Georgetown Journal of International Affairs
Georgetown Journal Women in POW ER of
International Affairs
Electoral Quotas
Johnson-Sirleaf & Liberia Liberation in Taiwan Muslim Women in China Merkel & Germany
winter/spring
also featuring
2009
Amitai Etzioni on Neo-Communitarianism Lars Bromley on Tracking Human Rights Abuses Rob Martin on Fannie & Freddie
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Senator Richard Lugar
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Georgetown Journal of International Affairs
Winter/Spring 2009, Volume X, Number 1
1
Editors’ Note
Forum: Women in Power 3
Introduction This Forum explores how women around the world have been taking positions of power and leadership in domestic and international affairs. From Angela Merkel’s confident maneuvering in European and world politics, to Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf’s presidency and reconciliation efforts in post-conflict Liberia, to the community leadership of Uighur women in China, women push for change—in their own societies and beyond.
7
Assumptions and Realities: Electoral Quotas for Women Irene Tinker
17
A Woman You Can Trust: Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf and Political Leadership in Sub-Saharan Africa Gwendolyn Mikell
27
Madam Chancellor: Angela Merkel and the Triangulation of German Foreign Policy Joyce Mushaben
37
A Unique Heritage of Leadership: Muslim Women in China Jacqueline Armijo
47
An End to Patriarchy: Democratic Transformation and Women’s Liberation in Taiwan Annette Lu
Politics&Diplomacy 55
Beyond the Water’s Edge: The Role of Ex-Presidents in U.S. Foreign Policy Alex J. Douville
The ability of ex-presidents to influence world politics has increased exponentially, complementing U.S. foreign policy in unique and unprecedented ways.
63
Wasted Riches: Robert Mugabe and the Desolation of Zimbabwe Sue Onslow & Sean Redding
The history of Robert Mugabe’s rise to power is one of violence fueled by anger. Hopes for democratic reform were dashed by Mugabe’s autocratic one-party rule. The authors conclude that the political violence in Zimbabwe has so damaged the society that reconstruction and reconciliation are enormous challenges that will take years to address.
Cover & page 3 photo credits: Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf (Phil Humnicky/Georgetown University), Angela Merkel (Georgetown University), Annette Lu (Democratic Pacific Union)
Winter/Spring 2009 [ i]
Conflict&Security NATO in Afghanistan: A Roadmap for Success
73
Mihai P. Carp
In response to a resurgent Taliban, NATO allies need to bolster security, governance, and development efforts while ensuring the Afghan government fulfills its commitments.
Influence Warfare and Modern Terrorism
81
James J. F. Forest
With the battle for hearts and minds increasingly fought on the Internet, the United States must develop a new information strategy to discredit al-Qaeda’s violent tactics and to empower Muslims to refute its ideology.
Culture&Society 91
Criminalizing “Immigrant” Youth In France Susan Terrio
French legislators and justice officials have fundamentally revised what was once a model system of juvenile justice, imposing harsher penalties for youth offenses in the face of a media panic over so-called “new delinquents,” typically the children and grandchildren of North and West African immigrants from former French colonies.
101
The Hindutva View of History: Rewriting Textbooks in India and the United States Kamala Visweswaran, Michael Witzel, Nandini Manjrekar, Dipta Bhog, Uma Chakravarti
Organizations associated with India’s BJP political party and the Sangh Parivar have attempted to fundamentally and inaccurately revise textbooks to propagate a Hindu nationalist view in Californian and Indian schoolbooks.
Law&Ethics 113
The Common Good and Rights: A Neo-Communitarian Approach Amitai Etzioni
Neo-Communitarianism argues that individual rights and the common good are irreducible moral commitments, and that conflict between rights and the common good are a natural outcome of their competing moral positions.
121
Extreme Measures: The U.S. Removal of “Protected Persons” From Occupied Iraq and Afghanistan Gary D. Solis
Deportation of foreign prisoners to Guantánamo Bay is in violation of the Geneva Convention and the U.S. Congress should take a leading role in holding officials accountable for their illegal actions.
[ii] Georgetown Journal of International Affairs
Contents
Business&Economics 131
Pipeline Power: The War in Georgia and the Future of the Caucasian Energy Corridor Svante E. Cornell
Russia’s August 2008 attack on Georgia implies that the West’s major achievement in the region—the Caucasian energy corridor—is incompatible with Moscow’s current geopolitical ambitions.
141
Calming Troubled Waters: The Bailout of Fannie and Freddie Robert Martin
The U.S. government’s seizure of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac was heavily influenced by both the Great Depression and the government-sponsored entities’ international linkages.
Science&Technology 149
Russia’s Nanotechnology Revolution Paul R. Josephson
After years of neglecting scientific research, Russia is sinking billions of rubles into the development of nanotechnology—an initiative it sees as critical to its reemergence as a superpower.
159
Eye in the Sky: Monitoring Human Rights Abuses Using Geospatial Technology Lars Bromley
Human rights and humanitarian relief organizations have started to use geospatial technologies with the long-term potential for supporting human rights advocacy around the world.
Books 169
How to Make a Great Power a Smart Power Sam Brannen
A review of Smart Power: Toward a Prudent Foreign Policy for America by Ted Galen Carpenter.
175
East Asia’s Sorry Politics John Feffer
A review of Troubled Apologies Among Japan, Korea, and the United States by Alexis Dudden.
A Look Back 183
Cooperative Threat Reduction and Nuclear Security Richard Lugar
Senator Richard Lugar discusses the Nunn-Lugar program, a bipartisan effort to destroy nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons in the former Soviet Union.
Winter/Spring 2009 [ iii]
Georgetown Journal of International Affairs
editors-in-chief
Carolyn Barnett, Eric Peter
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Megan Abbott, Aaron Beitman, Sarath Ganji, Julia Kosygina, Joseph Marks
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[iv] Georgetown Journal of International Affairs
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Winter/Spring 2009 [ v]
Notice to Contributors
Articles submitted to the Georgetown Journal of International Affairs must be original, must not draw substantially from articles previously published by the author, and must not be simultaneously submitted to any other publication. Articles should be around 3,000 words in length. Manuscripts must be typewritten and double-spaced in Microsoft™ Word® format, with margins of at least one inch. Authors should follow the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th ed. Articles may be submitted by e-mail (gjia@georgetown.edu) or by U.S. mail; those sent by U.S. mail must include both a soft copy on a compact disc and a hard copy. Full names of authors, a two-sentence biography, and contact information including addresses with zip codes, telephone numbers, facsimile numbers, and e-mail addresses must accompany each submission. The Georgetown Journal of International Affairs will consider all manuscripts submitted, but assumes no obligation regarding publication. All material submitted is returnable at the discretion of the Georgetown Journal of International Affairs. The Georgetown Journal of International Affairs (ISSN 1526-0054; ISBN 0-9704346-7-7) is published two times a year by the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University, 301 Intercultural Center, Washington, DC 20057. Periodicals postage paid at Washington, DC. Annual subscriptions are payable by check or money order. Domestic: $14.00; foreign: $22.00; Canada: $16.00; institutions: $39.00. Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, Subscriptions Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service 301 Intercultural Center Washington, DC 20057 Telephone (202) 687-1461 Facsimile (202) 687-1571 e-mail: gjia@georgetown.edu http://journal.georgetown.edu All articles copyright © 2009 by Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service of Georgetown University except when otherwise expressly indicated. For all articles to which it holds copyright, Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service permits copies to be made for classroom use, provided the following: (1) the user notifies the Georgetown Journal of International Affairs of the number and purpose of the copies, (2) the author and the Georgetown Journal of International Affairs are identified, (3) the proper notice of copyright is affixed to each copy. Except when otherwise expressly provided, the copyright holder for every article in this issue for which the Georgetown Journal of International Affairs does not hold copyright grants permission for copies of that article for classroom use, provided that the user notifies the author and the Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, the author and the Georgetown Journal of International Affairs are identified in the article, and that proper notice of copyright is affixed to each copy. For reprinting permission for purposes other than classroom use, please contact Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, Permissions, Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, 301 Intercultural Center, Washington, DC 20057. Telephone (202) 687-1461. Facsimile (202) 687-1571. The views expressed in the articles in the Georgetown Journal of International Affairs do not necessarily represent those of the Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, the editors and staff of the Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, or Georgetown University. The Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, editors and staff of the Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, and Georgetown University bear no responsibility for the views expressed in the following pages. In issue 9.2 (Summer/Fall 2008) of the Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, Mr. Sarath Ganji was unintentinally omitted from the publication’s masthead as being an Editorial Assistant for the Forum section. Errata:
[vi] Georgetown Journal of International Affairs
Editors’ Note
In November 2008, the world witnessed a transformative moment with the election of Barack Obama as the 44th president of the United States and the first African American to hold this office. This past U.S. election was historic not just because of Obama’s victory, but because of the exciting—if controversial— candidacies of two women. Hillary Rodham Clinton made the first serious run by a woman for a major party’s presidential nomination, and Sarah Palin became the first female vice presidential nominee for the Republican Party. While Clinton’s and Palin’s candidacies raised questions about feminism, sexism, motherhood, and the viability of female candidates at the national level, their presence marked how far women have come in the United States. Women in Power looks at the ideals and realities of women in power and those seeking it in countries as different as Germany, Rwanda, and Taiwan. Irene Tinker describes how quota systems have had different effects on women’s representation in developed and developing nations. Joyce Mushaben argues that Chancellor Angel Merkel forged her own political destiny without appealing to feminist arguments and with the quiet persistence of her East German upbringing. Annette Lu, former vice president of Taiwan, reflects on her activist background and steps towards democratization in her country. Gwendolyn Mikell shows how popular reactions to Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf’s leadership in Liberia exemplify a growing African sentiment that women’s political leadership is essential in post-conflict societies. Jacqueline Armijo discusses how Muslim women in China have empowered themselves and their communities through active participation in mosques and as religious scholars. Other contributors explore some of the challenges the United States and its new president will face. Rob Martin explains the government bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, drawing lessons for U.S. policy from the recession experiences of Europe and Japan and from federal actions during the Great Depression. Mihai Carp assesses recent progress and obstacles to stability in Afghanistan, focusing on NATO’s role in the effort to stem a resurgent Taliban. Gary Solis explores the legality of deportation of prisoners to Guantánamo Bay. Senator Richard Lugar looks back on the achievements of the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction program and reflects on its ongoing relevance to nuclear nonproliferation efforts in the former Soviet Union and around the world. As the world welcomes an African American U.S. president, it confronts challenges new and old—we hope this issue of the Journal helps makes sense of them.
Carolyn Barnett
Eric Peter
Winter/Spring 2009 [ 1 ]
Georgetown Journal of
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The Georgetown Journal of International Affairs
Forum
Women in
Georgetown journal of international affairs
POW ER The struggle for women’s equality may superficially seem simple, but in fact it is not. By now there are voices in all societies calling for greater political representation for women, yet these voices are not always in harmony. Political actors and political scientists differ on how to maximize women’s voices in politics, and how it matters when this is achieved. The articles in this Forum remind us of the complexity of the subject. Although women and men share common economic fortunes and common hopes and dreams, in most countries they have different policy preferences. The magnitude of the gender gap in policy attitudes differs by country and by issue, but its existence is by itself a strong argument for equality in political representation. Yet there are important differences among women on all policy issues: women have not a single voice in politics, but rather many voices. If women can have a unique voice, then how can we increase the volume of that voice? Irene Tinker reminds us that institutional design can increase
7 Assumptions and Realities Electoral Quotas for Women Irene Tinker
17 A Woman You Can Trust
Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf and Political Leadership in Sub-Saharan Africa Gwendolyn Mikell
27 Madam Chancellor
Angela Merkel and the Triangulation of German Foreign Policy Joyce Mushaben
37 A Unique Heritage of Leadership Muslim Women in China
Jacqueline Armijo
47 An End to Patriarchy
Democratic Transformation and Women’s Liberation in Taiwan Annette Lu
Winter/Spring 2009 [ 3]
introduction
the number of women in office, but that politicians resist these rules in various ways. In France the Parity Law has resulted in near equality in municipal, regional, and EU elections, but not in elections for the national assembly, where parties have been reluctant to nominate women in part because it would require them to replace incumbent politicians. India reserves seats for women in local councils, but real power for women has come through civil society advocacy. In Rwanda and Sweden women constitute a sizable portion of legislatures, but women’s groups have been frustrated with progress on some issues, and some formed a small feminist party which failed to achieve representation. None of this means that institutions do not matter—but they are not a panacea for women’s issues. Tinker notes that women do better in proportional representation (PR) systems than in countries with single member districts. Other studies have shown that in PR systems simple zippered lists, where every other name on the party list must be that of a woman, can rapidly increase the number of women in parliament. Yet Tinker argues that this does not always lead to success for feminist groups, citing Sweden. In the United States there are large feminist and anti-feminist groups which greatly disagree on what policies are best for women. Merely increasing the number of women in the legislature will not automatically lead to more feminist policies, although it will lead to better representation of women. In many countries, parties are more tightly disciplined, and women and men alike vote according to party plat-
[ 4 ] Georgetown Journal of International Affairs
forms. Party leaders matter greatly in such cases. Joyce Mushaben describes the rise of Angela Merkel to the head of government in Germany. Her political voice was forged in a non-democratic society where it was safest to be silent. Her cognitive style derives in part from her academic study of science, which taught her the importance of learning from mistakes. Merkel’s quiet negotiating skills have elevated her to a leadership position in Europe, where she has been a strong voice for environmental protection. Yet this case reminds us again that women do not speak with a single voice. Although most studies show that women are less supportive of war than men, Merkel defended the U.S. invasion of Iraq, in contrast to Schröder’s staunch opposition. She met with President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld at a time when they were very unpopular in Germany, in part to shore up her credentials as a woman tough enough to lead a country. Tough in negotiating with Russia, subtle in negotiating within the EU, Merkel has exhibited a leadership style that is uniquely her own. She is not the woman chancellor of Germany, she is simply the chancellor. It is possible that her gender influences her political style, but what matters is that she is a strong and effective politician who represents all Germans. Gwendolyn Mikell tells a different story of women’s leadership. In a continent ravaged by war and corruption, Mikell shows how many Africans have come to believe that they need women’s leadership to set things right. She focuses on the rise of Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf in Liberia, a country riven by civil
wilcox
war and repression of political dissent. Mikell reminds us that traditional society has provided strong leadership roles for women in many African countries, allowing Johnson-Sirleaf to leverage a history of strong women in Liberian politics. Mikell notes that many Africans claim that women are more responsive leaders and better politicians than men. She makes a case that in a society in need of reconciliation (similar to Rwanda) women can play a special role. Johnson-Sirleaf’s strong leadership has led crowds to chant “Ellen, she’s our man,” yet her leadership perhaps helps create the possibility of a similar chant someday reversed: “Joseph, he’s our woman.” Annette Lu, a former vice president of Taiwan, recounts the long struggle for gender equality and the accomplishments that her country has achieved. She begins her story with an account of her experience of sexism in American society in the 1950s and 1960s, a story echoed by many strong women who struggled to prominence in this era. Her memories help put the long battle for women’s equality in Taiwan in perspective. She provides the colorful adage of some older men in her country that a woman “playing at politics” is like a “hen crowing at dawn.” Anyone who has endured the cawing of a cock at dawn might think that a different voice in the henhouse would be welcome. Finally, Jacqueline Armijo’s fascinating account of Muslim women’s unique
Women in Power
role in Chinese society reminds us that context is often everything. She tells the moving tale of women enduring great privation in the 1800s, and how they kept their community alive. The isolation of Chinese Muslims from the rest of the Islamic world has created a different view of the role of women in that faith—one that has continued uninterrupted through the tradition of women’s mosques and women’s roles as Islamic scholars and jurists. With this background, she tells the story of Rebiya Kadeer, a Muslim woman living in exile in the United States who has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Like Johnson-Sirleaf she has endured persecution for her devotion to human rights. Her example inspires many Chinese Muslim women, and women and men across the world. Taken together these articles demonstrate the importance of institutions and of individuals. They tell us that culture is important, but changeable. They show both the commonality of women’s struggles for political representation, and the vast differences across countries. And they remind us that women (and men) often seek political power not for its own sake, but instead to change the world. Clyde Wilcox is professor of Government at Georgetown University. He is co-editor of The Year of the Woman: Myths and Realities and Women in Elected Office: Past, Present, and Future.
Winter/Spring 2009 [ 5]
Women in Power
Assumptions and Realities Electoral Quotas for Women Irene Tinker Since 1991, at least ninety countries have implemented some type of provision for increasing women’s representation. Activists have assumed that quotas for women in legislatures would provide a critical mass of women who would then be empowered to shift policies toward a more women-friendly agenda. Such quotas, however, do not consistently result in increased numbers of women elected. Even in countries with significant women’s representation, policy change is uneven. Studies show that the impact depends on many factors, including the electoral system, the origins of the impetus for quotas, the type of democracy, political and social culture, class structure, and the strength of the women’s movement.1 This article will explore these many factors and how they reinforce or undercut efforts both to increase the numbers of elected women and to pass legislation that addresses gender equity. To illustrate the difficulties of generalization about the impact of quotas, two sets of North-South comparisons are presented here. Sweden and Rwanda have the highest percentages of elected women in their national parliaments. Sweden has long been admired for its social policies, yet has failed to pass a bill addressing domestic violence. Rwanda’s
Irene Tinker is Professor Emerita at the University of California at Berkeley. She is a political activist and was the founding president of the International Center for Research on Women, the Equity Policy Center, and cofounder of the Wellesley Center for Research on Women.
Winter/Spring 2009 [ 7 ]
Assumptions and Realities
inexperienced parliament prepared such a bill during its first session. The second set compares national and local governments in France and India. In 2000, France passed a law requiring parity or equal status for women and men candidates in elections at every governmental level, yet women won only 18.5 percent of the seats in the national parliament in the last election. Representation of women was greater at local levels, but nowhere did the results approach parity. In 1993 the Indian parliament passed legislation requiring that one-third of all members of local panchayats must be women. The dynamics of local government have noticeably changed since then. A bill to apply reservations to parliament had been pending for twelve years until it was finally introduced into the upper house in May 2008. These case studies illustrate the difficulties of generalizing about the impact of quotas. Factors that enhance legislation for women are noted. The article concludes that the single most important factor for increased participation of women is the role of women’s organizations operating in an open and receptive political system.
latures is an indicator of justice for half the population and an acknowledgement that women’s policy priorities are often distinct from men’s. In developing countries, male leaders acquiesce to the demands of aid agencies who insist, as a condition of economic assistance, that women’s status must be enhanced since rapid economic transformation cannot take place with half the population deprived of health, education, and jobs. In countries with weak legislatures, an authoritarian leader may support more women candidates to be in step with international opinion and to ensure continuation of development aid. Parliaments may also want to invite a broader body to better represent the diversity of their constituencies. Mechanisms to ensure women’s representation function quite differently in the two types of common electoral systems: the single-member constituency form used by 40 percent of countries and the proportional representation (PR) list system used by 31.7 percent.2 Adding women’s quotas to PR does not require an institutional change in the electoral system. Quota supporters assumed that including more women in each party list would result in more women being elected, but this has not Reasons and Mechanisms for necessarily been the case. Since most parties are male dominated, political Increasing Women’s Rep- parties often rig the outcome by putting resentation. As more and more women at the end of the list or using an countries adopt some form of quotas for open list in which leaders can pick and women, the question is why male domi- choose candidates to fill the seats their nated political systems would choose to respective parties have won. Cultural do so. The most persuasive reason is an attitudes that discourage women paraltered worldview concerning women ticipating in public forums and the thanks to the burgeoning global wom- limited number of women with politien’s movement. Feminist argue that cal experience provide party leaders significant numbers of women in legis- with excuses to circumvent the intent
[ 8 ] Georgetown Journal of International Affairs
Tinker
of the law.3 Voters cast their ballots for a party; winners are allocated based on the total popular vote. The selection of women from the list depends upon on their placement on the list and whether the list is closed. In fact, the top ten countries with the greatest number of elected women use some form of PR and quotas do result in more women elected in all countries that use them. However, rates of women’s representation usually fail to meet the mandated levels because of both manipulation of the lists and the lack of sanctions for ignoring the quota.4 Single constituency systems provide a different challenge: parties are reluctant to nominate a woman when only one candidate can be elected.5 Instead of requiring parties to nominate women, laws specify the exact number of women to be elected and create special electoral districts for women candidates, which are overlaid on the regular constituencies. Candidates run as party members and are elected either in proportion to the general vote for each party or by a women-only vote as in Rwanda. India has a unique reservation system
Women in Power
France has neither reservations nor quotas. In 1982, the court declared quotas unconstitutional because they violated the abstract concept of undifferentiated universalism citizenship. Without quotas, women’s representation in the National Assembly remained below 6 percent, prompting demands for a new method for electing women.6 In 2000, a constitutional law was adopted that requires parity—absolute equality—in elections at all levels. The courts feared that quotas for women would not only challenge the indivisibility of French citizenship but might encourage members of France’s large Muslim population to seek quotas as well.
Quota Implementation and Impact in Sweden and Rwanda.
To illustrate the wide range of mechanisms utilized to increase women’s representation in legislatures and the impact such increases have had on policies, two sets of countries will be compared. In each set, one country is from the industrialized world and the other a mainly rural developing country where
Rapid economic transformation cannot take place with half the population deprived of health, education, and jobs. for local assemblies, whereby in onethird of the constituencies only women may stand. Recognizing the advantages and disadvantages of these two systems, many countries have decided to combine them by having both single-member districts and larger multi-member districts designed for PR.
subsistence agriculture is widespread. Both these countries use reservations to ensure that women and other underrepresented groups have representation in elected bodies. All four countries have multi-party elections, but power relations between the executive and the legislature varies. The policy impact
Winter/Spring 2009 [ 9]
Assumptions and Realities
of women’s representation is more pronounced in the developing countries both because of the disadvantaged socio-economic position of women in these countries and because European socialist parties have already introduced strong social welfare policies. The first countries, Rwanda and Sweden, have the highest percentages of women members of their national parliaments. After the September 2008 elections, currently 56 percent of Rwandan parliament members are women. This is the first parliament to be majority women in the world.7 In Sweden, women make up 47 percent of the parliament. Both are small, centralized countries that use a PR system for voting. They differ on mechanisms for electing women. Sweden has voluntary party quotas which have dramatically increased the proportion of women in parliament from the 14 percent in 1971 when the two major parties began to compete for the women’s vote. The Social Democratic Party started party quotas and established a women’s unit in government in 1972 while the Liberal Party created a 40 percent quota for the party’s governing board. Both actions moved debate on women’s issues into the parties, where women’s issues are often a low priority for male leaders.8 Most social policy legislation, such as improved working conditions and pay, affordable child care, and paid maternity and paternity leave, drew on a socialist ideology and was passed with little input from independent feminist organizations. Dissatisfied with economic rights that perpetuated women’s subordination, women turned to poetry and art to protest their invis-
[ 1 0] Georgetown Journal of International Affairs
ibility. Huge fairs are held semi-annually under the umbrella of the Women Can Foundation to celebrate women’s accomplishments. In 1979 the first shelter for victims of domestic violence was established in Stockholm. Although the government helped finance these centers, many feminists argued that not enough was being done.9 Legislation passed in 2003 meant to protect women from domestic violence has not been aggressively implemented due to outdated attitudes; incidences of violence are increasing, according to a 2004 report by Amnesty International.10 In 2005 a women’s party, The Feminist Initiative, was formed to agitate for reform of rape laws, programs to address domestic violence, and equal pay for women.11 The party put up candidates in the 2006 parliamentary election but won just under 0.7 percent of the votes and no seats. Since then the leadership has splintered between moderate and radical advocates. The issue of violence has not yet become a national issue, but the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) is including the issue of domestic violence into their country’s programs. Rwanda does not have party quotas, but rather utilizes reservations to ensure women’s representation. The 2002 constitution provides that women’s councils in each district and from the city of Kigali will elect twenty-four members of Rwanda’s eighty-member Chamber of Deputies.12 In the first subsequent elections held in 2003, fifteen women won seats in the general election in addition to the twenty-four, for a total of thirty-nine. These numbers give women a strong voice in a weak
Tinker
Chamber of Deputies in an authoritarian state.13 Instability is a constant danger, especially following the 1994 genocide. Violence against women characterized that period. Women’s Councils were set up in every district and women from the leadership of these groups were added to the Constitutional Assembly during the transitional government. Rwanda is the most densely populated country in Africa. Ninety percent of the people are subsistence farmers living in a patriarchal society where traditional practices such as bride price and polygamy are the norm. Elected women were determined to introduce a bill that addressed violence against women. They formed a cross-party caucus that included men and held meetings in villages and towns over a two-year period, utilizing their connections with the women council leaders. During these consultations it became clear that men conceptualized their relationships with daughters and mothers differently from that with their wives; they revere mothers and want the best education and future for daughters, but claim cultural rights to beat their wives. In August 2006 four men joined four women to sponsor a draft bill against domestic violence. The draft law was referred to committee, but the extensive consultation has already resulted in some behavior change as villages think the parliamentary women are watching them.14 In both Sweden and Rwanda, women in parliament, despite their numbers, must confront the ingrained cultural attitudes that not only privilege men but are embedded in the entire governmental structure. When women’s organizations demand an end to domestic
Women in Power
violence they are attacking patriarchy at its roots. In the United States this debate tends to focus on abortion rights and the rights of a fetus, since women’s control over their bodies is essential for equality.
Quota Implementation and Impact in France and India.
