by Rupe | Nov 4, 2005 | Mad Musings, Military-Political
By AFSHIN MOLAVI
Published: November 3, 2005
Washington
WHEN Iran’s new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, called last week for Israel to be “wiped off the map,” he raised fears not only abroad but also at home, particularly among Iran’s sizeable, democratically minded middle class. The new president’s confrontational tone threatens to deepen the isolation of Iran’s democrats, pushing them further behind his long shadow. Western powers have a dual challenge: to find a way to engage this population even as they struggle to address the new president’s inflammatory rhetoric.
Skip to next paragraph
Igor Kopelnitsky
By the time Mr. Ahmadinejad was elected in June, a sustained assault by hard-liners had left Iranian democrats disoriented and leaderless, their dissidents jailed, newspapers closed and reformist political figures popularly discredited.
But democratic aspirations should not be written off as a passing fad that died with the failure of the reform movement and the replacement of a reformist president, Mohammad Khatami, with a hard-liner, Mr. Ahmadinejad. The historic roots of reform run deep in Iran, and support for democratic change remains widespread.
Iran’s modern middle class, which is increasingly urbanized, wired and globally connected, provides particularly fertile soil for these aspirations. The Stanford University scholar Abbas Milani has described Iran’s middle class as a “Trojan horse within the Islamic republic, supporting liberal values, democratic tolerance and civic responsibility.” And so long as that class grows, so too will the pressure for democratic change.
If Mr. Ahmadinejad’s foreign policy results in further global economic isolation or military intervention, however, the situation for Iran’s democracy-minded middle class could deteriorate. Foreign hostility will furnish additional pretexts for the regime to frighten its people and crack down on dissent. Particularly if the European Union decides to participate in a tougher sanctions regime, liberal-minded Iranians will lose contact with the foreign investors, educators, tourists and businessmen who link them to the outside world.
Now more than ever, middle-class and other democracy-minded Iranians need to preserve and expand their network of institutions independent from the government – institutions in which they can take refuge from the rapacious hardliners who seek to control all aspects of Iranian life. That network should include a strong private sector; a rich array of nongovernmental organizations dealing with issues like poverty, women’s rights and youth unemployment; and social, intellectual and cultural associations that communicate with counterparts abroad.
Unfortunately, United States sanctions now prevent any American person or group from financially supporting, say, a microfinance bank, a program to train future political leaders or even an education initiative for rural women in Iran. That is a mis- take. Elsewhere in the Middle East, the United States has programs that provide exactly these kinds of grants, in the name of democratization.
The United States should ease such sanctions in order to match its rhetorical commitment to Iranian democracy with meaningful action. The European Union should also step up its support for democratic activists and its commitment to the protection of human rights in Iran. Meanwhile, development institutions like the World Bank should invest in Iran’s emerging private sector, which is not affiliated with the country’s business mafias or the government-linked foundations that control about a quarter of the country’s wealth.
Critics may protest that bolstering Iran’s economy through such middle-class development will prolong the Islamic regime. But that’s unlikely, if history is any guide. Certainly two decades of economic growth, during which the middle class swelled and political and economic ties to the United States were tight, failed to preserve the regime of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi.
But the authoritarian theocracy that followed was not the aspiration of middle-class Iranian revolutionaries, who lost the post-revolution power struggle to supporters of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Ayatollah Khomeini, like Mr. Ahmadinejad, was a master at combining economic populism with religious fervor in appealing to the poor and dispossessed.
Today poverty, not prosperity, again propels Iran toward extremist politics. Mr. Ahmadinejad’s election – however flawed – did not reflect a popular desire for a harder-line foreign policy or for a rush to obtain nuclear weapons. Rather, it emerged from a persistent sense of low-grade economic pain, resentment of the ruling elites’ corruption and frustration with widening income gaps. Most Iranians concern themselves far more with the price of meat and onions than with the Arab-Israeli peace process or uranium enrichment.
In portraying himself as an outsider, a “man of the people” and an anti-corruption crusader with a bag full of economic promises, Mr. Ahmadinejad tapped into these sentiments. His second-round opponent, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, proved to be the perfect foil: a multimillionaire mullah widely derided for his personal corruption and family business ties.
Tellingly, the leading reformist candidate, Mustafa Moin, placed fifth after campaigning almost exclusively on human rights and democratic freedoms. Today many reformists recognize that their movement had lost touch with the economic preoccupations of ordinary people. Stagnant wages, double digit inflation and high unemployment proved more than passingly distracting to Iranians who might otherwise have continued agitating for change.
