CPR Winter 2018 (XVII, 4)

COLUMBIA POLITICAL REVIEW

How do Orwell’s writings on nationalism resonate today?

—Spotlight on the US, pg. 23 Winter 2018 Volume XVII, No. 4

ALSO INSIDE: Caroline Kelly and Omar Khan write on climate change, politics and the energy industry in the US and Pakistan, pg. 29 1

Masthead & Editor’s Note

Editor-in-Chief Publisher

Anamaría López Bani Sapra

Design Editor

Theresa Yang

Art Editor

Peyton Ayers

Lead Web Editor

Poorvi Bellur

Managing Editors

Copy Chief Senior Editors

Copy Editor

Amanda Kam Dimitrius Keeler Shambhavi Tiwari Karen Yuan Maggie Toner Vivian Casillas Audrey DeGuerrera Brian Gao Belle Harris Melissa Ho Jahan Nanji Sheena Qiao Nina Zweig Sanam Jalinous Song Rhee

2017 closed on a tumultuous note. Unrest bubbled across the globe, from North America to Europe to Eastern Asia. In this edition of CPR, our authors take a closer look at some of these insurgencies, independence movements, and ideological conflicts, touching on many of the issues that defined what has been an extraordinary year in every sense.

Our Winter 2018 edition begins with Lawrence Grief ’s sharp analysis of the separatist movement in Catalonia, the success or failure of which will have consequences not only for Spain, but for the entire Eurozone. CPR’s Sheena Qiao interviews East China Normal University Professor Josef Mahoney on China-North Korea relations, an especially timely conversation amid heightening tensions between North Korea and the United States. Stella Chene writes on France’s recently passed anti-terrorism law and the “fiche S” French citizens it targets.

Hannah Wyatt and Christian Gonzalez share their thoughts on present-day intellectual movements in the United States, each providing a insightful critique of partisan rhetoric in an increasingly tribalistic America. Finally, Caroline Kelly and CIRCA’s president, Omar Khan, tell compelling stories on the relationship between climate change and politics, the effects of which can be felt everywhere from the US energy industry to Southwest Pakistan.

***

I’d like to close this issue’s editor’s note by welcoming CPR’s incoming Editor-in-Chief, Bani Sapra. It has been a privilege serving as EIC for the past semester, and I owe great thanks to Bani, CIRCA leadership, and the entire CPR board for their continued efforts to tell meaningful stories, showcase student perspectives, and create more constructive political discourse on Columbia’s campus.

–Anamaría López, Editor-in-Chief

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this magazine belong to their authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Columbia Political Review, of CIRCA, or of Columbia University.

COLUMBIA POLITICAL REVIEW 4: Crisis in Catalonia Threatens Eurozone Stability Why Catalonia wants out—and what it could mean for the future of Europe.

by Lawrence Grief 8: INTERVIEW with Josef Gregory Mahoney A conversation with East China Normal University professor Josef Mahoney on Chinese relations with North Korea.

by Sheena Qiao 12: The War on Terror in France France’s new anti-terrorism law and the challenges of fighting the war against terror.

by Stella Chene 17: Free Speech in the Era of Trump Shifting standards of free speech and Republicans’ fight for ownership of the First Amendment.

by Hannah Wyatt

Published by CIRCA

Winter 2018 Volume XVII, No. 4

23: Orwell, Nationalism and the Death of Intellectual Honesty 70 years later, Orwell’s writing on nationalism takes on new significance for the American left.

by Christian Gonzalez 29: Rethinking Environmentalist Strategies in Trump’s America How the crusade against the coal industry could stop environmental progress in America.

by Caroline Kelly 33: Climate Change and the New Frontiers of Insurgency A case study of Early 2000s Balochistan.

by Omar Khan

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CRISIS IN CATALONIA THREATENS EUROZONE STABILITY Lawrence Grief On October 27, 2017, Catalonia, an economically powerful and culturally significant region in northeast Spain, declared its independence.

Shortly after, the Spanish parliament invoked Article 155 of the Spanish constitution at the request of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy.

This article, labeled the “nuclear option” by many, gives the government the authority to “suspend some of a region’s autonomy” if that region’s government “fails to fulfill the obligations imposed upon it by the Constitution, or other laws, or acts in a way seriously prejudicing the general interests of Spain.”

Invoking this legal authority, the Spanish government has jailed Catalan ministers and independence leaders, charging them with rebellion and sedition. The Catalan President, Carles Puigdemont, has fled to Belgium, hoping to escape charges and rally greater support for Catalan independence.

The conflict between Catalonia and the Spanish central government has developed into a crisis, 4

and observers have begun to ask what political turmoil in Spain could mean for the wider European Union (EU). Some have suggested that the EU’s reputation as a source of stability within the region will inevitably be damaged if it proves incapable of preventing a division of sovereignty within one of its member states. The situation could worsen if Catalan’s success serves as inspiration to other European separatist movements, calling into question the stabilizing effects of Europe’s integration efforts. While these political ramifications are serious, they are not the only cause for concern. It is not only the political stability of the European Union that is threatened by an aggressive showdown over Catalan independence but also the economic stability of the Eurozone.

The Spanish economy has recovered remarkably from the economic crisis it faced in the early 2010s.

Indeed, most of the European community seems to have recovered from the Eurozone crisis, in which huge levels of sovereign debt eroded confidence in major European financial institutions and economies and at one point appeared

to signal the demise of the European experiment itself. However, the recovered economies of some member states remain fragile, and it is unclear whether a nation like Spain would be seriously harmed by a battle to retain sovereignty over one of its most productive regions. The negative effects of a faltering Spanish economy would reverberate throughout Europe, and a potential rise in the number of crises demanding the attention of Europe’s infrastructure of political and economic integration could further escalate the calamity.

The current political moment in Catalonia reached a critical point during the region’s independence referendum on October 1, 2017, undertaken against the wishes of the staunchly unionist Spanish state. While only 43 percent of Catalonia’s population voted, 90 percent of those voters favored independence. The tremendous rate of approval, combined with the low turnout, can be attributed to the decision made by many of those opposed to Catalan independence to avoid the referendum entirely in protest, as well as to the strong efforts of the

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Spanish state to obstruct voting.

The Catalan government reported that Spanish police were responsible for at least 337 injuries on the day of the referendum and used rubber bullets to subdue voters and activists. Catalan President Carlos Puigdemont stated that “the unjustified, disproportionate, and irresponsible violence of the Spanish state…helped to clarify all the doubts” that had remained among those championing independence. No true popular mandate for Catalan independence has surfaced so far, but it is clear that the pro-independence faction remains large and determined.

Invoking Article 155 of its constitution allowed Spain to assert authority over Catalonia and calm markets, which had reacted strongly to Catalonia’s declaration of independence – Spain’s benchmark index, Ibex 35, had dipped 1.5 percent following the declaration. However, the Spanish state’s

forceful actions are likely to provide another rallying point for the independence movement, as Catalonia prepares for the December elections scheduled to fill the positions left open by jailed separatist officials. Public sentiment has already shifted. A recent poll shows that 48.7 percent of Catalans favor independence, a much higher proportion than the 41.1 percent who favored independence in June and the greatest support observed since December 2014. As long as the push for Catalan independence remains alive, it has the potential to stir panic within Spanish markets.

Though Catalonia has a particularly strong regional identity and a sense of relative autonomy within Spain, the push for independence has been largely influenced by economic factors.

The region is one of Spain’s most productive, and, according to government statistics, it accounts for about twenty percent of the counART CREDIT: PEYTON AYERS

try’s economic output while holding only sixteen percent of the total population. Catalonia’s GDP per capita is greater than that of Spain in general, closer to the rest of the Eurozone’s GDP per capita than anywhere else in the country.

The region also contributes more in taxes to the central Spanish government than it receives back in public spending, a fact that weighs heavily on the minds of separatists.

While residents of Catalonia contribute 20 percent of Spain’s tax revenue, only 14 percent of Spain’s spending is directed back towards the region. Pro-independence Catalans believe that their economy would flourish if it did not need to help buoy the rest of the Spanish economy. This belief is partially a result of the disproportionately large role Catalonia played in pushing Spain out of its debt crisis.

Under the austerity measures adopted to rein in public debt, Catalonia suffered higher budget cuts 5

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than any other Spanish region.

However, there are reasons to be less optimistic about the economic outlook for an independent Catalonia – CaixaBank and Sabadell, Spain’s largest banks, along with more than 2,000 other companies, have already left the region in order to avoid political uncertainty and retain the advantages of a location within the Eurozone.

Spain’s Ministry of Employment and Social Security reported that Catalonia lost almost 15,000 jobs in October. Nevertheless, as uncertain as Catalonia’s economic future is, it may still be better than the economic situation Spain would face after losing sovereignty over such a productive region.

The Spanish economy is one of the great success stories of the Eurozone crisis. After suffering from a private sector economic shock in 2008, the Spanish government had no option but to accept a massive bailout of $125 billion from European finance ministers, which Prime Minister Rajoy called “a loan to recapitalize Spain’s weakest banks.” Five years later, official calculations showed that the country’s economic output has returned to pre-crisis levels.

While this growth is promising, it is clear to some that this recovery is not yet complete, as evidenced by an unemployment rate that remains at 18.6 percent, significantly higher than pre-crisis levels and about double the average Eurozone rate. Unemployment, which peaked during the crisis at 26 percent, is even greater among young workers, for whom it is around 39 percent. Another result of the crisis and the need to accept foreign funds to bailout Spanish banks was a rise in government debt, which was 40 percent of GDP before the crisis 6

but which now stands as high as 100 percent of GDP. While Spain’s economy has rebounded strongly from its crisis, there have been lasting effects that continue to malign Spain and leave it vulnerable to future shocks.