France and India were selected because they each have a unique approach to providing representation for women. France is ranked sixty-fifth in the Inter-Parliamentary Union 2008 list of women in national parliaments, with 18.2 percent; only Greece ranks lower among European countries. How is it possible that a constitutional law mandating parity could produce such a low percentage in the national assembly, yet achieve over 47 percent in the municipal, regional, and European Parliament elections? The latter elections use PR, but years of unstable coalition governments post-World War II prompted a switch from PR to a single-member plurality system for National Assembly elections. The Parity Law specifies that if parties contesting PR elections do not have a list with 50 percent women, the slate cannot contest the elections. Non-compliance for the National Assembly elections only results in fines, and “large parties have preferred to pay the fines rather than have more women candidates, for doing so would require ‘sacrificing’ the incumbents who would have to step down.”15 Women in France were only granted suffrage in 1946 and had little input into social policies. The Parity Law hardly diminishes male political dominance. The law is silent with regard to mayors who are elected by heading
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the list of the winning party. Despite decentralization, mayors hold dominant positions in the districts; not only is the mayorship seen as a stepping stone to the parliament, but Assembly members can continue to be mayors. Because mayors are elected indirectly, the law had little impact; only 10.9 percent are women. Feminists in France have relied on social movements rather than political parties to create change and have not encouraged women candidates, according to Sineau.16 The state has provided women with generous health and maternity benefits. Domestic violence has only recently been widely discussed due to inadequate statistics and a tendency to blame the victim.17 Ségolène Royal, when campaigning unsuccess-
the district in which they live, but candidates are not bound by any residential condition. India provided twelve separate lists for communal and special interest groups in 1925. Members of interest groups, such as women, were allowed two votes, but communal voters had to choose.19 The separate Muslim seats exacerbated tensions between the Hindu-dominated Congress Party and the Muslim League; inability to compromise led to the creation of Pakistan when India became independent in 1947. The 1950 Constitution abolished separate seats for women and religious groups. The two lowest socioeconomic groups, the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, were guaranteed parliamentary seats in areas where they constituted a significant portion of the
Policies that question male privilege and seek gender justice will multiply as women’s power grows. fully for the presidency of France in November 2006, announced that the first legislation she would enact if elected would be a law against violence perpetrated against women. No action has yet been taken by the current government. Women’s groups rarely advocate for policies; they prefer to “create a social climate” to encourage party officials to support legislation that addresses women’s concerns.18 Like Sweden, party priorities trump those of women and are ultimately decided by the male leadership. India uses the single constituency electoral system at all levels of its federalist system. Voters cast their ballots in
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population, but this was distinct from earlier elections in which because today all voters of the constituency vote. This approach was replicated in the 1992 Constitutional Amendment that gave women 33 percent of seats in the local councils or panchayats; chairs of these bodies must reflect the reservations and must rotate.20 Efforts to increase the 8.7 percent of women in the lower chamber by introducing similar reservations were stalled for twelve years, but made some progress in July 2000 when the bill was sent to a Standing Committee. More than a million women have served as panchayat members. Hundreds
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of organizations, universities, and agencies have participated in training sessions that explain the intricacies of council and government procedures. The impact of women panchayat members has exceeded expectations, particularly in rural areas where caste and tradition have long marginalized women.21 Women panchayat members have succeeded in reducing corruption, building roads, repairing sewers and, in the case of new public housing projects, putting property ownership documents in women’s names. Female literacy rates have increased from 39 percent to 54 percent by using networks to reach remote areas. The World Bank reports that panchayats have become a truly equalizing factor. Manuela Ciotti studied the emerging phenomena of low-caste women’s political agency in northern India. Ciotti shows how these women consider political activity as a social service and operate in a nonWestern manner to achieve empowerment.22 Skeptics, who argue that many women are merely stand-ins for male family members, overlook the status and self-confidence acquired by women who become public officials. Voters seem more positive: the southern state of Karnataka has actually elected a panchayat with 46.7 percent female representation, an indication that women can also win general seats.23 For years, most women’s organizations in India focused on charitable work or development projects. Finally, in 2005, Indian women organized a national lobby, WomenPowerConnect (WPC), with full-time lobbyists in New Delhi.24 The legislative goals of WPC are set by state chapters; national conventions listed passage of a civil domestic
Women in Power
violence bill, passage of the 33 percent reservation for women in Parliament, and work on gender-just budgeting. WPC helped organize a coalition of women’s organizations that lobbied successfully: the Domestic Violence Bill, after ten years of agitation, finally became law in November 2006.25 After years of focusing their energies on helping poor women through development projects or charitable activity, Indian women at all levels are beginning to use the political process to address women’s concerns through government programs and laws. These efforts, aided by the rapid, if spotty, modernization in the country, are challenging the caste, class, and race hierarchies that have impeded drives for greater gender equity. The power of the women’s organizations in India resembles that of the women’s movement in the United States. Single constituency electoral units allow more cracks in party control since representatives are directly responsible to their voters. France and Sweden have had a tradition of democratic socialism that advocates governmental social services for women and men. Agitation for domestic violence bills run into this “state paternalism.” Rwanda has an active women’s movement, supported by international donors, but women’s agency is circumscribed by a male authoritarian leader. In both India and Rwanda, empowerment of women can be traced to development aid; educated women were employed to organize village women so that modernization programs could reach them. When the UN began its series of World Conferences for Women, which brought these women together, the global women’s movement was born.26
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Women’s Representation: strong social welfare legislation, have Numbers and Policies. Assump- been slower to accept the existence of tions that increasing the numbers of women in elected legislatures would have an immediate impact on policy have been overestimated. Nonetheless, quotas have already proved to have multiple benefits. More women candidates run, often tutored by women’s organizations. Even those feminists who have viewed politics as corrupt and so preferred to maintain ideological purity outside government have begun to appreciate the importance of participation in government with all its messy compromises. Candidates become more confident when facing their constituents. Once in the legislature, however, women quickly learn the limits of their influence in this male-dominated arena. As freshmen, they seldom sit on important committees. They learn that much social policy that assists women has come from established parties who see women as wives and workers. The patriarchy has not sponsored legislation that addresses women’s persistent inequalities. Domestic violence legislation provides an example of women politicians, activists, and scholars coming together to demand an end of patriarchal privilege that has legitimized men’s control over women. The starkness of patriarchy is more evident in the developing countries of Rwanda and India; women’s organizations led the campaign for passage of laws against violence. Women in Sweden and France, benefiting from
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domestic violence in their countries. Policies that question male privilege and seek gender justice will multiply as women’s power grows. Facing these realities, women in the legislature are becoming experts: they study the intricacies of parliamentary procedures and collect information on major issues. They are helped by women’s research centers and activist organizations that serve as lobbyists, providing ideas and data, especially in countries that do not provide staff for legislators. Building coalitions for specific legislation is essential if the political elite is to consider new policy. Women form cross-party caucuses, network with bureaucrats and women’s groups, and seek out sympathetic male legislators. Learning from women in other countries has provided ideas and support both to activists and legislators. These efforts to provide training in parliamentary procedures, to provide research, and to facilitate meetings between diverse women locally, nationally, and internationally need to be strengthened. Successful legislation should be studied and the lessons widely disseminated. Such actions will facilitate the passage of laws that address specific women’s concerns. But women are also citizens. Learning to take leadership positions within the legislatures is a goal that must also be supported. Women must learn the art of politics and compromise.
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Women in Power
Notes
1 Mona Lena Krook, “Quota Laws for Women in Politics: Implications for Feminist Practice,” Social Politics 15, no. 4 (2008): 1-24. For a cross-country multivariate analysis see Aili Mari Tripp and Alice Kang, “The Global Impact of Quotas: On the Fast Track to Increased Female Legislative Representation,” Comparative Political Studies 41, no.3 (2008): 338-361. Also available online at http://cps.sagepub. com/cgi/content/abstract/41/3/338. 2 The Inter-Parliamentary Union maintains a database at http://www.ipu.org/parline-e/parlinesearch.asp. An “other” category, with 14.34 percent, includes one-party states such as China, Soviet Union, or North Korea. 3 See Julie Ballington, “Strengthening Internal Political Party Democracy: Recruitment from a Gender Perspective,” a paper presented at the World Movement for Democracy workshop in Durban, South Africa, 2 February 2004, available online at http:// www.idea.int/gender/index.cfm. 4 International IDEA (Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance) tracks the use and misuse of quotas. The intergovernmental agency produced the handbook Women in Parliament: Beyond Numbers in 1998 to emphasize the many obstacles to increasing women’s representation. A 2005 edition updates statistics and adds new case studies written by women from the countries concerned. Publications are available online at http://www.idea.int. Drude Dahlerup’s chapter, “Increasing Women’s Political Representation: New Trends in Gender Quotas” (141-153), is particularly pertinent. 5 Few countries with this system require residence in the constituency, as the United States does. 6 Parity is philosophically different from quotas. Quotas provide representation for under-represented groups, serving as an affirmative action program for representation. Parity implies that women and men have equal status under the law due to the underlying principle of universal citizenship. This concept allows women to be equal in citizenship but does not assume that women and men are the same. 7 Gloria I. Anyango, “Rwanda Sets World Record for Women in Parliament,” The New Times (Kigali), 22 September 2008. Internet, http://us.oneworld.net/ article/357617-rwanda-sets-world-record-womenparliament. 8 Lena Wanhnerud, “Sweden: A Step-wise Development,” in Women in Parliament: Beyond Numbers (Stockholm: IDEA, 2005), 238-247. 9 Descriptions of women’s organizations and goals may be found in Gunnel Gustafsson, Maud Eduards, Malin Rönnblom, eds., Towards a New Democratic Order? Women’s Organizing in Sweden in the 1990s (Stockholm: Publica, 1997). See also Irene Tinker, “Why Elect More Women? For Equity or Policy Shift?” Electoral Insight, Elections Canada (forthcoming). 10 Amnesty International, “Men’s Violence
against Women in Intimate Relationships: an Account of the Situation in Sweden,” (Stockholm: Amnesty International, April 2004). 11 See the Feminist Initiative website at http:// www.feministisktinitiativ.se. 12 Two youth representatives are also elected and a representative of the disabled is appointed. 13 Paul Kagame, a Tutsi who had led the military invasion of Uganda in 1990, is president of this predominantly Hutu country. 14 Elizabeth Powley, ed., “Demonstrating legislative leadership: the introduction of Rwanda’s gender-based violence bill,” (Cambridge, MA: The Initiative for Inclusive Society, Hunt Alternatives Fund, 2008), 32. 15 Marinette Sineau, “The French Experience: Institutionalizing Parity,” in Women in Parliament: Beyond Numbers (Stockholm: IDEA, 2005), 128. For an interesting comparison between the only two countries using parity, see Virginie Van Ingelgom, “Legislation on Gender Parity and Quotas: The Belgian and French Experiences,” Electoral Insight, Elections Canada (forthcoming). 16 Sineau, 123. 17 Dominique Fougeyrollas-Schwebel, “Violence against women in France: The context, findings and impact of the Enveff survey,” presented at an Expert Group Meeting organized by the UN Division for the Advancement of Women, in collaboration with the Economic Commission for Europe (ECE) and World Health Organization (WHO), Geneva, Switzerland, April 2005. 18 Katharien A.R. Opello, Gender Quotas, Parity Reform, and Political Parties in France (New York: Lexington Books, 2006), 11. For her book, Opello conducted extensive interviews with women active in politics and civil society. 19 Double voting was common in England until 1956 when the separate business vote was abolished. 20 The 73rd Amendment to the Constitution of India also strengthened the move toward decentralization by granting constitutional status to these local bodies, creating a tiered system for elected assemblies and expanding their functions and resource base. As well, this amendment granted more powers over governmental services and projects to the three tiers of rural councils, or panchayats, at the village, block, and district levels. 21 For new insights on gender justice, see the interrogation of feminist theory and quota literature, Neema Kudva and Kajri Misra, “Gender Quotas, the Politics of Presence, and the Feminist Project: What Does the Indian Experience Tell Us?” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society (forthcoming). For a review of the debate over panchayats’ effectiveness see Irene Tinker, “Many Paths to Power: Women in Contemporary Asia,” in Peter H. Smith, Jennifer L. Troutner, and Christine Hunefeldt, eds., Promises of Empowerment: Women in Asia and Latin America (NY:
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Rowman & Littlefield, 2004), 35-39. 22 Manuela Ciotti, “The Conditions of Politics: Low-caste Women’s Political Agency in Contemporary North Indian Society,” Feminist Review (forthcoming). 23 Women members of municipal councils are well educated, so activists ignored municipal elections until recently, when women’s human rights groups in Delhi began recruiting and training candidates, and pressuring sitting members, especially about domestic violence. Archana Ghosh and Stéphanie Tawa Lama-Rewal, Democratization in Progress: Women and Local Politics in Urban India (New Delhi: Tulika Books, 2005). 24 See http://www.womenpowerconnect.org.
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25 Violence against women is a huge problem throughout India. Dowry deaths—in which lowermiddle class families who feel the bride’s family is not providing sufficient material goods over and above the legal limits on dowry pour cooking oil over the bride and claim she died in a cooking accident—are the most visible manifestation of women’s low status. 26 See Irene Tinker, “Empowerment Just Happened: The Unexpected Expansion of Women’s Organizations,” in Jane Jaquette and Gale Summerfield, eds., Women and Gender Equity in Development Theory and Practice: Institutions, Resources, and Mobilization (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2006), 268301. See also “Many Paths.”
Women in Power
A Woman You Can Trust
Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf and Political Leadership in Sub-Saharan Africa Gwendolyn Mikell In 2005 Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf became the first woman to be elected president of an African country. Liberians attribute Johnson-Sirleaf’s victory “to the fact that she is not a man.”1 From their point of view, they need a woman to put things right. That phrase has also been repeated in many other places across the African continent where societies have needed women to help them transition from socialism to democracy or from conflict to peace. The hundreds of women who attended the “Empowerment of Women in Africa” conference in 2007 made similar comments.2 Such words exemplify increasing sentiments across Africa that it takes a woman to do politics right. Ethnic and class tensions have marked Liberia since its founding in 1847 by slaves repatriated from the United States. When the military regime of Samuel Doe assassinated the Americo-Liberian President William R. Tolbert, Jr. on 12 April 1980, a decade of military rule ensued, and a civil war commenced between the rebel armies of Charles Taylor and the counter-forces of Prince Yormie Johnson. Ellen, as she is known to most Liberians, spent almost thirty years in and out of politics before she was elected president. She was imprisoned by the Doe government in the 1980s for criticiz-
Gwendolyn Mikell is a professor of Anthropology and Foreign Service at Georgetown University.
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trend of female political and economic leadership is being revitalized after having been eclipsed over the last hundred years of colonialism and early independence in Africa. Johnson-Sirleaf is a significant part of this revival. West Africa is well known for the layer of traditional cultures providing structural support for women’s leadership roles that stretches through Liberia and Sierra Leone, and culminates in the Queen Mother positions in Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana.3 Historically, associations of market women were widespread throughout the region, allowing women some economic autonomy in making contributions to family and community.4 In addition, in Liberia and Sierra Leone, female and male secret societies helped integrate young people into positive and cooperative social roles, and were critical institutions for the maintenance of social order. The male Poro society and the female Sande society were separate parallel structures, but women’s leadership was crucial to coordination of the social control provided by these two Women’s Leadership in West secret societies.5 For women, Sande is African Tradition. There is tradi- a protective force that develops their tional precedence for Johnson-Sirleaf’s personality, initiates them into womansuccess. Among the Kpelle—Liberia’s hood, teaches them morality and juslargest ethnic group—a powerful woman tice, and socializes them to public and chief named Suakoko won fame for her political leadership. In the past, female wise, effective rule of the region in the genital cutting was tradition in many 1950s and her productive relationship Sande rituals; such practices are fading with the government of former Liberian as the emphasis on education increases. President William Tubman. Liberians Women are forbidden to discuss Sande have had confidence that women would practices openly, but it is well known be able to overcome the ravages of that women advance through stages conflict to help secure a democratic of Sande education from digba (lowest peace for the country. Women today rank) to bundu (second degree) to sowei/ are drawing on traditional identities of zoe (headwoman), a position that culmitribal leadership for political gain. The nates with responsibilities to help train ing the regime, and she went into exile twice to escape government persecution. While living in the United States, she was director of the Africa Bureau of the UN Development Program. She returned to Liberia following her UN assignment, running unsuccessfully against Taylor for the presidency in 1997, and then moved to the United States. She eventually returned to Liberia, running for office and becoming president on 23 November 2005. A few months later, Taylor was removed to Nigeria and then sent to trial in The Hague accused of war crimes. Because women remain mostly separate from the discredited political elites that have ruled over years of civil war, they are welcome newcomers to politics in transitioning democracies across Africa and draw political legitimacy from this separation. Johnson-Sirleaf is a manifestation of this new legitimacy. As a result of her election and effective governing thus far, she is empowering women’s movements and future generations of Liberian women.
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Mikell
the younger girls. During the civil wars of the 1990s, when families were scattered and exiled in the refugee camps of neighboring countries, Liberian and Sierra Leonean girls proudly participated in Sande initiation ceremonies in the camps. Given the importance of these traditions, it is not surprising that at the end of the civil war, women NGO leaders and educators were the primary persons to assume leadership over the rehabilitation of female victims and child soldiers, and to collaborate on the work on disarmament and demobilization.6 Though Johnson-Sirleaf was the first female elected head of an African
Women in Power
who used the values and training from Sande to push her children toward education and community service. Her commitment is evident in her programs for women’s education, training, and professional development.
Good for Governance. JohnsonSirleaf’s success is symbolic of the enormous trust that Africans have begun to place in women political leaders over the last decade—a trust that is reflected in the election of women to parliament and to political office. In many ways, Africa is turning an important corner. People increasingly realize that women, who were marginal to the war-
A generation ago, as former military
regimes faltered, African women became important actors in the pro-democracy movements. state, she was not the first female leader in her region. Sowei/zoe leadership was displayed by women like Ruth Sando Perry, who helped negotiate with the rebels during the Liberian civil war, as well as by other women who helped restore the country to functional order during the transitional government in 1996-7. In 1996 Perry, a former schoolteacher and legislator, was appointed interim president of the six-member National Transitional Government that successfully moved Liberia from civil war to elections in May 1997.7 Johnson-Sirleaf is able to tap into this legacy, claiming a legitimacy that resonates with the Liberian people.8 She proudly proclaims herself the daughter of a woman market trader
fare and corruption of the last generation, and in many cases were the major victims of violence during conflicts, have become leaders of the political and governance transformations occurring across Africa. These African women are emerging in all walks of life, but especially in politics, in leadership of NGOs, in education, and in business. A generation ago, as former military regimes faltered, African women became important actors in the pro-democracy movements, and their elevated voices helped to hasten the retreat of soldiers to the barracks and the rapidity of elections that followed. Although women were beginning to fashion ideological African feminist approaches that blended nationalism and women’s
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A Woman You can trust
empowerment, they were still receiving only miniscule and episodic rewards for their contributions.9 Statistics on women’s representation in African parliaments between 2005 and 2007 illustrate the trust that the public holds for women. These show that some African countries have surpassed Western democracies like Sweden, the Netherlands, and Denmark in female representation.10 The most impressive gains have been made in Rwanda, Mozambique, and South Africa. Rwanda, which now has a 56.3 percent female representation in parliament, rebuilt its institutions after the 1994 genocide, and created a special “women’s ballot” so that women were elected on regular ballots as well as through special ones.11 In
does not take genocide or war to push women to the foreground, and to guarantee that even in peaceful countries women are able to gain representation in political life.12 African publics claim that women are more responsive to people’s needs, and that “women make better politicians.”13 A critical factor in the demand for women’s leadership is that African countries are attempting to rebuild state institutions that collapsed in the economic and political crises of the 1980s and 1990s. Alternatively, they are attempting to improve democratic institutions that were never completed in the transition from colonialism to independence, which contributed to the weakness of state structures in the face of military assertiveness. With a few
Liberians are convinced that she has already done more than her predecessors.
Mozambique and South Africa, which have 34.8 percent and 32.8 percent female parliamentarians, respectively, women negotiated the percentage of representation based on their roles in the revolution or the anti-apartheid struggle. In these two cases, women leveraged their roles in conflict situations to increase political representation. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which has just emerged from war and is still facing major refugee problems and instability, the percentage of women in parliament is only 8.4 percent. Like DRC, Liberia’s challenge is to mobilize the public to elect women to parliament to help preside over the reconstruction. A major challenge is to spread the dynamic of female leadership so that it
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exceptions such as in Uganda, women tend to be ardent supporters of constitutional limits on presidential or parliamentary terms of office.14 Women’s measures have strengthened judiciaries that were under the sway of executive branches in the past; created new autonomy for national electoral commissions so that they are not under the control of one party; eradicated environmental blights that make it difficult for women to contribute to agriculture and family sustenance; and, created or implemented laws that criminalize violence and assaults on women.15 Johnson-Sirleaf had always been known as an opponent of Liberian ethnic and class repression, as well as a patriot who served as finance minis-
Mikell
ter before fleeing into exile. Now she is known as “Liberia’s Iron Lady” who proved wrong male predictions that “only a man is strong enough to deal with the ex-combatants.”16 Her job is a daunting one because in addition to dealing with ex-combatants and collapsed police services, Johnson-Sirleaf has had to address Liberia’s lack of basic services like electricity, fresh water, and a road system. However, she is beginning to inspire new confidence among citizens that guns will have no voice in Liberia’s politics and that she is capable of leading this war-torn country back to democracy and economic health. Many popular slogans have emerged to salute the new possibilities of female leadership. They are repeated in arenas where the goal is competent and moral leadership in parliament, civic life, education, and other public arenas. For Johnson-Sirleaf, the crowds sometimes chant that she is “a woman of substance;” or, they chant, “Ellen, she’s our man!” The outpouring of support indicates the view of many that “the twenty-first century is the century of African women in politics.”17 Johnson-Sirleaf provides an outstanding example of commitment to change, as well as the awareness that a female president is an enabling element in political transitions. In 2006, she was vocal about the changes that needed to occur in governance. Having outlined her four-point strategy of enhancing security and consolidating peace, revitalizing the economy, opening up the democratic political space, and rejuvenating the social and political infrastructure, she went on to explain why this was so important. She articulated:
Women in Power
Our policies must respond to the deep wounds of our civil war, and enhance national governance while quickly introducing measures for structural reform and reconstruction. We must advance our core principles of democracy, accountability, free enterprise, good governance, respect for human rights, and equitable and balanced distribution of our resources … and respond to the needs of our women in the informal sector who constitute the majority of the poor. We are moving in that direction, with women in Liberia leading key government agencies such as finance, justice, commerce, youth and sports, and director of police…Our goal is to make the Liberian government work again.18 Johnson-Sirleaf is living up to her commitment to just, transparent, and productive leadership. Because of her belief that poverty and corruption feed off each other, one of her first efforts was to put into place an anti-corruption policy. In 2006, she defined corruption as misuse of power for private gain and supported the new Governance and Economic Management Assistance Program (GEMAP) that required foreign oversight of government expenditures. Within a year she had begun prosecution of corrupt officials, created an anti-corruption commission to replace GEMAP oversight, and required officials to declare their assets.19 She also worked to reconstitute and supervise Liberia’s national military to prevent situations in which the armed forces act against the interests of the people.
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First, she revised the constitution to place the Liberian military under the control of the Ministry of Defense. Defense personnel then began the recruitment process in order to build a new army that integrated women and understood civilian control of the military, in addition to being rigorously vetted, thoroughly trained, and geographically diverse.20 She has also made controversial overtures to the United States to consider Liberia as a site for AFRICOM (the new U.S. military command for Africa), arguing that it would assist Liberia’s efforts in national security training.21 Finally, in addition to establishing new market sites and lending support to women’s market associations, Johnson-Sirleaf signed an $80 million agreement with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) targeting education, health, infrastructure, and economic growth.22 Since many ordinary Liberian women are engaged in small-scale marketing as a means of financial support for their families, these sectors are critical to addressing poverty and gender inequality. Through private initiatives abroad, the Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf Market Women’s Fund helps build full market structures that contain facilities such as clinics, nurseries, water and sanitation, credit instruments, and entrepreneurial skills programs for women.23 She is trying to fulfill her commitment to advancing economic and educational development for women and girls, and Liberians are convinced that she has already done more than her predecessors. Indeed, the Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children commented in 2006: “Many
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people interviewed thought that the new president won largely due to her equal education platform, and a number stated, ‘Educate a man and you educate an individual, educate a woman and you educate a nation.’”24
Educating African Women.
“How does one become like them? How did they do it?” Younger African women inspired by leaders like Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf often ask these questions. Her presidency has led African women’s organizations to discuss the elements that lead to African women’s empowerment at all levels, from the local to the presidential. Education and training, practice in representing community interests, and support from older role models and political leaders are identified as key elements. Johnson-Sirleaf has consistently advocated for education. Here, she is following precedents set by earlier Liberian women like Rose MendsColes, former director of social services and an official at the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, who in 1979 helped establish a UN Children’s Fund program for training sowei/zoes in health and child development. Women must now replace the initiatives that were destroyed by the civil war and help Liberia catch up with African countries like Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, and Sierra Leone that are considered “on the move” because of their serious investments in gender equality in primary and secondary education since 2000.25 This year, in celebration of her seventieth birthday, “Old Ma” Mends-Coles established the Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf Academic Challenge, which rewards young girls and boys
Mikell
for educational achievement. As she thanked the civic societies and churches that celebrated the event, JohnsonSirleaf challenged the young people “to work harder as they prepare to take over the mantle of future state affairs.”26 Civic organizations throughout Liberia are following her lead. The Suakoko Women’s Center in Bong County has embarked on educational rehabilitation and reconstruction with UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) funding since 2006. The major focus is on the ninety-four thousand refugees who are returning home from surrounding countries— many through the UNHCR assistedrepatriation program for Liberia—and who need education and new skills to survive. Women returnees are enrolled in adult literacy courses staffed by volunteers and given practical training in tailoring, hairdressing, tie and dye, cooking, and soap-making.27 In addition to formal education and training, the program provides a forum for women from the region to meet and exchange ideas about how to solve their problems. Women leaders worldwide have taken seriously the importance of education and training to a girl’s future possibilities. An education helps a woman contribute to her family’s standard of living and motivates her daughters to demand respect and dignity, regardless of what professions they choose to pursue. The focus on education echoes the objectives of the Millennium Development Goals of 2000 and the 1995 Beijing Platform for Action goals of increasing girls’ school completion. There is a consensus that if women are not literate
Women in Power
and educated, it is difficult for them to escape poverty, and even more difficult for them to take on public leadership roles.
Conclusion. Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf’s presidency in Liberia appears to be just a beginning, as we are likely to see many more African women following in her footsteps. There is a whole new generation of African young women who have seen role models like her and will choose to enter politics at the local, national, or global levels. The message that African women have received from all parts of the continent is that modern women’s empowerment is dependent as much on their own agency as on preexisting cultural supports. Therefore, ways must be found to marry traditional cultural strengths with the new activism for girls’ and women’s education within African countries, and with state-level commitments to support African female leadership. African women leaders as well as international civil society representatives need to work in tandem to design programs to support gender equality and equity as outlined in the Millennium Development Goals. Women’s groups need to lobby their own governments for greater investments in girls’ primary, secondary, and tertiary education, in order to help African countries reach the Education for All (EFA) goals established by the World Educational Forum by 2015, and should monitor progress toward the goals.28 They should raise equity through mainstream development assistance programs as well as multilateral organizations like the World Bank, and must strengthen constitutional and legislative supports Winter/Spring 2009 [ 23]
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for women’s participation in African parliaments. Finally, African women leaders like Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf need global and continental support for their initiatives. United Nations agencies like the UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) often find that they are solitary voices in the wilderness, especially when advocating for women’s education and leadership in arenas that
fall under the operational responsibilities of other UN agencies. Efforts to create a single UN agency that handles women’s issues and coordinates gender policies across existing UN agencies and institutions need to be brought to fruition. This could have major benefits for countries like Liberia that aim to promote women’s efforts to “put things right.”
Notes
1 “Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf: Expert Spotlight; Ellen is Our Woman,” Hunt Alternatives Fund, 2008, Internet, http://www.huntalternatives.org/pages/399_ellen_ johnson_sirleaf.cfm. See also AllAfrica Global Media (AAGM), “Women are Africa’s Political Hope,” 15 March 2006, Internet, http://allafrica.com/. 2 Gwendolyn Mikell, Jeanne Maddox Toungara, and Vivian Lowery Derryck, Empowerment of Women in Africa: Gender Equality and Women’s Leadership-Policy Recommendations (conference, United Kingdom Department for International Development and the British Embassy, Washington D.C., 11 April 2008). 3 Vanessa M. G. Von Struense, “The Struggle of Queen-Mothers for Equality in Ghana,” Social Science Research Network, 23 July 2004. Abdul Karim Bangura, “Women in Sierra Leone: Debunking the Western Myth of the Powerless African Woman,” Mabayla Review, 30 April 2007. 4 Noluthando Crockett-Ntonga, “Liberia: Market Women Help Revive Economy” Financial Times Limited, 8 January 2008, Internet, http://allafrica. com/. 5 Mende Sande Society: Helmets from the Helen and Mace Neufield Collection of African Art, Ryes Library of Bryn Mawr College, 1999. See also Kenneth Little, “The Poro Society as the Arbiter of Culture,” African Studies 7, no. 1 (1948): 1-15. 6 Amnesty International, “Liberia: Women of Liberia, Fighting for Peace,” Peacewomen, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, 23 July 2008, Internet, http://www.peacewomen.org/ news/Africa/WestAfrica/July08/LiberiaWomenPeace.html. 7 David J. Craig, “Liberia’s Ruth Sando Perry named 2nd Balfour African President-in-Residence,” B. U. Bridge, 30 January 2004. 8 Carolyn Bledsoe, “The Political Use of Sande Ideology and Symbolism,” American Ethnologist 11, no. 3 (August 1984): 455-472. 9 Gwendolyn Mikell, “African Feminism: The Politics of Representation,” Feminist Studies 21, no. 2 (Summer 1995): 405-424. 10 Inter-Parliamentary Union, Women in National Parliaments: World Classification, 30 September 2006,
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Internet, http://www.ipu.org/wmn-e/classif.htm. 11 Elizabeth Powley, “Case Study: Rwanda; Women Hold Up Half the Parliament,” in Women in Parliament: Beyond the Numbers (New York: International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, 2003). See also Elizabeth Powley, Strengthening Governance: The Role of Women in Rwanda’s Parliament (Washington, D.C.: Hunt Alternatives Fund, Women Waging Peace, 2003). 12 Mikell, Toungara, and Derryck, Empowerment of Women in Africa. 13 Gretchen Bauer and Hannah E. Britton, eds., Women in African Parliaments (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2006). 14 Aili Mari Tripp, “Uganda: Agents of Change for Women’s Advancement,” in Bauer and Britton, Women in African Parliaments, 246-292. 15 Bauer and Britton, Women in African Parliaments. 16 “Profile: Liberia’s Iron Lady,” BBC World News, Internet, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/ africa/4395978.stm (date accessed: 23 November 2005). 17 Mojubaolu Olufunke Okome, “Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf: A Tribute,” JENDA: A Journal of Culture and African Women’s Studies 7 (2005). 18 H. S. Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, Executive Mansion Video, Monrovia, Liberia, 6 October 2006. 19 Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf (remarks, the Commissioning Ceremony of the Anti-Corruption Commissioners, 19 September 2008), Internet, http://www. emansion.gov.lr/doc/corruption%20speech.pdf. 20 Ministry of National Defense, “Building a Trained and Disciplined Army through a Rigorous Vetting Process,” Internet, http://www.mod. gov.lr/press.php?news_id=2 (date accessed: 21 April 2008). 21 Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, “Africom Can Help Governments Willing to Help Themselves,” Internet, 25 June 2007, Internet, http://allafrica.com/. Ezekiel Pajibo and Elmira Woods, “AFRICOM: Wrong for Liberia, Disastrous for Africa,” Foreign Policy in Focus, 26 July 2007. 22 “Liberia, U.S. Sign $80m Assistance Agreement,” Office of the Press Secretary, Executive Man-
Mikell
sion, 18 October 2008. 23 “Ellen Johnson Sirleaf Market Women’s Fund: Strengthening the Women Who Strengthen the World,” African Women’s Development Fund, 4 June 2008, Internet, http://smwf.org/. 24 “Help Us Help Ourselves: Education in the Conflict to Post-Conflict Transition in Liberia,” (Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children, March 2006), 16. Available online at http://www.womenscommission.org/pdf/lr_ed.pdf. 25 See UNESCO, “Chapter 3: Countries on the Move,” in Education for All Global Monitoring Report 2008,
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(World Education Forum, 2008): 97-136. 26 “Ellen Launches Academic Challenge,” The Analyst (Monrovia), 31 October 2008. 27 Andrej Mahecic, “Volunteer-run literacy programme helps empower women in Liberia,” World Volunteer Web, 14 January 2007. 28 EFA aims to expand educational opportunity for all children by 2015, which means putting special focus on governmental frameworks for education, public/private and global partnerships, and monitoring for achievements, gender equality, and equity. See Education for All Global Monitoring Report 2008.
