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Recent
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April
23, 2003
Anthony
Gancarski
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Chris
Floyd
Desolation Row: Bush's Barbarians Teach
by Example
Marjorie
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William
Lind
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Said
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April
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April 24,
2003
Can Statecraft
Calm Arab Rage?
Will They Hate
the US Forever?
by HAROLD A. GOULD
It is clear that the Saddam Hussein regime has
breathed its last, although there is undoubtedly enough pulse
left along the fringes to delay the business of pacification
and consolidation a bit longer. As we move to this concluding
phase, an interesting question arises. It pertains to the frequently
voiced assertion that even the achievement of an overwhelming
military triumph in Iraq will over the long run prove to be a
Pyrrhic Victory. This because, it is claimed, the rage in the
streets throughout the Islamic world will have been exponentially
increased by what we have done. Osama bin Laden's recruiting
offices will be doing a land-office business.
Thomas Friedman (NYT, April 15) has defined
the challenge: Calling it "Saddamism," he says it is
"an entrenched Arab mind-set, born of years of colonialism
and humiliation, that insists that upholding Arab dignity and
nationalism by defying the West is more important than freedom,
democracy and democratization."
This may turn out to be true, of course.
But it may also be an oversimplification. The question is, how
long will jingoized Arab nationalism last in the new political-economic
environment that may be dawning. One can look back at the history
of previous wars which open societies have waged against totalitarian
regimes that were driven by doctrinal extremism and come away
with different conclusions. We have the examples of Nazi Germany,
Fascist Italy, Bushido Japan, Stalinist Russia, Maoist China,
and Ho Chih Min's Vietnam. The claim is that in all such instances,
the ideological modus operandi of the state was essentially the
same--viz., "brain-washing" their populations into
ideologically programed automatons
Pessimists predicted that such pervasive
indoctrination would have ineradicable effects on the collective
mind-sets of their victims. Not only would it make them fanatical
zealots on the battlefield. It would as well render them socially
unredeemable and thus ungovernable after hostilities ended.
Perceptions of Japan from the end of
the Meiji Period to Hiroshima and Nagasaki is a type-case of
what the Allies expected to face after World War II. The Japanese
people were allegedly so psychologically inundated by Emperor
worship and Bushido militarism that not only would they fight
to the last soldier while the war lasted, but afterward would
resist rehabilitation to the last civillian.
The opposite turned out to be the case.
Japan's defeat, the demise of the warlords, and the de-fanging
of Emperor Hirohito almost overnight broke the ideological spell
which had held the Japanese populace in thrall for more than
a generation. So much so, in fact, that Japan became the first
modern state to enshrine the renunciation of war in its democratic
constitution. Today, Japan is one of the most secular, materialistic,
middle-class, peace-loving societies on earth.
Germany underwent a similar metamorphosis
from one of the most vicious, racist, totalitarian political
regimes in human history. The most poignant proof of this, apart
from its thriving civil society, and pioneering role in creating
NATO and the European Union (EU), has been its dogged refusal
to join America's crusade against Iraq.
With the collapse of the Soviet empire,
the Marxist-Leninist ideological chorus faded into oblivion overnight,
from East Berlin to Vladivostok, from the Arctic Circle to Tajikistan.
The post-Cold War problem now facing the successor Russian state
and its former satellites has been how to satiate the peoples'
hunger for consumer goods, free-enterprise and participation
in the global economy.
The people of Post-Mao China have become
so obsessed with making money and following the capitalist road
that they seem destined to eventually outdo the Americans in
their addiction to crass materialism. This despite the lingering
Confucian commissars who are still desperately trying to maintain
the veneer of Communist orthodoxy.
The Fascist minions of Benito Mussolini's
day, who sang of returning Italy to the grandeur of Imperial
Rome, faded away even before World War II ended! The present
generation of life-loving Italians would be hard pressed even
to remember that their strutting, comic opera dictator ever existed.
Within a few years after Ho Chih Minh's
triumph over American power in Southeast Asia, the US and the
famous Vietnam "domino" were doing business with each
other, and the first American ambassador to Ho Chih Minh City
was Pete Peterson, one of the most famous guests of the Hanoi
Hilton.
This tells us that the human spirit is
far more resilient than dictators, and even democrats, imagine.
You may for a time be able to slap a lid on personal freedom
with an Orwellian state apparatus that endeavors to control every
move a person makes and seemingly every thought he thinks. But
the examples given show that the moment the totalitarian lid
is lifted, the yearning for freedom and individuality immediately
comes bubbling to the surface.