If Catalonia achieves independence, Spain’s potential losses could be devastating. Though the country’s debt level is already quite high, an economist at the Centre for Economics and Business Research has calculated that, in the event of a relatively peaceful Catalan exit, the debt would surge to 116.4 percent of GDP and Spain’s annual deficit would jump from 4.5 percent to 7.8 percent of GDP. Forecasters predict that, if independence is achieved, demand for Catalan and Spanish debt could collapse, seriously increasing the cost of government financing and potentially causing a Spanish recession that could spread throughout Europe. The most pessimistic forecasts thus fear a resurgent Eurozone crisis.

It is important to note that Spain’s recovery has occurred in conjunction with an aggressive bond-buying program from the European Central Bank (ECB), which is beginning to signal a change in its policies. The ECB will be likely to gradually phase out the practices it adopted in response to the Eurozone crisis, meaning there will be less bond purchases and higher interest rates. It is unclear how the Spanish economy will react to such measures, but this shift becomes even more concerning when one considers the potential loss of Catalonia, whose productivity has played a significant role in driving Spain’s growth. If the Spanish economy does falter as a result of the crisis in Catalonia, this will likely discourage the

ECB from halting its bond-buying program, preventing measures aimed at further stabilizing the Eurozone.

A successful Catalan independence movement could be destabilizing in another way: by causing a domino effect throughout Europe. One region managing to break away from the sovereignty of a European Union member state could encourage other regions across Europe to seek independence from their sovereigns. President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Junker has stated that, “if Catalonia is to become independent, other people will do the same,” and expressed dismay at the prospect of “a euro in 15 years that will be 100 different states.” Aside from the obvious threat to the political stability of the European Union, this sort of fragmentation would likely cause economic trouble within the Eurozone.

In Italy, for example, two wealthy Northern regions, Veneto and Lombardy, have recently conducted referenda seeking greater autonomy from the central government. It is not difficult to imagine these regions ramping up their independence efforts should Catalonia secure a successful departure from Spain. The same can be said of separatist movements in South Tyrol and Sicily. It should be noted that Italy continues to hold large public debt and has not recovered from the Eurozone crisis nearly as well as Spain has. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) forecasted earlier this year that another decade will pass before Italy’s economic growth returns to pre-crisis levels. If pessimistic observers suggest that Catalan independence could potentially push the Eurozone back into crisis, what might be the results of Italy’s larger economy, which has

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recovered at a much slower rate, attempting to withstand several separatist movements simultaneously?

Italy is also seen as at risk, as it the most vulnerable of the Eurozone states after Spain, and there is no reason that think that Corsican or Flemish separatists will be any less emboldened by Catalan independence.

There would certainly be immediate economic consequences of a Catalan separation from Spain that would likely trouble the Eurozone, but the potential for wider political fragmentation in Europe poses an even greater threat, one which the coun-

tries of the Eurozone are more prepared to handle now than they were in 2010 but a threat nonetheless.

President Puigdemont is currently in Belgium facing an international arrest warrant, charged by the Spanish government with rebellion, sedition, misuse of public funds, and breach of trust. He will remain in Belgium through the December 21st elections, wherein he will appear on the ballot along with several members of his party currently detained in Spain.

In the wake of Catalonia’s political turmoil, Spain has adjusted its 2018 growth forecast from 2.6 percent to

2.3 percent. Prime Minister Rajoy has said that, if pro-union officials are elected, GDP could grow between 2.8 and 3.0 percent and be accompanied by the creation of 500,000 jobs. As of now, separatist and unionist support remain at very close levels, but those favoring independence retain a slight edge. Eurozone leaders will be following the election closely and with an eye towards their own economic futures.

Lawrence is a senior at Columbia College studying History and Economics. He can be reached via email at leg2171@columbia.edu.

INTERVIEWWITH

JOSEF GREGORY MAHONEY Josef Gregory Mahoney is a professor of politics at East China Normal University, where he also leads the International Graduate Program in Politics as well as the International Center for Advanced Political Studies. He has authored more than 70 publications and was formerly a Senior Fellow with the Central Compilation and Translation Bureau in Beijing. Dr. Mahoney also served as a member of the team that translated Jiang Zemin’s Selected Works.

While his expertise is in Chinese politics and comparative politics, he has agreed to address questions related to China and North Korea.

in through its history? In other words, how did we get here?

Gregory Mahoney: One of the first things we can note is that, historically, there was a strong correlation between China’s involvement in Korea and American involvement in Taiwan. This is less the case today, but it should be remembered that China always thinks about security in a broader sense than most Americans, who tend to focus on separate issues without understanding how China sees it as a whole. For example, Syria has long been a security concern for China, since they saw that country as an entry point for Western powers to project into Central Asia. And more recently, of course, Syria has been Sheena Qiao: How can we under- projected as a key crossroads for Chistand the position that North Korea is na’s One Belt One Road (OBOR) development plan. So while Americans

and others might be viewing security more limitedly, Chinese leaders are always taking a much larger and more integrated view.

In the case of North Korea, China paid a very high blood price to stop the Americans, to push them back to the 38th parallel, and to then hold them there over the course of difficult negotiations. Even Mao Zedong lost a son in the fighting. Such sacrifices are usually attributed to the close relationship between the North Korean and Chinese communists.

It has also been attributed to Mao’s desire to impress Soviet leader Josef Stalin with China’s capacity to resist the United States. Strategically, China also wanted to the US off its border. Although China initially aimed at expelling the US from the Korean peninsula entirely, it settled for creat-

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08 // WINTER 2018 // COLUMBIA POLITICAL REVIEW ing a buffer state.

With the Korean peninsula divided and under a ceasefire, North Korea began developing a distinct path under Kim Il-sung: they began to develop the philosophy of juche.

This is a concept that originated during the Korean dynastic period as a self-strengthening movement. It was redeveloped initially by Kim Ilsung as a particularization of Marxism to meet Korean needs. It ended up becoming, however, the central ideology. In the international press, there is still a tendency for people to refer to North Korea as a “Stalinist state” or a Communist state. In fact, the words “Communism” and “Marxism” have disappeared almost entirely from North Korean discourse, a development that has been underway for almost two decades.

Juche today still means self-reliance and self-sufficiency, but it has also developed a type of ‘pure-blood,’ radical nationalism, asserting that North Koreans are either the most advanced or among the most advanced people in the world and that the Kim family is at the pinnacle. Juche really began to turn ever more inward with the fall of Communism in Russia and the rise of China’s market economy.

Consequently, North Korea found itself increasingly isolated in terms of the path that they were taking, one that includes, strangely enough, a hereditary dictatorship. But a key point is that while this movement has its modern beginnings as a form of resistance to the West, South Korea, and Japan, it ends up picking up steam in part because of changes in Russia and China, and possibly, even, a growing fear of China.

SQ: That seems to be rather counterintuitive, since North Korea has been China’s protégée in international rela8

tions for the last thirty-some years. Why would North Korea be fearful of China?

GM: Everything that North Korea has done in developing its nuclear program, the United States has used as an opening to bring in more military resources into East Asia, which in turn threatens China. At the same time, there has been concern in China of two separate risks for North Korea: first, the risk of war, and second, the risk that it might simply collapse. If the regime falls, there could be a mass exodus of North Koreans into China, which China would have to contend with, while also trying to gain control over North Korean weapons and preventing the South Koreans and Americans from moving up to the Chinese border. It has been said— this has never been independently verified, however— that China has been building up forces on its North Korean border for some time now.

Now, the problem with that is: You do not go in when the collapse has happened, you go in when you think the collapse is coming. That means that, for North Korean leadership, they realize that their greatest threat may actually be China.

SQ: Is that related to why Chinese-North Korean relationships have cooled considerably?

GM: Yes. There are persistent rumors that Kim Jong-un’s brother [Kim Jong-nam] and his uncle [Jang SongThaek], who was the main North Korean connection to China, were part of a conspiracy that would help leadership transition in that scenario.

Whether or not that is true is unverifiable at this time. But other developments are underway. For example, the Friendship Bridge that connects the two borders has been shut down.

A reported eighty percent of China’s trade with North Korea passes over

that bridge. The official reason [for the shutdown] is that the bridge is being repaired. However, flights between the two countries have also been suspended. It is winter, which means it is the most difficult time of year for North Korea. Meanwhile, cultural exchanges are being terminated.. These events coincide with the Chinese envoy who went to North Korea last week, whom Kim refused to meet. The envoy was sent as part of a tradition when the “brother parties” brief each other after major congresses. Kim’s snub has been interpreted by many people as being directed at Chinese leader Xi Jinping, not only for supporting sanctions but for the ways Xi had feted Trump with a “state visit-plus” during the latter’s recent visit to Beijing.

SQ: So does China currently actually have leverage over North Korea?

GM: Effectively, the answer is not much and probably not enough to be leverage. But what China has at this point is the ability to threaten North Korea militarily because, to a certain extent, that is already what China is doing with build-ups on the border and contingency planning. But on the whole, China would rather deescalate and would rather not involve itself in a conflict. Conversely, the US and countries like Japan have incentives to escalate, perhaps not to the point of war, but to the point of rearming Japan and putting advanced weaponry like THAAD in South Korea, ramping up bomber flybys and naval operations. South Korea, of course, has taken a more moderate position and has already paid a significant price for THAAD. There has been an exodus of South Koreans and their businesses from China as part of the Chinese government response against THAAD. South Korean

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N.KOREAN MISSILE

SOURCE: BUSINESS INSIDER

trade has been hurt because of it. Relations with China, which had been really good just a couple of years ago, have fallen badly. This no doubt pleases Washington.

SQ: How likely or unlikely is denuclearization?