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Madam Chancellor
Angela Merkel and the Triangulation of German Foreign Policy Joyce Mushaben “The British kicker Gary Lineker once said, ‘Soccer is when 22 grown men in short pants run around with a ball for 90 minutes, and at the end the Germans win.’ Politics, as Wolfgang Schäuble translated the Lineker formula, is when everyone talks at once and past each other, and ‘Madam Merkel wins. You can count on that.’” Schäuble, cited by Hajo Schumacher (2006)1
Joyce Mushaben is a professor of Comparative Politics and Gender Studies at the University of MissouriSt. Louis.
Socialized under a politically authoritarian, economically challenged regime, Angela Merkel was hardly the girl one would have characterized in a school yearbook as the person most likely to one day lead Europe’s biggest and wealthiest postwar nation. Within months of her election as chancellor, however, Forbes had christened Merkel “the Most Powerful Woman in the World” and Time Magazine listed her among the “top 100 people who shape our world.”2 Catapulted into the same league as Queen Victoria and Catherine the Great (her role model), Germany’s first woman leader has also been compared with figures ranging from Joan of Arc to Margaret Thatcher. Despite her ostensible refusal to play the gender card, Merkel’s leadership style and policy savvy have given new credence to the feminist mantra of 1960s: “The personal is the political.” Although her path to power was far from conven-
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tional and her march through the party-political institutions breathtakingly short, this chancellor evinces unique capabilities that have allowed her to emerge as the decade’s most effective mediator among three competing forces: the United States, the European Union, and Russia. Contributing to Merkel’s success are her East German upbringing throughout the 1950s and 1960s, her activities as a natural sci-
voice in high politics that has historically excluded women; all three have become core concerns in international relations. This study begins with biographical factors that have preconditioned Merkel’s learning curve and leadership style. Next, it considers the ways in which the chancellor has sought to repair and redirect U.S.-German relations following years of high tension
Merkel’s expertise in energy security, en-
vironmental sustainability, and climate change accords her a voice in high politics that has historically excluded women. entist in the 1970s and 1980s, and her political re-education within an alphamale partisan arena following unification in 1990. This essay examines the ways in which Merkel has applied her biographically configured skill-set in shoring up Germany’s special, albeit conflicting, relationships with those three global players since 2005.3 Merkel has successfully redirected the transatlantic relationship since the 2007 G8 summit at Heiligendamm, revitalized Franco-German ties to strengthen Europe, and attempted to keep Russia engaged in regional stability. Her success is owed first to her lack of the constraints of a traditional Land-level (state level) power base, and, second, to the foreign policy expertise vacuum that followed a one-woman coup against her erstwhile patron, Chancellor Helmut Kohl. Merkel’s expertise regarding energy security, environmental sustainability, and climate change accords her a distinctive
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between President George W. Bush and Chancellor Gerhard Schröder over the 2003 invasion of Iraq. It then examines Merkel’s efforts to solidify Eurolateralism by re-launching the German-French partnership and assesses her approach to new regional challenges posed by an intransigent Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin. The essay concludes with reflections on Merkel’s powermanagement strategy and other secrets to her success.
Learning Experiences and Leadership Style. Merkel’s path to
power is unique relative to other female leaders who grew up in established political families or replaced deceased husbands and fathers.4 Born on 17 July 1954 in Hamburg, Angela Dorothea Kasner spent her early years eschewing politics. Her father, a Lutheran pastor, voluntarily relocated to the German Democratic Republic (GDR) shortly after occupation, ending her mother’s
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career as an English teacher.5 Like other East-bloc children, Merkel learned not to voice her political beliefs, especially after the 1968 Prague Spring. Shaped by Protestant pragmatism, Western handme-downs, and rural life, she overcame the obvious disadvantages of being a cleric’s daughter in a “godless” state by internalizing values like self-control, self-responsibility, diligence, discretion, loyalty, and solidarity. Despite active church involvement, she completed her Abitur (pre-university exams) in 1973 but her pedigree precluded most “state” careers. She specialized in Theoretical Physics at the University of Leipzig from 1973 to 1978. After marrying Ulrike Merkel, she secured a privileged research position in Physical Chemistry at the GDR Academy of Sciences in Berlin, completing her doctorate in 1986. Apolitical prior to the Berlin wall’s collapse, Merkel joined Democratic Awakening in November 1989, a group quickly absorbed by the Alliance for Germany and then by her current party, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). After a brief stint as Deputy Spokesperson for interim Prime Minister Lothar de Maizière, she entered the Bundestag via the conservative, post-unity landslide of December 1990, her GDR experience having shown “that you have to be prepared to test your own limits.”6 Perceived as a colorless, submissive Easterner, she was catapulted to national prominence at age thirty-six when Kohl appointed her minister for women and youth (19911994). These were not exactly areas of expertise for the divorced, childless physicist. She rapidly advanced from federal deputy party chair, to state chair
Women in Power
of the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern CDU, to environmental minister (19941998), to CDU general secretary at forty-five, CDU-Christian Social Union (CSU) parliamentary caucus-chair at forty-eight, then finally to chancellor of the CDU-Social Democratic Party (SPD) government at age fifty-one—the youngest chancellor in postwar history. One consummate lesson of GDR life was always to try hard but never to attract attention: “It [was] a great advantage… that one learned to keep quiet. That was a survival strategy. It still is.”7 The presumed presence of Stasi informants at social gatherings taught her to minimize risks and read between the lines. Under a regime in which women were officially equal but rarely seen in Politbüro photos, she read Simone de Beauvoir but found Madam Curie more interesting. Living in the man’s world of physics, she found feminist politics boring but now recognizes the value of quotas even in her own party. Viewing universal daycare as a response to Eastern economic inefficiency, she was nonetheless appalled by massive job losses among GDR women after unification. Merkel insists she was shaped more by her natural science education than by her sex. Her effort “to bring rationality into the discussion…surprises some men, who like to argue the opposite, that women can’t do that at all,” insofar as women are erroneously perceived as being too emotional for the serious business of politics.8 As a physicist, Merkel thinks inductively, recognizes the heuristic value of plans, assesses probabilities, and advances through trial and error. She does not make the same mistake twice.9 She approaches politics as a one-step-
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(SPD) to secure a second term under a Red-Green coalition. Merkel rose to party prominence at the point when U.S.-German relations had reached an all-time low. To secure her candidacy, Merkel had to confront the age-old question (always posed by men, she notes): Is a woman strong enough to go to war? Recognizing that Schröder’s categorical “no” to the Iraq war had him cornered, she shored up her hardliner credentials by defending the U.S. invasion in a speech to military leaders at the 2004 Munich Security Conference.12 Still perceived as an interloper by her party rivals, she anchored herself deeply in history, stressing fifty years of CDU transatlantic ties, Germany’s role as a trustworthy NATO partner, Fostering “Climate Change” in and gratitude to the United States for the U.S.-German Relationship. freedoms she had not known during U.S.-German relationships have always the Cold War. She counteracted party been more strained than politicians bosses’ resistance by soliciting support on either side admit to their respec- from “the base” at six extra parliamentive publics. The 1980s were partic- tary regional party conferences. She ularly tough in light of the NATO discerned that defending an unpopu“Double Decision” to deploy 102 first- lar pro-U.S. position carried longeruse Pershing II missiles on German term advantages for self-presentation, soil, which mobilized millions of anti- evoking an image of decisiveness on nuclear protestors across Europe. The the international stage. She flew to 1990s were more harmonious, given Washington, D.C., where she was perstrong U.S. support for German unifi- sonally greeted by Bush, Vice President cation, the end of Cold War dynamics, Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense and good personal relations between Donald Rumsfeld as the prospective President Bill Clinton and European leader of a future conservative governleaders. Despite European leaders’ ment. Even rivals who rejected her posioverwhelming support for an imme- tion accorded her respect for standing diate response to 9/11 in Afghanistan, her ground. Merkel is not very ideological for President Bush’s subsequent “preemptive attack” doctrine created deep rifts a representative of the Union of the among NATO allies. It also intensified CDU and CSU.13 She has no intention resistance to German participation in of sending combat troops to Iraq; she another Gulf War, allowing Schröder refused a direct American request to at-a-time experiment requiring rational deliberation, making it hard for male counterparts to see through her decisions early on. Merkel’s natural world follows observable rules; every decision involves an “energy mass” with a particular direction, strength, tempo, and significance. Her job is to scan the environment for new configurations, study the longer term “waves,” and then ask the right questions in order to derive a correct answer.10 Her ability to lead a party dominated by conservative male hardliners rests on a “strategy of small steps.” She observes their weaknesses and strengths, treating them as constants. As Schumacher observes, it “wasn’t poison but patience” that did in all of her rivals.11
[ 30] Georgetown Journal of International Affairs
Mushaben
send troops to southern Afghanistan; and she is unhappy with U.S. plans for a missile defense system “against the Mideast” in Poland.14 The G8 hostess successfully sought significant changes in the environmental policies of the eight nations present at Heiligendamm in 2007. Having previously cultivated a warm relationship with the U.S. president (exchanging home visits to Crawford and Mecklenburg), she effectively maneuvered Bush into a corner over climate change at Heiligendamm in 2007—but only after she had courted favor among national leaders in Paris, Brussels, London, and Moscow. Merkel’s working knowledge of carbon footprints, global warming, and nuclear power far exceeded than that of other leaders at the G8 Summit. Partial to Erhard’s social market economy, Merkel harbors no illusions about the unfettered powers of the market, having been burned in 1996 by a major scandal involving nuclear-waste transports.15 Committed to active EU environmental regulation, she drew on her experiences at the 1995 World Climate Conference in Berlin, where as the hosting Environmental Minister she had pushed the world’s most powerful men into a lastminute compromise. As the G8 hostess, she again turned a potential policy flop into parameters for a symbolic victory: Bush agreed to cut carbon emissions in half and limit global warming to two degrees by 2050. Well positioned to channel future U.S.-German relations into a more equitable partnership rooted in energy security under a new U.S. president, Merkel puts her faith in particulate matter, continuous motion, and measurable outcomes. “Neither a sphinx nor a Wonderwoman…she has
Women in Power
no grand goal but rather many small ones,” and works through them according to plan.16
Advancing Eurolateralism through the EU Council Presidency. Like Konrad Adenauer,
Merkel views the EU as a primary vehicle for Westbindung, rooted in GermanFrench reconciliation. If adaptability was the key to her relatively comfortable GDR life, flexibility was the sine qua non of her experimental training, given chronic Eastern technology deficits. Both assisted Merkel in adjusting quickly to new political opportunity structures. During her first months in office, she met with European Commission President José Manuel Barroso and European Parliament President Joseph Borrell Fontelles on the same day as French President Jacques Chirac. She embraced Schröder’s demand for a reduced German contribution to the EU, clinching the 2005 budget deal by meeting with all parties outside the official talks chaired by the British. For this the Economist labeled her a “heroine.”17 Merkel then used goodwill accrued at the summit to modify unfair tax competition rules, rather than pushing simultaneously and belligerently to further her agenda as Schröder had. Germany’s Council Presidency (January to June 2007) accorded Merkel a visible platform for resurrecting the EU Constitution following its rejection by French and Dutch citizens. She pushed for decentralization and transparency rather than “an ever closer union.” Conducting a thirtysix hour negotiation marathon, she muscled Poland into a compromise on majority voting (55 percent of the
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Member States, 65 percent of the EU population); allowed the UK to opt out of the Charter of Fundamental Rights— while embedding a “binding reference” to it in the Lisbon Treaty; and fused the High Representative (CSFP) and External Affairs Commissioner posts into a single High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. Merkel views the EU not as a rich men’s industrial club, but as a value community. She believes that “we must give a soul to Europe.”18
than Bush and other world leaders do. Raised under the shadow of Soviet hegemony, she speaks fluent Russian, visited the USSR on a scholarship, and trekked through “fraternal socialist states” as a young adult long before U.S. Fulbright scholars could. Her Protestant ethics and GDR experiences leave little room for double standards regarding human rights and democratic legitimacy. Putin likewise understands Merkel better than the rest, given his activities as a KGB agent in Dresden from 1985 to 1990.
Angela Merkel understands Putin better than Bush and other world leaders do.
They are evenly matched in terms of personal determination. Ex-physicist Merkel imagines Russia as an unstable energy field beset by “problematic tendencies,” as shown by its recent incursion into Georgia. Calling for an unconditional ceasefire and a return of all forces to their pre-combat positions, she holds both sides accountable for the crisis in the Caucuses. Germany committed one million euros for humanitarian assistance and backed the (non-binding) six-point peace plan brokered by Sarkozy for the EU. At the request of Czech, Polish, and Baltic leaders, she headed for “straight talk” with Russian Straight Talk with the New President Dmitry Medvedev at the Black Russian Oligarchy. Schröder cul- Sea resort of Sotchi, then with Georgian tivated a positive Paris-Berlin-Moscow Premier Mikheil Saakashvili. Her likely axis by exchanging home visits with rival in the 2009 elections, Foreign Russian President Putin and landing a Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier lucrative job at Russia’s largest compa- (SPD), deployed a special Foreign ny, Gazprom, after his electoral defeat. Ministry envoy to Tiblisi. Their united Angela Merkel understands Putin better stance derives from rational delibera-
Merkel evinced obvious personal and political differences with EU Council President Nicolas Sarkozy, whose “bridge building” style is far from lowkey. Despite this, she has cut a deal with France to water down plans for a Mediterranean Union with former North African colonies in exchange for cutting auto emissions in Germany. She cites the European Neighborhood Policy to send mixed signals to wouldbe members Turkey, the Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova, while advancing collective responsibility in the highly charged field of EU migration and asylum policy.19
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Women in Power
ability to land in the right place at the right time, but not without hard work. Hosting a successful 2006 World Cup tournament rendered Merkel a national patriot, prepping the country for tough health care and welfare reforms. She enjoys higher approval ratings than any past chancellor, ranging from 70 to 80 percent. For Merkel, being female is neither an advantage nor disadvantage, no matter how often she has been underestimated by the opposition, the media, or by men in her own party who saw her as merely “an accident of history.” She is intriguing as a female politician insofar as she refuses to view herself as such. She has maintained her grip on the conservative party by applying her personal learning to secure political goals. Surrounded by men proclaiming their own invincibility, Merkel enjoys behind-the-scenes support from prominent women who have “been there and done that,” such as talk-show stars and widowed owners of major publishing houses. Also viewed as trophy womenturned-temporary managers by men, these individuals “always had to be betConclusion: The Difference ter, smarter, more hard-working, had that “Difference” Makes. Dem- to take more risks, learn to hide their ocratic consolidation and peaceful uni- cards, and always have great hair.”23 fication of Germany have significantly Comprising a post-feminist conservareconfigured U.S.-European-Russian tive complex, they value Merkel’s honrelationships. An Easterner now head- esty, modesty, decisiveness, structured ing a Western nation, Angela Merkel approach to defining problems, sense has become “a one person all-soci- of humor, work ethic, and personal ety mediation committee.”22 A woman gestures revealing genuine concern for working in a field dominated by men, people. They have said, “she can do she is driven by facts but professes a it better from her head and from her sentimental pride in Germany. She heart. And we do it with her.”24 Such looks for the “We Society” by empha- displays of female solidarity invoke sizing personal responsibility. Her out- panic among ultra-conservative joursider status has shaped her uncanny nalists like Frank Schirrmacher, who
tion: Germany cannot and will not isolate Russia. Germany, the world’s third-largest economy, relies on Russia for 47 percent of its natural gas and 34 percent of its oil. This explains transatlantic disputes over the Yamal, Baltic, and Nord Stream pipelines. Although Putin holds better cards regarding fuel supplies, Merkel can influence the flow of critical trade, technology, and investment back to Russia. Abjuring superpower one-upmanship and symbolic lines in the sand, Merkel does not accept the characterization of Europe as “an economic giant, a political dwarf, and a military worm.”20 Accepting collective military action only as a last resort, Merkel avows that “Georgia will become a NATO member” but sets no specific date for its Membership Action Plan.21 Germany’s responsibility is to strengthen democracy in the Caucus region by repositioning Europe between Russia and the United States. The chancellor cites an African proverb: “If you want to move forward fast, then go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”
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insist that Germany’s “consciousness industry is controlled by women.”25 Trained in a science that remained unwelcoming to women into the 1990s, and raised as a pastor’s daughter under a “godless” regime that barred her from political office prior to 1989, Merkel is a leader sui generis. Her leadership profile is further complicated by the fact that gender roles were defined quite differently on opposite sides of the wall. The one lesson she shares with leaders ranging from Indira Gandhi and Corazón Aquino to Michele Bachelet and Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf is that she has been repeatedly “misunderestimated” as a transitional figure who was unlikely to survive the hard knocks of electoral politics. It is also worth noting that no matter how serious the crisis she is confronting, no matter how sophisticated her grasp of complex international affairs, the media often seem more focused on the way she looks than on the way she thinks.26 Chancellor Merkel places little stock in a permanent balance of power. Her
understanding of triangulation in international affairs depends on shifting flows of positive and negative charges. Facing a tough election in 2009, Merkel’s ultimate accomplishment would be to secure her united homeland a permanent UN Security Council seat. A consistent supporter of multilateralism, sustainable development, human rights, and a major troop supplier for blue-helmet operations, Merkel could help to refocus international discourse and push for active implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 (October 2000). The resolution urges, encourages, expresses, requests, emphasizes, reaffirms and, ultimately, “invites the Secretary-General to carry out a study on the impact of armed conflict on women and girls, the role of women in peace-building and the gender dimensions of peace processes and conflict resolution…and decides to remain actively seized of the matter.”27 The world could use more women in power committed to rational deliberation.
Notes
1 Hajo Schumacher, Die Zwölf Gesetze der Macht. Angela Merkels Erfolgsgeheimnisse (Munich: Heyne, 2007), 35. 2 Tatiana Serafin, “The 100 Most Powerful Women,” Forbes, 31 August 2006. Tatiana Serafin, “The 100 Most Powerful Women,” Forbes, 30 August 2007. Mary Ellen Egan and Chana R. Schoenberger, eds., “The 100 Most Powerful Women,” Forbes, 27 August 2008. Michael Elliott, “The Time 100: The People Who Shape Our World,” Time, 30 April 2006. 3 See Joyce Marie Mushaben, “Deconstructing Gender in German Politics: The Extreme Makeover of Angela Merkel,” paper presented at Indiana University, 1 April 2005; Mark R. Thompson and Ludmilla Lennartz, “The Making of Chancellor Merkel,” German Politics 15, No. 1 (March 2006): 99-110; Clay Clemens, “From the Outside In: Angela Merkel as Opposition Leader, 2000-2005,” German Politics & Society 24, No. 3 (Autumn 2006): 1-19; and Sylka Scholz, ed., “Kann die das?” Angela
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Merkels Kampf um die Macht. Geschlechterbilder und Geschlechterpolitiken im Bundestagswahlkampf 2005 (Berlin: Karl Dietz Verlag, 2007). 4 Farida Jalalzai, “Women Political Leaders: Past and Present,” Women and Politics 26, no. 3-4 (2004): 85-108. 5 Evelyn Roll, Die Erste. Angela Merkel’s Weg zur Macht (Reinbek: Rowohlt, 2005), 37. 6 Hugo Müller-Vogg, Angela Merkel: Mein Weg (Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campe, 2005), 18-19. 7 Roll, Die Erste, 58. 8 Müller-Vogg, Angela Merkel: Mein Weg, 132. 9 She quickly learned, for example, not to underestimate “the Andes Pact,” young conservatives who agreed never to compete against each other but conspired to block her candidacy in 2002. She subsequently co-opted each man separately. 10 In her own words: “First you order your thoughts. Then you struggle with yourself, whether or not to do something. That’s the fighting-phase.
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Then it’s decided.” See Schumacher, Die Zwölf Gesetze der Macht, i. 11 Ibid., 123. 12 Ibid., 218-219. 13 Ibid., 20. 14 She feels a European anti-missile shield should be left up to NATO, in consultation with Russia. 15 Trusting companies to self-regulate, she learned that CEOs had lied about leaking radiation during cross-country transfers. 16 Schumacher, Die Zwölf Gesetze der Macht, 30. 17 Dorothee Heisenberg, “Merkel’s EU Policy: ‘Kohl’s Mädchen’ or Interest Driven Politics?” German Politics & Society 24, no. 1 (Spring 2006): 114. 18 Dan Bilefsky, “Constitution and Trade at Top of Merkel’s EU Agenda,” International Herald Tribune, 17 January 2007. 19 Merkel hosted Germany’s first National Inte-
Women in Power
gration Summit and adopted the 2007 National Integration Plan, combining self-obliging partnerships with concrete implementation monitoring. 20 Ex-Belgian Prime Minister Eyseken in Craig R. Whitney, “Gulf Fighting Shatters Europeans’ Fragile Unity,” New York Times, 25 January 1991. 21 Daniel Brössier, “Am Ende einer Fiktion,” Süddeutsche Zeitung, 19 August 2008. 22 Schumacher, Die Zwölf Gesetze der Macht, 156. 23 Ibid., 88. See also, Roll, Die Erste. 24 Schumacher, Die Zwölf Gesetze der Macht, 87. 25 Ibid. 26 Even a front-page story on the global financial crisis in Die Zeit noted that “the Chancellor wore black,” allegedly to convey calm. 6 October 2008. 27 “UN Security Council Resolution 1325,” Internet, http://www.un.org/events/res_1325e.pdf (date accessed: October 2000). Emphasis in original.
Winter/Spring 2009 [ 35]
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A Unique Heritage of Leadership Muslim Women in China Jacqueline Armijo According to the most conservative estimates, more than twenty million Muslims reside in China today. Imagining what life is like for Chinese Muslim women, one might assume that their lives are doubly constrained by traditional Chinese and Islamic patriarchal practices. But in many ways, these women are able to avoid some of the most serious challenges facing both Chinese and Muslim women in other parts of the world. Unlike most Muslim women in the rest of the world, those in China have a tradition of women’s mosques and women religious leaders and scholars that dates back centuries. This article will explore the reasons behind the unique situation of Muslim women in China today and raise the possibility that their position is a result of Islam’s long and multi-faceted history in China. It will also specify the prominent role played by women in maintaining Islamic religious knowledge over the centuries, their active support of the recent revival of Islamic education as well as numerous civil society efforts, and their role in ensuring the survival of Muslim communities during periods of state-sponsored violence and massacre. Finally, it will discuss the life of Rebiya Kadeer, prominent Uighur human rights activist, as
Jacqueline Armijo is an assistant professor of Social and Behavioral Sciences at Zayed University, Abu Dhabi.
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A unique Heritage of Leadership
an example of the difficulties of translating this social and cultural power into political might. It would be difficult to overestimate the significance of the unique position Chinese Muslim women hold today. Specifically, these women promote two unique traditions. First, they claim a space of their own to pray, their own mosque. Furthermore, they seize the opportunity to study Islam under the supervision of other female scholars. This situation has given Muslim Chinese women greater power and influence in civil society, but not the political realm.
The Benefits of Dual Identity.
Many Muslim Chinese women successfully avoid practices that plague other women in China. First, they are normally protected from the impact of female infanticide, a pervasive practice due to China’s 1979 draconian one-child policy. With literally tens of millions of girls now missing, Chinese Muslim girls constitute significant exceptions to this growing phenomenon. The killing of newborn girls is generally viewed by Muslims as one of the main characteristics of the preIslamic period in Arabia known as the jahiliyya, or Age of Ignorance, and considered to be a period of barbarism. Another major threat facing women in China is the increasingly widespread practice of trafficking of women. This trend was first noticed in the early 1990s as growing numbers of rural male peasants, unable to find wives, instead turned to buying women who had been kidnapped. The shortage of women in the countryside was initially the result of large numbers of young
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women choosing to leave their villages. Searching for work in the coastal cities, many of them became reluctant to return to rural China. Recently, the shortage of women of marriageable age has been exacerbated by the practice of female infanticide. It is estimated that between 2000 and 2021 there will be at least twenty-three million Chinese men who will not be able to find a wife.1 Muslim women are less likely to be the victims of traffickers because Muslim villages remain wary of strangers. Additionally, young Muslim village women are less likely to travel to a distant place in search of work unless their families ensure there is someone there to meet them.2
Hardships of the Past. The
Muslim population of China is striking in its ethnic and cultural diversity, demographic dispersion, and individual histories.3 Of China’s fifty-five officially recognized minority peoples, ten are predominantly Muslim.4 Although most of these groups are concentrated in northwest China, and are of Turkic origins, the largest of the groups, the Hui, are spread throughout China and are ethnically, culturally, and linguistically closely related to the majority Han Chinese. The early history of Muslims in China is complex, involving a wide variety of immigrants to China. The earliest Muslims in China date back to the emergence of Islam in the seventh century. During that time, both Persian and Arab traders from the Middle East sailed back and forth across the Indian Ocean to the Chinese port cities of Guangzhou and Quanzhou along the southeastern coast, bringing Islam into mainland China.
