Arab Street has finally come into its own. Rulers will have to think twice before treating their people like sheep. Economic failure will be punished. The video phone has become the Arab equivalent of the six-shooter in the American West. It is the new “equalizer.” It offers a modicum of equity and justice to the ordinary man who can now hold his phone aloft to capture police brutality and send it to Youtube. Technology has been transformative. The recent unrest could not have been sustained without it.

The Syrian community abroad has been irrevocably reunited with Syrians inside the country. It is difficult to exaggerate the importance of this change. The young of Syria can no longer be isolated from foreign movements and intellectual trends. Those who go abroad used to become dissociated from Syria. Calling home was prohibitively expensive and returning made difficult by mandatory military service.  Technology has attached the two communities. Skype, Facebook, and email have been all important to this revolution. In the past, the brain drain siphoned off Syria’s best and brightest; opposition leaders were sent into exile. Now they are leading the the charge against the regime, pumping sedition into every Syrian household with Youtube and Twitter updates.

A number of Arab states, in particular Tunisia and Egypt, have earned the right to be called nations. Their people have stood up as one to demand sovereignty.  Although emergency rule has yet to be lifted in Egypt and a stable government has yet to take shape in Tunisia, there is good reason to believe they will. For other Arabs, particularly those of the Levant it is too early to make such bold statements about national integrity. The leading reason Syrians did not take to the streets in larger numbers is fear of communal strife and possible civil war. They do not dislike their government enough to risk going the way of Iraq. Among large segments of Syrian society, Bashar al-Assad remains popular. As a multi-ethnic and religious society, Syria could come unglued.

But in a four or five years, the next generation of Syrian youth will not remember the turmoil in either Lebanon or Iraq. Palestine will be a cause remembered only by grandfathers. Instead of defeat and hopelessness, invoked by Iraq and Palestine, young Arabs may well have the examples of Egypt and Tunisia. They may well be on the road to becoming the Arab World’s first democracies.

Debate in Egypt on the role of religion in politics

Are Islamist (Salafist) scholars just another part of the tired old establishment?  Al Masry al Youm:

The prominent Islamic scholar Youssef al-Qaradawi leveled severe criticism at Egypt's Salafi movement, describing its thinking as both stagnant and extreme.

Al-Qaradawi, who heads the International Union of Muslim Scholars, blamed the rise of Salafis on the absence of a genuine role for the moderate Islamic institution Al-Azhar.

Salafi groups have called for drafting laws based on the Quran and the Prophet Mohamed’s teachings. Though they have abstained from politics in the past, Salafi leaders announced they were considering a political role following the 25 January revolution.

Until the 1970s and prior to leaving Egypt, al-Qaradawi was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. He considers himself a moderate Islamic scholar.

In an interview with Al-Masry Al-Youm, he accused Salafis of adhering to literal interpretations of the Quran and tradition, even though religious fatwa should change to accommodate new issues. Muslims should not be confined to the interpretations contributed by scholars from past eras, he said.

Al-Qaradawi added that the Salafi movement opposed the 25 January revolution and accused the revolutionary youth of deviating from Islam by disobeying authority. "Strangely enough, they now present themselves as the heroes of the revolution and its defenders," he added.
Egyptians have lost their confidence in Al-Azhar, he said, because its scholars obeyed the old oppressive regime.

Al-Qaradawi said Egyptians want a civil, democratic and pluralistic state that respects religions but upholds Islam as the official religion of the state and the source of legislation and guidance.

Study sheet HIST 3805

Students in History of Islamic Civilization can find the final exam study sheet here.

Buzkashi on the Afghan New Year (Nowruz)

Three pictures from the games at Mazar-i-Sharif, thanks to the Big Picture:

Click to see a larger picture.

The search for Middle Eastern stability

One thing this article by Thanassis Cambanis in the Boston Globe misses is an opportunity to ask, "if a rigid 'stability' can only end in a huge, unpredictable blow-up, is it stability at all?" But it gets pretty close, and makes some very good points.

America’s main goals in the Middle East have remained constant at least since the Carter years: We want a region in which oil flows as freely as possible, Israel is protected, and citizens enjoy basic human rights — or at least aren’t so unhappy that they begin to attack our interests.

In working toward these goals, the byword and the cornerstone of the entire venture has been stability. Washington has invested heavily — with money, weapons, and political cover — to guarantee the stability of supposedly friendly regimes in places like Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan. The idea is simple: A regime, even a distasteful and autocratic one, is more likely to help America, and even to treat its own people with a modicum of decency, if it doesn’t feel threatened. Instability creates insecurity, the thinking goes, and insecurity breeds danger.