GM: One of the problems associated with denuclearization is that there tends to be a vulgar double standard at work. Why is Iran developing nuclear weapons? Because Israel has them, and the United States never talks about Israel having nuclear weapons. China has committed to North Korea’s denuclearization, at least in terms of rhetoric, and the United States is committed to it, but why would North Korea give [the weapons] up? Almost every international affairs specialist says North Korea has hardened its position in response to what the United States did to Gaddafi, despite Libya abandoning WMD development and cooperating the US in the so-called War on Terror. And then, the United States helped overthrow and kill Gaddafi, while Libya has been a mess ever since. This, of course, was also done in Iraq, and it was an aim in Syria. Thus, everything the United States has done so far has convinced North Korea that developing nuclear weapons is the right thing to do.

Right now, North Korea holds a military edge because of its capacity to inflict unacceptable losses on Seoul. But that’s mainly using World War II-level technology. But that technology costs a lot of money to produce and maintain. What if you could downsize that force because you have a viable nuclear attack or counterattack option? Not only would there be an incentive to build a weapon 9

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10

that would keep aggressors at bay, it might also end up producing cost savings in defense spending, which North Korea sorely needs.

SQ: What is China’s position in all of this?

GM: As noted previously, China never views things in isolation. Although Taiwan is still a hot-button issue, and although Trump was a bit provocative in taking the phone call with the Taiwanese leader [Tsai Ingwen], the larger provocation right now is—or has been, at least—over the South China Sea. I am not saying that there is a new dialectic, but China looks at its security posture comprehensively, with respect to its greatest threat, which is the United States. The United States has tried to gain leverage over China repeatedly and that began very aggressively after 9/11 when America penetrated Central Asia, and it continues till this day with struggles underwater and on the Korean Peninsula.

SQ: What are the best policy options for Xi? GM: The current Kim has not visited China like his father. Kim Jongun has made it clear that his decision to more aggressively pursue nuclear weapons was the right decision given what he considers to be the unbridled provocations of the United States. The North Koreans seem to be convinced that they have the right strategy. And the fact of the matter is, they do. They are doing precisely what they should be doing, and it is very hard to argue against that. How are you going to convince North Korea otherwise? Many sober analysts believe the only way you can convince North Korea to denuclearize is to provide them with security guarantees, and, yet, exactly the opposite has been happening, not only on the American side but probably as well

on the Chinese side because North Korea feels vulnerable on multiple fronts.

SQ: What direction do you envision American-North Korean relations taking during the Trump Administration?

GM: It is clear that the United States is adjusting its strategy. It’s less clear the extent to which Trump is leading this or going along with other plans.

It might be said that previous administrations were listening more to the intelligence services, and Trump seems to be listening more to the Pentagon. Those are two very different cultures, and they have very different advisers and experts. Trump has surrounded himself with generals who see the world in a particular way.

On one hand, the argument could be made that the intelligence services did not ultimately serve previous American presidents well, as the situation in North Korea has only gotten worse.

On the other hand, almost any sober military assessment says that it is impossible to solve the situation right now, military. Nevertheless, this does not seem to prevent Trump from ramping up the rhetoric, provoking North Korea, and using this an opening to position more military in East Asia in a way that unnerves China.

And Trump still blames China periodically for North Korea. Is that strategic or is it simply petty? Some people in non-American, non-Chinese diplomatic circles believe that there is a method to his madness, particularly as we see emergent developments related to the so-called Indo-Pacific and the “Anti-China Quad,” which aims at a new China containment strategy involving the US, Japan, Australia and India. But even if there is a rational strategic mind at work here, I’m not yet convinced that it is really engaging conditions in Asia in realistic or sustainable ways.

SQ: To wrap up this interview, I think it is worthy to note that the United States and North Korea are technically on a ceasefire from the Korean War. What is the significance of this?

GM: Many people seem to have this idea, in terms of rhetoric, that Trump or Kim need to declare war against each other. That is not true. A state of war technically already exists. One of the things that constrains American presidents is that they are required to receive support from Congress in order to declare and pay for war.

But the United States is technically already in a state of war on the Korean peninsula, so would the President need a new authorization to engage militarily with North Korea? Furthermore, South Korea has demanded the right to determine whether hostilities begin, in the event that the US takes a preemptive approach and attacks first. Thus far, the Trump Administration has not answered South Korea’s demand. Given these conditions, and whether we go to war or not, we might be a lot closer to war than many imagine. *This interview has been shortened and edited for concision and publication purposes.

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THE “WAR ON TERROR” IN FRANCE The concept of a “state of emergency” was initially created in France under President Charles de Gaulle in 1955, during the Franco-Algerian War. It temporarily restricts certain public liberties and increases the powers of the Minister of the Interior, the prefects, and the police in order to deal with a crisis that threatens citizens’ safety and public order. Such powers include the ability to restrict the mobility of certain individuals, to prohibit certain public meetings, and to conduct searches and seizures without legal warrants, among other things. Two years is an unprecedented length of time for this exceptional state to remain in place, and, now that it has been lifted, one may want to examine its controversial replacement, the new anti-terrorism law.

Article 1 of the law replaces the current use of house arrests for suspicious individuals with mobility restrictions for them within a larger perimeter of their city.

Article 2 grants prefects the power to close down places of worship more easily than they had been able to even under the state of emer gency. Article 3 defines the terms of video surveillance of suspects as essentially the same as it was during as the state of emergency. Article 4 keeps home searches

Stella Chene and raids in place. Police controls will now be more frequent. Article 19 formalizes border control powers in the same terms.

In essence, the new anti-terrorism law is strikingly similar to the state of emergency. In fact, despite a few variations in scope, the new powers granted to the Interior and the police are essentially the same as before. The state of emergency had become quite unpopular by the time it was lifted, as its restrictions were being felt more and more strongly by the population.

Protests were much more difficult to organize, bag searches had become a routine, and the constant military presence served as a reminder that France is at war with an intangible entity that could strike any moment. Opinion polls show that, although over 70 percent of the French population was in favor of an extension for the state of emergency immediately after the attacks in Nice, support for the measure dropped considerably. By the end, only 27 percent of the French population be-

lieved that the state of emergency was truly efficient, compared to almost 60 percent in January of 2016. Lifting the state of emergency in such a grand fashion, with a signing ceremony in the presidential office, posing for cameras and surrounded by flags, was a political move for Macron to give the impression that things are changing for the better, that the grim state of things is behind us.

In reality, the law is just another extension for the policy, except, this time, it is indefinite.

While the state of emergency needed a majority in Parliament to be extended, the law of October 30 will now remain in place until the legislature decides to repeal it – a difficult process, unlikely to happen in the near future.

The French political board is very divided on this law—the far left has uniformly rejected it in the name of individual liberty, as has the far right because they consider it too weak. Meanwhile the president’s majority party, La République en Marche, has voted overwhelmingly in favor of it. The reason this law has been received so differently across the political spectrum is because it is the product of the unresolvable debate 11

12 // WINTER 2018 // COLUMBIA POLITICAL REVIEW between individual liberties and national security. The left tends to prioritize citizens’ freedoms, while the right places a higher value on security. This then leads to the question: whose liberties are actually restricted by the law?

In the two years during which the state of emergency was in place, 45 potential attacks were thwarted. 4,469 administrative seizures were made, allowing for 625 different instances of arms seizures, 78 of which involved military-grade weapons. 754 house arrests were enforced. 19 mosques were closed down. Although there

JANUARY 7, 2015 11 People shot on the premises of Charlie Hebdo, a satirical newspaper, in the 11th arondissement in Paris. The perpetrators are two brothers who claim to be acting on behalf of Al-Qaeda. is no direct link to prove causality between the state of emergency and these results, it is reasonable to think that the exceptional state did lead to some of these things. One can hardly imagine a citizen being unwilling to open their bag before entering a mall or uncomfortable with the sight of the military in the subway if it means that 45 potentially deadly attacks were thwarted.

The debate about individual liberty and security is not a debate pitting all French citizens’ liberties against all French citizens’ security;

instead, it is struggle to reduce the liberties of some French citizens for the security of all. The people who are truly affected by loss of individual liberty are not regular citizens.

The people affected are those suspected of terrorist activities, who consequently will be searched, raided, and placed under house arrest and surveillance without a fair trial. These suspects are identified with a “fiche S” and today constitute a group of roughly 12,000 people. It is the rights of these suspects, their individual liberty, their fundmental rights to privacy, freedom of movement, as-

ed or put under surveillance since the implementation of the state of emergency have been French citizens who have a “fiche S.” The new anti-terrorism law allows the government to violate the liberties of these people for the greater security of all. The assumption behind this is that the enemy comes from within. Border controls, for example, are less useful for controlling who comes in to the country than they are for keeping terrorists on the run within French jurisdiction.

The idea that the enemy is an insider makes sense. Unlike what the Républicains suggest,

NOVEMBER 13, 2015

JULY 14, 2016 One hundred and thirty peoEighty-six people are killed ple are shot in Paris, in the in Nice, a city in southern 10th and 11th arrondisseFrance, on Bastille Day, a ments. It is the biggest attack French national holiday. The that France has ever faced perpetrator drove a truck on its own soil in a generdown the most popular avation. The perpetrators are enue in the city. The Islamic nine men acting on behalf of the Islamic State (ISIS). On State claims responsibility for the killings two days later. the same evening, a national state of emergency is attacks are not perpetrated by fordeclared. eigners coming into the country

sociation, and speech, that we are really talking about.

Interestingly enough, all of these 12,000 individuals are French citizens. The perpetrators of the attacks in Paris and Nice, at least those whom French secret services were able to identify, were also French citizens. All suspects arrest-

and radicalization is not carried out by recent arrivals. The terrorists behind the January 7 and November 13 attacks were almost all born in France. The French government has understood that terrorism and radicalization must be fought on French soil. What it has failed to understand, however, is that the enemy is not Islam itself.