Armijo
During Mongol rule in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, tens of thousands of Muslims settled throughout China to assist the Mongols in building and administering their vast empire. Muslim craftsmen, artists, architects, physicians, astronomers, and bureaucrats were both coerced and encouraged by the Mongols to settle within China’s borders. After Mongol rule ended, the Ming dynasty passed assimilation laws that forced all non-Chinese residents
Women in Power
girls and young women, who were only spared so that they could be divided up as concubines or sex slaves among the Manchu and Han Chinese. The sacrifices that the women were willing to make were crucial in maintaining the Islamic identity. Further research uncovered that hundreds, if not thousands, of these young women had agreed to become concubines on the condition that they were allowed to raise some of their
Muslim Chinese women knew the most
effective way to improve the overall quality of life...is to educate the girls. to learn Chinese, adopt Chinese names, and wear Chinese clothes. Throughout the Ming period, the Muslim population of China was isolated from the rest of the Muslim world, yet they were able to survive and maintain their religious beliefs and practices by translating Islamic works into Chinese and practicing selective interreligious marriage. By the emergence of the Manchu Qing dynasty in the seventeenth century, the Muslims of China had become relatively assimilated. Yet during this time, frequent clashes broke out between different Muslim communities and their Manchu rulers. Government forces killed over a million Muslims in northwest and southwest China. In the southwest Yunnan province, approximately 90 percent of the one million Muslim residents were massacred or driven out in the aftermath of a multi-ethnic independence movement that had set up a short-lived Islamic state from 1856 to 1872.5 Of those who survived, most were
children as Muslims. If set free at the death of her master, the Muslim concubine was traditionally allowed to leave with whichever of her children she had been able to raise as her own.6 Some women and children found their way back to their homes, only to find towns abandoned after years of war. Even so, Muslim women began the process of slowly rebuilding their community. To this day, Muslim women play an active role in their communities, both within the mosques and the numerous Islamic colleges and schools for girls that have spread throughout the region. Because of their limited numbers, their sense of community solidarity was great, and Muslims often fared better during times of crisis. Persecution of the Muslim community extends into contemporary times. During China’s protracted civil war (1927-1949) both sides sought the support of China’s large Muslim population. The Nationalists and Communists
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independent Islamic colleges were also established, and their graduates were expected to set up new schools in communities without access to religious instruction.7 Although most of the students enrolled in these colleges were men, a significant number of students were women. Female graduates played a more active role in ensuring the revival of religious knowledge and many started schools for young girls. Women there knew intuitively what it has taken international NGOs and the World Bank millions of dollars of research to discover: the most effective way to improve the overall quality of life of any community is to educate the girls. Current policies, however, have limited the effectiveness of local education. Technically, the government still provides free primary and secondary education for all children in China, yet recent market-reform policies have resulted in a dramatic decline in central state subsidies of local education. As a result, individual communities have Reviving Islamic Education. required school fees that, though miniThe late 1970s and early 1980s witnessed mal, can be prohibitive for poor peasant the return of these mosques to their families. A growing number of peasrightful Muslim owners. Immediately, ant children, especially girls, are not communities set about repairing and completing their primary education. rebuilding them. Another communal Consequently, in Muslim communities priority was to develop an Islamic cur- located in impoverished areas, indericulum, primarily for children who pendent, fully subsidized girls’ schools had never had a chance to learn about are often the only option available for the religion of their ancestors. Women peasant girls. In urban areas, Muslim women have took the lead in setting up pre-school programs for the youngest children. established informal NGOs that provide Women founded after-school and sum- assistance to those living in impovermer classes for school-age children. ished regions prone to natural disasters. Women assisted in organizing daytime Actively promoting charitable organiclasses for the elderly and evening class- zations and taking part in civil society es for working adults. Co-educational is common amongst China’s Muslims both promised the Muslims freedom of religion and a higher degree of autonomy. In the early years following the establishment of the People’s Republic of China, the Communists kept their word with regard to religious freedom. At first, Islam was allowed and communities practiced their religion without intervention from the Party. However, during the tumultuous years of the Cultural Revolution, Islam, together with all other religions, came under violent attack. During this period, zealous Red Guards seemed to take perverse pleasure in targeting Muslims. Every mosque in China (except for the one in Beijing used by foreign Muslim diplomats) was taken over by the state, most were damaged, and some were destroyed. The Red Guards often used the structures in ways that intentionally defiled the sacredness of the space. One favorite tactic was to raise pigs in the mosque. All forms of religious expression were strictly forbidden, including any form of religious education.
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Women in Power
hold positions of influence as religious experts. Yet according to one study carried out by Mohammad Akram Nawi, a research fellow at the Oxford Center for Islamic Studies, there are more than 8,000 documented cases of female religious scholars.10 This discrepancy can be traced to Islam’s complex historical roots. Women played active roles as scholars and teachers in the first few centuries of the spread of Islam, and it was not until local patriarchal values began to take precedence over Islamic principles in the sixteenth century that this custom started to die out. From the same sixteenth century period, documentation emerges that details the establishment of women’s mosques in China. Khaled Abou Women Scholars and Their El-Fadl, Professor of Islamic Law at Mosques. One of the most striking UCLA, expressed the hope that, “peraspects of Islam in China is the long- haps from the margins of Islam the standing tradition of women’s mosques great tradition of women jurists might that dates back to the Ming dynasty. be rekindled.”11 And in fact very recentChina is the only country that has a ly there has been a heated discussion on history of women’s mosques dating back this very issue among senior scholars of for centuries, though there are exam- Islam in the Middle East. In June 2008 ples of women’s mosques in different Grand Mufti of Syria Shaikh Hassoun regions of the Muslim world.9 announced that he had already begun During the lifetime of the Prophet a project to train women as muftis, Muhammad, significant advances were recognized authorities of Islamic law made to improve the lives and legal authorized to interpret shari’a law and rights of women. Women played a issue fatwas.12 Although many religious very active role in the early years of leaders promptly criticized his deciIslam, and held positions of respect sion, by August, religious officials in and authority. It is reported that men Saudi Arabia admitted that nothing and women prayed side by side (as they in Islamic law prevents women from still do at Mecca) and that Muhammad becoming muftis.13 There has also been authorized women to lead men in a recent ruling by a prominent profesprayer if a woman was the most learned sor of Islamic jurisprudence in Egypt person present. However, throughout that Islamic law does not inhibit women the Muslim world today, women are from building their own mosques.14 not allowed to pray next to men, let This movement to promote religious alone lead prayers, and generally do not leadership positions for Muslim women
and represents both the Islamic practice of zakat (an annual contribution to the needy) as well as the custom of many minority groups of supporting their more disadvantaged brethren. Some Muslim groups today work together with government-sponsored organizations to support a range of charitable activities, while other groups prefer to work completely independently of the government and only with funds raised from within Muslim communities.8 In addition to their efforts to support religious education and develop assistance programs for the needy, Muslim women in China have assumed another unique role: religious leaders for their fellow women.
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has been extremely influential. It has allowed Muslim women to distinguish between the God-granted rights and obligations for both sexes as prescribed in the Qur’an, and those rights and obligations based on traditional local cultural practices that are not Islamic but are often claimed as such by men. As this movement continues to grow and spread throughout the Muslim
are closely monitored and their religious practices strictly controlled by the state. They are often accused of supporting “separatist” activities and terrorist attacks. And although there have been a handful of violent demonstrations against the state in Xinjiang, the overwhelming majority of Uighurs are law-abiding citizens that do not support separatist activities.15
Muslim Chinese religious leaders dis-
tinguish between God-granted rights and obligations and those...based on cultural practices that are not Islamic. world, it is important to acknowledge the role played by the Muslim women of China in facilitating the renaissance and survival of this tradition.
Covering most of northwest China, Xinjiang is China’s largest province and shares strategic borders with Russia, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Indian-controlled Kashmir, Rebiya Kadeer, Uighur and Tibet. It is also the location of Heroine. Given the very active role China’s nuclear testing facility at Lop taken by Chinese Muslim women in Nor and a major source of oil, natural community affairs, it should not be a gas, and coal. Because of its strategic surprise that the most famous Chinese location and extraordinary wealth of human rights activist today is a Muslim natural resources, the state sought to woman. Awarded the prestigious gain as much control as possible over Thorolf Rafto Human Rights Award this region shortly after the establish(Norway’s annual humanitarian award) ment of the People’s Republic of China in 2004, and nominated for the Nobel in 1949. At that time, Han Chinese Peace Prize in 2006, Rebiya Kadeer is made up less than five percent of the a Uighur Muslim from China’s north- total population; at present, they make west province, Xinjiang. She presently up close to half the population. The government has instituted measures to lives in exile in the United States. The Uighurs are the second largest outlaw almost all forms of religious Muslim group in China and live pri- practice and many cultural practices.16 marily in Xinjiang. Like many Muslims Born into poverty, Kadeer began her in China, they are of Turkic origin and business career in laundry and went on speak a Turkic language. Unlike other to develop a multi-million dollar tradChinese Muslims, however, their lives ing company and department store.
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She had become one of the wealthiest people in China. However, all along the way she used her status and resources to develop a variety of projects to assist other Uighurs in need. She set aside space in her store for poor Uighur students to study, established adult literacy programs, and founded the Thousand Mothers Movement, an NGO that provided job training and employment for Uighur women and also supported their efforts to start their own businesses. Society and government alike supported her civil society participation. She was held up as a role model by the Chinese state, and sent as an official delegate to the Fourth UN Conference on Women that was held in Beijing in 1995. She was even appointed to the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC).17 However, in 1997, after she publicly criticized the government’s violent crackdown on a Uighur demonstration in Gulja, she quickly became a target of government harassment. Politicizing her human rights and feminist views resulted in backlash. On her way to meet with a 1999 U.S. Congressional delegation, she was arrested and charged with “sharing state secrets.” Found guilty of mailing newspaper clippings to her husband overseas, she was sentenced to eight years in prison, two of which she served in solitary confinement. After numerous international campaigns both by governments, including the United States, and humanitarian organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, Kadeer was finally released in March 2005, just days before Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was to arrive in Beijing for a meeting. Since then Kadeer has lived in exile
Women in Power
in the United States. Unlike most other Chinese dissidents who have been released, she has continued to be an active proponent of the rights of Uighurs in China, despite government attacks on her children and the imprisonment of three of her sons. She has met with President Bush, testified before Congress, and spoken publicly on the plight of China’s Uighur population around the world. Kadeer has even influenced the creation of U.S. foreign policy. In September 2007, the U.S. House of Representatives passed Resolution 497 calling for the Chinese government to “recognize, and seek to ensure, the linguistic, cultural, and religious rights of the Uyghur people of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region” and “immediately release the children of Rebiya Kadeer from both incarceration and house arrest and cease harassment and intimidation of the Kadeer family members.”18 Kadeer, as a Muslim Chinese woman, embodies the cultural and social power that this minority group of women has developed over the centuries, and she lived much of her life successfully exercising this power in the private sector. However, she has been unable to translate that social power into political influence within China to make claims against the Chinese state. Although Chinese Muslim women have been able to leverage their triplicate of identities to create unique social power, this power is limited and excludes controversial political activism. Conclusion. As women throughout the world continue to face myriad challenges, it is important to acknowledge the ways in which women work within their traditions to improve their lives
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and the lives of those around them. And while some Western activists attempt to spread their own feminist ideals, individual societies can often initiate change more effectively by drawing on their own traditions. Muslim women in China have used both traditional Islamic and Chinese values to create a unique position for themselves. Though they still face the same challenges as most other women, they have also expanded on cultural traditions to overcome these challenges. Moreover, they have
used their roles as active members of religious organizations to establish a wide range of civil society programs that support orphans, the elderly, the illiterate, victims of natural disasters, and those living in abject poverty. So far, their activities have remained apolitical, a seemingly wise decision given the political atmosphere in China. In the future, however, Chinese Muslim women may well play a more active role in promoting an even greater degree of equality within civil society.
Notes
1 Dudley L. Poston Jr. and Peter A. Morrison, “China: Bachelor Bomb,” International Herald Tribune, 14 September 2005. Internet, http://www.iht. com/articles/2005/09/14/opinion/edegner.php (date accessed: 7 September 2008). Other scholars have estimated the number of missing girls to be even higher. See Laurel Bossen, “Forty Million Missing Girls: Land, Population Controls and Sex Imbalance in Rural China,” Japan Focus, 7 October 2005. Available online at http://www.japanfocus. org/_Laurel_Bossen-Forty_Million_Missing_Girls__ Land__Population_Controls_and_Sex_Imbalance_in_ Rural_China_. 2 One common source for jobs is the Muslim restaurants that are ubiquitous throughout China. They function as a relatively safe way for village women to find work in cities. 3 For a recent overview of the present situation of Muslims in China, see Jacqueline Armijo, “Islam in China,” in Asian Islam in the 21st Century, ed. John Voll and John Esposito (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007). 4 The Hui are the largest (approximately ten million) followed by the Uighurs (nine million). The other Muslim populations are much smaller and include: Kazak, Dongxiang, Kirghiz, Salar, Tajik, Uzbek, Baonan, and Tatar. 5 For an excellent overview of this unusual kingdom, see David Atwill, The Chinese Sultanate: Islam, Ethnicity, and the Panthay Rebellion in Southwest China, 18561873 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2005). 6 Traditionally in China, the children of secondary wives and concubines were still considered the children of the primary or first wife. For a more detailed account of how Muslims in southwest China continue to acknowledge the role played by their female ancestors, see Jacqueline Armijo, “Narratives Engendering Survival: How the Muslims of Southwest China Remember the Massacres of 1873,” Traces: An International Journal of Comparative Cultural Theory 1, no.
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2 (2001). 7 See Jacqueline Armijo, “Islamic Education in China,” Harvard Asia Quarterly 10, no. 1 (2006). Available online at http://www.asiaquarterly.com/ content/view/166/43. 8 There is a growing sense among Muslims in China that they have the resources to help each other, and there is less interest in seeking assistance from foreign sources. Kuwait, Iran, and Saudi Arabia were active supporters of past development projects in Muslim communities. 9 For research on the many women’s mosques in the Maldives, see Helen Chapin Metz, Indian Ocean: Five Island Countries (Washington, DC: Federal Research Division, 1995), 268. For analysis of Women’s mosque in Somalia, see Abdi Ismail Samatar, “Social Transformation and Islamic Reinterpretation in Northern Somalia: The Women’s Mosque in Gabiley,” in Geographies of Muslim Women, ed. Ghazi-Walid Falah and Caroline Nagel (New York and London: The Guilford Press, 2005). Currently, the women’s mosque that has received the most international attention is the one planned for Tamil Nadul, a state in southern India. See Asra Nomani, “The New Untouchables,” Washington Post, 4 November 2007. 10 This research project eventually developed into a 40-volume biographical dictionary of women scholars. For a brief overview of Nadwi’s research, see Carla Power, “A Secret History,” New York Times, 25 February 2007; and for a more detailed introduction to his research project see Mohammad Akram Nadwi, “Al-Muhaddithat, Notes for a talk on the women scholars of hadith,” Interface Publications, Internet, http://www.interfacepublications.com/ images/pdf/AKRAM_Article2.pdf. 11 Khaled Abou El-Fadl, interviewed by Louisa Lim, “Chinese Muslims Forge Isolated Path,” BBC News, 15 September 2004. 12 “Calls to enroll women in council of schol-
Armijo
ars,” Arab News, 2 August 2008. 13 “Women can issue Fatwas, be Muftis, says senior Sheikh,” Saudi Gazette, 30 August 2008. 14 Ramadan Al Sherbini, “Women’s mosque row erupts in Egypt,” Gulf News, 28 May 2008. 15 In 2002, the Bush administration supported China’s claim that there was a terrorist organization based in Xinjiang. Both scholars and diplomats widely criticized this decision, as there was no evidence that the East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM) was active in any way. See Erik Eckholm, “U.S. Labeling of Group in China as Terrorist is Criticized,” New York Times, 13 September 2002. In the aftermath of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, twenty-two Uighurs were captured and sent to Guantánamo Bay military prison. Since then, all of them have been cleared of terrorist actions. Five were released in 2006 and sent to Albania to avoid being punished by the government should they return to
Women in Power
China, and on 7 October 2008 the remaining seventeen were ordered released into the United States by U.S. District Judge Ricardo Urbina. Del Quentin Wilber, “Chinese Muslims Ordered Released from Guantanamo,” Washington Post, 8 October 2008. However, the following day an appeals court temporarily stayed the order. 16 For a comprehensive report on the situation in Xinjiang, see Human Rights Watch, Devastating Blows: Religious Repression of Uighurs in Xinjiang (2005), available online at http://hrw.org/reports/2005/china0405. See also Edward Wong, “Curbs Imposed on Muslims in Western China During Ramadan,” New York Times, 8 September 2008; and “Wary of Islam, China Tightens a Vise of Rules,” New York Times, 18 October 2008. 17 Paulette Chu Minter, “Taking a Stand for China’s Uighurs,” Far Eastern Economic Review 170, no. 2 (2007): 27-30.
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An End to Patriarchy Democratic Transformation and Women’s Liberation in Taiwan Annette Lu It is this generation’s great honor and responsibility to cultivate tomorrow’s female leaders. We have made tremendous progress in achieving equal rights for women, a dream that lay out of reach for our mothers and grandmothers. As a founder of Taiwan’s feminist movement in the early 1970s, I have devoted my life to raising the profile of women in Taiwan and abroad. When I was a young girl, widespread poverty in Taiwan resulted in acute gender discrimination. Many families with limited resources focused on providing an education for their boys. I have learned all too well that this problem, unfortunately, was not endemic to Taiwan alone. Women everywhere have had to press hard for meaningful change, even at the most liberal institutions in the world. My alma mater, Harvard Law School, first admitted women in 1950. That same year, Harvard offered a class entitled, “Women’s Education: Kitchen or Career.” One of the guest speakers that semester was Dr. Marynia Farnham, who wrote Modern Women: The Lost Sex.1 She argued that the only natural role for women was that of the homemaker. Women must pursue their “biological destiny” by bearing children, eschewing education, and adopting a wholly “feminine way of life.”
Annette Lu served as the first female vice president of Taiwan from 2000-2008. Prior to being elected vice president, Lu served as a legislator and county magistrate, and has been an advocate for women’s rights and democratization.
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United States Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, who enrolled at Harvard Law School just four years after they began to admit women, encountered great discrimination upon completing her studies at Harvard and Columbia. At that time, few firms were willing to hire female lawyers. In fact, before the enactment of the 1964 U.S. Civil Rights Act, it was permissible for law firms to openly adopt “men only” hiring policies. Justice Ginsberg was subsequently unable to find work
ers and theorists argued that women should focus only on women’s issues, but women could not emancipate themselves from a dictatorial authoritarian regime without getting involved in the politics of democratization. The two movements thus fueled one another in Taiwan. Throughout the thirty-eight year period of martial law in Taiwan, not only was democracy suspended and civil society restricted, but serious human rights abuses frequently occurred. I
The women’s movement was the first grassroots movement initiated by a native Taiwanese…
firmly believed then, as I do now, that women are limited only by the scope of their imaginations. I openly advocated for gender equality in Taiwan. In 1974, I published New Feminism.2 I argued that feminism arose as a societal demand. Women had awakened to the fact that they were bright, capable, and could achieve gender parity. Gender equality is necessary to create a prosperous, harmonious society that recognizes and cultivates the unique talent of all individuals. By standing together, women could supplant the dominant patriarchal paradigm with a new vision that treated everyone with respect and Conceptualizing Gender and dignity. To achieve these goals, I advoFeminism. Taiwan’s subsequent cated for pragmatic reforms such as the achievements in empowering wom- creation of a part-time work system, en and improving women’s lives are versatile working structure, and laws remarkable because women’s liberation to safeguard pregnant working womwent hand in hand with the political en from arbitrary dismissals and pay liberation of our nation from autoc- reductions. I consequently joined the democratic racy to democracy. Some feminist leadin legal practice after graduation, and entered academia instead. Although I studied at Harvard nearly twenty years after Justice Ginsberg, I faced similar discrimination upon graduating in 1978. As more and more girls passed the rigorous college entrance exams, Taiwanese leaders debated whether it was wise for universities to spend precious time and money on women’s education. After all, they argued, even the most learned women should not shirk from their most important obligations to society: marriage and childrearing.
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movement to challenge institutional obstruction of my attempts to promote feminism. My message of equality and harmony was not welcome everywhere. The women’s movement was the first grassroots movement initiated by a native Taiwanese and the Kuomintang (KMT) authoritarian government monitored my movements with growing suspicion. For six years I advocated feminism while simultaneously working to integrate this movement with opposition to the Kuomintang. I gave speeches, fought against repression, and wrote articles on women’s rights issues.
Challenging the Regime. By
1978 I had already earned my L.L.M. from Harvard Law School. I won a postgraduate fellowship to continue my legal studies in Cambridge, but soon returned to Taiwan to run in the upcoming national assembly election. In a decade in which many governments were beginning to recognize the People’s Republic of China, I was certain that the United States would break diplomatic ties with Taiwan. However, the Taiwanese people were not yet aware of this coming crisis. By exploiting a loophole in the martial law prohibition against free speech, during my election campaign I warned Taiwanese about the dangers of a break in U.S.-Taiwan diplomatic relations. I was particularly worried that my country would experience the nightmare of South Vietnam’s collapse. Regretfully, the United States declared its formal recognition of China right in the middle of the campaign. The Kuomintang dictatorship seized upon this news as an excuse to cancel the election and increase its stranglehold over the nation. Across the
Women in Power
island, confrontations between opposition activists and authorities grew frequent. On 10 December 1979, the opposition organized a mass rally in Kaohsiung, Taiwan’s second largest city. In what was subsequently dubbed the “Kaohsiung Incident,” activists marked International Human Rights Day by protesting the ongoing repression in Taiwan. Police and soldiers received orders to release tear gas into the crowd and gangsters were organized to attack the police in an attempt to implicate opposition leaders. In fact, the activists carried no weapons and had no intention of attacking anyone. We were entrapped. Chaos reverberated through the streets and fear gripped the people. Outraged, I stood on top of a truck and addressed a crowd of tens of thousands. During my twenty-minute speech, I criticized the authoritarian regime and stressed the pressing need for human rights and democracy. This was a defining moment for the opposition movement and for my political career. No one had dared to speak out publicly against the dictatorship before then. Eventually, 152 activists were arrested. Eight opposition leaders, including me, faced court-martial and were subsequently sentenced to twelve years in prison. Our loss was the nation’s gain, however, as the Kaohsiung Incident was a watershed moment for Taiwan’s democracy. The next elections were held while we were still imprisoned. Many wives of incarcerated activists ran in place of their husbands and won office. Their courageous actions inspired and emboldened the whole nation to further support democracy.
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and tackled organized crime—including the syndicated gangs organized by local politicians. I initiated construction and development plans that made Taoyuan one of the most prosperous and attractive counties in Taiwan. These achievements earned me a national reputation for hard work, honesty, and transparency. For these reasons I was considered the best running mate for then-presidential candidate Chen. Our victory in 2000 represented Taiwan’s victory of democracy over autocracy, as well as the peaceful transformation of one of the world’s most corrupt and dictatorial regimes. Although my election heralded a new era of women’s political participation Moving Towards the Vice Presidency. My path to the vice in Taiwan, our newfound assertivepresidency began in 1997, ten years ness in the political arena was a shock after democratic reforms began, when for traditional Taiwanese society. The mafia and political factions still held people had never witnessed any woman, the public administration hostage. The besides the first lady, standing next to Although I lost my freedom, I never lost my convictions. I continued to desire to see change for democracy, human rights, and the cause dearest to me— gender equality—throughout Taiwan. No one would then have expected that twenty years later, Chen Shui-bian, one of the defense lawyers from the Kaohsiung case, would invite me—one of the eight “seditious elements”—to serve as his running mate. No one would have ever imagined that together, we would overturn fifty years of authoritarian one-party rule to emerge as the first opposition president and vice president.
After countless years of advocacy and
hard work, Taiwanese women enjoy a high social status. magistrate and eight other local politicians were brutally massacred that year in Taoyuan, my home county. My party nominated me to run as the magistrate’s replacement. The Taiwanese people were horrified and shocked by the murders. Despite the imminent danger, I accepted the challenge and was overwhelmingly elected to run the county. Often working twenty-hour days, I spent the next three years reforming Taoyuan. I built advanced incinerators, cleared mountains of accumulated garbage off the streets, fought official corruption,
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the president. Some people joked that I should behave like the president’s “political wife.” Moreover, I was operating without much formal guidance, as our Constitution does not clearly delineate the powers and duties of the vice president. Whenever I made politically controversial or sensitive remarks, the media and general public attempted to silence me and render me powerless. This situation presented immense challenges during the first two years of my vice presidency. It is well known abroad that the
Lu
Women in Power
in politics. During the eight years of our administration, thirty-five women were appointed to ministerial or vice ministerial positions and two served as vice premier. Most recently, my party, the Democratic Progressive Party, elected its first chairwoman. Our administration played an active role in promoting the interests of women. The central government established the inter-agency Women Rights Promotion Committee and the Committee for the Equal Rights and Advancement of Women. We codified parity for working women with the landmark Gender Equality in Employment Law in 2002. By facilitating communication among the government, the business community, and feminist leaders, we could better promote the rights and well-being of women. Other actions designed to empower women included the Diversified Career Development Project, the New Century Manpower Development Project, and Making Policy from Taipei. the “Flying Geese” Project. These proDespite China’s insults and attempts by grams were created to provide a more my Taiwanese countrymen to belittle or equitable business environment for weaken me, I persisted in doing what I female workers. Through these prothought to be right and what I believed grams, the government endeavored to to be necessary for the good of my provide loan advice and training for nation. I maintained my commitment enterprising women from a woman’s to human rights, peace, and the pro- perspective. Our administration also motion of soft power. I chaired both established programs to help women the Presidential Council on Human outside of the workplace. The “Good Rights and the Presidential Council on Housekeeper” Project urges the govHigh Technology. Gradually, the whole ernment to train one hundred twenty nation learned to accept a woman as thousand women from minority and deputy head of state. People learned to disadvantaged backgrounds—especiallike me as a politician who was honest, ly single mothers and divorcees—in sincere, and outspoken but approach- housekeeping, baby-sitting, and nursing services. In addition, the “Golden able. As vice president of Taiwan, I tire- Age” Project promotes the well-being lessly promoted women’s participation of senior women, which is particularly People’s Republic of China was no friend of President Chen. They vilified and censured me relentlessly—as female and pro-independence—for my outspoken promotion of Taiwan, calling me the “scum of the nation” and “insane.” Their attacks reflected typical attitudes of the Chinese government towards women in politics. China claims to espouse a modern egalitarian philosophy that embraces women’s political participation. Nevertheless, Chinese men still maintain the old Confucian attitude that a woman participating in politics is like a “hen crowing at dawn.” No woman has ever served on the powerful Chinese Politburo Standing Committee and only one female currently serves of the State Council. In contrast, over the years we have successfully changed the political structure in Taiwan; my country boasts many female leaders throughout all levels of government.
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have improved the quality of legislation passed in my country. According to the Inter-Parliamentary Union, the percentage of women winning seats in the Taiwanese legislature far surpasses the number of women elected to parliaments in many other countries. The organization cites an average of only 18 percent female lawmakers in Asia and 17.8 percent worldwide.5 In the United States, women hold only 16 percent of congressional seats. During the eight Achieving Gains for Women in years I have spent as vice president of Taiwan. After countless years of advo- Taiwan, our cabinet has benefited from cacy and hard work, Taiwanese women the wisdom of fifteen female officials. enjoy a high social status. My country In addition, on 8 March 2008, Interhas fought to ensure that women have national Women’s Day, I attended the the opportunity to serve their country opening of Taiwan’s new Women Cenat the highest levels of government. Our ter. The center highlights the women’s efforts have already shown great success. rights movement in Taiwan and serves The UN Development Program Gender to facilitate communication between Empowerment Measure calculates the Taiwanese women and their sisters percentages of women in parliament around the world. Since stepping down as vice president and senior professional posts, as well as income ratios, in order to determine this past spring, I have remained comthe status of women in a given society. mitted to promoting women’s active Under this rubric, Taiwan currently participation in both political and proranks second in Asia and nineteenth fessional spheres. Through my work worldwide.3 Since these statistics were with the Democratic Pacific Union published in 2004, Taiwan has further (DPU) and the International Fedincreased the number of women in par- eration of Business and Professional Women (BPW) Taiwan, I wish to affect liament by 8 percent.4 In the 1970s, women comprised positive change in the lives of women at a mere 7 percent of the legislature. home and abroad. I formally launched the DPU in Today, nearly one-third of Taiwan’s legislators are women. Women com- 2005, bringing together twenty-eight prise half of all proportional repre- democracies in the Pacific region to sentation candidates; directly elected promote democracy, peace, and proscandidates are not subject to the same perity through the use of soft power quota rules. Moreover, women have and multilateral cooperation. I subsecaptured nearly 35 percent of seats in quently created the DPU Distinguished city and county councils. These female Women League in 2006, which seeks parliamentarians have not only bro- to surmount career obstacles faced by ken the glass ceiling in Taiwan, but women as well as advance their busiimportant given the fact that the average lifespan for women is eighty-two years, which is six years longer than for men. The project aims to teach senior women to take good care of themselves and maintain health, beauty, and happiness. It is my sincere hope that every Taiwanese woman will foster self-consciousness, self-love, self-strength, and independence, as great feminine beauty is cultivated from within.
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ness and professional interests. We have already held four successful women’s empowerment camps focusing on different themes. Taiwan became a full member of BPW in May 2008. The organization and its affiliates around the world empower women to support themselves economically by holding personal development and training programs. As the founder and first chairwoman of BPW Taiwan, I look forward to integrating Taiwan into this global network. This past summer I held a meeting of women representing the DPU Distinguished Women League and BPW Taiwan. As we hold similar values and goals for the future, we decided to cooperate on future projects to benefit Taiwanese women.
The Road Ahead. Despite many accomplishments, our work to promote greater women’s political participation is far from over. We have yet to fulfill the promises we have made
Women in Power
to our daughters and granddaughters. We still live in a world where discrimination exists. We live in a world where girls and women are still abused. We live in a world where far too often, women are forced to settle for far less than they deserve. However, these challenges must not weaken our resolve. We must continue to invest in the lives and careers of young girls and women. As I recall the following anecdote, there is no doubt in my mind that we continue to make progress. When I completed my tenure in office, Vincent Siew became the new vice president of Taiwan. A little boy watching the proceedings asked his mother: “Why is the vice president a man?” It is undoubtedly a great achievement that the youngest generation of Taiwanese already takes it for granted that many of their nation’s most prominent leaders are women. I hope it won’t be too long before a little girl asks: “Why isn’t the president a woman?”