This is what the US and the free world
have going for them if they are smart enough to seize the moment.
Everyone today is dead certain that Islamic rage is such an implacable
force that nothing the West can do will succeed in defanging
it. I am prepared to adopt the devil's advocate position and
suggest that no more than a few fundamental measures are now
capable of turning off that rage and launching Muslims on a course
leading to civic constructionism and pervasive social reforms.
As Friedman puts it, if only we are successful in creating a
healthy Iraqi middle-class, the same has a chance of taking hold
elsewhere in West Asia.
To turn the tide, the United States must
adopt a mind-set of its own that will make things work to the
advantage not only of US strategic preoccupations but of the
international community as a whole. This does indeed mean pursuing
the economic and political measures that will lay the foundation
for a free, secular, democratic, prosperous Iraq that will demonstrate
to the Arab street that minus their current retrograde, feudal
ruling elites, civil society and lamb-shank on every table are
attainable goals for the Muslim common man.
I have suggested elsewhere (Counterpunch,
April 17) that India's non-western style pluralistic democracy
is a model for nation-building in Iraq. India learned how to
create a political system that could formulate consensus from
pluralism of continental proportions. Iraq needs a version of
that, and not what was done in Latvia or Lithuania.
The Marshall Plan and NATO did the job
for post-World War II Europe. General MacArthur's insertion of
himself into Emperor Hirohito's shoes enabled him to employ the
prestige of that office and his charismatic skills to lead the
Japanese people toward democracy. In both instances, what this
implied was the massive commitment of political wisdom, economic
resources and administrative flexibility to the tasks at hand.
In a comparatively short time, the Orwellian nightmare that everybody
said was an incurable political malady became a thing of the
past.
This could be the case in the Arab world
if the United States, Great Britain, and the other European states
who currently are engaged in petty political bickering would
turn their attention and their considerable material and intellectual
resources to creating new, revitalizing institutions in Iraq
along Indian lines whose example would radiate outward to Damascus,
Teheran, Riadd, Cairo and Islamabad. Everyone pledges that this
will be done, but the past record of achievement does not speak
well for the future, especially when it is must be led by an
American government that is already swimming in massive public
debt and haunted by deep-seated isolationist propensities.
Concomitantly, the new dispensation must
extend to the Palestinian-Israeli conundrum. In the end this
will be the determining factor in whether any reformist political
models will work anywhere in the Middleast. The United States
will have to play the decisive role here. Ironically, in fact,
Mr Bush's Operation Freedom in Iraq probably has little chance
of ultimate success unless a way can be found to achieve genuine
political freedom for the Palestinians. Nobody but the US has
the power and influence to bring this about. Doing so will require
a Bush administration, currently strongly allied with Christian
fundamentalists, and themselves laden with neo-con hardliners
brimming with hegemonic dreams, to fundamentally alter the way
the United States deals with Israel. It will have to do more
than rhetorically criticize the political intractability of Mr
Sharon, Yasir Arafat and their respective radical wings. It will
require direct action. This means sanctions for failing to withdraw
the settlers from Arab lands, restraints on military assistance
to the IDF, aggressive pressure on the Palestinian Authority
to neutralize the terrorists, and unequivocal support for the
immediate establishment of a completely free and independent
Palestinian state. If you were a betting man, what odds would
you give that this can ever happen? However, if mature statecraft
should succeed in turning the political tide, one can be confident
that Arab rage and anti-Semitism will eventually melt away as
surely as did the Orwellian ideological choruses of the World
War II and Cold War eras.
Harold A. Gould
is a Visiting Scholar in the Center for South Asian Studies at
the University of Virginia.
Today's
Features
Anthony
Gancarski
When Young Mothers Die in Combat
Chris
Floyd
Desolation Row: Bush's Barbarians Teach
by Example
Marjorie
Cohn
Tax the War Profiteers
William
Lind
The Fourth Generation of Modern War
Dave Marsh
Nina Simone: Freedom Singer
Binoy
Kampmark
Malayasia's America: the War on Iraq
David Vest
Who's Looting Whom?
Standard
Shaefer
Super Imperialism: an Interview with Michael Hudson
Andrew
Rodman
Lawn Poem
Steve
Perry
Bush's War Web Log 4/23
Website
of the Day
Weapons of Mass Destruction in the Middle East
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