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The parameters for a state of emergency do not include any special clause about religion.

This state simply grants the executive exceptional powers to limit or prohibit access to certain places, but not necessarily places devoted to worship. The law of October 30, on the other hand, ensures that executive regulation centers on religion. Article 2 of the law gives prefects the power to close places of worship exclusively. The assumption underlying this article is that radicalization has to do solely with religion.

It is not surprising that such

OCTOBER 30, 2017 French president Emmanuel Macron signs a new anti-terrorism law. On November 1, 2017, after two years of existence and six extensions, the state of emergency is lifted. a conclusion was reached by many in the French government. The Charlie Hebdo attack was carried out in the name of Allah, and all known or suspected terrorists are Muslims. But there is something intriguing about how people who knew these attackers describe them after they committed the crime. Relatives often say similar things: it is shocking that these people committed terror attacks in the name of Islam because, although they were Muslim, they were not practicing; they drank, they smoked, and they barely went to the Mosque. “They

were completely normal boys,” said the mother of the Barcelona attackers, for example. “They helped me, took care of me (...) They had jobs, they didn’t steal. They never caused problems to me or anyone else.”

If radicalization truly was due to Islam itself, why is such a small proportion of the Muslim population is affected by it? If the answer is that only the most extreme Muslims can become terrorists, then why do terrorists often turn out to be moderate practitioners, not particularly diligent about their faith until a recent and sudden turn?

In fact, unlike what one might expect, almost all the people with a “fiche S” are second-generation Muslim immigrants or converted Muslims. There are no first-generation immigrants and no third-generation ones either. According to French political scientist and scholar of Islam Olivier Roy, the reason for this very specific composition is that the true reason for radicalization is not faith in Islam, but “generational rebellion” (“révolte générationnelle”).

As Roy argues, both second-generation immigrants and converted Muslims wish to disengage with their parents’ faith because they perceive it to be the reason for their marginalization in French society. Islamophobia is rampant in France. The poor and segregated neighborhoods in the outskirts of Paris, the banlieues, are majority Black, Arab, and Muslim. It is forbidden for Muslim women to wear a veil in public, but Christian nuns are perfectly free to do so.

There are regular talks of taking away pork-free meals from school cafeterias in the name of secularism but none to remove Christmas as a national holiday. Islam does not cause radical-

ization; rejection and fear of it does.

The French Republic is founded on the principle that there is no intermediary level between the state and the citizen. Subcommunities are not recognized by the state – not even those of race – and all citizens are purported to be equal.

The people who radicalize and become terrorists are not fanatics of Islam. They are French citizens, but only on paper, feeling cheated by a discourse of equality that exists only in the realm of ideas. Olivier Roy puts it best: it is not Islam that is radicalizing, it is radicalization that is Islamicized. Why does this happen with Islam and not another religion?

Because Islamic faith is the reason that future terrorists are marginalized in the first place. Thus, joining ISIS appears to be their best option for terrorizing those who rejected them.

In the United States, after the attacks on 9/11, the Bush administration was forced to address horrendous crimes committed in the name of a religion that has over 1.6 billion followers. As University of Exeter Professor Gregorio Bettiza shows, the resulting confusion in American policy-making towards Islam, wherein the government attempted to secure the “good Muslims” as allies in the fight against the “bad terrorists,” ended up singling out the Muslim population as the only source of potential terrorists.

This had a stigmatizing effect, which increased anti-Islamic sentiment in the United States. The exact same thing is now happening in France.

By indirectly identifying the cause of radicalization as religion, its breeding ground as places of worship, and its perpetrators as faithful believers, the law of October 30 implies that only religious people are likely

14 // WINTER 2018 // COLUMBIA POLITICAL REVIEW to become radicalized. In reality, it is abandoned and marginalized French citizens who are likely to do so. The more Islam is put under scrutiny, the more ostracized Muslims will be, the more rejected they will feel, and the more likely it will become that some of them will radicalize. Evoking religion in an attack is simply an excuse to reject an identity of self-hatred.

Roy shows that none of the terrorists involved in the attacks on French soil were theologists or even had any significant interest in theology. They were people who chose Salafist Islam because they identified with its rejection of a certain concept of culture.

Even if the Islamic State vanishes, Roy argues, radicalization will still be a problem. It will simply be carried out under a different name. The solution to fight terrorism on French soil is less about waging a war against the Islamic State than it is about addressing the French people who are excluded and looking for a cause to join.

The state of emergency was tenable because it was temporary, but the law of October 30 is permanent and therefore not viable. A solution in which minorities are excluded and stigmatized is not a solution for the long run. There are alternatives to the approach taken by France or the US after 9/11 for combating terrorist activity. The Danish city of Aarhus, for example has chosen to extend a helping hand to returning foreign fighters by supporting them with housing, education, employment, and psychological treatment.

Aarhus hopes to prevent attacks by presenting the state as an ally rather than an enemy to rebel against.

Similarly in Sri Lanka, atempts to aid the rehabilitation of

former members of the Tamil Tigers, a terrorist separatist group, have shown extraordinary results. A study

by Professor David Webber of the University of Maryland proves that those fighters who underwent full rehabilitation showed far fewer signs of extremism afterwards than those who only went through partial rehabilitation, and that they were even less radical than people who never joined the Tamil Tigers in the first place.

Terrorist attacks on French soil are not perpetrated by fanatic Islamic theologists. They are also not perpetrated by foreigners who come illegally into the country. And they are, above all, not perpetrated by trained ISIS soldiers. Terrorism on French soil is perpetrated by French citizens, born in France, who have lost hope in their country and have found another cause to live – or die – for.

To address the issue, then, France must extend a helping hand.

The young people who radicalize turn to ISIS because it is all they have left.

When facing violent and racist police controls on a daily basis, how can these people not feel like enemies of the state? When their place of residence handicaps them on the job market, how can they not lose hope? The outbreaks of violence in the banlieues in 2005 serve as proof that there exists an urgent need for reforms aimed true equality in terms of education, employment, and social mobility.

The social programs put in place after 2005 did not produce nearly enough results and must be expanded.

Beyond social reforms, France’s integration model must be revised. By denying the existence of intermediary communities between the nation and the individual, the French state essentially erases the identities of

some of its citizens. If their religious, racial, or immigrant backgrounds are not recognized, those marginalized as a result of these things cannot be protected. Without protection, they are repressed and rejected. The French model of nationalism insists that citizenship is the only aspect of identity that matters. No race, religion, or foreign heritage should be considered by the government as incompatible with “being French,” so long as the social contract of citizenship is signed in the end. It is time that the promise of equality is kept.

On January 7, 2015, France faced the first attack of the darkest year in its recent history. Almost immediately after the Charlie Hebdo attacks, a slogan overtook the nation: “Je suis Charlie” (“I am Charlie”). For a brief moment on January 7, it seemed like France was Charlie. But in reality, on the outskirts of Paris, in the banlieues and elsewhere, some young people screamed “I am not Charlie!” I am not, they insisted, because I am not part of the model you talk about. I have no place in the unity you dream of. And these people are correct: they are not included in French unity. Until we reach out a helping hand to bring them in, so long as we continue to make laws that will stigmatize and marginalize them, so long as we refuse to listen to their prayers and instead only cower at the sight of their religion, they will not be Charlie.

Stella is a junior in the Dual BA Program Between Sciences Po and Columbia University, majoring in Economics-Political Science. She is from France and was a history major in Sciences Po. She can be reached at sc4221@columbia.edu.

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FREE SPEECH IN THE ERA OF TRUMP Hannah Wyatt Twice this fall, self-identified white supremacists were invited to speak on Columbia’s campus, supposedly in the name of discourse and free speech. These events sparked the most pertinent controversy of the semester: should the university invoke its right to control who speaks on campus and censor speakers who promulgate hateful rhetoric?

Despite multiple protests and petitions urging Columbia to crack down on white nationalist speakers, the university maintained the right of campus groups to invite any speaker they choose, as long as the group “ensure[s] that the event will be orderly and safe.” This consideration was especially relevant given that protests arose earlier in the year at other universities when similar speakers were slated to speak.

Those protests turned into violent encounters between speakers’ supporters and protesters and sometimes led to police intervention.

The debate over free speech on campus and its effects are not simply reflections of micro-level grievances. They represent a greater issue in American politics. Conservatives have argued that such protests against extremist speakers have a nefarious objective, the general suppression of free speech,

rather than are targeted objections to certain kinds of speech. As “political correctness” attracts an increasingly negative connotation for some in American politics, it has become common to frame those who protest far-right speech as denying First Amendment rights to those with whom they disagree. This argument is employed especially in response to the free speech debate on college campuses. Shortly after his scheduled appearance at UC Berkeley led to violent riots, Milo Yiannopoulos, the alt-right provocateur, asserted that “the left is absolutely terrified of free speech and will do literally anything to shut it down.”

Though this idea is most often posited by the alt-right, it has also been embraced by mainstream conservatives in order to frame the issue of free speech in much the same way that they frame the issue of gun control: by telling their supporters that the left is attempting to take away fundamental American rights through a promotion of the liberal agenda and the silencing of conservative sentiments.

However, along with the right to free speech comes the right to oppose speech one may find offensive or harmful. The right of citizens to protest and picket events originated through Supreme Court decisions like Hague v. CIO and Thornhill v. Alabama, which determined that

those who were being silenced by structural inequalities should have access to an outlet for their grievances. When conservatives claim that the left is anti-free speech because college students protest hateful speakers, they are using the First Amendment as a political weapon to delegitimize mainstream liberalism as a whole. In using what is supposed to be a core American value as a divisive strategy, conservatives threaten bipartisanship itself.