Notes
1 Ferdinand Lundberg and Marynia Farnham, Modern Women: The Lost Sex (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1947). 2 Annette Lu, “New Feminism” (Taipei: You shi yue kan she (Youth Monthly Press), 1974). 3 UNDP facts were based on calculations carried out by
the Taiwanese Government Information Office (GIO). 4 Ibid. 5 Inter-Parliamentary Union, “Women in National Parliaments: World Classification,” 30 September 2006, Internet, http://www.ipu.org/ wmn-e/classif.htm.
Winter/Spring 2009 [ 53]
Politics&Diplomacy Beyond the Water’s Edge
The Role of Ex-Presidents in U.S. Foreign Policy Alex J. Douville While ex-presidents have used their stature and influence to support or challenge the foreign policies of incumbent presidents, it was not until the twentieth century and the rise of the United States as a superpower that these forays into foreign policy took on a global significance. This tendency became more pronounced after the United States emerged from World War II as the dominant economic power on the planet and the leader of the “free world.” Thereafter, the ability of presidents and former presidents to influence world policies increased exponentially. Since the end of the Cold War, however, ex-presidents have taken a more visible and active role in the critique and development of foreign policy. There are varied reasons for this increased activity, including increased life expectancies, the relatively young ages at which post-modern presidents have retired, and greater communication capabilities such as the twenty-fourhour news cycle and the Internet. The celebrity enjoyed by today’s ex-presidents continues to provide them with a “bully pulpit”—albeit a reduced one from when they were presidents—to promote programs or policies about which they feel strongly. This ability to make headlines, along with the ease of access to media outlets, should not be diminished or ignored.
Alex J. Douville is Director of Policy Studies at the Center for the Study of the Presidency in Washington, D.C.
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As the United States enters the twenty-first century, ex-presidents will continue to actively engage in foreign policy debates and implementation with or without the consent of the administration. This is a good thing and could be critical to the success of future U.S. foreign policies. Modern ex-presidents have shown that they can positively influence international relations and U.S. policy abroad. Even in instances when their activities contradict current policies, ex-presidents often showcase the best qualities of American culture and society—freedom, goodwill, and compassion—throughout the world. In an increasingly globalized world, the United States needs to work simultaneously on different levels to promote public diplomacy and establish and strengthen international relations. Ex-presidents are valu-
of the relevant history. I then examine in greater detail the examples of modern ex-presidents and their public policy activities after retirement, focusing on the post–Cold War era. I conclude by discussing the future role and implications of ex-presidents in foreign policy in the twenty-first century.
Ex-Presidents and Foreign Policy Before 1980. Since George
Washington was called back into active service to head the U.S. Army during the quasi-war with France in 1797— thus providing de facto support to the Federalists during a time of extreme partisanship—ex-presidents have influenced foreign policy decision making in the United States. Most of these machinations were constrained by the fact that, until the turn of the twentieth century, U.S. presidents tended to con-
Even in instances when their activities
contradict current policies, ex-presidents often showcase the best qualities of American culture and society...throughout the world. able resources for sitting presidents to utilize when formulating foreign policy, and an ex-president’s activities should be coordinated—whenever possible—to complement U.S. foreign policy. The president-elect would be wise to consider the contributions former Presidents Jimmy Carter, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush can make when conducting foreign policy around the world. In this article, I further expound on the role of ex-presidents in foreign policy, beginning with a brief overview
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centrate on domestic policies while in office, as they attempted to shelter the country from foreign entanglements. Therefore, ex-presidents’ public activities involving foreign policy and international relations tended to follow the lead of sitting presidents. It was not until the beginning of the twentieth century, when U.S. power increased exponentially during World War I, that an expresident’s opinions and activities began to shape foreign policy decision making and have international significance. In 1919, the U.S. Senate rejected
Douville
the Versailles Treaty, and over the next twenty years the United States tried to isolate itself from world affairs. Its expresidents did so as well. But, by the time the United States entered World War II on 7 December 1941, the president and the nation’s leaders were no longer able to isolate their policies from those of the world at large. Increasingly, decisions made by the president influenced the world in ways unheard of just a few years before. The United States emerged from the war as the only relatively unscathed great power. Japan and Germany were defeated, the once mighty empires of France and Britain were on the brink of collapse, and the Soviet Union was exhausted. The United States had entered a unique period in its history when its leaders’ decisions reverberated around the world. Unfortunately, shortly after their victorious end to World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union became locked in a Cold War that dictated U.S. policy for the next fifty years. United States foreign policy during this period was dominated by the suffocating threat of communist imperialism, and American political partisanship largely took a back seat in order to galvanize the nation’s resources to defeat it. Since the threat of communism was so great, many people agreed with Senator Arthur Vandenberg’s notion that politics stopped at the “water’s edge” and that Americans should speak “with one voice to those who would divide and conquer us and the free world.”1 Therefore, ex-presidents largely removed themselves from foreign policy debates during the Cold War to avoid being labeled unpatriotic or pro-communist. As always, there were exceptions to
Politics&Diplomacy
this Cold War uniformity, but they did not significantly manifest themselves until the late 1960s and 1970s when the Vietnam War and the Middle East oil crisis undermined the ideological consensus that had dominated U.S. politics since the 1940s. As the United States became increasingly divided over the Vietnam War, former President Eisenhower—who first inserted military advisors into Vietnam—came out vocally in support of escalating the war to achieve victory, including the possibility of using nuclear weapons. For this reason, he supported Richard Nixon’s presidential campaign in 1968 and helped sway votes away from Hubert Humphrey. After the trials and tribulations of the 1960s and early 1970s, many citizens felt that the United States was on the verge of losing its global supremacy and heading in the wrong direction. From Americans’ anxiety and disillusionment came a growing belief that it was critical to the future of the country to participate in political discussions and debates, especially those involving national security and foreign policy. With the stakes seemingly that much higher, ex-presidents felt that they could no longer sit on the sidelines as impartial observers. By the end of the 1970s, ex-presidents began to play a more active role in foreign policy, although they did not always support sitting presidents or their policies. In 1978, when President Carter needed Republican support to pass the Panama Canal Treaty, he sought the help of former President Ford. Ford had been defeated by Carter for the presidency in 1976 but helped secure the necessary votes in Congress to pass one of Carter’s signature bills. Ford’s
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support was instrumental, as it provided political cover for Republicans in Congress to support the treaty.2 By the end of the 1970s, the U.S. political atmosphere was in the midst of a profound transformation, which culminated in 1980 with the election of Ronald Reagan. This new era, shaped by a rise in partisanship on both sides of the aisle as the demands of the Cold War conflicted with domestic priorities, also witnessed a transformation in the relationship between ex-presidents and foreign policy.
The Modern Ex-Presidency Since 1980. Ronald Reagan’s inau-
guration in January 1981 ushered in the ex-presidency of Jimmy Carter, who some have called the greatest expresident in U.S. history. Carter was able to remain active on the world scene after leaving office for a variety of reasons. Some were unique to his personality and religious beliefs, but others had more to do with the changing global, medical, business, and technological environments of the period. These universal factors have shaped the ex-presidencies of his successors and will continue to do so. The dramatic growth in the 1980s in the capacity and influence of former presidents began shortly after Reagan took office with the creation of the Carter Center in Atlanta, Georgia. This new organization was to be a public policy institute to promote Carter’s many domestic and foreign policy interests, ranging from supporting the poor and homeless in America to securing peace in the Middle East, and promoting democracy, free elections, and humanitarian assistance through-
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out the world. Ex-presidents had hitherto established libraries only to store their personal papers and to showcase their accomplishments when in office. The establishment of the Carter Center set a precedent by providing a platform from which Carter could continue to influence U.S. policy. In the last fifteen years, ex-Presidents George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton have followed Carter’s lead, founding their own public policy institutions in addition to creating their presidential libraries after retirement. The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 brought an end to the anti-communist consensus in U.S. foreign policy. United States foreign policy lacked consistency and a clear goal, creating a void that former presidents filled by leveraging their public policy institutes. For example, Clinton sent Carter to Haiti in September 1994 with Senator Sam Nunn and former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell to negotiate a peaceful settlement with the ruling military junta and forestall a U.S. invasion. This eleventh-hour diplomacy succeeded in restoring the democratically elected Jean-Bertrand Aristide to power and was hailed as a significant achievement for Carter. It also set a precedent for other ex-presidents to engage in similar diplomatic missions, such as George H. W. Bush’s and Bill Clinton’s humanitarian relief efforts after the 2004 tsunami disaster in Asia. President Carter has since independently observed many elections around the world, helped broker a peace deal in Bosnia that ultimately resulted in the Dayton Accords, and even made the first visit to Cuba by a sitting or retired U.S. president since Fidel Castro took power in 1959.
Douville
Carter has also strived to resolve conflict in the Middle East—something that has been dear to his heart since Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin signed the Camp David Accords in 1978. These and other efforts culminated in the presentation of the Nobel Peace Prize to President Carter in 2002.3 However, Carter also has been criticized at times for interfering with U.S. policies, especially his apparent bias on Israeli policy toward the Palestinians and his negotiations with Hamas, which the U.S. government has labeled a terrorist organization. Since his retirement, Carter’s activities have also chagrined and sometimes embarrassed sitting U.S. presidents, Republican and Democrat alike. In fact, a poll conducted immediately after Carter’s mission to Haiti in 1994 indicated that he received 70 percent of the credit for its success while President Clinton—who ultimately approved and signed off on the visit—only received 30 percent.4 Nevertheless, Carter used his credibility with the leadership of Haiti, as well as a history of goodwill, to find a peaceful solution to the crisis. Over the years since his retirement, Carter has built similar relationships with other nations whose leaders and people sometimes view U.S. policy skeptically. It will be important to keep these alternative channels and relationships open in the future. After his retirement in 2000, former President Bill Clinton took a page from the Carter playbook by opening his own public policy institute, the William J. Clinton Foundation, with offices in Little Rock, Boston, and New York City. The Foundation supports his domestic and international policies in the United States, Africa, and the
Politics&Diplomacy
rest of the world, including HIV/AIDS and malaria relief and prevention, as well as increased awareness of the environment, globalization, and alternative resource development. Clinton is known for his strong personality and charm and is supported in his efforts by the many contacts he has cultivated over the years with world leaders. In many countries, especially in Africa, Clinton is hailed as a hero, and his activities have served as a palliative to the unpopular, unilateralist policies of the George W. Bush administration. The Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004 symbolized the growing power of expresidents to supplement U.S. policy. President George W. Bush tapped his father and Clinton to lead the humanitarian efforts in the affected countries. These “Goodwill Ambassadors” focused private-sector attention on the plight of many tens of thousands of people left homeless or otherwise debilitated by the flooding.5 In many ways, these two ex-presidents were able to foster international support for the U.S. humanitarian aid mission in a way that the current President Bush could not, due to unpopular U.S. policies in the global war on terror. Former presidents can also circumvent the animosity that plagues traditional channels of U.S. foreign policy, championing American ideals by acting as unofficial “Goodwill Ambassadors.” For example, in early August 2008, Bill Clinton toured many African countries promoting the work of the Clinton Foundation to fight the spread of malaria and HIV/AIDS in Africa. Despite the fact that the current Bush administration has spent over $16 billion to address these same ills, some
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ages at which modern ex-presidents have retired. Carter was fifty-six years old when he retired, and Clinton fifty-four. The last five U.S. presidents have lived an average of almost nineteen years beyond their retirement. In comparison, the twenty-nine presidents before them lived an average of only twelve years after leaving office. In fact, Ford and Carter are two of the top three longest-living ex-presidents. This disparity will only increase with further advances in medicine. No one would have expected men with such intellect and persuasive personalities to retire quietly from the scene had they worked in other professions. Why should presidents be any different? Besides his relative youth, ambition, and abilities, Clinton had the added incentive of the TwentySecond Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which limited presidents to two terms. With any further presidential political ambitions squashed, he concentrated on other activities to sate his personal ambitions. Clinton’s predecessor, George H. W. Bush, is a unique case for determining foreign policy impact after retiring, since he and John Adams are the only U.S. presidents whose sons later took office. The fact that Bush was sixtyCharacteristics of the Modern eight years old when he retired may Ex-Presidency. What differentiates have contributed to at least some of the modern era of the ex-presidency his initial inactivity—in comparison to from previous ones? The answer lies Carter and Clinton—but he seems to partly in the increase of life expectan- enjoy his emerging status as a patriarch, cies in the United States and around while his two sons and other younger the world due to scientific and medical family members continue to advance advances. A longer life span has allowed their ambitions. It is also apparent ex-presidents to remain active and pro- that the elder Bush discussed foreign ductive long after their retirement. A policy after the terrorist attacks on 9/11, corollary to this is the relatively young although how much influence he actuAfricans are unhappy with U.S. policies and continue to focus on their belief that Americans seek to expand their power on the continent by securing natural resources and economic markets for U.S. businesses.6 This trip by a former president highlights how to promote the benevolent nature of U.S. humanitarian assistance without any apparent ulterior or strategic motives. This moment also highlighted the capacity of modern former presidents to influence foreign policies that support overall U.S. strategy and humanitarian aims. This role seems to be growing, largely due to Clinton’s work and his recent tsunami relief efforts with former President George H. W. Bush. This and other humanitarian efforts by former presidents can only have a positive influence on U.S. public diplomacy and stature around the world. However, ex-presidents should not be limited to pursuing largely humanitarian missions. As former President Carter has shown through his trips to Haiti and Bosnia, ex-presidents can also significantly reduce tensions within individual countries or regions by acting as mediators, impartial arbitrators, or formal envoys to broker broader disputes of international significance.
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Douville
ally had on his son’s signature foreign policy decisions regarding Afghanistan and Iraq will continue to be debated. Another factor influencing the ability of ex-presidents to enter foreign policy debates is the celebrity recognition that they receive around the world. They will always make news, especially in this era of twenty-four-hour news cycles and international media. In a world where anybody can have their fifteen minutes of fame, the ability to earn face time becomes increasingly
Politics&Diplomacy
political base to appeal to for re-election, they have extraordinary amounts of latitude to determine what policies they wish to support, what regions of the world to concentrate their efforts on, or, for that matter, with whom to meet. The reasons for this ability are many— and I have only been able to discuss a few in this article—including longer life spans, the advent of the twenty-fourhour news cycle, the communications revolution, and personal ambition. Sitting presidents should make a con-
Even if ex-presidents are not in power,
they are still members of a very exclusive club and command respect from citizens inside the United States and those around the world. scious effort to utilize the abilities of ex-presidents from either party to supplement U.S. policies abroad. These diplomatic and cultural backchannels can only help dispel the notion that the United States seeks to assert its hegemony unilaterally, despite the wants and needs of the rest of the world. Unfortunately, there are significant pitfalls to consider when ex-presidents involve themselves in U.S. foreign policy, which need to be recognized by sitting presidents and Congress when formulating their own policies. While the ability to blaze a separate trail and act independently of U.S. policy is one of the greatest attributes of an ex-president, there is the possibility that an The Future of the Ex-Presi- ex-president’s initiatives may contradency. Overall, the effect that mod- dict current U.S. policies. For examern U.S. ex-presidents have on foreign ple, the 2007 publication of President policy seems to be generally positive. Carter’s book Palestine: Peace not Apartheid Because ex-presidents no longer have a largely blamed Israel for the continucritical to the success of domestic and international policy. Even if ex-presidents are not in power, they are still members of a very exclusive club and command respect from citizens inside the United States and around the world. While Democratic presidents seem to be more active publicly in their retirements than their Republican counterparts, it does not mean that the latter have no effect on U.S. foreign policy. Both Gerald Ford and Richard Nixon were known to advise sitting presidents from time to time, including an evening Bill Clinton spent in early 1993 with Nixon discussing, among other things, then-current foreign policies.
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ing crisis between it and Palestine and dealt a severe blow to President Bush’s peace efforts in the region, especially as it validated increasing anti-American rhetoric in the wake of U.S. invasions in Afghanistan and Iraq. Furthermore, unsolicited advice or programs that promote specific policies in a country or region but may be contrary to current U.S. policy threaten to confuse what the actual U.S. policy is or should be. Nevertheless, current presidents must also be aware that ex-presidents are their own people whose activities and aspirations might potentially conflict with U.S. policy. While it is best to avoid these discrepancies if possible, these situations should not automatically be decried, as they are a reflection of the complexity, uniqueness, and strength of the American system of government. Furthermore, the next president cannot rely solely on the traditional avenues of U.S. foreign policy in today’s increasingly globalized world. The changed environment will require the use of soft power—economic, cultural, and social enticements—as well as hard power— traditional military force and diplomacy. The success of soft power will rely largely on the work of NGOs and private-sector industries, including those led or supported by ex-presidents. With this in mind, I believe that it is important to keep any relationship between current presidents and ex-
presidents informal. The independence of ex-presidents and their initiatives is a major reason for their success. Needlessly bureaucratizing the link between activities of the president and ex-presidents would intertwine the policies of both and shatter the perception that ex-presidents’ initiatives altruistically benefit other nations or peoples. It is better to leave the relationships between the current administration and ex-presidents ad hoc to preserve credibility and trust. President-elect Barack Obama will face many critical challenges soon after January 2009 and will need to reach out to the living ex-presidents when formulating and conducting foreign policy. Each living ex-president has strengths and abilities that can be tapped to supplement official government foreign policy, and any administration would be wise to recognize their usefulness. United States foreign policy will be enriched and strengthened by the work of the nation’s ex-presidents, regardless of party affiliation. It remains to be seen what role George W. Bush will play in foreign policy upon his retirement, especially as his policies have polarized much of the world. However, if the precedents of the living ex-presidents are any guide, Bush will continue to influence U.S. policy either publicly or privately, and future presidents would be wise to include him and other living ex-presidents in their calculus.
Notes
1 Richard Benedetto, “Remember when partisan politics stopped at the water’s edge?” USA Today, 18 November 2005. 2 Thomas Schaller and Thomas Williams, “The Contemporary Presidency: Postpresidential Influence in the Postmodern Era,” Presidential Studies Quarterly 33, no.1 (2003): 188-200. 3 Lewis L. Gould, The Modern American Presidency (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas,
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2003), 189. 4 Maureen Dowd, “Mission to Haiti: The Diplomat; Despite Role as Negotiator, Carter Feels Unappreciated,” New York Times, 21 September 1994. 5 The Associated Press, “Bush and Clinton, in Thailand, Start of Tour of Tsunami Region,” New York Times, 20 February 2005. 6 “George Bush’s last year,” The Economist, 3 January 2008.
Politics&Diplomacy
Wasted Riches
Robert Mugabe and the Desolation of Zimbabwe Sue Onslow and Sean Redding As news from Zimbabwe continues to read as a relentless spiral downward into madness, a faint glimmer of hope has recently appeared. Against the proliferation of reports of persecution and violence against activists and supporters of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), a power-sharing pact signed in mid-September 2008 between Robert Mugabe and leaders of the MDC seemed on the verge of implementation.1 But Mugabe’s refusal to concede the key cabinet portfolios of defense, finance, and internal affairs (including the police) to MDC appointees signals that the Zimbabwe African National Union-Political Front (ZANUPF) leadership is determined to avoid sweeping political changes.
Sue Onslow is a research fellow at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). Her primary research interests and expertise are focused on the history of post-colonial southern Africa. Sean Redding is a professor of History and Black Studies at Amherst College. Her courses include ‘Colonial and Post-Colonial Africa’ and ‘Introduction to South African History.’
A Basic History of Modern Zimbabwe. How did Zimbabwe get to this desperate point of economic crisis, humanitarian catastrophe, and political infighting from an apparently bright dawn of independence in 1980? Why have the international community and Zimbabwe’s neighbors (above all, South Africa) proved so slow to act in the face of blatant human rights violations and the evident destabilization of the surrounding region? The reasons are Winter/Spring 2009 [ 63]
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firmly rooted in Zimbabwe’s historical experience and in the personalities and outlook of the present Zimbabwean leadership. Furthermore, regional and international pressure for meaningful political compromise is limited by Zimbabwe’s demonstrated willingness to use force as a political weapon. Commentators find it much easier to identify the causes of Zimbabwe’s problems than to achieve consensussolutions. The country’s “historical hinterland” is important. The arrival of Cecil Rhodes’s Pioneer Column in the 1890s and its subsequent expropriation of land left a lasting scar on the historical memory of the indigenous people. Deprived of their land, the Ndebele and Mashona rebelled in 1896-7, but they were brutally suppressed. (Over subsequent years, the myth arose that this first struggle, dubbed the first Chimurenga, or Liberation war, was the root of the Zimbabwean nationalist movements of the 1950s onward). Southern Rhodesia produced a particular experiment in white settler capi-
thirty thousand to two hundred thirty thousand) both changed the political complexion of the colony and complicated its future. Immediately after the Second World War, the government of Southern Rhodesia had hoped for independence from the British crown. But Rhodesian whites had not factored African nationalism and rapid decolonization elsewhere on the continent into their equation. Faced with demands from both African nationalists and the British state to dismantle the system of political and economic discrimination by the early 1960s, the Southern Rhodesian government was determined to achieve formal independence on the basis of continued white minority rule. They then opted for a “managed” transition of limited political and economic rights to the indigenous population. In November 1965, the Rhodesia Front Government announced its defiance of London in declaring its Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI). UDI radicalized the two prin-
Rhodesian whites had not factored Af-
rican nationalism and rapid decolonization elsewhere on the continent into their equation. talism as, nominally ruled by the British crown, the colony acquired unique control over its fiscal policy, judiciary, and police. The economic boom accompanying the war years and rapid expansion of white immigration to the colony between 1945 and 1960 (increasing the white population from approximately
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cipal black Zimbabwean nationalist movements: the Zimbabwean African People’s Union (ZAPU) and the Zimbabwean African National Union (ZANU). ZAPU was headed by Joshua Nkomo, who had a trade-unionist background and strong ties to African leaders in Zambia and South Africa.
Onslow & Redding
ZANU was led by Robert Mugabe, who came from an academic background and had ties to nationalist leaders in Mozambique. ZAPU’s and ZANU’s previous attachment to constitutionalism and negotiation was increasingly replaced by demands for armed struggle. They blamed Britain for being the political oppressor of Africans and saw the local white settlers as British, rather than as Rhodesians with a particular white Rhodesian nationalist identity. Denied a peaceful route to accelerated political power-sharing by the intransigence of the Rhodesian Front, African nationalists quickly came to see violence as a legitimate—and necessary—political language. Meanwhile, the Rhodesian Front government used the Cold War environment to demonize opposition to continued white minority dominance. The discourse of anticommunism effectively cut down the democratic space, marginalizing liberal white opinion and debasing its arguments for a rapid transition to black political and economic rights. It also stigmatized African nationalism as the product of external manipulation by hostile communist powers, directed by Moscow. The politics of black Zimbabwean nationalism, already defined and divided by clan, personality, and ideology, was thus complicated by the ideological struggle of the Cold War. Driven by white obduracy to seek external assistance, nationalist parties acquired arms and prepared for a protracted guerrilla war. Guerrilla insurgency demanded solidarity and imposed hierarchies: leaders justified the suppression of internal dissent, which could weaken the potency and effectiveness of the liberation forces.
Politics&Diplomacy
However, the Zimbabwean nationalist forces were wracked by political infighting, to the despair of their external patrons in Zambia, Botswana, Tanzania, and (after 1974) Mozambique. The militarization of the liberation struggle and the determined resistance of the white regime had profound and traumatic consequences for Zimbabwean society. The response of the Rhodesian, white-led security forces was a military counterinsurgency strategy designed to suppress “terrorist” actions rather than seek political accommodation with African leaders. The conflict became increasingly cruel. By the mid- to late1970s, rural communities were targeted and brutalized with increasing frequency by the ZANLA forces (the armed wing of ZANU); to a lesser degree by combatants of ZIPRA (ZAPU’s guerilla wing), who used intimidation as a political weapon of mobilization and control; and by the Rhodesian forces.
Flawed Legacies at Independence. When Britain and neighboring African states finally managed to persuade all factions to attend a constitutional conference in 1979, the three leaders in the war (Robert Mugabe of ZANU, Joshua Nkomo of ZAPU, and Abel Muzorewa, leader of a Government of National Unity hastily created by the Rhodesian Front) did so because each believed that his side could win through the electoral process. If electoral victory was not achievable, each believed that the option of force remained—and, again, each believed he could win. However, given the lack of decisive military victories by any side, the political transition to Zimbabwean independence in April 1980 was neces-
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sarily a pragmatic compromise. ZANU-PF won that first election and Mugabe came to power, but the negotiated compromises prevented him from fully implementing certain policies that
the white minority regime lasted into the post-independence era, providing for intelligence gathering and detentions without trial, while giving broad powers to the executive branch. The
The first decade of Zimbabwe’s indepen-
dence following Mugabe’s election in 1980 appeared to be a multi-racial success story. However, the reality was uglier. had been central to the war. Land—the most salient cause behind Chimurenga for rural communities, although not for the ZANU-PF leadership—would not be swiftly returned to the Zimbabwean people. Land redistribution was resolved on the basis of “willing-buyer, willing-seller,” which protected private property rights, rather than nationalization or state sequestration. Although land reform was backed by substantial British and (deliberately unspecified) American funding, Britain, South Africa, and the Rhodesian/Zimbabwean business community were concerned about how to prevent white flight and economic breakdown of the country by providing guarantees to the white business and agricultural communities. The first decade of Zimbabwe’s independence following Mugabe’s election in 1980 appeared to be a multi-racial success story. However, the reality was uglier. The culture of violence was a learned experience for the broader Zimbabwean population, and the sharp memories of the civil war in the 1970s had a direct bearing on responses to renewed political violence in the 1980s. Moreover, the emergency legislation of
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regime faced enormous challenges of how to demobilize and reintegrate vast numbers of poorly educated, unskilled young men into a peacetime economy. In addition, some of these young men were partisans of Nkomo’s ZAPU and former members of ZIPRA. Mugabe repeatedly sent the notorious North Korean-trained Fifth Brigade (answerable to only President Mugabe himself) into Matabeleland in the southwest of the country—ZAPU’s regional base—to attack former ZIPRA combatants and to suppress any possible sympathy for their grievances within the wider Ndebele community. Mugabe was able to present the ZAPU dissidents as stooges manipulated by the racially-oppressive apartheid regime in South Africa, whose own separate campaign of counter-insurgency and destabilization of its black neighbors played into Mugabe’s hands. This brutal experience of the so-called Gukuhurundi (“the rain that washes away the chaff”) campaign lasted from 1982 to 1987 and resulted in the deaths of approximately ten to twenty thousand Ndebele and the violent intimidation of a far wider portion of that community. This horrific scene built on the
Onslow & Redding
Politics&Diplomacy
ing political opposition to ZANU-PF’s management of the economy led to the formation of the MDC under the trade union leader Morgan Tsvangirai, at a time when the land issue was becoming increasingly explosive. Three events may have pushed Robert Mugabe’s government toward compulsory land seizures. The first was the meeting between Mugabe and British Prime Minister Tony Blair in 1997. This meeting was apparently so acrimonious that Mugabe immediately returned to Zimbabwe and announced the government’s intention to expropriate 1,791 farms, mainly (but not exclusively) owned by white farmers, even though some of these farms had been purchased after 1980 with explicit guaranThe Land Issue. While the early years tees from Mugabe’s government against of Zimbabwe’s independence appeared expropriation.2 The second event was an economic success, problems gath- the letter sent by the British Minister ered momentum in the 1990s. Two for International Development Clare severe droughts hit domestic food pro- Short to the Zimbabwean Minister for duction hard; in the early 1990s, the Land in November 1997. In a starfindings of a presidential commission tlingly ill-judged missive which someemphasized the superior staple food how escaped the attention of her civil productivity of the subsistence farm- service minders, Short stoutly denied ing sector, convincing Mugabe of the Britain’s special responsibility “to need for accelerated land reform. The meet the costs of land purchase in white-dominated commercial farming Zimbabwe.” The letter, which was read lobby missed a key opportunity here out loud by Mugabe at the ZANU-PF in its resistance to accelerated land party congress, appeared to be both transfers. In addition to the problems denying Britain’s imperial responsibilin the agricultural sector, Zimbabwe’s ity while also demanding British veriStructural Adjustment Program exac- fication to “ensure that the process erbated the country’s microeconom- was completely open and transparent, ic problems: economic liberalization including the establishment of a proper worsened income inequalities rather land register…It follows from this that than resolving them. Zimbabwe’s eco- a programme of rapid land acquisition nomic problems mounted with rising as you now seem to envisage would be unemployment, compounded by eco- impossible for us to support.” nomic and financial mismanagement, The third problem was the widening and poor policy choices. By 1999, grow- social inequality that brought about the learned political culture of the guerrilla war. By the late 1980s, Mugabe had succeeded in nullifying his only substantial African political opponents, as ZAPU leaders had little option but to sign the 1987 Unity Pact that gave Mugabe and ZANU-PF a one-party state. For their part, political dissidents learned the high price they were likely to pay for any future opposition to the regime. The early violent suppression of political dissent bears a strong resemblance to today’s state-sanctioned violence against MDC supporters, but the memory of the Gukuhurundi campaign has proved a vital restraining factor in the Ndebele community’s response to state brutality.