Before the revolution, American officials often urged the dictatorial shah to share power with the emerging middle class. The shah chose to ignore that advice, and Americans eventually stopped offering it. Now is the time to dust off such thinking and pursue a policy that targets economic support to our natural allies in Iran’s economic center. Only a strong and stable middle class can ensure that Iran’s inevitable winds of change do more than knock down a few trees – or produce another populist demagogue.
Afshin Molavi, a fellow at the New America Foundation, is the author of “The Soul of Iran: A Nation’s Journey to Freedom.”
by Rupe | Nov 1, 2005 | Mad Musings
By BRENT STAPLES
Published: October 31, 2005
People have occasionally asked me how a black person came by a “white” name like Brent Staples. One letter writer ridiculed it as “an anchorman’s name” and accused me of making it up. For the record, it’s a British name – and the one my parents gave me. “Staples” probably arrived in my family’s ancestral home in Virginia four centuries ago with the British settlers.
The earliest person with that name we’ve found – Richard Staples – was hacked to death by Powhatan Indians not far from Jamestown in 1622. The name moved into the 18th century with Virginians like John Staples, a white surveyor who worked in Thomas Jefferson’s home county, Albemarle, not far from the area where my family was enslaved.
The black John Staples who married my paternal great-great-grandmother just after Emancipation – and became the stepfather of her children – could easily have been a Staples family slave. The transplanted Britons who had owned both sides of my family had given us more than a preference for British names. They had also given us their DNA. In what was an almost everyday occurrence at the time, my great-great-grandmothers on both sides gave birth to children fathered by white slave masters.
I’ve known all this for a long time, and was not surprised by the results of a genetic screening performed by DNAPrint Genomics, a company that traces ancestral origins to far-flung parts of the globe. A little more than half of my genetic material came from sub-Saharan Africa – common for people who regard themselves as black – with slightly more than a quarter from Europe.
The result that knocked me off my chair showed that one-fifth of my ancestry is Asian. Poring over the charts and statistics, I said out loud, “This has got to be a mistake.”
That’s a common response among people who are tested. Ostensibly white people who always thought of themselves as 100 percent European find they have substantial African ancestry. People who regard themselves as black sometimes discover that the African ancestry is a minority portion of their DNA.
These results are forcing people to re-examine the arbitrary calculations our culture uses to decide who is “white” and who is “black.”
As with many things racial, this story begins in the slave-era South, where sex among slaves, masters and mistresses got started as soon as the first slave ship sailed into Jamestown Harbor in 1619. By the time of the American Revolution, there was a visible class of light-skinned black people who no longer looked or sounded African. Free mulattos, emancipated by guilt-ridden fathers, may have accounted for up to three-quarters of the tiny free-black population before the Revolution.
By the eve of the Civil War, the swarming numbers of mixed-race slaves on Southern plantations had become a source of constant anguish to planters’ wives, who knew quite well where those racially ambiguous children were coming from.
Faced with widespread fear that racial distinctions were losing significance, the South decided to define the problem away. People with any ascertainable black ancestry at all were defined as black under the law and stripped of basic rights. The “one drop” laws defined as black even people who were blond and blue-eyed and appeared white.
Black people snickered among themselves and worked to subvert segregation at every turn. Thanks to white ancestry spread throughout the black community, nearly every family knew of someone born black who successfully passed as white to get access to jobs, housing and public accommodations that were reserved for white people only. Black people who were not quite light enough to slip undetected into white society billed themselves as Greek, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, South Asian, Native American – you name it. These defectors often married into ostensibly white families at a time when interracial marriage was either illegal or socially stigmatized.
Those of us who grew up in the 1950’s and 60’s read black-owned magazines and newspapers that praised the racial defectors as pioneers while mocking white society for failing to detect them. A comic newspaper column by the poet Langston Hughes – titled “Why Not Fool Our White Folks?” – typified the black community’s sense of smugness about knowing the real racial score. In keeping with this history, many black people I know find it funny when supposedly white Americans profess shock at the emergence of blackness in the family tree. But genetic testing holds plenty of surprises for black folks, too.
Which brings me back to my Asian ancestry. It comes as a surprise, given that my family’s oral histories contain not a single person who is described as Asian. More testing on other family members should clarify the issue, but for now, I can only guess. This ancestry could well have come through a 19th-century ancestor who was incorrectly described as Indian, often a catchall category at the time.
The test results underscore what anthropologists have said for eons: racial distinctions as applied in this country are social categories and not scientific concepts. In addition, those categories draw hard, sharp distinctions among groups of people who are more alike than they are different. The ultimate point is that none of us really know who we are, ancestrally speaking. All we ever really know is what our parents and grandparents have told us.
by Rupe | Oct 30, 2005 | Mad Musings
Personal observation. I think it will be very hard, if not impossible, for the U.S to win the war on terrorism until a few changes are made.