The current administration has proved an especially friendly environment for skewed perspectives on free speech and censorship. President Donald Trump actively works against free speech under the guise of empowerment of his supporters, who are largely white, lower- and middle-class conservatives. Trump first addressed the notion of speech suppression during his presidential campaign, wherein he pushed the claim that political correctness is an attempt by the left to minimize the views of working-class Americans.

He was praised by supporters for always “speaking his mind,” often in ways widely regarded as offensive.

He condoned and even encouraged supporters to physically attack protesters at rallies.

Trump’s view of free speech is selective; he has also used various avenues to quell the speech of others. By condemning the news media regularly, encouraging the NFL

14 2017 // COLUMBIA POLITICAL REVIEW 16 // // FALL WINTER 2018 // COLUMBIA POLITICAL REVIEW to punish players who do not stand for the national anthem, banning the Washington Post from news events, threatening the license of broadcast stations that he believes cover him unfairly, denouncing legitimate mainstream news sources as “fake news,” encouraging his supporters to heckle the media at events, Trump has repeatedly stood on the side of censorship and suppression.

Yet, he still boasts to his supporters that, as Americans, they have the right to say whatever they want.

These actions are not surprising when considering the president’s views on foreign leaders. Trump has shown unprecedented support for those heads of state who suppress free speech, praising leaders who impose state-controlled media and other repressive domestic policies within their countries. These recipients of support range from Russia’s Vladimir Putin, who recently signed a law requiring non-state-controlled Russian media outlets to register as foreign agents, to President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines, who has sanctioned the extrajudicial deaths of thousands of suspects in a brutal war on drugs.

Trump has shown support with his actions as well as his words. On a recent visit to China, he refrained

ART CREDIT: JOY LEE

from holding a press conference to appease the Chinese government, though previous presidents from both parties have chosen to hold press conferences regardless of such requests.

Though Trump’s strategies mostly reflect his lack of political experience or understanding of foreign and domestic policy, the dangers of his actions are nonetheless evident. There are numerous historical precedents of seemingly indestructible democracies devolving into authoritarian regimes under repressive leadership. The populist leaders of these failed democracies often used the same tactics as Trump: they rallied support from those who felt excluded from the national discourse. These supporters’ discontent was exacerbated by the notion that government entities were discrediting or overlooking their ideas, pushing their speech to the side. When groups

such as these perceive themselves as being pushed to the periphery of political life, the nation’s political stability can be threatened on a fundamental level.

The United States has consolidated its democracy to a degree unmatched by the vast majority of nation-states.

The nation’s political institutions have shown time and time again that they are able to withstand economic, social, and military crises.

However, we have entered an era in which political practices already deviate significantly from the established norm.

There is a difference between this country’s past fascist movements, which were comparatively small and weak, and those that are supported by the current president, which appear to be growing. For example, if the far-right is able to popularize the idea that the left seeks to exclude certain groups from First Amendment protections by prohibiting or forcibly retaliating against campus speakers, they might be able to incite greater resistance to liberal movements in general. In the context of America’s fall from “full” to “flawed democracy” under some measures following the 2016 election, in a world that has seen much recent backsliding into authoritarian tendencies, threats to our democrat-

COLUMBIA POLITICAL REVIEW // WINTER 2018 // 17 ic hallmarks such as free speech should be taken seriously.

The best way to approach the issue of free speech on campus and at the national level is not always clear. Sometimes protest is necessary, but some speakers only thrive off the attention and notoriety that protests bring. However

we conduct the fight against hateful speech, we must do so as a nation with the intent of preserving the legitimacy of our democracy and its institutions, even as many attempt to erode them. This must be our common goal if we hope to avoid the growing threats imposed by the far-right.

Hannah Wyatt is a first-year at Barnard College (likely) majoring in Political Science. She is from Washington, D.C., which has had both the most adverse and vitalizing effects on her interest in politics thus far. She can be reached at hrw2123@barnard.edu.

ORWELL, NATIONALISM AND THE DEATH OF INTELLECTUAL HONESTY Christian Gonzalez

American politics is becoming increasingly polarized. Liberals and conservatives are getting their news from different channels, placing their trust in different institutions, and associating more and more with those who hold similar political beliefs. As Lee Drutman of the New York Times observes, “Rather than being one two-party nation, we are becoming two one-party nations.” It all amounts to an ugly form of tribalism in which individuals are driven to act primarily by loyalty to their party.

This tribalism occurs within the intelligentsia as well as among the masses; the only difference is that the tribalism of intellectuals is usu-

ally ideological rather than partisan.

In 1945, George Orwell diagnosed the matter of ideological tribalism in his essay, “Notes on Nationalism.”

His thoughts have proved incredibly prescient. Orwell defined nationalism not as “‘patriotism,’ or the love of one’s country, but as “the habit of identifying oneself with a single nation or other unit, placing it beyond good and evil and recognizing no other duty than that of advancing its interests.”

Orwell argued that there are three identifying characteristics of nationalists: 1) Obsession: “As nearly as possible, no nationalist ever thinks, talks, or writes about anything except the superiority of his own power unit…

The smallest slur upon his own unit, or any implied praise of a rival or-

ganization, fills him with uneasiness which he can only relieve by making some sharp retort.”

2) Instability: “The intensity with which they are held does not prevent nationalist loyalties from being transferable.” Orwell here provides some examples, such as the case of “bigoted Communists” turning into “equally bigoted Trotskyists.”

3) Indifference to reality: “All nationalists have the power of not seeing resemblances between similar sets of facts… Actions are held to be good or bad, not on their own merits but according to who does them, and there almost no kind of outrage… which does not change its moral colour when it is committed by ‘our’ side.”

Orwell wrote in the 1940s, but the nationalist tendencies that he described persist today, particular-

18 // WINTER 2018 // COLUMBIA POLITICAL REVIEW ly, then as now, in the minds of the intelligentsia. In this article, I aim to highlight the current permutations of nationalism and to show how they preclude honest thinking. I will focus only on nationalism in the left, simply because leftist nationalism is pervasive in universities and in the news media.

Nationalism occurs on the right as well, but there are few conservatives in elite intellectual circles.

I quote from Orwell to make a second point: “I am trying to isolate and identify tendencies which exist in all our minds and pervert our thinking, without necessarily occurring in a pure state or operating continuously” (emphasis mine).

No intellectual will readily admit, “I am now going to make arguments which I know are dishonest.” Nationalism rarely manifests itself in obvious terms. Instead, it appears in subtle forms, and it can only be teased out through critical analysis.

When I describe today’s iterations of nationalism, I provide relevant quotations and examples, but the point is not to show that any particular person is inconsistent; the point is rather to demonstrate how nationalist patterns of thought manifest themselves in current political discourse.

Anti-Racist nationalism: Orwell devoted a section of his essay to what he called “colour feeling.” He wrote, “Among the intelligentsia, colour feeling only occurs in the… belief in the innate superiority of the coloured races… Almost any English intellectual would be scandalized by the claim that the white races are superior to the coloured, whereas the opposite claim would seem to him unexceptional even if he disagreed with it.”

Before proceeding, I want to

acknowledge that a defensive attitude towards minority populations in the United States is at least partly justified: it has only been sixty years since America abolished its shameful system of apartheid, and the nation is still struggling to overcome this legacy. Anti-racist nationalism, however, extends itself past a justifiable defensiveness about the status of minorities.

Especially since the birth of Black Lives Matter, there has been a tendency to allow essentially anything to be written about white people and to defend minorities at all costs. Double standards when writing about race are openly permitted in a way reminiscent of Orwell’s “colour feeling.” The New York Times has been a pioneer in publishing the sort of anti-white content that would not be tolerated if the objects of the attacks were members of any other ethnic or racial group. For example, in December of 2015, George Yancy wrote an open letter to “white America,” in which he charged every white person with being racist. No data buttressed Yancy’s argument; in his opinion, white skin implies inherent racism because white skin implies privilege. More recently, the New York Times published a piece

by Ekow Yankah, a law professor at Yeshiva University, in which Yankah argued that black children could not, and should not, be friends with white children.

Anti-racist nationalism lends itself to some unreasonable conclusions, such as the notion that blacks or other minorities cannot be racist because they do not wield power. Advancing this argument ignores elementary definitions—namely, that racism is about attitudinal prejudices, not power structures. That racism can manifest itself through institutions of pow-

er does not negate this definition.

Any person can hold conscious or unconscious biases against members of different ethnic groups, regardless of power dynamics. Suggesting that minorities cannot be racially insensitive is a belief that is itself prejudiced and can only be justified through the lens of anti-racist nationalism.

To justify many of their beliefs, anti-racist nationalists blame disparities between whites and minorities, in employment rates, income, wealth, or placement in positions of power, on the real or purported misdeeds of whites.

Ta-Nehisi Coates is today’s most eloquent proponent of this view.

Discrimination is immediately assumed to be the cause of any disparity between whites and minorities. Even suggesting that internal factors rather than discrimination can cause disparities raises eyebrows, to put it mildly. Polite opinion, informed by anti-racist nationalism, refuses even to entertain such explanations.

As mentioned in the introduction, Orwell highlighted the nationalist temptation to put certain groups or ideas beyond good and evil. Anti-racism has reached that stage. As long as a statement or action can be interpreted as improving the condition of minorities or blaming whites for their misfortunes, it will be permitted and encouraged, regardless of whether the claim or action is true, morally justifiable, or intellectually honest.

Anti-racist nationalists think with their skins and want others to feel and act similarly.

Islamic Nationalism: Anti-racist nationalism often extends to other groups perceived as victims,

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such as Muslims. The primary task of Islamic nationalists is to protect Islam and Muslims—two different things which are often conflated. Any criticism of Islam, a religion with flaws like all others, is taken as an offense against Muslim people.