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economy appeared to go into freefall, the MDC’s political challenge mounted. The response of Mugabe and ZANUPF was to manipulate the legislative and presidential elections of 2002, 2005, and 2008 to ensure the electoral triumph of ZANU-PF. Why has the Mugabe regime attached such importance to the charade of elections? The explanation lies in the question of political legitimacy. Zimbabwe has become a “soft state.” At independence, it possessed strong institutions— democratic structures, an independent judiciary, a competent civil service, a vibrant media, a politicized electorate, and the second-most developed infrastructure and the most diversified economy in the region. By the late 1990s, power increasingly rested Millennium Meltdown. Zim- on patrimonial relationships that subbabwe’s economic and political prob- stituted for democratic accountabillems began to multiply at the start ity as the source of political legitimacy. of 2000, further compounded by the A network of rent-seeking behavior burden of the costly intervention of emerged, while the politicization of the eleven thousand troops in the Congo state security apparatus became embedWar. Intent on reasserting his cre- ded in the structures and practices of dentials as an indispensable and suc- the nation. To reference Dr. Martin cessful revolutionary leader, Mugabe Rupiya, Zimbabwe has undergone not reverted to more revolutionary lan- so much the politicization of the army as guage, in particular the need to com- it has the militarization of the state. Any plete the Chimurenga liberation strug- democratic transfer of power threatens gle through the redistribution of land. privileged access to state resources. Yet the problem of Mugabe’s ZANUJust as “patriotic whiteness” had been the order of the day during the Smith PF is more complex than pure venial regime, now “patriotic blackness” was dictatorship. Zimbabwe is ruled by that asserted with its overtly racial founda- rare beast, an ideo-dictatorship. As tions, and the ruling party equated Alex Magaisa has pointed out, “one of patriotism with membership in ZANU- the more subtle but nevertheless great PF.4 Mugabe and his surrogates vili- impediments to the transfer of power in fied hostile imperialist forces (meaning Zimbabwe is a rigid belief by President principally the British) for stimulating Mugabe and ZANU-PF in a kind of domestic opposition and criticism of ‘end of history’ approach with regards Zimbabwe’s domestic affairs. As the to matters of governance.”5 Mugabe impoverishment of Mugabe’s political base in the rural areas. So-called “war veterans” groups began pressing for land redistribution and initiated the occupation of white-owned farms. Caught off guard and unable to pay the war veterans their pension entitlements because of financial profligacy, Mugabe decided “to ride the tiger” of land occupations.3 Despite the government’s declared program of careful implementation of land reform, armed groups of Mugabe supporters invaded many white-owned farms in a process that rapidly unraveled into chaotic scenes involving violence, massive upheaval of black Zimbabwean rural communities, nepotism, and disintegration of a once vibrant sector of the economy.
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thus rules with a potent mixture of thuggery and conviction that history is on his side, and that ZANU-PF is a progressive agent of that history. This certitude allows for the identification of the MDC as a counter-revolutionary force intent on overthrowing the achievements of the ZANU-PF revolution and the process of decolonization. Furthermore, the MDC’s base is the urban population and the trade union movement. ZANU-PF’s ideology, despite the claimed influence of Marxism-Leninism, owes more to a philosophy that sees peasant-based agrarian revolutions as engines of social and economic change. For Mugabe, state-led violence is legitimate—and effective—against class-based enemies of the revolution. The state’s 2006 Operation Murambatsvina (“drive out filth”), which saw the widespread destruction of urban shanty-towns and squatter communities, demonstrated the anti-urban bias of Mugabe’s regime. It was also a clumsy attempt to control the growth of the largely untaxed informal economy, which was undermining government receipts, and an attempt to cripple the MDC’s urban support. Mugabe remains determined to maintain his grip on power for ideological and personal reasons. The evidence strongly suggests that he does not regard the MDC as a legitimate political opposition movement, and he has proved adept at pitting rivals within his party against one another. However, one of the striking circumstances of the 2008 election campaigns was the extent to which power struggles within ZANU-PF opened up following rumors of Mugabe’s ill-health, the economic implosion of the country,
Politics&Diplomacy
and progressive international isolation of the regime. One still unanswered question is the degree to which party supporters and the army leadership actually control Mugabe. In the wake of the March 2008 elections, the military was revealed as a major political force with its own agenda. The military joint command effectively controls much of the administration of the country and its infrastructure (railways and airports) and can dictate to its political masters.6 When it became clear in the week after the election that Mugabe had received fewer votes than Tsvangirai, it was the members of the military who intervened, squashing any discussion of a unity government and forcing a runoff election in which the the military could engineer the result by applying enough violence.7 The military has worked closely with Zimbabwe’s Central Intelligence Organization to undermine those people within ZANU-PF who might look for common ground with the opposition. But the MDC itself is divided: in 2005, a faction split from the main body of the party. While Tsvangirai himself is widely admired for his extraordinary personal courage, there are many private doubts within his party over his leadership style, his personal coterie, his administrative capabilities, and the extent of his strategic vision. These doubts further complicated the search for a government of national reconstruction or reconciliation. The dilemma facing the MDC was whether to continue to oppose ZANU-PF outright or to enter a deal as a junior partner. It was the argument that opposition, and reliance upon leverage from the international community, had manifestly failed
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soon.8 Limited economic sanctions imposed by a few individual countries are already in place in an attempt to target Mugabe and his ruling circle. The UN has refused to impose more sweeping sanctions, largely as a result of the vetoes exercised by China and Russia. South Options for the Future. The inter- Africa is one of Zimbabwe’s most national community, including mem- important trading partners and so far bers of the African Union, Southern the South African political leadership African Development Community has declined to take direct action. The (SADC), and the UN, has seemed par- only direct action taken prior to the alyzed in the face of the Zimbabwean June 2008 presidential run-off elecregime’s ruthlessness. What are the tion was an impromptu, non-governoptions? Diplomats and analysts have mental one: South African dockworkto eject ZANU-PF which persuaded the MDC factions to enter into the September 2008 power-sharing agreement. At the time of writing, this seems to be disintegrating—precisely because Mugabe and the military leadership refuse to share meaningful power.
The brutalization of society . . . and
the devaluation of human life and human rights all raise questions of whether a Truth and Reconciliation Commission would be appropriate. discussed both military intervention and sanctions as possible responses. However, the prospect for military intervention is remote: Such a move would be costly—at a time when neither the African Union nor the UN has much to spend—and the Zimbabwean military, with its recent history of combat success in the Congo, might prove difficult to defeat. Moreover, military intervention would immediately conjure up images of colonial conquest, a notion that could play into the hands of ZANU-PF. Tsvangirai himself has backed away from a statement that international intervention would be welcome, making it very unlikely that peacekeepers will be entering Zimbabwe
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ers in Durban refused in April 2008 to offload a ship’s cargo of Chinese-made arms destined for rail shipment to the Zimbabwe regime.9 This direct refusal to assist Mugabe’s government in acquiring arms was in stark contrast to the official policy followed by former South African President Thabo Mbeki. His campaign to change Mugabe’s policies, called “quiet diplomacy,” began in 2005 after that year’s elections dissolved into ZANU-PF’s widespread intimidation of MDC supporters. Mbeki’s success in brokering the September 2008 deal now seems ephemeral; although he remains the designated mediator, his own forced resignation from the
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South African presidency has fatally compromised his power and diplomatic leverage. Other factors, including the continuing tensions within the African National Congress (ANC), South Africa’s own election in 2009, and the uncertainty of that election’s outcome, also hinder Pretoria’s influence vis-àvis Zimbabwe. Hope for meaningful change appears to lie in targeted financial and economic sanctions against the Zimbabwe ruling circle, an increase in the political courage by the new ANC leaders, and international and commonwealth support for voter registration of the Zimbabwean diaspora, most of whom are anti-Mugabe.10 However distasteful, some form of MDC political compromise with the ZANU-PF leadership is necessary. The question is how much should be conceded in the interests of the Zimbabwean people. MDC activists’ greatest fear is that their party will be swallowed up by ZANU-PF, repeating ZAPU’s experience in the 1987 Unity Pact. Whatever deal is struck to achieve a post-Mugabe Zimbabwe, there is a pressing need for social reconstruction and rehabilitation. Three to four mil-
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lion Zimbabweans have left the country, representing the greater part of the skilled work force. The brutalization of society, the politicization of the army and police, the indoctrination of massive numbers of male youth, and the devaluation of human life and human rights all raise questions of whether a Truth and Reconciliation Commission would be appropriate. If so, at what level should an amnesty apply? What role should the International Court of Justice play? It is highly unlikely that Mugabe will be called before The Hague, and indeed most Zimbabweans are resigned to his quiet retirement, at best. What could be the role of faithbased groups? The churches remain among the few autonomous institutions in the country and several church leaders have been active critics of Mugabe; however, they have little political leverage. The challenges of reconstruction and reconciliation facing Zimbabwe remain enormous, especially given the uncertainty of the immediate political future. The political violence, even if it ends with the power-sharing agreement, has created lasting trauma for an entire generation that will take years to address.
Notes
1 At conservative estimates, nearly 100 MDC activists have been killed since March 2008; MDC officials put the figure at 120, with 50,000 acts of violence against their officials and supporters, and the displacement of approximately 200,000 people. The Zimbabwean government dismisses these figures. 2 Stephen Chan, Robert Mugabe: A Life of Power and Violence (New York: I. B. Tauris and Co., 2002), 168. 3 Ibid., 168. 4 Knox Chitiyo, Head of the Africa Programme at the Royal United Services Institute, IDEAS seminar, London School of Economics, 11 October 2007.
5 Alex Magaisa, “Understanding Mugabe’s ‘End of History’ Ideology,” NewZimbabwe, 24 May 2008, Internet, http://www.newzimbabwe.com/pages/ magaisa79.18240.html (date accessed: 8 August 2008). 6 Martin Rupiya, “When the Generals Say No,” The Mail and Guardian (South Africa), 19 March 2008, Internet, http://www. kubatana.net/html/archive/opin/080319mr. asp?sector=OPIN&year=2008&range_start=181 (date accessed: 13 July 2008). 7 Ian Pannell, “Military ‘Runs Mugabe Campaign,’” BBC Online, 12 June 2008, Internet, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7449704.stm (date accessed: 13 July 2008). Craig Timberg,
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“Inside Mugabe’s Violent Crackdown,” Washington Post, 5 July 2008, Internet, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/04/ AR2008070402771.html (date accessed: 13 July 2008). 8 “Clarification: Morgan Tsvangirai,” The Economist, 3 July 2008, Internet, http://www.economist.com/world/africa/displaystory.cfm?story_ id=11671383 (date accessed: 13 July 2008).
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9 Celia Dugger, “Zimbabwe Arms Shipped by China Spark an Uproar,” New York Times, 19 April 2008, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/19/world/ africa/19zimbabwe.html?_r=2&oref=slogin (date accessed: 13 July 2008). 10 There have been some recent high-profile critics of Mbeki’s diplomacy, including Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Nelson Mandela (and his wife Graça Machal), and the new ANC party leader, Jacob Zuma.
Conflict&Security
NATO in Afghanistan A Roadmap for Success Mihai P. Carp Seven years after the fall of the Taliban government, there are growing concerns that Afghanistan may slide back into chaos and instability. With a violent insurgency active in several provinces and increasing numbers of lives being lost, questions are being asked by the media and the public in Afghanistan and the West about the effectiveness of the international community’s strategy. Both the outgoing and incoming U.S. administrations have re-focused attention on how best to respond to the serious challenges that lie ahead, including promising additional troops. Yet while the news from Afghanistan has been discouraging on some fronts, progress in many areas has often been overlooked. Last spring, heads of NATO member states and other world leaders met in Bucharest, Romania, on the margins of a NATO summit, to reconfirm their strong commitment to Afghanistan.1 A follow-up conference in Paris pledged billions of dollars in additional aid.2 While politically significant, such high-level strategic commitments must now make a tangible difference on the ground. Creating a prosperous, stable and democratic Afghanistan is still possible but will require not only sustained assistance from the international community but also dedication from the Afghan government
Mihai P. Carp is the deputy head of the Crisis Management Policy Section in NATO’s Operations Division, and has dealt extensively with NATO’s evolving role in Afghanistan since 2003. Prior to joining NATO, Carp worked for the State Department at embassies in Berlin, Germany; Bucharest, Romania; and Chisinau, Moldova. The views expressed herein are those of the author and do not purport to reflect the position of NATO.
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to fulfill its many pledges and to instill confidence among its population. The long-term success of NATO’s first mission outside the Euro-Atlantic area remains contingent on a number of factors, including regional dynamics and the ability of the alliance’s members to deliver necessary military capabilities. While the alliance will keep playing a key role in assisting with security matters, NATO must continue to support assistance efforts in many other areas, notably in civilian matters, where the Afghan government will have to increase its effectiveness and visibility. Pitched against an increasingly fragile security environment, NATO will continue to be tested politically and operationally in Afghanistan. For the time being, the strong formal political commitment by all NATO allies and their partners in the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) has ensured continuity of the mission. However, issues related to bolstering the Afghan security forces, enhancing security and law and order, ensuring more cooperation with Pakistan, increasing “burden sharing” among allies, and deploying additional military capabilities will remain high on the agenda in Brussels.
embarked on a gradual—albeit imperfect—process of reconstruction since the overthrow of the Taliban in late 2001.3 The international consensus to continue assisting Afghanistan in all areas— from security to development—provides the country with opportunities to make significant progress in the future. Much of this improvement would not have been possible without the presence and work of the UN-mandated, NATO-led assistance force that has operated in Afghanistan since 2003. Initially a modest force based in Kabul, ISAF has grown in size and capability and today counts approximately fifty thousand troops from twenty-six NATO nations and fifteen non-NATO partners.4 Within its assistance mandate, ISAF is a NATO operation like no other, carrying out an array of operational tasks, from training to traditional peacekeeping to combat. Throughout its mission, ISAF’s strategic objectives have remained the same: extending the authority of the Afghan government; assisting with the development of Afghan institutions necessary to maintaining security across the country; and establishing a stable and secure environment in which sustainable reconstruction and development can take place. Looking ahead, the emphasis must now lie with A Balanced Picture. With the having the Afghans take more owngrowing Taliban insurgency shaping ership, especially in security matters. public opinion about developments in From a military perspective, both Afghanistan, it may seem difficult to ISAF and the Afghan National Security remain optimistic and to discern that Forces (ANSF) have consistently retained progress has been made. This progress the operational initiative against antiis nevertheless tangible; from impres- government forces. At the same time, sive improvements in health care and the growing number of violent inciinfrastructure to targeted development dents, including suicide bombings and aid and the establishment of new gov- more frequent engagements with insurernmental institutions, Afghanistan has gents in both the south and east, has
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added to the widespread perception of a deteriorating security situation. Under these circumstances, it is understood that the battle for Afghanistan will not be won solely by tactical military successes but through a comprehensive approach involving security, governance, and development endeavors. Under such a scenario, military and civilian efforts must continue to play complementary and coordinated roles.
Afghans will be fully capable of ensuring country-wide stability and of carrying out local policing functions.5 Here, both the U.S.-led Combined Security Transition Command in Afghanistan and NATO/ISAF will continue to play an important mentoring and training role in the years to come. On the positive side, the now sixtythree thousand-strong Afghan National Army (ANA) has not only grown in size but regularly participates in both Key Challenges: NATO, an ISAF and U.S. coalition operations. Actor among Others. In light With plans now underway to increase of the increasingly challenging secu- the ANA force to one hundred twenty rity environment, it is crucial that the thousand (from an originally envisioned international community make prog- figure of eighty thousand), there is hope ress in several key areas: strengthening that this institution will be increasthe Afghan National Security Forces, ingly able to take over responsibilities notably the police; continuing the from international forces. However, it fight against the narcotics industry and is understood that the ANA will remain its links to the insurgency; encour- largely dependent for quite some time aging resolute action by the Afghan on the ISAF for direct support, espegovernment to fight corruption and cially in logistics and deployment. promote good governance; creating a In contrast, efforts to bolster a credmore coherent and well-coordinated ible and operationally capable police information policy; and working more force of approximately eighty-two closely with neighboring Pakistan. thousand men and women are lagging
Looking ahead, the emphasis must now lie
with having the Afghans take more ownership, especially in security matters. First and foremost, success will require a renewed emphasis on the mentoring and building up of Afghanistan’s fledgling security forces. While many resources have already been invested in bolstering the security forces (with U.S. assistance by far exceeding that of all other donors combined), there is still a long way to go before the
behind. Although numbering slightly over seventy thousand, the police force remains weak, notably at provincial and local levels. This has not only left communities vulnerable to insurgent attacks but has reinforced perceptions of the police as a corrupt and inefficient institution. Alarm at the large gap in performance between
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the police and the national army has led to renewed international attention on police reform. However, differing views among international actors and the Afghans about the nature of the training has complicated matters. Implementing “fit for purpose training,” which encompasses both traditional policing and more gendarmerie type training for unstable areas, would probably achieve the right balance. Focused district police mentoring and training has also begun under U.S. leadership, yielding positive results. A rather modest EU police mentoring mission, dispatched to Afghanistan in 2007, remains largely understaffed and underfunded despite commitments to double the size of its personnel. Overall, police training efforts will remain of limited value if they are not matched by visible progress in improving the rule of law and reforming the justice system. Second, Afghanistan’s insurgency cannot be successfully fought without also addressing the narcotics problem. Afghanistan today produces over 90 percent of the world’s opium, according to an August 2008 report by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime.6 While eighteen of Afghanistan’s thirtyfour provinces are now poppy-free, 98 percent of the poppy cultivation is concentrated in seven provinces in the south and west where the insurgency has been most active. Some progress has been made recently, with the UN reporting a decrease in opium cultivation from one hundred ninety-three thousand hectares to one hundred fifty-seven thousand hectares during the first half of 2008 compared to the same period in 2007. But production itself in key poppy-growing areas dropped by
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a mere 6 percent to seventy-seven hundred metric tons. In light of the inability, so far, of the Afghan law enforcement agencies to tackle the problem, NATO defense ministers agreed last fall that individual ISAF nations could conduct limited interdiction operations against narcotic facilities supporting the insurgency, including the destruction of drug labs, at the request of the Afghan government. A direct military role in eradication, however, is not foreseen. NATO has also made clear that such measures would be temporary and focused on priority regions and would not be meant to undercut the lead role of the Afghans. Fighting narcotics production will also require determined action on the part of Afghan leadership to break the vicious cycle of interdependency of warlords, corrupt officials, criminals, and insurgent leaders who have been financing many of their operations with drug money. Third, efforts toward establishing a more efficient justice system and the rule of law are also linked to the wider problem of good governance. While there has been a renewed commitment at the highest levels of the Afghan government to root out corruption, many elements of the country’s institutions continue to suffer from high levels of corruption, inefficiency, and lack of capacity.7 Indeed, the evolving security situation will continue to impact the ability of national and local authorities to deliver badly-needed services. As explained last year by the head of the UN Mission in Afghanistan, provinces not affected by anti-government violence have demonstrated an increasing capacity for delivering governance and economic development.
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In turn, in unstable areas where the Taliban are active, the government is blamed for continued insecurity.8 Fourth, more efforts will have to be made by the international community and the Afghan government to effectively counter Taliban propaganda. Though Taliban forces are regularly beaten on the battlefield, their propaganda machine enables them to maintain an
Conflict&Security
dination with the Afghans and other players such as the UN should be pursued wherever possible. The Afghan government will also have to work hard to squash uncorroborated reports that exaggerate or falsely report incidents. Finally, increased support from neighboring Pakistan is key to stabilizing Afghanistan and the wider region. With radical Islamic groups having estab-
Though Taliban forces are regularly beat-
en on the battlefield, their propagnada machine enbables them to maintain an advantage over international forces. advantage over international forces. In this regard, high-profile, asymmetric attacks not only undermine the legitimacy of the Afghan government, but they also potentially weaken the commitment of the international community. “Winning hearts and minds” will thus remain a major challenge for the alliance. While ISAF commanders already regularly meet with provincial, local, and village leaders, further adaptation and implementation of information operations—with particular emphasis on reaching out to the “average Afghan”— are of paramount importance.9 Additionally, the issue of inadvertent civilian casualties inflicted by international forces continues to be a major problem. In order to retain credibility, NATO/ISAF and the U.S. coalition will have to continue to show convincingly that every effort is being made to avoid civilian casualties and, most importantly, that international forces do not have a policy of targeting civilians. Timely, thorough investigations and close coor-
lished parallel structures in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas and offering sanctuary to insurgents operating in Afghanistan, the threat of terrorism is now directed as much against Pakistan’s own government as against international forces in Afghanistan. Nevertheless, within NATO there is agreement that Pakistan must be part of the solution if wider regional issues are to be addressed effectively. In further developing its relations with Pakistan, NATO can build on recent positive collaborations, including the earthquake relief operation of 2005. With a new government and president in Islamabad, additional opportunities now exist to enhance the military-to-military relationship and to establish a more regular political dialogue. On the military side, efforts are already underway to make the work of the Tripartite Commission (bringing together Afghanistan, Pakistan, and ISAF military officials at different levels) more substantive, with a
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view of genuinely enhancing cooperation and security along the twentyfour hundred kilometer-long frontier between Afghanistan and Pakistan. For instance, the first of a total of six Border Coordination Centers, bringing together ISAF, Afghan, and Pakistani military staff, was opened last summer near the Khyber Pass. It serves as a “situation center” where all three parties exchange short-term intelligence on extremist activity and border incidents. Afghanistan and Pakistan must also be encouraged to improve bilateral relations. While relations between Afghan President Hamid Karzai and his Pakistani counterpart, Asif Ali Zardari, have started off well, the bilateral relationship remains deeply strained. Concerns still exist in allied capitals about the ability of the new government in Islamabad to deal with its internal extremist threat and its relationship with its powerful national military and intelligence establishment.
some encouraging steps have been taken in this regard, national governments still retain a strong say over individual working methods and the allocation of development funds channeled through the PRTs. There are also concerns that aid and reconstruction funds are not spread equally across the country. Since Bucharest, several NATO nations, including France, Poland, Germany, and the United States, have together committed several thousand new forces to Afghanistan. However, this relative increase in force contributions has not alleviated the urgent need to fill specific shortfalls, especially in intelligence and lift capabilities. In addition, NATO will continue to grapple with the issue of long-term force rotations, interoperability, and national caveats. On the latter point, some progress is at hand with several nations, such as Italy, that have lifted their restrictions pertaining to the geographic areas in which their forces are allowed to operate. For other allies, NATO’s “Internal Business.” such as Germany, the constitutional In addition to the factors out- requirement for regular parliamentary lined above, NATO allies will have consultation on participation in the to focus on a number of internal mission will make it more difficult for issues to strengthen cohesion and troops to move outside their current ISAF’s performance on the ground. area of operation. In summary, reconOptimizing the work of ISAF’s ciling the efforts of twenty-six allies and Provincial Reconstruction Teams several partners, who each bring their (PRTs) is one such area. At the Bucharest own security culture and experience to summit in April 2008, NATO nations a complex theatre, remains a challenge. pledged to “provide all the PRTs needed, enhance their unity of effort, The Way Ahead. With Afghanistan strengthen their civilian component, at a defining moment in its post-Taland further align their development iban development, negative percepstrategies with Afghan government pri- tions about a deteriorating situation orities until such time as Afghan gov- in Afghanistan must be countered at ernment institutions are strong enough the local, national, and international to render PRTs unnecessary.”10 While levels. With lead organizations such
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as the UN, NATO, and the EU committing to helping the Afghan people, there is also a larger strategic interest in ensuring wider regional stability. The job, thus, cannot be left half-done. On the positive side, public support
Conflict&Security
pensable in keeping European allies on board. But more is expected of the EU in Afghanistan. Equally, the UN Mission in Afghanistan must be given the appropriate resources and proper attention at UN Headquarters
With a resurgent Taliban launching ever more daring attacks, the stakes have never been higher for Afghanistan, NATO, and the wider region. within Afghanistan for the international community and the presence of international forces remains encouragingly high. Few favor a return of the Taliban and most appreciate ongoing efforts to help the country and its people. But this support cannot be taken for granted. Moreover, with multiple cooperation frameworks and strategies already in place, there is no need to go back to the drawing board. Rather, implementation of what has been agreed at the highest political levels among the Afghan government and the international community should now be the priority. For NATO, improvements across four key pillars remain crucial if the insurgency is to be quelled: a firm and shared long-term commitment; support for enhanced Afghan leadership and responsibility; coordinated action by the international community on the ground; and increased cooperation and engagement with Pakistan. In applying such a multi-faceted strategy, NATO nations must continue to demonstrate their solidarity by addressing continued force and equipment shortfalls. Within NATO, a strong American commitment to Afghanistan will remain indis-
if it is to fulfill its mandate of taking on a more visible and coordinating role in civilian matters. On the Afghan side, increased capacity, ownership, and accountability are paramount. This year’s anticipated elections will be another milestone and will require all concerned players, most importantly the Afghan authorities, to help solidify the democratic gains that Afghans have rarely enjoyed throughout their violent history. Achieving such a goal may seem difficult, especially under the current security environment. But no efforts should be spared, as the elections have the potential to turn around public perceptions about the Afghan government and the international community. More generally, the tasks of building institutions, increasing reconstruction and development, and providing better opportunities for the average Afghan will remain part and parcel of a long-term joint commitment of the international community. This commitment and its rationale cannot be taken for granted. It must be continuously renewed and explained, including in our own countries. With a resurgent Taliban launching ever
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Notes
1 NATO, “ISAF’s Strategic Vision,” Internet, http://www.nato.int/docu/pr/2008/p08-052e. html. 2 Nicolas Sarkozy, Hamid Karzai, and Ban Ki-moon, “Declaration of the International Conference in Support of Afghanistan,” (Paris, June 12, 2008). Adjusted pledging figures released by the Afghan Ministry of Finance come close to $15 Billion. 3 According to figures from NATO/ISAF, 83 percent of the population has access to healthcare as opposed to 8 percent in 2001; 6.2 million children— 40 percent of which are girls—are enrolled in schools countrywide, as opposed to only 1 million boys under the Taliban; over 2,000 new schools and district centers have been built since 2001; and, over 14,500 km of roads have been improved or asphalted since 2002, including 60 percent of the strategic Ring Road Network. NATO, Media Operations Centre. 4 For the latest update on force contributions and national participation in ISAF, see the “placemat” on the NATO Web site, http://www.nato.int. 5 Figures released by the U.S. Government Accountability Office in June 2008 list a round figure of over $10 billion invested by the United
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States (combined Defense and State Department) to develop the Afghan National Army since 2002, and approximately $6 billion for the Afghan National Police. See GAO, “AFGHANISTAN SECURITY: Further Congressional Action May Be Needed to Ensure Completion of a Detailed Plan to Develop and Sustain Capable Afghan National Security Forces,” GAO-08-661, June 2008. 6 United Nations, Afghanistan Opium Survey 2008 (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, August 2008). 7 Transparency International, Transparency Watch, Report on Corruption in Afghanistan, February 2007; and, United Nations, The Situation in Afghanistan and its Implications for International Peace and Security, Report to the UN Security Council General Assembly, A/63/372-S/2008/617, 23 September 2008. 8 United Nations, The Situation in Afghanistan and its Implications for International Peace and Security, Report to the UN Security Council General Assembly, A/62/722S/2008/159, 6 March 2008. 9 International Crisis Group, Taliban Propaganda: Winning the War of Words?, Asia Report no. 158, 24 July 2008. 10 NATO, “ISAF’s Strategic Vision.”