The U.S. military harbors some of the most racist minded individuals on this Earth. This (their racist attitude) blinds them to the solution
of terrorism. Instead of fostering the growth of minorities that can get closer to the enemy we fight, we systematically purge the ranks of
these people.
If we were to ask the military to give an accounting of the number of minority officers that are working in the intelligence field, it would
be appauling. How can we succeed like this. I am not convinced that we can, until we change our tact.
by Rupe | Oct 26, 2005 | Mad Musings
The American White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan plans to rally against gay marriage in Austin, Texas, on Nov. 5 — three days ahead of the Nov. 8 vote on a state constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. Although the demonstration likely will attract more police and counter-protesters than Klan members, it is significant in that it vividly illustrates the new trend among white supremacist groups to adopt causes that appeal to a broader base of Americans.
By focusing on a hot-button political issue such as same-sex marriage — rather than railing against the evils of the “Zionist-occupied government (ZOG),” which is how the Klan describes the U.S. government — the white supremacists believe they become much more appealing to the general public. Once the Klan and other such groups establish rapport with a person on the controversial issue, their thinking goes, they can gradually open that person’s eyes to the reality of the ZOG, the “evil” Jews and its other core beliefs. These groups claim that Jews are fostering illegal immigration and homosexuality as part of their secret conspiracy to weaken and control the “Aryan race,” and figure that a person concerned about these issues will, with guidance, come to recognize “the hidden Jewish hand.”
In addition to jumping on the anti-gay-marriage band wagon, white supremacists have participated in anti-immigration rallies and the Minutemen Project. The neo-Nazi National Alliance unit in Las Vegas even has rented a billboard on the Strip that reads, “Stop Immigration: Join the National Alliance.” Other units of the organization — many of which have broken with the National Alliance leadership to join the new group National Vanguard — have protested in front of Home Depot stores and day labor sites carrying signs that read, “Stop Immigration, join National Vanguard.” As we have discussed, National Vanguard and other such groups also sought to capitalize on the looting and unrest in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina.
The Klan, which has been in Texas since the Reconstruction era and once had a large membership in the state, has not held a protest in the capital since 1983 — so the rally is noteworthy in that it is occurring at all. This particular Klan group, which is not that well-established in Texas, however, will have trouble drawing more than a few followers. Even established Klan groups face this problem because of the repercussions of being publicly affiliated with the Klan — and because they will have a hard time finding members willing to hazard the counter-protest that undoubtedly will occur at City Hall. (The Klan had hoped to rally outside the state capitol, but was told it needed sponsorship from the governor or a member of the state legislature).
If the 1983 Klan rally in Austin or the Oct. 15 National Socialist Movement (NSM) rally in Toledo, Ohio, is any indication, the upcoming Austin rally could spark violence. NSM, which calls itself America’s Nazi Party, was prevented from carrying out its planned march in Ohio by the violent clashes that broke out between police and counter-protesters. These protesters vandalized businesses and even torched a building. Toledo Mayor Jack Ford was forced to declare a curfew to squelch violence and rioting. In such circumstances, the Nazis actually appear to be the more reasonable of the two groups – which is one of the things the white supremacists hope to gain from such rallies.
Publicity, of course, is another thing. A handful of strangely dressed people protesting in front of City Hall is not major news. A clash between these strangely dressed people and counter-protesters, however, does attract major media attention — especially if it turns into a riot. In Toledo, the counter-protesters played right into the hands of the white supremacists. Time will tell whether Austinites fall into the same trap.
by Rupe | Oct 20, 2005 | Mad Musings
Today is day 4 into the NIIC. Not bad exchanges today. Still a big skeptic of the overall plan. We have a group of guys who are no doubt pretty smart. But since they are all from the same vine, group think is what is killing all of us. Iam thinking of redoing my paper to address a concept that came up today.
The concept that came up has to do with culture. And the idea that was thrown out touched on an idea that may be provocative, but has quite a bit of truth to it. It is akin to this guy putting himself out there and being the devils advocate for something that is beneath the surface.
Will speak more to this later.
by Rupe | Oct 19, 2005 | Mad Musings
Today was a good day. Had the rare chance to listen to a military genius today; probably one of the most plugged in dude around. Well verse on broad based military issues and capable of talking across a wide spectrum.
Good questions were asked and good answers given. Not all was inspiring, but at the very least it caused you to think; a thing very few cogs do.