But the unrest and dramatic changes of the past months are offering a very different lesson. An overemphasis on stability — and, perhaps, an erroneous definition of what “stability” even is — has begun harming, rather than helping, American interests in several current crisis spots. Our desire to keep a naval base in a stable Bahrain, for example, has allied us with the marginalized and increasingly radical Bahraini royal family, and even led us to acquiesce to a Saudi Arabian invasion of the tiny island to quell protests last month. To keep Syria stable, American policy has largely deferred to the existing Assad regime, supporting one of the nastiest despots in the region even as his troops have fired live ammunition at unarmed protesters. In a moral sense, this “stability first” policy has been putting America on the wrong side of the democratic transitions in one Arab country after another. And in the contest for pure influence, it is the more flexible approaches of other nations that seem to be gaining ground in such a fast-changing environment. If we’re serious about our goals in the Middle East, “stability” is looking less and less like the right way to achieve them.

Foreign policy shifts slowly, and it’s hard to replace such a familiar, if flawed, approach to the world. But recent events have strengthened the ranks of thinkers who argue that there may be more effective and less costly ways to press our interests in the Middle East. We could take an arm’s length approach, allowing that not every turn of the screw in the Middle East amounts to a core national interest for the United States — in effect, abstaining from some of the region’s conflicts so we have more credibility when we do intervene. We could embrace a more dynamic slate of alliances that allows the United States to shift its support as regimes evolve or decay. Finally, we could redefine stability entirely and downgrade it as a priority, so that we recognize its value as simply one of many avenues toward achieving US interests.

“We’re obsessed with stability because we have defined US national interests, particularly in the Arab world, as basically limitless,” says Michael Cohen, a senior fellow at the American Security Project who served in the Clinton administration and has written a stream of articles arguing that America is embroiled in counterproductive military interventions. “Anytime an event roils the region we feel the need to respond.”

As the Obama administration is learning, it pays to have many balls in the air during times of transformation. Rather than trying to preserve the status quo by picking favorite regimes and propping them up, America could try a new approach: publicly articulating its core interests — including a mention of oil prices, the unsavory elephant in the room — and then making clear that it will work with whoever can best promote those policies and values. Such a move would, naturally, create some short-term instability, and would certainly unsettle the Arab dictators allied to America. But it would serve a greater goal, putting them on notice that Washington backs them for what they deliver, and not because our pro-stability policy effectively gives them the right to rule indefinitely.

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As Clinton’s recent Middle East tour illustrates, America’s definition of stability restricts who we talk to. The governments that have thrived during this time of change, by contrast, are the ones with the most utilitarian and flexible approach: regional powers like Turkey and Iran, and emerging global powers like China and Russia. All of them have punched above their weight in the Islamic world in large measure because they’re comfortable operating in a dynamic environment, and willing to deal with the entire political cast of characters in a country, rather than with a single, familiar leadership clique. Turkey has maintained lucrative relationships with the old Arab regimes without being viewed as an enemy of the liberal movements; it has deftly capitalized on its existing relationships with dictators, offering to negotiate between Arab governments and their domestic opponents — playing intermediary rather than backer. Russia and China have carefully positioned themselves as enemies neither of the regimes nor of their opponents, lending rhetorical support to Mubarak in his final days and abstaining from voting for the Libya intervention. America has a different agenda. We are less concerned with national sovereignty and occasionally willing to sacrifice profit for principle, but we could learn at least one thing from the agnostic approach of other powers: Washington doesn’t have to take a side in every domestic dispute in the Arab world.

If that kind of flexibility seems like a recipe for unreliability and chaos, that might be because we interpret “stability” too narrowly, as a snug embrace of the status quo. In fact, the interest of long-term stability may be better served by a short-term acceptance of change.
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There’s no doubt that, in principle, stability remains a good thing. People are better off if they can lead their lives peacefully, under consistent governance. As a global superpower, too, America benefits from the established order: We gain the most wealth and security by dealing with states that depend on us, cooperate with our interests, and share our priorities. But as the past months have shown, America’s policy in the Middle East has gone too far in that direction, staking its stability on a fixed set of leaders, surrendering its potential leverage, and forswearing alternatives.

So how to accept change in the region, even capitalize on it? One new approach, which some observers believe might already be emerging, is to assume that some countries will be shifting quantities and build in room for change. Instead of “stability” we could talk about “security” — security for American interests, for a region known for strife, and for the beleaguered citizenry of the Middle East. Another overarching value that could win points for America is “justice,” a concept that resonates with American values, Islamic law, and the aspirations of Middle Eastern rulers and publics alike.

In this new, more open terrain, diplomats and military envoys could cultivate ties with all the competing stakeholders, whether in friendly states like Saudi Arabia or in hostile ones like Iran. Such overtures would surely irritate the rulers of Saudi Arabia, who have grown used to unblinking American support. But they would have little choice; they need America as much as America needs them.
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What would this diplomacy look like in practice? America’s role in Libya may offer a guide.

True, it is comparatively easy to lead an intervention that has such wide support, and whose target is a leader so widely loathed. At the same time, America’s involvement in the Libyan intervention has been far more nimble than its flat-footed response to the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions. Washington gently escalated its rhetoric, and advocated force only as a last resort and at the request of Libya’s rebels — and with other nations taking a leading role. The response was quick and decisive, but limited. More importantly, by pushing a no-fly zone over Libya, the United States has told the Arab dictators something it hasn’t told them before: If they lose the support of their own people, they won’t necessarily be able to count on America’s.