Conflict&Security
Influence Warfare and Modern Terrorism James J. F. Forest The Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw once wrote that thought transcends matter. This is particularly true for terrorist and insurgent groups, who seek to mobilize a population toward a vision of the future believed to be unachievable without violence. Because these groups have lower militarily capabilities than nation-states, their ability to recruit and galvanize large audiences is a critical part of their asymmetric warfare strategy. Indeed, as Thomas Hammes recently noted, “insurgent campaigns have shifted from military campaigns supported by information operations to strategic communications campaigns supported by guerilla and terrorist operations.”2 This crucial struggle for hearts and minds is increasingly fought throughout the Internet. During the latter half of the twentieth century, the global struggle for strategic influence was primarily between communist and democratic nation-states, most often conducted via radio, print media, and television. Today, the main ideological conflict is between Western liberal democracy and a Salafi-jihadist interpretation of the Qur’an whose adherents hope to establish a new Islamist caliphate.3 The global proliferation of information technology provides new tools for influencing the perceptions of a
James J. F. Forest is director of Terrorism Studies and associate professor in the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point. This article draws from his new book, Influence Warfare: How Terrorists and Governments Fight to Shape Perceptions in a War of Ideas, which will be published by Praeger in 2009. The views expressed herein are those of the author and do not purport to reflect the position of the United States Military Academy, the Department of the Army, or the Department of Defense.
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population, emboldening terrorists and insurgents like never before. Indeed, al-Qaeda seeks to shape perceptions in the Muslim world through all forms of media, particularly videos, blogs,
mess because of infidels and apostates, so join our global jihad and help us create a world in which our interpretation of Islam dominates all spheres of human endeavor. Because al-Qaeda and its
The global proliferation of information
technology provides new tools for influencing the perceptions of a population, emboldening terrorists and insurgents like never before. and Web forum debates. As al-Qaeda strategist Ayman al-Zawahiri (Osama bin Laden’s closest advisor) explained in a July 2005 letter to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (the former leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq), “We are in a battle, and more than half of this battle is taking place in the battlefield of the media. We are in a race for hearts and minds of our umma [the global community of Muslims].”4 Every video released by bin Laden and al-Zawahiri on the Web-based As-Sahab (the clouds) media network is a salvo in the struggle for strategic influence. Therefore, in confronting al-Qaeda, the United States and its allies must discredit and delegitimize efforts to justify terrorist violence and empower credible voices within the Muslim world to publicly identify the contradictions and narrative weaknesses of al-Qaeda’s ideology.
affiliates and supporters are convinced that the achievement of this utopian vision requires violence, they must constantly defend their ideology and their actions against criticism not only from the Western world, but from the Muslim world, whose members have suffered most from terror attacks. The Salafi-jihadist ideology portrays jihad as perpetual war between Muslims and non-Muslims. Jarret Brachman has observed that use of the term jihad—a core Islamic concept of “struggle”— in this fashion is unwelcome among most Muslims, who point to Qur’anic passages that emphasize the use of violence only for self-defense from unsolicited aggressors. However, it is embraced by more radical elements within Islam as a rallying cry for those who see themselves suffering under the draconian policies of autocratic governments; for those in a struggle with imperial overlords for the right The Vulnerabilities of to establish a national homeland; and al-Qaeda’s Ideology. The ideology for those who see themselves fighting constructed by the leaders of al-Qaeda to stave off advanced stages of cultural and its affiliates in the global Salafi- corruption.6 Thus, the success of jihadist movement is relatively simple.5 al-Qaeda depends largely on its ability To paraphrase the movement’s key to convince large swaths of Muslims to ideologues: The world around us is a embrace a particular interpretation of
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concepts and symbols that have deep historical meaning and context in the Muslim world. Leaders and affiliates of al-Qaeda must constantly defend the legitimacy of their interpretation of jihad; this has particularly been the case in Iraq and Afghanistan. Over the past year, a number of religious leaders and fellow extremists who once had significant influence with al-Qaeda have publicly criticized it and its affiliates for the use of violent tactics.7 For example, Saudi Arabia’s top cleric, Grand Mufti Sheik Abdul Aziz al-Asheik, gave a speech in October 2007 attempting to deter Saudis from participating in jihadist activities in Iraq. Similarly, Abdul Aziz al-Sherif, a top leader of the violent Egyptian movement Islamic Jihad and a longtime associate of al-Zawahiri, recently published a book that renounces violent jihad on legal and religious grounds.8 In Pakistan’s Northwest Frontier Province, Islamic scholar Maulana Hassan Jan declared the practice of suicide bombing “un-Islamic,” and Mufti Zainul Abidin issued a fatwa that declares the Taliban to be “out of Islam” as a result of its violence and its failure to follow Islamic teachings.9 Statements and fatwas such as these undermine al-Qaeda’s critical effort to maintain legitimacy within the Muslim world. In response to such criticisms, Abu Yahya al-Libi—considered by some analysts as the heir-apparent to the head of al-Qaeda’s central leadership— recently published a book online in which he attempts to justify killing innocent Muslims.10 His interpretation of the Islamic tenet of al-tatarrus—the exemption to the Islamic prohibition against shedding innocent Muslim
Conflict&Security
blood—is focused on historical instances when a Muslim army is forced to kill fellow Muslims who are being used as shields by non-Muslim enemies. Thus, he argues, the defense of Islam requires the martyrdom of these Muslims, and he encourages readers to accept the argument of Ibn Taymiyya, a prominent thirteenth-century scholar, that “their death is for the sake of jihad and is analogous with the death of Muslims when fighting [for Islam], in which case they are martyrs.”11 Similarly, the field commander of Indonesia-based Jemaah Islamiyya, Imam Samudra, wrote a book in 2004 attempting to justify the October 2002 Bali bombing that killed more than two hundred Western tourists. He acknowledges that it is forbidden in Islam to kill women and children, but asserts that this rule only applies when the enemies themselves do not transgress the rule. He then argues that U.S. and Western actions—from the embargo placed on Iraq to Israeli attacks against Palestinians “with America’s military and financial support”—have resulted in thousands of innocent Muslim deaths.12 These and other publications by Islamist extremists demonstrate their concern over the need to rationalize and defend their violent actions against criticism from learned scholars within the Muslim world. This is not a challenge unique to al-Qaeda: terrorists and insurgents throughout history have faced the significant challenge of convincing their audiences that the righteousness of their cause justifies their violent attacks. For al-Qaeda, nowhere has this rationalization effort become more prevalent than through
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Web sites, blogs, videos, and other forms of communication on the Internet.
Al-Qaeda and the Modern Tools of Influence Warfare. To most
into a disturbing MySpace-like socialnetworking hub for [extremists] intent on becoming the next generation of terrorists, hijackers, and even suicide bombers.”15 This evolution creates a selfsustaining community of believers and supporters, some of whom can be expected to transfer their radical activities from the online world to the physical world. Overall, the Internet provides an increasingly important forum where al-Qaeda and its critics debate the merits of the violent jihadist campaign. Al-Qaeda strategists such as Abu Musab al-Suri have consistently encouraged the followers of the movement to use the Internet for mobilizing the umma, arguing that communications via open source channels empowers the movement by disseminating ideology and tactical information.16 However, the ability of anyone online to speak on behalf of the jihadi movement means that dissenting voices can now reach a wider audience. This has emboldened some individuals within the community of radical Muslims to voice their disagreements with al-Qaeda’s tactics and strategies.17 According to Weimann, online debates occur regularly between members of violent jihadi groups and may reflect religious differences, clashes of political agendas, and disagreement over actions and operations.18 These disagreements, in turn, offer potential opportunities to exploit ideological weaknesses in the movement, as driving wedges can help undermine and discredit its ideology.
analysts, al-Qaeda is a pioneer of online terrorist-oriented activity. For more than a decade, the organization has been disseminating propaganda, military instruction manuals, and videos online in multiple languages. According to a study by Gabriel Weimann, thousands of Web sites—along with e-mail, chat rooms, and virtual message boards—are increasingly used by terrorists as virtual training camps, providing an online forum for indoctrination as well as the distribution of terrorist manuals and instructions. He also notes that terrorist organizations capture information about the users who browse their Web sites, which can be useful for the early stages of recruitment.13 Indeed, al-Qaeda leaders view those at the center of their information strategy—the Web site designers, bloggers, and video editors—as important mujahideen. As al-Libi declared, “May Allah bless you lions of the front, for by Allah, the fruits of your combined efforts—sound, video, and text—are more severe for the infidels and their lackeys than the falling of rockets and missiles on their heads.”14 Through the Internet, the spread of al-Qaeda’s ideology has taken on a form of viral marketing, with throngs of al-Qaeda supporters and imitators creating new Web sites, posting blog content and YouTube videos, and forwarding links to other online resources via e-mail distribution lists. Influence Warfare and U.S. Moreover, as Evan Kohlmann recently Counterterrorism Policy. Like observed, radical Web sites “have evolved al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups,
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nation-states must also rely on positive perceptions, or at least acceptance, among key constituencies in order to muster support necessary for achieving their strategic objectives. Unfortunately, as Secretary of Defense Robert Gates aptly noted, “It is embarrassing that al-Qaeda is better at communicating its message on the Internet than America… Speed, agility, and cultural relevance are not terms that come readily to mind when discussing U.S. strategic communications.”19 Indeed, when it comes to information warfare, our enemies have proven to be more agile. For example, a recent Washington Post report described how the Taliban clearly dominates the propaganda war.20 They use a variety of high-tech means to communicate their version of events, often far faster than their adversaries, particularly on controversies over civilian casualties inflicted by U.S. and NATO airstrikes.21 According to NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, “When it comes to video, we are frankly in the Stone Age. NATO has no ability to gather video from the field, to show people what is happening. We are also barely on the field when it comes to the Web.”22 During the first several years of the Global War on Terror, many in Washington saw engaging the information domain as relatively unimportant. Instead, the responses to terrorism in the initial years after 9/11 were focused primarily on kinetic activities, with the U.S. military, law enforcement organizations, and intelligence agencies leading the counterterrorism effort. Only recently have we seen policymakers and
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government analysts worldwide calling for a greater focus on the critical nonkinetic aspects of counterterrorism. As Danish security expert Thomas Elkjer Nissen recently observed, “The battle of perceptions is just as important, if not more so, as the physical battle. It is winning the local population, and not the physical destruction of the Taliban, that will win this battle.”23 A significant challenge for the United States is determining who should be responsible for leading this effort. During the Cold War, the United States Information Agency (USIA) directed the nation’s effort to counter communist propaganda and confront our enemies in the communications realm. The director of USIA reported directly to the president through the National Security Council, and coordinated closely with the secretary of state on foreign policy matters. During the 1990s, USIA was shut down as an independent agency, with most personnel either retiring or transferring to the State Department. As Secretary Gates noted, this “shortsighted” approach undermined America’s “ability to engage, assist, and communicate with other parts of the world—the ‘soft power’ which had been so important throughout the Cold War.”24 And yet, it has become increasingly clear that a USIA-like organization is needed to lead the nation’s effort to engage our enemies in the information domain. Recognizing this need in 2002, then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld attempted to establish an Office of Strategic Information (OSI) within the Pentagon. As described in news accounts at the time, one part of OSI’s mission would be to release
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news items to foreign media outlets in an attempt to influence foreign audiences’ perceptions of the United States.25 However, a surge of public criticism—citing the potential for these news items coming back to the United States from foreign news outlets and thus violating the Smith-Mundt Act (which prohibits the U.S. government from distributing propaganda to its citizens)—led President Bush to order the program’s dismantlement. Today, the strategic communication landscape remains a patchwork of players with overlapping duties.26 Several entities share responsibility for waging the “battle of ideas,” including the White House, the Department of State, the National Counterterrorism Center’s Extremist Messaging Branch, the Broadcasting Board of Governors, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and the Department of Defense. For its part, the Department of Defense recently announced it will pay private contractors in Iraq up to $300 million to produce news stories, entertainment programs, and public service announcements for the Iraqi media in an effort to “engage and inspire” the local population to support U.S. objectives and the Iraqi government.27 According to some Pentagon officials, information operations have already played a key role in the reduction of violence in Iraq. For several years, U.S.produced public service broadcasts and billboards have touted improvements in government services, promoted political reconciliation, praised the Iraqi military, and encouraged Iraqi citizens to report criminal activity. The United States communicates to
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local audiences in Iraq through various Arabic-language radio broadcasts: the Voice of America offers news and current events; Radio Sawa offers a mix of both music and news geared toward young adults; and Radio Free Iraq seeks to provide fair and objective news to the Iraqi people. The United States also sponsors Alhurra (“The Free One”), an Arabic-language satellite television network that offers objective news coverage. Operated by the Middle East Broadcasting Network, Alhurra was established primarily to provide an alternative to news reports broadcast by the al-Jazeera satellite network. Alhurra’s broadcasts reach twenty-two countries throughout the Middle East with a mixture of discussion programs, news, health, sports, and fashion, and the United States provides its annual budget of $70 million.28 The United States is also working with local Arabic TV stations, newspapers, radio, and Internet publications in order to communicate American policies and intent in Iraq.
Recommendations. While these
efforts move us in the right direction, there is considerable room for improvement. In addition to dramatic increases in spending on the civilian instruments of national security— including diplomacy, strategic communications, foreign assistance, civic action, and economic reconstruction and development—the U.S. government must overcome significant limitations in what it can do to confront online radicalization.29 While some government agencies have been monitoring radical Web sites and blogs for years, authorities are legally constrained in
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how they can intervene in these forums. In particular, Congress needs to examine the Smith-Mundt Act and provide new legal basis for a robust online counter-ideology effort that hopefully will fracture the jihadi community and force the propagandists to defend their deficient ideology. As part of this effort, the United States must craft and deliver messages via all available media—including the Internet—that will undermine and discredit al-Qaeda’s rationales for violence. Terrorism expert Martha Crenshaw explains that a government’s counterterrorism message must not only serve to reduce the probability of violence, but also to influence the terrorist organization’s incentive structure, increase the opportunities to exit the terrorist group, and promote internal dissension. In essence, a government’s policy
Conflict&Security
“defending Islam against the West.” For example, if Muslims are under attack, why are they doing so well in the United States, Canada, and elsewhere? What about all the generous charity and development work from the West that benefits the Muslim world? In addition, our response to al-Qaeda must address how extremist interpretations of the Qur’an by a small handful of charismatic ideologues (from Ibn Taymiyya to Sayyid Qutb) have led people away from the true Salafi model of pious living. For example, how can you selectively ignore passages in the Qur’an in your attempts to justify killing others, when the Qur’an only authorizes defensive violence? How are you promoting unity and peace in the Muslim world by all these attacks? The deeper challenge in combating Salafi-jihadist ideology is identifying
As part of this effort, the United States
must craft and deliver messages via all available media—including the Internet—that will undermine and discredit al-Qaeda’s rationales for violence. should “aim to make the organization less destructive and less cohesive rather than to defeat it militarily.”30 Throughout its strategic communications effort, the United States must highlight the unappealing nature of alQaeda and the impossibility of achieving its objectives through the use of violence, which will only lead to more Muslim deaths. Counter-ideology messages should highlight the disconnect between fact and the ideology of
and enlisting allies within the Muslim world, credible voices who can help us achieve our strategic influence objectives. Among certain communities, we are viewed as a discredited messenger, and thus have limited—if any—chance of convincing those audiences. As a result, we must recognize the limitations of the nation-state in the information domain, and embrace the new and innovative ways in which individuals are increasingly empowered to confront
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hostile ideologies. One recent effort of note is the Radical Middle Way—an organization of young British Muslims who have rejected the Salafi-jihadist interpretation of the Qur’an and are trying to consolidate a mainstream response to fundamentalist Islam. Their public events and Internet activities are funded by the sale of music videos, and are being touted as an example of how to weaken the resonance of al-Qaeda’s ideology among youth.31 Similarly, in Indonesia, Ahmad Dhani—the leader of the immensely popular rock band Dewa—has used music to influence millions of fans, encouraging them to resist the tide of religious extremism. As Kyai Haji Abdurrahman Wahid—former president of Indonesia—observed, “Dhani and his group are on the front lines of a global conflict, defending Islam from its fanatical hijackers [and helping] to rescue an entire generation from Wahhabi-financed extremists whose goal is to transform Muslim youth into holy warriors and suicide bombers.”32 And Egyptian Amr Khaled, who runs one of the Arab world’s most popular Web sites and hosts a regular show on a Saudi-owned religious satellite channel, is a moderate who encourages Muslims to transform their lives and their communities through Islam while also getting along with the West. He writes, “Osama bin Laden is saying
he is talking on behalf of Muslims; who asked him to talk on behalf of us? Nobody.”33 Private initiatives like these will most likely do far more to counter the influence of al-Qaeda than any U.S. public diplomacy strategy or strategic communications effort. We should provide money, diplomatic support, and covert assistance to any such activity that poses a threat to the unity and legitimacy of the Salafijihadist community. A lack of unity, anti-al-Qaeda religious rulings, and a widespread refusal to accept the need for violence—these are all things that al-Qaeda fears much worse than bullets or Predator drones with Hellfire missiles. Through a concerted strategic influence effort, we can erode the base of support that is so critical to their movement, and hasten its decay. As Secretary Gates notes, “Arguably the most important military component in the war on terror is not the fighting we do ourselves, but how well we enable and empower [others].”34 Clearly, the messenger matters as much as the messages. The strategic communication efforts of the United States must evolve to a more sophisticated approach that embraces competition with the myriad sources of information available on the Internet. Failure to do so provides our enemies with an advantage in the information domain that they cannot be allowed to have.
Notes
1 This article draws from the author’s book Influence Warfare: How Terrorists and Governments Fight to Shape Perceptions in a War of Ideas (Praeger Security International, forthcoming). 2 Col. Thomas X. Hammes, Retired, “Fourth Generation Warfare Evolves; FIFTH EMERGES,” Military Review 87, no. 3 (May/June 2007): 14-23. 3 See William McCants, ed., Militant Ideology Atlas (West Point, NY: Combating Terrorism Center,
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2006). Available online at http://www.ctc.usma. edu. 4 John Hughes, “Winning the war of words in the campaign against terrorism,” The Christian Science Monitor, 17 May 2006. Emphasis added. 5 See Militant Ideology Atlas. For a detailed analysis of the global Salafi movement, see Quintan Wiktorowicz, “Anatomy of the Salafi Movement,” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 29 (2006), 235.
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6 Jarret Brachman, “Jihad Doctrine and Radical Islam,” in The Making of a Terrorist, Volume I: Recruitment, ed. James J. F. Forest (Praeger Security International, 2005). 7 See Mike McConnell, “DNI Authorities Hearing,” (testimony, Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Washington, D.C., 14 February 2008). Available online at http://www.dni.gov/ testimonies/20080214_testimony.pdf (date accessed: 2 November 2008). 8 See Abdul Aziz al-Sherif, “What Life has Taught Me” (Cairo, Egypt, self-published, August 2007) in Eric Schmitt and Thom Shanker, “U.S. Adapts Cold War Idea to Fight Terrorists,” New York Times, 18 March 2008. 9 The News [Karachi], 16 September 2007; and PakTribune, 15 September 2007, in “Fatwa in Tribal Pakistan Declares Taliban ‘Out Of Islam,’” Terrorism Focus 5, no. 12 (25 March 2008): Briefs(1). 10 Jarret Brachman and Abdullah Warius, “Abu Yahya al-Libi’s ‘Human Shields in Modern Jihad,’” CTC Sentinel 1, no. 6 (May 2008): 1-4. Available online at http://ctc.usma.edu/sentinel. 11 Ibid. 12 Imam Samudra, Aku Melawan Teroris (Solo, Indonesia: al-Jazeera, 2004), 109-116. See Muhammad Haniff Hassan, Unlicensed to Kill: Countering Imam Samudra’s Justification for the Bali Bombing (Singapore: Peace Matters, 2006). 13 Gabriel Weimann, “Terrorist Dot Com: Using the Internet for Terrorist Recruitment and Mobilization,” in Forest, The Making of a Terrorist. 14 Abu Yahya al-Libi, “To the Army of Difficulty in Somalia,” al-Sahab Media, April 2007. 15 Evan F. Kohlmann, “Al-Qaeda’s ‘MySpace:’ Terrorist Recruitment on the Internet,” CTC Sentinel 1, no. 2 (January 2008): 8-9. Available online at http://ctc.usma.edu/sentinel. 16 Jarret Brachman and James J. F. Forest, “Exploring the Role of Virtual Training Camps,” in Michael Innes, ed., Denial of Sanctuary: Understanding Terrorist Safe Havens (London: Praeger Security International, 2007), 124-138. 17 See Harmony and Disharmony: Exploiting al-Qaida’s Organizational Vulnerabilities (West Point, NY: Combating Terrorism Center, 2006) and Cracks in the Foundation: Leadership Schisms in Al-Qaida, 1996-2006 (West Point, NY: Combating Terrorism Center, March 2008). Available online at http://ctc.usma.edu. 18 Gabriel Weimann, “When Fatwas Clash Online: Terrorist Debates on the Internet,” in
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Influence Warfare. 19 Robert M. Gates, “Landon Lecture” (lecture, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS, November 26, 2007), U.S. Department of Defense, Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs, Available online at http://www.defenselink. mil/speeches/speech.aspx?speechid=1199. 20 Pamela Constable, “A Modernized Taliban Thrives in Afghanistan: Militia Operates a Parallel Government,” Washington Post, 20 September 2008, http://www.washingtonpost.com. 21 See the comments by the chief spokesman for NATO forces, Brigadier General Richard Blanchette, in Pamela Constable, “A Modernized Taliban.” 22 Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, “Public Diplomacy in NATO-led Operations,” (seminar, Copenhagen, Denmark, October 8, 2007). 23 Thomas Elkjer Nissen, The Taliban’s Information Warfare: A Comparative Analysis of NATO Information Operations and Taliban Information Activities (Copenhagen, Denmark: Royal Danish Defense College, December 2007), 9. 24 Robert M. Gates, “Landon Lecture.” 25 Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting, “Pentagon Propaganda Plan Is Undemocratic, Possibly Illegal,” 19 February 2002. Available online at http://www. fair.org/index.php?page=1660. 26 Matthew Moneyhon, “Taming China’s “Wild West:” Ethnic Conflict in Xinjiang,” Peace, Conflict, and Development: An Interdisciplinary Journal 5, no. 5 (2004): 2-23. 27 Karen DeYoung and Walter Pincus, “U.S. to Fund Pro-American Publicity in Iraqi Media,” Washington Post, 3 October 2008. 28 Alhurra TV, “About Us,” http://www.alhurra. com (date accessed: 1 August 2007). 29 Robert M. Gates, “Landon Lecture.” 30 Martha Crenshaw, “An Organizational Approach to the Analysis of Political Terrorism,” Orbis 29, no. 3 (F all 1985): 465-89. 31 See their Web site at http://www. radicalmiddleway.co.uk. 32 Kyai Haji Abdurrahman Wahid and C. Holland Taylor, “In Indonesia, Songs Against Terrorism,” Washington Post, 7 October 2005. Available online at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/ article/2005/10/06/AR2005100601559.html. 33 Asra Q. Nomani, “Heroes and Pioneers,” Time, 14 May 2007. 34 Robert M. Gates, “Landon Lecture.”
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Culture&Society Criminalizing “Immigrant” Youth In France Susan Terrio Juvenile delinquency and urban violence have been charged public policy issues in France since the 1980s. These issues have dominated opinion polls, shaped campaign rhetoric, spawned new crime experts, prompted legislative reform, and, significantly, influenced the outcome of recent elections. Public attention has centered on what was presented as a new type of youth crime, termed a “delinquency of exclusion.” This delinquency has become associated almost exclusively with the children of underprivileged Muslim families of North and West African ancestry. In a short time the typical offender has become known as the “immigrant” delinquent, despite the fact that the young people in question are the children or grandchildren of immigrants and many hold French citizenship. Journalists, jurists, and politicians depicted their offenses as a crisis of public order and an assault on French values. This representation of youth crime has created moral panics and resuscitated acrimonious debates on the nature and causes of juvenile delinquency as well as the relative merits of punishment versus rehabilitation. These debates focus explicitly on the juvenile court, its judges, and the nationally uniform legal code governing minors that earned France its international reputation as a
Susan Terrio is associate professor of Anthropology and French Studies, and is chair of the Anthropology Department at Georgetown University.
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progressive penal system. First legislated in 1945, this ordinance represented a dramatic shift away from the repressive approaches of the past when judges did not hesitate to institutionalize children who were indigent, unwanted, abused, endangered, or merely rebellious with those who were truly delinquent. After 1945, legislators created a system that prioritized rehabilitation and institutionalized separate juvenile jurisdictions with reduced sentences for those below eighteen years of age. Juvenile offenders had their responsibility excused or mitigated based on extenuating circumstances. In only twenty-five years, that progressive welfare approach has been subject to public challenge and rapid reform culminating in the 2008 creation of the Varinard Commission that was charged with a complete overhaul of French juvenile law.1 This article describes the shift in juvenile law and practice from less prevention and rehabilitation to more individual accountability and punishment.2 This article provides a short history of modern juvenile law and then explores the debates among academics,
crime that was created through penal reform and urban policing. It documents recent legislation influenced by experts who discredited the therapeutic model of the recent past. Legislators on the left and the right have supported the creation of new offenses and stiffer penalties that have the effect of targeting disadvantaged and minority youth. This legislation and its acceptance by the French public reflect a dramatic reconception of the boundary separating children from adults.
Modern French Juvenile Law.
Although an embryonic juvenile court system was created in 1912, the modern institution was not established until 1945. Fears of demographic stagnation combined with political upheaval, economic crisis, and abortive reforms under the World War II Vichy government were the catalysts for change. Jurists and child advocates of the immediate postwar period demanded separate juvenile court jurisdictions and procedures grounded in prevention and assistance. The 1945 ordinance created for the first time specialized juvenile judges and professional caseworkers.
French law recognizes no collective versus
individual rights and the constitution rejects the very notion of minority status. practitioners, and security analysts who came to view the “new” delinquents as less amenable to rehabilitation and integration within French society, based on their economic marginality and cultural difference. It highlights the new category of violent juvenile
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It established penal irresponsibility for minors under thirteen, a focus on the child rather than the act, deferred judgments, individualized sentences, a separation between minor and adult jurisdictions regardless of the severity of the offense, and national sentencing
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guidelines that automatically cut penalties in half for minors under eighteen. This ordinance was amended numerous times in later years to reflect an expansive rehabilitative ideal and in 1958 its purview was extended to include civil case interventions in addition to penal cases. There are a variety of reasons why the postwar years represent an exceptional period during which politicians embraced rehabilitative approaches. These include sustained and rapid economic growth, full employment, demographic vitality, and social optimism. In the immediate postwar period juvenile judges gained public legitimacy because of their commitment to child advocacy and social justice. Nonetheless, their colleagues within the legal establishment, also career magistrates, viewed juvenile judges less as rigorous jurists devoted to the impartial application of the law than as social workers committed to a personalized form of justice. Many magistrates stigmatized juvenile justice as a lesser justice (justice des mineurs, justice mineure). Beginning in the 1980s the postwar consensus within the legal establishment on the need to prioritize preventive approaches for troubled youth began to unravel. This happened in an entirely different economic context marked by de-industrialization, the rapid rise of youth unemployment, and the failures of a public education system ill prepared to shift to mass education. From the 1980s on, media coverage centering on violent unrest in the suburbs of major French cities helped to create fears of “new delinquents” and to set the stage for the re-conception of immigrant populations from former
Culture&Society
French colonies as social problems and labor liabilities. By the 1990s a new cohort of juvenile judges was eager to challenge social activism and more willing to apply the 1945 ordinance in a more punitive register. Since the 1990s, public and scholarly attention has focused less on “youth at risk” than on “youth as trouble.”
Media Coverage and Moral Panics. As a result of extensive and
sensational media coverage of short term spikes in the rates of certain youth crimes, the topic of insécurité, or fear of urban and juvenile crime, became a highly politicized public issue in the 1990s. It influenced the outcome of presidential elections by bringing the right to power in 1995 and by eliminating Prime Minister Lionel Jospin from the second round of the 2002 elections because of the perceived failures of his Socialist government to contain youth violence. In a pivotal January 2007 speech presidential candidate Nicholas Sarkozy declared that “if we excuse [youth] violence we must expect barbarism.”3 Sarkozy’s embrace of a leaner welfare state coupled with tough anti-crime initiatives targeting minors contributed to his election as president later that spring. The shift in French understandings of juvenile delinquency was not a rational response to change. Rather it exemplified the features of a moral panic in which the media, politicians, crime experts, and public opinion reinforced one another in an escalating pattern of alarm to a perceived threat.4 Sensationalist headlines have been a staple of the coverage on youth crime since the urban unrest in public housing
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projects of the early 1980s.5 Coverage of juvenile delinquency has focused disproportionately on egregious and largely unrepresentative acts of physical violence committed by “immigrant” youth in public housing projects such as gang rapes, honor killings, revenge murders, or savage assaults. Sustained media publicity and an exaggerated sense of the threat resulted in collective hostility toward youth offenders of immigrant ancestry who were categorized as “other” even when they held French citizenship.