As a result, Islamic nationalists will deflect criticism of Islam, such as “the Iranian regime murders women for adultery using Islamic injunctions” or “Saudi Arabia uses religious laws and traditions to justify its policy of state-sponsored decapitations,” with the misleading retort that “one cannot criticize a religion of 1.5 billion people.” The clear implication is that, in criticizing Islam, one is acting in a derogatory way toward all Muslims. They argue that Islam is a complex religion with many different interpretations and that it is too fre-

quently the target of unfair criticism.

But the fact that Islam is a complex religion does not mean that Islam stands for nothing, nor does it shield the faith from criticism or imply that illiberal interpretations of Islam are “not really Islamic.”

Most tellingly, those who rush to the aid of Islam hardly flinch when Christianity is rhetorically assaulted. Indeed, the Islamic nationalist will mention the Ku Klux Klan and Christianity in the same breath, even as he muddles the relationship between Islam and the Taliban or Islam and repressive Sharia regimes.

A particularly egregious example of Islamic nationalism arose after the video of a debate in Australia, in which Muslim activist Yassmin Abdel-Magied argued that Islam is “the most feminist religion,” made ART CREDIT: JOY LEE

the rounds on social media some months ago. Abdel-Magied was engaged in the debate with a populist of a Trumpian bent, who responded only with rallying cries such as “No Sharia in Australia!” and “If you live in Australia, you must follow the laws of this country!” Abdel-Magied responded that, under Islam, “women got equal rights well before the Europeans” and that “we [women] don’t take our husbands’ last names because we ain’t their property.”

The larger point Abdel-Magied misses is that her framing Islam as the epitome of feminist achievement fails to consider the plight that women suffer in much of the Muslim world largely because of the texts and traditions of the Islamic faith.

An even more extreme epi-

24 // WINTER 2018 // COLUMBIA POLITICAL REVIEW sode of Islamic nationalism could be witnessed in June 2017 in the Congress of the United States. Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Asra Q. Nomani were invited to testify before a congressional committee about the dangers of Islamism, specifically its treatment of women. At the hearing, Democratic senators Kamala Harris and Heidi Heitkamp declined to ask Ali and Nomani a single question; they preferred to skirt any potential link between Islam and misogynist violence.

Senator Harris is normally an advocate of women’s causes in America. But when she had before her a black, African immigrant who was a victim of female genital mutilation and who lives under the perennial threat of murder, her unwillingness to speak out against Islamism seemed to outweigh her desire to act as a proponent of women’s rights. Ali was ignored because she ventured unwelcome thoughts about Islam, which rendered whatever else she had to say about the outrages committed against Muslim women irrelevant in the eyes of Harris and her colleagues.

Such are the contradictions of Islamic nationalism.

Anti-war nationalism: Orwell wrote of a “pacifist nationalism” that “usually boils down to saying one side is as bad as the other.” There is no better example of an intellectual making such equivocations than Noam Chomsky, a scholar whose colossal erudition does not prevent him from uttering the occasional absurdity. Shortly after the atrocities of 9/11, Chomsky said that the attacks did not much differ from Bill Clinton’s destruction of a pharmaceutical plant in Khartoum, Sudan, three years earlier. In other words: 9/11 was bad but no worse than what the United States has done.

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In terms of scale, this was patently wrong; one person was killed by Clinton’s bombs, while thousands were murdered by Osama bin Laden’s associates. But even if the bombing of Khartoum was worse than 9/11, we know that two wrongs do not make a right, and that the annihilation of the World Trade Center could not be blamed on or compared to the past misdeeds of Clintonian statecraft.

I use Chomsky, whose brilliant and incisive scholarship should garner more attention in mainstream discourse, only to highlight a broader tendency. Anti-war nationalists are often the same people who decry Israeli incursions into Gaza while remaining conspicuously silent about Hezbollah and Hamas (see: U.K. Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn), or who denounce the American invasion of Iraq but obfuscate Saddam’s genocidal campaigns against Kuwait, Iran, the Shi’a, and the Kurds, or who blame American imperialism for Latin America’s conflicts but are indifferent to Cuban support for terrorists or Venezuela’s relationship with the FARC. Anti-war nationalists represent a perfect example of Orwell’s comment that nationalists are indifferent to reality and unable to recognize similar sets of facts.

In Orwell’s time, “pacifist nationalists did not condemn violence as such… but only violence used in defense of the Western democracies.”

Anti-war nationalists do not condemn war as such, only wars waged

by Western powers.

Finally, anti-war nationalism frequently breeds a sort of anti-imperialist nationalism, which blames all problems facing the developing world on the real or imagined crimes of past empires. For the anti-imperialist nationalist, whatever evils occur

in developing countries are the fault of either colonialism, American meddling, or the negative influence of international financial institutions like the International Monetary Fund or the World Bank. Domestic leaders and policies are expunged from any responsibility for the appalling state of their economies and societies. Anti-imperialist nationalism refuses to consider the notion that Bashar al-Assad must bear some responsibility for the obliteration of Syria, or Robert Mugabe for that of Zimbabwe, or Hugo Chavez for that of Venezuela, to name a few examples.

And responsibility they must bear: for the past six years, Assad has been engaged in a murderous campaign to bomb his opposition into submission. The result is that Syria has been destroyed as a political entity. Reuters reports that corruption costs Zimbabwe $1 billion annually in a country with an annual GDP of only $16 billion. In 2016, Reuters also reported that two Chavez-era cabinet members launched an investigation into the $300 billion that has vanished from Venezuela’s oil revenues. Corruption on this scale exacts catastrophic consequences upon societies, and, counter to the claims of anti-imperialist nationalists, such graft cannot be blamed on American imperialism or on the structural adjustment programs of the IMF. Marxist-socialist nationalism: Marxist nationalism today manifests itself primarily in two beliefs: the refusal to admit that capitalism has improved the lives of billions and the excuse, deflection, or “contextualization” of the atrocities of Communist governments.

The Marxist nationalist holds some glaring double standards when considering tyrants supported by the United States as

COLUMBIA POLITICAL REVIEW // WINTER 2018 // 25 opposed to those who came about throughout Communist revolutions or Soviet maneuvering. Ask a Marxist-nationalist about Augusto Pinochet or Hosni Mubarak, and out will come impassioned criticisms about the obliterations of Chilean democracy and of human right violations in Egypt. But what about the violence of Vladimir Lenin, or that of Chairman Mao, or the genocide in Cambodia, or the dictatorship in Cuba?

To the Marxist nationalists, those are different. Lenin was faced with a proto-fascist white insurgency, they insist, which justifies or explains away the hundreds of thousands who fell prey to his secret police. The same is true of Mao and all other Communist dictators who, faced with internal, “reactionary” opposition, succumbed to mass murder that was nevertheless not as reprehensible as that of General Pinochet. When this argument fails, Marxist nationalists blame the United States or imperialism for the slaughters, as Noam Chomsky did with the Khmer Rouge.

Tariq Ali, a rockstar of the British left, provided a classic example of Marxist nationalism during a debate with Peter Hitchens. Evan Davis of the BBC was interviewing the two about the legacy of recently deceased Fidel Castro. Davis challenged Ali’s record in relation to Castro: in 2005, Ali had signed an open letter opposing the US embargo of Cuba. The letter stated that in Cuba “there has not been a single case of disappearance, torture or extra-judicial execution since 1959… [in Cuba] there are levels of health, education and culture that are internationally recognised.”

When challenged on his outrageous ignorance of Cuban history, Ali made the bland admission that “mistakes [in Cuba] were made” and that “of

course [Cuba] is not flawless.” The interviewer continued to press him, asking Ali why he detested Pinochet but equivocated in condemning Castro.

Ali responded: “Pinochet wiped out 30,000 people; how can you compare Pinochet to Castro?” Though many thousands were interned or tortured during his reign, the accepted figure of people killed by Pinochet is 3,000.

Davis’ comparison between Castro and Pinochet was apt. The two differed only in ideology and in their choice of superpower patron; otherwise, Pinochet and Castro inflicted the same atrocities of theft and mass murder upon the populations of their countries. Only a nationalist can condemn one but excuse the other.

Orwell noticed how nationalists change their moral judgments on the basis of who is committing the action.

Because Ali considers Pinochet to be a stooge of American capitalists and imperialists, he is a monster, a mass murderer. Ali is not wrong to make such a judgment; Pinochet’s butchery is well-documented. However, Castro’s atrocities — his political assassinations, his abuse of prisoners — are also well known. But because Castro paints himself, like Ali, as an opponent of imperialism, his atrocities are judged differently from those of Pinochet.

How is this mental dislocation possible in the mind of a brilliant author? Well, as Orwell wrote, “Every nationalist is capable of the most flagrant dishonesty.” Pointing this out does not mean that Ali always speaks and writes dishonestly, merely that he is capable of thinking dishonestly, especially when nationalist passions are triggered. “One prod to the nerve of nationalism,” noted Orwell, “and the intellectual decencies can vanish, the past can be altered, and

the plainest facts can be denied.”

Conclusion The critiques above do not suggest that all anti-racists, pacifists, and socialists are nationalists whose work is thereby worthless. I am only highlighting the nationalist temptations that lurk within those traditions and warning against cultish devotion to any set of ideas.

Orwell’s essay was a much-needed polemic against dogmatism and orthodoxy. As he wrote, “As for the nationalistic loves and hatreds that I have spoken of, they are part of the make-up of most of us… Whether it is possible to get rid of them I do not know, but I do believe that it is possible to struggle against them, and that this is essentially a moral effort…

The emotional urges which are inescapable… should be able to exist side by side with an acceptance of reality.”

The struggle against nationalism is a moral effort, especially because nationalism occurs in all of us, but the struggle is about much more than that. It is a struggle over the importance of intellectual honesty and over the desirability of reaching objective truths, both of which are impossible to attain when our thoughts are corrupted. It is, in the end, a struggle that should command the support of anyone who holds the principles of truth and honesty in the highest regard and who vigorously opposes any attempt to overthrow them.

Christian Gonzalez is a sophomore in Columbia College majoring in Political Science. He hopes to join the Foreign Service after graduating. You can contact him at cag2240@columbia.edu.

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RETHINKING ENVIRONMENTALIST STRATEGIES IN TRUMP’S AMERICA Caroline Kelly

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According to the National Research Council, in order to stave off the worst effects of climate change, the United States has until the year 2050 to cut its total carbon emissions by 90 percent from current levels. Twenty years ago, when the country was run on an electric power sector dominated by the emissions-heavy coal industry, this goal would have been unreachable. Now, with the coal sector firmly in a state of decline, circumstances appear to be shifting. Among environmentalists and proponents of renewable energy, there exists a misguided notion that the hastier the fall of coal, the better-off prospects for sustainable energy will be. However, in light of the natural gas industry’s current technological and economic advantages over the wind, solar, and hydroelectric industries, can the strategically-minded renewable energy advocate really make this claim?

Present NRC estimates project that, as a result of the coal and nuclear industries’ abatement, natural gas will eventually dominate the US electricity generation system, accounting for a whopping 56 percent of all domestic energy produced by the year 2050. Re-

newables, meanwhile, are slated to place a distant second, taking up only 24 percent of the nation’s energy generation scheme. Per unit of power generated, natural gas produces approximately half the carbon emissions of coal. However, natural gas’s still-high emissions level, combined with the fact that this fossil fuel is also expected to encroach upon the dwindling zero-carbon nuclear market, means that a projected shift from coal to natural gas will not do nearly enough to help America meet its vital target of a 90 percent emissions reduction in time to stop the runaway effects of climate change.

To stand even a chance of saving the environment, the United States must commit to a shift towards widespread dependence on renewable energy. As the failing coal industry cedes market space to its competitors, environmentalists and renewable-energy sector lobbyists must understand that their real fight ahead lies with natural gas.

Until the dawn of the 21st century, coal dominated American energy production. From the passage of the first federal land ordinances in the late 18th century, the strength of the coal industry shaped the distribution of American economic and public lands, and the industry was hailed for creating jobs and promoting US energy

independence. At its peak output in 1988, coal-generated energy accounted for almost 58 percent of all energy production in the United States.

Natural gas has always competed with coal for dominion over the American energy market.

Advocates for coal have painted their industry’s recent troubles as the fault of overly-harsh government regulation. In reality, though, naturally-borne competition has spurred the market’s shift away from coal; technological advancements over the past fifteen years have assured gas’s ultimate victory over its rival. Breakthrough techniques in horizontal and deep-water drilling have allowed the natural gas industry to extract resources that were previously un-extractable, while simultaneous advances in oil-locating technology have caused the number of proven crude oil reserves in the United States to skyrocket. The price of oil is at a near-record low as compared to coal, but coal, beleaguered by outdated machinery and reputational concerns, is slated for a rough decline. In 2014, US coal consumption stood at one billion short tons per year--just two years later, it had shrunk to 677 million short tons and was falling rapidly.

Donald Trump’s love affair with coal has been well-documented. Throughout his presidential campaign, Trump consistently reaffirmed his commit-

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ment to “save the coal industry.”

Since assuming office, the president has done his best to make good on this promise, signing executive orders to roll back Obama-era environmental policies and stacking his administration with lobbyists and politicians sympathetic to the plight of coal.

Nevertheless, despite Trump’s best efforts, the fate of the coal industry remains firmly in a state of decline.

Per the US Energy Information Administration, in 2016 renewable energy sources accounted for nearly 15 percent of all electricity generated in America. Renewable energy is environmentally friendly, politically popular, and has had increasing success at besting natural gas on a price-per-kilowatt basis. Even in states that voted overwhelmingly for

Trump, renewable energy has proved itself to be a viable and economically efficient option for power generation and job market growth. In Wyoming, for example, a boom in the local wind energy industry has coincided with the widespread closing of the state’s coal plants. In Kansas, an abundance of wind-friendly territory has allowed for over a fourth of the state’s total electricity to be generated solely through wind power.

Still, even with a growing number of modest victories under their belt, renewables have thus far struggled to capture a significant portion of the energy market, as compared to coal (at 30.4 percent) or natural gas (at 33.8 percent). On the whole, in terms of anything from equipment manufacturing to installation, generation, and transmission, costs ART CREDIT: PEYTON AYERS

for renewable energy in the United States are still higher on average than those for nonrenewable sources. While the price gap between renewable energy and natural gas is nearing a point of across-the-board convergence, it is still not there yet, and it will not be until the American renewable sector can properly address the key factors holding it back.

Renewable energy industries in America are plagued by economic inefficiencies and a lack of technological advancement.

Energy generated by wind and solar plants is difficult to store, and existing power grids frequently lack the requisite technological sophistication to utilize renewable energy. Existing transmission lines that connect remote wind and solar plants to communities are inadequate: as a result, renewable energy use becomes harder to actualize in practice. Nations like China have taken increasingly substantial steps to mass-produce equipment for renewable energy industries, helping to hasten the overall affordability of renewables’ installation. However, the United States’ failure to join other nations as a leader in renewable manufacturing has meant that jobs in the American renewable sector have grown more slowly than is competitive, and cheap renewable imports from foreign countries have made perfect targets for partisan attacks against globalization at the expense of import-driven renewable growth in the United States.

In a fundamentally market-driven nation, in order to disrupt the ascension of natural gas to energy kingpin, renewable energy must underprice its competitor each time it squares off against gas in market transactions. To do this, the renewable energy sec-

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28 // WINTER 2018 // COLUMBIA POLITICAL REVIEW tor must buy itself time and space to grow into its own. Coal’s decline has helped wind and solar get their feet in the door. But if coal falls off too sharply, too quickly, natural gas will shove its way through first and change the locks. As natural gas captures more of the market,, it will develop a stronger hold over the American economic, social, and political spheres. Under a friendlier administration, renewable energy might have been given the final push it needed to leave natural gas behind in the dust. But, under Trump’s coal-friendly regime, environmentalists and renewable energy lobbyists will have to work smarter and harder to get the job done.

While the renewable energy sector may not actively benefit from federal support for the coal industry, it is not hit nearly as hard by coal protectionism as is the oil and natural gas industry, due to its comparatively smaller market share and dissimilar land-use needs. Both fossil fuels, natural gas and coal share a number of operational similarities in terms of the way that they use land and resources to excavate and develop energy. As a result of these similarities, these two industries are in more direct competition for excavation, development, and supply-based opportunities. To cement renewable energy’s hold over the power market, environmentalists and lobbyists for the sector must stop reacting to all of Trump’s pro-coal initiatives with knee-jerk opprobrium and resistance. Instead, each policy and policy rollback should be scrutinized through a cost-benefit analysis (CBA) process specific to the initiative’s medium and long-term impact on the renewable industry. When formulating stances on policies, wind, 24

solar, and hydroelectric groups must ask: does this practice hurt us as an industry? And if so, does it hurt natural gas more? If a pro-coal move is projected to have a more consequential impact on the industries’ nonrenewable competitor, then the renewable lobby should drop the fight against it and instead spend time and resources on pushing initiatives which directly aid its own industries.

To protect its competitive edge in domestic and global energy markets, the oil and natural gas industry has appealed to the renewable energy sector to join the fight against federal coal protection. Recently, these competing sectors have teamed up to oppose Department of Energy Secretary Rick Perry’s proposed Grid Resiliency Pricing Rule, a measure which essentially seeks to ensure that the coal and nuclear industries are able to operate profitably in wholesale energy markets, despite overarching trends towards economic decline.

Representatives from the American Petroleum Institute, the Solar Energy Industries Association, and the American Wind Energy Association, among others, co-signed a joint-motion opposing the proposed pricing rule, on the grounds that it would provide an unfair economic advantage to the coal and nuclear industries.

Under a tactical CBA approach, the renewable energy sector should withdraw its opposition to the proposed GRPR. While implementation of the rule will not actively help the renewable industry to expand in the short-term, it will have a significantly more negative impact on the power of the natural gas sector. The rule props up the coal and nuclear industries at the disproportionate expense of natural gas, which current-

ly profits from its ability to respond quickly to fluctuations in the energy market. If this rule goes into effect, it will significantly cut into the profits of the oil and gas industry, helping to weaken fossil fuel companies while renewables, comparatively, benefit.

While natural gas spars with the federal government over pro-coal policies, the solar, wind, and hydroelectric industries must make a concerted effort to modernize their technology and increase the efficiency of renewable sources’ installation, energy generation, and storage processes. To do this, renewable energy industries need to continue securing funding and distributive favors from state and local governments.

As coal continues to decline, the renewable sector should look to form closer ties with local and congressional representatives serving states that were once coal havens.

Regional politicians and community movers-and-shakers will be looking for new donors and new job-creating industries to help: it is imperative that renewable energy businesses get there before natural gas comes knocking.

At the state level, natural gas lobbyists have already sought to exclude renewable energy sources from market permeation and expansion;pro-fossil fuel groups such as the American Legislative Exchange Council have inundated state governments with model legislation which directs officials to remove renewable energy tax credits and avoid all consideration of the environmental benefits of renewable energy when making decisions about the relative efficiencies of energy project proposals. Renewable industries that have established their presence in

COLUMBIA POLITICAL REVIEW // WINTER 2018 // 29 former coal states have had success at combating these attacks. For example, having proven themselves financially useful to citizens and politicians, renewable industries have enjoyed the strongest support from figures such as Dale Ross, the Republican mayor of Georgetown, Texas. For Ross, increased reliance on wind and solar energy is a “no brainer” when it comes to charting the future of his town of 65,000. In an interview with ARD, Ross explained: “This is a fact-based decision we made in Georgetown, and first and foremost it was an economic decision… We were able to secure 20-and 25-year contracts with wind and solar, and the natu-

ral gas providers would only give us a guaranteed contract rate for seven years.” The takeaway for renewable proponents here is clear: integrate into communities and states as early as possible and plan to stick around.

One way or another, Trump’s pro-coal policies will come undone. They may fail due to the efforts of a more environmentally progressive administration in the future or simply because of market inefficiencies, but, either way, they will not last long. America’s carbon emissions problem has grown to a point of environmental obscenity as a result of the nonrenewable energy sector’s effective exploitation of the nation’s profit-driven financial struc-

ture. To make meaningful strides towards mitigating climate change under the Trump administration, environmentalists and renewable energy lobbyists must do the same, by hitting natural gas, their fiercest competitor, where it hurts the most: in the wallet.

Caroline is a sophomore at Barnard College studying Political Science and Economics. She hails from Montclair, New Jersey and is particularly interested in exploring issues of energy development and security. She can be reached via email at csk2168@barnard.edu.

CLIMATE CHANGE AND THE NEW FRONTIERS OF INSURGENCY Omar Khan

Balochistan, a sparsely populated semi-arid province of Pakistan, has experienced uprisings of nationalist and insurgency groups since the British gained control of the region. Known primarily for its gas and oil resources, this underdeveloped province is key to new bilateral economic development efforts between China and Pakistan. The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is dependent on Balochistan both because of the

province’s own resources and also because of Balochistan’s unique capacity to coordinate strategic economic Chinese interests in the region. These economic interests provide a backdrop to the recent wave of violence, which began in 2005 and escalated in 2006, when a Pakistani military operation killed Baloch tribal leader Nawab Akbar Bugti. Most analyses of the Baloch insurgency have focused on cultural factors, such as the de-

velopment of a Baloch identity or the Baloch tribal system. However, such analysis ignores key factors that should be considered when trying to understand the recent iteration of the Orientalist tropes concerning the region. However, such analysis ignores key factors that should be considered when trying to understand the recent iteration of the Baloch insurgency—namely, energy and water resource distribution and the impact 25

30 // WINTER 2018 // COLUMBIA POLITICAL REVIEW trying to understand the recent iteration of the Baloch insurgency— namely, energy and water resource distribution and the impact of climate change.

Historically, scholars have framed the Baloch insurgency as driven by the incompability of Balochistan’s Sardari tribal system with the larger Pakistani state.

These arguments are grounded in history, as Baloch identity has existed prior to the development of the modern state of Pakistan and British colonization of the region.

Furthermore, the contemporary Baloch nationalist movement developed in conjunction with the development of Indian and Pakistani statehood in 1956: the Baloch National Party formed when the region was annexed by Pakistan. Arguments therefore often view Baloch national sentiment as historically inextricable from its relationship with the modern Pakistani state.

According to mainstream analysis of the insurgency, the Saradi tribal system’s incompatibility with modern state governance has stunted economic develoment in the region. Much discussion of the Baloch insurgency posits that the Baloch tribal system stifled the development of a Baloch middle class, as many other regions in Pakistan with more traditional systems did succeed in developing a middle class. As a result of this stifled development, resentment towards the Pakistani government grew.

Within this narrative, the Sardari tribal system fosters inequality and a few leaders are able to take advantage of the tribes and the ‘ancient’ Baloch identity to develop insurgency movements to gain leverage with the Pakistani govern-

ment.

This narrative is accepted and perpetuated by the Pakistani government, which uses it to delegitimize the insurgency by framing it as ‘tribal’ in origin. In doing so, the Pakistani government echoes traditional Orientalist rhetoric, characterizing itself as an striving to ‘fix’ Balochistan despite the efforts of these ‘backwards’ tribal men. This narrative has also been accepted

by Pakistan’s Western allies, which is unsurprising given that both Pakistan and the Western nations with which it allies itself rely on narratives of ‘backward tribes’ to justify their respective military programs in the region. Establishing the narrative that the Balochistanian social structure allows for several Sardars to politically hijack Baloch for their own selfish purposes enables Pakistan to proceed with impunity in the region—as it did in the extrajudicial killing of Baloch tribal leader Nawab Akbar Bugti.

Primary sources from Balochistan, however, demonstrate that that this narrative is not supported by fact. For example, the Pakistani government’s argument that (male) Sardars and their tribesmen are to blame for the region’s instability contradicts the fact that many Baloch women went on hunger strikes in 2006 in protest of the extrajudicial detainments, even though it was “against traditions for the land for women to leave their home,” according to the Pakistani government narrative.

These women’s involvement and existence as politically active members of Baloch society opposed the narratives of ‘backward tribesmen’ that the government tried to perpetuate.

Furthermore, attempts to frame the Sardari tribal system as as stifling the economic possibilities of the region, and by extension its compatibility with the larger Pakistani political system, do not withstand closer scrutiny. As the insurgency in Balochistan grew in 2006, the deputy speaker of the Balochistan Assembly critiqued how Pakistan was handling Balochistan’s financial problems, saying to then-president Musharraf, “this is not just a problem of the three Sardars.” If the narrative the Pakistani government was perpetuating was accurate, the Sardars—who represent the tiny moderate middle class of Balochistan—should have supported the Pakistani government. Instead, Previously splintered opposition parties even united to pass a resolution demanding share of royalty from a gas pipeline project that would pass through Balochistan.

These actions demonstrated how resource distribution and economic interest in the energy regimes developed in Balochistan are more significant drivers of the insurgency than the Sardari tribal system.

Analysis of Pakistan’s extractive policies with regards to of Balochistan’s mineral- and oil-rich regions demonstrates the role of resource commodifcation in driving economic inequality and political conflict in the region. One of the most explicit examples can be found in the natural gas industry. Although Balochistan reserves contribute to supplying 38% of the country’s gas, only 6 percent of Balochistan’s residents are given access to gas, which is supplied by private actors. This unequal relationship has been exacerbated by Chinese companies’ growing eco-

COLUMBIA POLITICAL REVIEW // WINTER 2018 // 31 nomic interests in the region over the last two decades—in a 2002 deal, Chinese companies involved in the Saindak Copper-Gold project received 80% of the profit, the Pakistani government received 18%, and the local Baloch government received just 2%. Most of the sparse infrastructure developed in Balochistan after the end of British colonialism in the region was developed exclusively for the extraction of natural resources, demonstrating how the exploitation of Baloch resources created systemic inequality throughout the region.

Tensions over water access also plays out on a local level. Balochistan is semi-arid and one of most climate-sensitive regions in Pakistan. Groundwater, on which agriculture in the region is hugely dependent, is barely regulated— an extensive study of groundwater in the region showed that even in the 1990s, there were no formal rules used to control the groundwater distribution in the region, with little to no regard given to ensuring sustainable usage of groundwater. Existing groundwater has been put under further pressure by electric and diesel tubewells, which have replaced the karazes, ancient irrigation systems centered around a communal well.

As these new forms of technology have predominantly been exploited by the richer farmers, the . analysis of the shifting of water extraction systems has brought further sociopolitical issues to light.

Many villages in Balochistan have been built around shared karez wells, and the introduction of privatized tubewells has privatized water in ways rural Baloch people had not previously considered and

had an adverse impact on village politics.

From 1998 to 2005, Balochistan suffered a severe drought.

This extensive 7 year drought preceded the most recent iteration of the Baloch insurgency. Partially due to attempts to transition from the traditional karez water system to tubewell irrigation, the drought dislocated entire agricultural communities to major cities. This dislocation of peoples is vital to how water distribution issues have driven the Baloch insurgency in recent years. Dislocation is correlated with the fractured insurgency movements that have erupted in cities such as Quetta, Karachi and Lahore in the aftermath of Nawab Bugti’s death. Furthermore, some studies attempting to track the forced disappearances of Balochs via the Pakistani military or extrajudicial forces (a method that has been broadly employed to cripple the insurgency since 2005) found that with the exception of Dera Bugti (Nawab Akbar Bugti’s hometown), most of the disappearances, or forced abductions, have occurred in major hubs such as Quetta, the capital of Balochistan, Karachi, and the Gwadar port.

These are all major destinations for the internally displaced people from the 1998-2005 drought, and clearly critical hubs of dissent according to Pakistani military, lending further credence to the correlation between water scarcity-driven dislocation and the insurgency movement.

As climate change accelerates issues of water accessibility in Balochistan, it has become more and more crucial to understand how water inaccessibility is linked to the Baloch insurgency

both in the development of a comprehensive plan to bring about a resolution to the Baloch-Pakistan conflict, and also as a motivator for major reform in Pakistani policy concerning the water resources available in Balochistan. A comprehensive study of droughts indicates that drought durations have been increasing throughout Pakistan, especially Balochistan. The agricultural sector of the Baloch economy, which is the sector with the least external interference from either the Pakistani government or Chinese companies, is expected to be the “main and direct victim” of the weather changes that will occur in Balochistan as a result of climate change.

This is a positive feedback loop, as the gas and oil industries in the region are directly contributing to the climate change as well as using up large quantities of Baloch’s water. As recently as March 2016, the Baloch governor has indicated that Balochistan’s water crisis is growing, as evidenced by growing numbers of people migrating to Quetta , and personally admitted that the introduction of tubewells in the region had exacerbated the crisis.

Without action by the international environmental and political communicty, this issue will continue to accelerate in Balochistan and contribute to the environmental conditions that further deplete already sparse water resources.

Omar Khan is a senior in Columbia College. He is currently the President of the Columbia International Relations Council and Association, and is also a University Senator. He is interested in international affairs, global health, and the environment. He likes cats but is allergic to them.

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