Scholarly Debates and Challenges to the 1945 Ordinance.
Even before a “delinquency of exclusion” began to dominate debates on youth crime, the juvenile justice system was subjected to a withering critique from the left for its therapeutic paternalism. The influential public intellectual Michel Foucault, who argued that the modern juvenile justice system was more repressive than its predecessor, launched this critique in the late 1970s. He showed that the inmates at model agricultural penal colonies included not only boys who had broken the law but those who were considered to be problems in their schools, families, or neighborhoods. The court also deemed minor boys to be at risk when they came from single-parent, blended, or disadvantaged family households. Regardless of their backgrounds, they were all subjected to a regimen of uninterrupted surveillance and punitive correction. This treatment was intended to produce docile subjects who internalized the institutional norms of the penal colony and supervised themselves.6 Foucault’s critique of penal systems
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influenced sociologists who studied the treatment of children and families in twentieth-century institutions such as the juvenile court. These sociologists described a new intrusive sphere of state intervention directed at families. This sphere constituted a specific field of knowledge and new modes of social control.7 It relied on a body of law, medicine, psychology, psychiatry, and on social professionals, from child psychiatrists and social workers to juvenile judges, whose primary function was to assess risks, enforce norms, and sanction deviance. Building on this tradition, other sociologists of law, influenced by Marx, denounced institutional injustices and were suspicious of the rehabilitative intent of the system. They drew attention to pervasive class bias in the courts that worked against the interests of lower class youth, making them more vulnerable to state control and punitive correction. In their view, the personalized sentences and negotiated agreements that characterize the court proceedings served to obscure the unequal relations of power in the justice system.8 International pressure following ratification of the Convention for the Rights of the Child (CRC) in 1990 put renewed attention on the impartiality of juvenile judges, the fairness of sentences, the adequacy of due process protections for the accused, and the sovereign powers that they use in the courtroom. The international attention given to the rights of the child resuscitated longstanding debates in France on the proper balance between protection of the social order versus individual rights. Jurists and practitioners debated the charged issues of judicial power
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and the independence of judgments by judges who preside alone over hearings in chambers that are closed to the public.9 The legislators were also divided on the question of due process. As in the French legal system at large, the 1945 ordinance made little accommodation for an adversarial debate beyond notification of the charges in penal cases. It deemed that the juvenile judge was the best authority to advise the minor and, if his best interest demanded it, to recommend the assistance of an attorney. Despite the potential for arbitrary judgments and the abuse of power, the obligation to provide minor defendants with legal representation became law in France only in 1989, and then it applied exclusively to penal cases. Although civil hearings can result in the loss of parental custody or the temporary removal of children, the presence of a defense attorney in such proceedings is still the exception. In response to these developments, Antoine Garapon and Denis Salas, eminent jurists, former juvenile judges, and legal scholars organized a conference on the French juvenile justice system in 1993 to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the 1945 ordinance. In the 1995 published proceedings, the conference organizers stated their commitment to the spirit of juvenile law but they identified the crisis of the rehabilitative model. They blamed this crisis on “new” delinquents whose marginality, violence, and alterity posed challenges to the very foundations of the system. Contributors focused on three crucial points: 1) they redefined delinquency as a problem of territorial exclusion and ethno-cultural affiliations; 2) they conceptualized the problem as one of
Culture&Society
bad parenting and insufficient values; and, 3) they suggested that its individual-centered approach was no longer suited to newly emergent forms of collective deviance. Salas coined the term “delinquency of exclusion.” Although he argued against a purely punitive approach, Salas identified this form of delinquency as the “new challenge” for French juvenile law. This, he declared, is “a social phenomenon which has nothing in common” with the earlier forms of deviance. Who were these new delinquents? “Youth from an urban proletariat, born of school failure, lost in school tracks without potential, enmeshed with their families in a net of social assistance.” Salas concluded that the individual model of treatment based on “the error of youth” was no longer viable. Why? Drawing on the work of a group of new experts on urban violence, he claimed, “the young of the second generation of unemployment, have no plan to integrate to anything but their [own] values, codes, territories and not to a world of common references with adults and [French] youth.”10 A “delinquency of exclusion” became code for young people, mainly males, of immigrant or foreign ancestry. During this period Salas was one of a number of influential judges who collaborated with experts of urban violence and whose writings on delinquency privileged culture over economic circumstances or psychological pathology as underlying causes. French social scientists borrowed liberally from a cultural ecology model originating from the Chicago School of Sociology that linked “immigrant” delinquency to a culture of poverty marked by bad
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environmental influences, inherited cultural pathologies, and dangerous social milieus.11 Politicians on the left and the right also attributed the causes of the new delinquency to the exclusion from French culture. Two variants of this culturalist argument emerged in the 1990s. The first views youth violence as the result of an inevitable culture clash between mainstream French values and backward immigrant traditions magnified by poverty and exclusion. The second variant blames a total lack of culture within immigrant families whose children are said to lack moral values, social norms, and grounded identities.12
In the Paris Courtroom. In
Parisian courtrooms I observed, personnel drew on changing popular and scholarly understandings of delinquency. They associated a delinquency of exclusion with the underprivileged children of immigrant and foreign ancestry. As the explanation for delinquency shifted from economics and psychology to culture, cultural origin itself became subject to intensive scrutiny as a factor that put children and families at risk and in need of protection or correction. Many court personnel agreed that the “new” offenders who were appearing in their courtrooms were mired in their own cultural codes and territories. Judges I observed attended to the role played by cultural difference in one of two ways. Either they stigmatized and neutralized culture through the standard interventions at their disposal, or they medicalized and treated it through the specialized services of universityaffiliated ethno-psychiatrists. In either event, culture was a dangerous obstacle to be surmounted.
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In addition to social theory, the judicial practices of court personnel were shaped by French folk ideologies that view culture as an internally homogeneous and geographically bounded system. With this understanding, a mosaic of ethnic or national groups under court supervision, such as Antilleans, Algerians, Moroccans, Bambera, or Soninké are hierarchically ordered into discrete, qualitatively different systems regardless of the nationality they hold. These cultural hierarchies function like race to ascribe certain immutable traits to the peoples born within them. Culture, like biology, is understood to determine the practices of the people born into it. It is thought to be resistant to adaptation thus rehabilitative intervention will fail.
Emerging Consensus on the “Immigrant” Delinquent. In the 1990s magistrates, politicians, and academics on the left and the right reached a consensus on the status of the new delinquents although they were divided on the degree of punishment required. They differentiated the new delinquency from earlier understandings that viewed it as the product of coming-of-age risk-taking and immaturity, individual pathology, or flawed parenting. As these minors came to be over-represented in police custody, the courts, and in prison, the consensus on childhood as a malleable and perfectible stage extending to the late teens was shaken. The dispensations and protections normally granted to young teenagers for exposure to bad influences or for the developmental immaturity that leads to risky behavior came under attack. Formal penal reforms
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and informal judicial practices worked to separate French children from those born to immigrant and foreign parents and radically narrowed the boundary of a child’s acceptable behavior for the latter group. In a campaign to protect public order, politicians, police, and court personnel began to treat even young children from these families like adults, ascribing conscious intention, bad character, or even total responsibility to them for offending.13 In a pattern that began in the 1990s and accelerated rapidly, successive governments on the left and the right have expanded a longstanding territorialized approach to urban crime in state-classified or locally identified “bad” areas with high concentrations of “immigrant” and foreign populations. French legislators constructed a new category of violent youth crime. They voted stiffer penalties for existing offenses,
Culture&Society
very notion of penal irresponsibility for minors and in a dramatic reversal of postwar philosophy, lowered the age from thirteen to ten, at which children could be held accountable and given “rehabilitative” punishments.15 Legislators also changed the rules for preventive detention pending trial, giving juvenile judges more discretion in sending minors under sixteen years of age to prison for a range of relatively minor misdemeanors.16 In 2007 a new law on recidivism created minimum sentences for the first time, suspended the automatic application of the excuse of minority for sixteen- to eighteenyear-olds,17 and mandated prison for a range of offenses.18 By treating sixteen- to eighteen-year-olds as adults, this law effectively lowered the age of penal majority to sixteen and returned France to the 1810 penal code. In 2008 Justice Minister Rachida Dati reminded
Jurists and child advocates of the immediate postwar period demanded separate juvenile court jurisdictions and procedures grounded in prevention and assistance. added new aggravating circumstances for theft, created new infractions such as anti-loitering laws, constructed more juvenile prisons, and authorized a national database on children “considered likely to disrupt public order.”14 They extended the coercive force and reach of the state through the justice system by enhancing prosecutorial and police power and by accelerating the adjudication process to permit swifter investigations, prosecutions, and trials for juveniles. They reexamined the
members of the Varinard Commission that “the minor of 1945 and the minor of 2008 are completely different.” She urged members to “restore accountability” by deciding “on a minimum age for penal responsibility…to rethink the ban on penal sanctions for those under thirteen years of age,” and to mandate “a response for each offense.”19 Although four unions of magistrates, caseworkers, and psychologists boycotted the Commission’s installment ceremonies, Dati insisted that she had the
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support of court personnel and the French people.20
The Question of Race and Ethnicity. Minority and foreign defendants were over-represented in penal cases and disproportionately prosecuted in the Paris courtrooms I observed. There is nothing new about the paradox between the guarantee of equality under the law and the reality of the disproportionate prosecution of disadvantaged minorities. What is distinctive about the French case is the silencing of race and ethnicity in the law and the constitution. French law recognizes no collective versus individual rights and the constitution rejects the very notion of minority status. This remains true despite the historical significance of race and ethnicity as salient social categories and their current importance to the socio-political construction of deviance. The overrepresentation of minority and foreign defendants is impossible to know from official sources. Since the end of the racist policies of the World War II Vichy period it has been illegal in France to collect data on ethnic, racial, religious, or cultural origin, or to track racial or ethnic distributions in jobs or institutions. The state bans statistics relating to ethnic, racial, cultural, linguistic, or religious origin. The categorization of populations on the sole basis of nationality means that there are no de jure mechanisms in place to assess and address the treatment of French minors of immigrant ancestry within the justice system. As French nationals, they disappear from figures on arrest, prosecution, conviction, and incarceration rates. The only way to know who gets
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prosecuted and why is to get inside the courts and to observe adjudications. Although difference in France is framed primarily in terms of culture, phenotype as a marker of difference is also part of the ideology defining insiders and outsiders. Racism begins with discussions of cultural differences judged to be qualitatively different but also draws on racial stereotypes. It substitutes the rhetoric of racial inferiority in popular consciousness for the presumed cultural deficits and pathologies of Arabs and Africans. This has serious consequences for those who identify in ethnic or racial terms and congregate in public housing projects, becoming targets of police surveillance on the basis of phenotype. The legal void on race must be interpreted within the still dominant narrative of the French nation as the original color-blind Republic and exemplar and champion of universal human rights. This narrative is reproduced in the courts and other institutions. The universalist rhetoric on equality and the inclusive logic informing the “one and indivisible” Republic nonetheless perpetuates the official myth that since France recognizes no legal minorities it has no minority problem or ghettos segregated by race and ethnicity. In a logic mirroring French anti-racist law, racism is viewed exclusively as overt individual behavior, not indirect action or institutional discrimination. Since only individuals can seek legal redress, it is extremely difficult to prove discrimination based on race in part because there no legal category for it.21 The embrace of color-blindness in the law is no guarantee of a commitment to put an end to ethno-racial
terrio
Culture&Society
inequality. A color-blind society built on the subordination of persons of color—in this case, minorities from former colonies—cannot correct that subordination because it cannot recognize it.22
and subject to mandatory sentences that exclude individual background and mitigating circumstances. In the United States, two hundred thousand youth are prosecuted as adults every year and more than two thousand are serving life sentences without the posConclusion. In a relatively short sibility for parole for crimes they comperiod of time the “immigrant” delin- mitted as minors.24 Recent studies show quent became a figure of monstrous that harsher penalties have no deterrent proportions in France; his deviance was effect but produce harmful and even ethnicized and portrayed as unprece- irreversible consequences for those who dented. This has resulted in a dramatic serve time in adult prisons. These laws penalization of juvenile justice. This put thousands of young people at risk included higher rates of prosecution of isolation, severe abuse, and psychoof juvenile misdemeanors and crimes; logical problems. The French would do stiffer controls on pre-trial and post- well to recall the wisdom contained in sentence probation; more sentences the preface of the original 1945 ordimandating incarceration; and, longer nance justifying rehabilitation: “France prison sentences for minors convicted is not so rich in children that it can of serious offenses. The annual total afford all the necessary means to make of minors in prison went from 1,905 them healthy and productive citizens… in 1994 to 4,542 in 2001 and pre- Juvenile delinquency is one of the most trial detention nearly doubled over the pressing issues of our time.”25 Given same period, rising from 961 to 1,665. the pernicious effects of applying a Recent polls suggest that the punitive punitive model in American juvenile trend has broad appeal among French courts, the French should reconsider voters who believe that the juvenile jus- the legal reforms that have been legistice system is too lenient.23 lated and should not completely overThe French would do well to con- haul a juvenile justice system that rightly sider the United States and the con- earned an international reputation for sequences of implementing a system its emphasis on protection and assisin which minors are tried as adults tance of at-risk youth. Notes
1 In April 2008 Justice Minister Rachida Dati installed the new Varinard Commission and requested that it overhaul juvenile law. She noted that the sharp increases in juvenile crime, particularly among those under thirteen years of age. See Ministère de la Justice, “Refondation de l’ordonnance du 2.2.1945 sur l’enfance délinquante,” 15 April 2008, Internet, http://www.justice.gouv.fr/index.php?rubrique=10 030&article=14454. 2 The article is based on five years of archival and ethnographic research at the Paris juvenile court from 2000-2005, including the observation of
adjudication proceedings involving civil and penal cases. 3 Ministère de l’Intérieur de l’Outre-mer et des Collectivités Territoriales, “Conférence de presse sur la sécurité, l’améagement du territoire et l’Immigration,” Internet, http://www.interieur. gouv.fr/sections/a_la_une/toute_l_actualite/ministere/archives/conference-presse-11-01-07/. 4 Moral panics can become institutionalized if legal and policy changes result, as happened in France. 5 A. Collovald, “Violence et délinquance dans la presse,” in Prévention et sécurité: Vers un nouvel ordre? eds.,
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F. Bailleau and C. Gorgeon (Saint-Denis la Plaine: Les éditions de la délégation interministérielle à la ville, 2000), 39-53. 6 Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (New York: Vintage, 1977), 293. 7 J. Donzelot, The Policing of Families (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997); Philippe Meyer, The Child and the State: The Intervention of the State in Family Life (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984). 8 See Francis Bailleau and Catherine Gorgeon, Prévention et sécurité: Vers un nouvel ordre social? (SaintDenis La Plaine: Les éditions de la délégation interministérielle à la ville, 2000); P. Bourdieu, “La force du droit,” Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales 64 (1986): 3–19. 9 Juvenile judges may initiate proceedings on their own authority, modify or reverse their own decisions, and their rulings remain in effect even during an appeal process. 10 Denis Salas, “L’enfant paradoxal” in La Justice des Mineurs: Évolution d’un modèle, eds., Antoine Garapon and Denis Salas (Paris: Librairie Générale du Droit et de Jurisprudence, 1995), 56. 11 Alain Bauer and Xavier Raufer, Violences et insécurités urbaines. 2nd ed. (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1999); Joëlle Bordet, Les jeunes de la cité (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1999); Hugues Lagrange, De l’affrontement à l’esquive (Paris: Syros, 2001); David Lepoutre, Coeur de banlieue: Codes, rites et langages (Paris: Éditions Odile Jacob, 1997); Sebastian Roché, La délinquance des jeunes: Les 13–19 ans racontent leurs délits (Paris: Seuil, 2001). 12 Laurent Mucchielli, Violences et insécurité: Fantasmes et réalités dans le débat français (Paris: La Découverte, 2002), 8. 13 Ann Arnett Ferguson, Bad Boys: Public Schools in the Making of Black Masculinity (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2001). 14 See laws no. 2003-239, 18 March 2003; no. 2002-1138, 9 September 2002; no. 2003-239, 18 March 2003; no. 2004-204, 9 March 2004; no. 2007-1198, 10 August 2007. Available online at
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http://www.legifrance.gouv.fr. 15 These sanctions are modeled on the adult penal code and were enacted to control young children’s spatial movement, social contacts, and personal property. See the law no. 2002-1138, 9 September 2002. Available online at http://www. legifrance.gouv.fr. 16 The 9 September 2002 law permits judges to send youth who violate the terms of probation pending trial (contrôle judiciaire) to closed juvenile centers or prison. 17 Judges may use juvenile sentencing guidelines that automatically reduce the adult penalty by half but these guidelines became the exception rather than the rule for recidivists. 18 Law no. 2007-1198, 10 August 2007. Available online at http://www.legifrance.gouv.fr. 19 Ministère de la Justice, “Refondation de l’ordonnance du 2.2.1945.” 20 “Dati invoque ‘une attente des Français’ en installant sa commission,” Nouvel Observateur, 13 June 2008. Internet, http://www.nouvelobs.com. 21 Alec G. Hargreaves, “Half-Measures: Antidiscrimination Policy in France,” French Politics, Culture, and Society 18, no. 3 (Fall 2000): 93. 22 Kimberle Crenshaw, “Race, Reform, and Retrenchment: Transformation and Legitimation in Anti-discrimination Law,” in Critical Race Theory: The Key Writings That Formed the Movement, eds., Kimberle Crenshaw, Neil Gotanda, Garry Peller, and Kendall Thomas (New York: The New Press, 1995), 106. 23 Loïc Wacquant, “Comment sortir du piège sécuritaire?” Contradictions 22 (2004), 124; See question 16 of poll at http://www.sitoyen.fr/mon-votea-moi/mon-vote-a-moi.php (date accessed: 10 May 2007). 24 L. Ryan and J. Ziendenberg, The Consequences Aren’t Minor: The Impact of Trying Youth as Adults and Strategies for Reform (Campaign for Youth Justice: Washington, DC, 2007); Woolard, 2005. 25 Law no. 45-174, 2 February 1945. Available online at http://www.legifrance.gouv.fr.
Culture&Society
The Hindutva View of History
Rewriting Textbooks in India and the United States Kamala Visweswaran, Michael Witzel, Nandini Manjrekar, Dipta Bhog, and Uma Chakravarti When Hindu nationalist (or Sangh Parivar) organizations in India came to power at the national level in 1998, one of the first things they did was to establish a National Curriculum Framework (NCF) to change textbook content. The 2000 NCF curriculum debate reflected the intense conflict between competing visions of national identity that had dominated India’s public and political discourse over the previous two decades. In a significant departure from earlier curriculum frameworks of 1972 and 1986, which stressed democratic values, social justice, and national integration through appreciation of the commonalities of different subcultures, the principal focus of the NCF was “value education.”1 The chief end of history, as of education as a whole, was presented as the development of a “national spirit” and “national consciousness” through generating pride in the younger generation regarding India’s past and its unique “religio-philosophical ethos, which was presented as primarily Hindu.”2 These actions were vociferously challenged by academics and progressive, secular, liberal, or left groups who decried the Sangh Parivar’s ideological efforts to recast history. In the summer and fall months of 2005, U.S. “Hindu”
Kamala Visweswaran is an associate professor of anthropology at the University of Texas, Austin. Michael Witzel is a professor of Sanskrit at Harvard University. Nandini Manjrekar is an assosciate professor at the Tata Institue of Social Sciences, Mumbai. Dipta Bhog is a codirector of Nirantar: A Centre for Gender and Education in Delhi. Uma Chakravati is professor emeritus of history at the Miranda House at Delhi University.
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organizations with Sangh ties appeared at California Board of Education hearings, claiming that California textbooks discriminated against Hindus and presented a demeaning image of Hinduism. While there were indeed problems with the representation of Hinduism in the textbooks, the overall aim of the changes proposed by the Hindu Education Foundation and the Vedic Foundation was to propagate false notions of Indian history, including the idea that “Aryans” were the original or indigenous inhabitants of India, and that the core essence of Hinduism could be found in the Vedic religion of the Aryans. We will argue that these textbook edits attempt to manufacture a majoritarian view of society in which the cultural and political space for minorities will progressively shrink. The ongoing violence against Muslims in Gujarat, where the Sangh Parivar’s political arm, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) first came into office in the mid-1990s, and elsewhere in India, suggests that such a curriculum creates a setting in which social intolerance and injustices against minorities can be justified. U.S. legislators, policy-makers, and educators must therefore be particularly vigilant about the transplantation of this ideology to the United States in a post-9/11 climate.3
the World Hindu Council, or Vishwa Hindu Parishad, was founded in 1964. The political arm of the movement was founded as the Jana Sangh in 1956, but reorganized as the Indian People’s Party or Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 1980. Members of Sangh Parivarrelated organizations have been indicted in numerous incidents of mass violence against Christian and Muslim minorities in India and a former RSS member assassinated Mahatma Gandhi in 1948.4 The Sangh Parivar increasingly attempts to present a more benign face through charity and educational work, and has set up several partner organizations in the United States, among them the Vishwa Hindu Parishad of America (founded in 1976 and now headquartered in Iselin, New Jersey), the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh (founded about 1980 and headquartered in Rockaway, New Jersey) and the Overseas Friends of the BJP (headquartered in Edison, New Jersey).5 In 1998, the BJP came to power at the national level and, for the second time, in Gujarat, where RSS-affiliated chief ministers, including current Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi have held power for much of the past decade. The Sangh rise to power in Gujarat and at the national level resulted in two things: first, the discriminatory or unequal application of law to target Muslim and Christian groups; and, Sangh Parivar in India and the second, the systematic revision of textUnited States. The Sangh Parivar books at the national and state level.6 refers to the family of Hindu national- Although violence against Christians in ist organizations created beginning in the last few months has been particu1926 with the founding of the National larly pronounced in BJP-led states like Volunteers Organization or Rashtriya Orissa, the BJP sometimes distances Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). The cultural itself from the more extreme actions and religious branch of the movement, of its fellow Sangh Parivar organiza-
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tions. While some scholars and political observers consider the BJP to be a moderate force in Indian politics, an analysis of its role in textbook revisions in India shows that it firmly subscribes to the basic tenets of Hindu nationalist ideology and its revisionist view of history. The systematic rewriting of history is a critical component of Hindu nationalist ideology. Its guiding concept, Hindutva (“Hinduness”) calls for India’s former untouchables, Christians, and Muslims to be assimilated, expelled, or annihilated so that a Hindu majority nation is transformed into an exclusively Hindu nation.7 To do so requires the construction of a history that renders India as “Hindu,” and collapses the distinction between history and religious myth. Hindutva history describes Christians and Muslims as “foreigners”
Culture&Society
ment of fifty-one government primary schools in rural areas to the Vidya Bharati Educational Trust—the Sangh Parivar’s educational wing. With the defeat of the BJP at the national level in 2004, some of these textbook changes have been reversed. Ironically, some of the same textbook changes that were in the process of being revised in India were being attempted for the first time in the United States. Below we summarize the efforts to rewrite Indian history in India and the United States.
The Hindutva Rewriting of Textbooks in India. While many
of India’s textbooks over the past decades have been of poor quality and contained factually incorrect information or negative stereotypes, the systematic rewriting of history is a critical component of Hindu nationalist educa-
The systematic rewriting of history is a
critical component of Hindu nationalist ideology. and portrays medieval India as a period of Muslim despotism and decline. When the BJP first came to power in 1998, Sangh sympathizers were placed on the National Council for Education and Research Training (NCERT), the school curriculum development and review body at the national level. Over the next several years, NCERT introduced changes to the school curricula in alignment with the Sangh’s agenda.8 States with BJP governments implemented these and other changes. In 2001, Goa’s BJP chief minister, Manohar Parrikar, turned manage-
tion. For many decades, the grassroots organizations and educational institutions run by the RSS—the Saraswati Shishu Mandirs and Vidya Bharati primary and secondary schools—have sought to spread a Hindu-centric version of Indian history. For example, “some books for elementary school students portrayed all communities other than the Hindus as foreigners in India…These books, in the name of instilling patriotism and valor among Indians, spread falsehoods, treat mythological religious figures like actual historical figures and make absurd claims such as that the
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struggle for India’s freedom became a ‘religious war’ against Muslims.”9 The United States Department of State’s International Religious Freedom reports of 2003 and 2004 describe the Sangh efforts to revise curriculum in India as threats to religious freedom.10 The curriculum designed by the NCF in 2000 and the textbooks published a year later also interchanged the roles assigned to science and spirituality. The earlier emphasis on science—seen as essential to the creation of a rational, modern, and enlightened society—was supplanted in the new framework by the idea of a unique and distinctive “Indian tradition” based on formulaic notions of spirituality and religion and a conservative social bias. The new framework was severely criticized for violating the constitutional commitment to secularism by advocating the idea of religion-based value education as a crucial factor in the syllabi. Value education, however, was integral to the NCF’s plan, its main plank to launch the spiritual and moral renewal of India. It was only through learning of the “lives of prophets, saints and the sacred texts” that children could achieve higher SQs (Spiritual Quotients) and EQs (Emotional Quotients).11 While the implementation of the NCF curriculum on a national level was stayed by the Supreme Court on 1 March 2002 on the ground that the NCF had not sought the mandatory approval of the Central Advisory Board of Education, states with BJP governments were already implementing changes to social science and history textbooks that followed the broad guidelines of the NCF 2000 curriculum.
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The BJP government in Gujarat was one of the first to revise its textbooks with a decidedly Hindu nationalist frame. The first book in the revised series, the social science textbook for class eight, focuses on the most radical elements of the movement against British colonial rule, carrying images of several of the movement’s most militant leaders on its cover. Recent editions of the Gujarat social studies books suggest a close association between terrorism and Muslim identity, including prejudicial statements such as: “Gujarat is a border state. Its land and sea boundaries touch the boundaries of Pakistan which is like a den of terrorism. Under such circumstances, it is absolutely necessary for us to understand the effects of terrorism and the role of citizens in the fight against it.”12 History textbooks in Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh regularly conflate myth and historical fact. The Dandi Salt March led by Gandhi in 1931, a high point in the nationalist struggle, for example, is conflated with Lord Ram’s mythical progress to Panchvati. Such comparisons have the effect of sacralizing an important event in secular nationalism while attaching a historical dateline to mythic events.13 The Gujarat State fifth grade social studies textbook has nine stories on mythology masquerading as history.14 The Hindutva movement also has historic links to Italian and German forms of fascism from the 1920s and 1930s, and another form of textbook revision can be seen in its treatment of fascism.15 Prashant, a Jesuit NGO based in Ahmedabad, undertook an analysis of Gujarati class nine textbooks in 2005 and found several dis-
Visweswaran, witzel, manjrekar, bhog, chakravarti
tortions and omissions on this count: “There is no mention of Hitler’s role in the concentration camps, the holocaust and the extermination of millions of Jews; in fact, the role of Hitler is seen as always positive.”16 Similarly, the Gujarat state class ten social studies textbooks contained chapters titled “Hitler, the Supremo” and “Internal Achievements of Nazism” where Nazi administrative efficiency is lauded. The Holocaust is not mentioned by name, but “the gruesome and inhuman act of suffocating 60 lakh [6 million] Jews in gas chambers” is noted. The section on “Ideology of Nazism” translates Hitler’s title of “Fuhrer” as “Savior.”17 Finally, in the Gujarat textbooks, caste is rendered as a benign social arrangement. Although caste discrimination (casteism) is identified as a “social evil,” it is seen as a corruption of varnashrama, the Vedic system of four hierarchically ranked classes that forms the basis and justification for the caste system. A 1997 social studies text says, “These distinctions have persisted in spite of the attempts made by reformers to remove them. Yet, the importance of the ‘varna’ system as an ideal system of building the social and economic structure of a society cannot be overlooked.”18 States where the BJP has come to power have followed the Gujarat model. Textbooks in the state of Rajasthan, where the BJP became the ruling party in 2003 have been revised to incorporate Hindu nationalist views. Other states where the BJP is in power have pledged to ignore the 2005 National Curriculum Framework set by NCERT and to use their own textbooks.19
Culture&Society
The Hindutva Attempt to Rewrite Textbooks in the United States. In India the strategy to rewrite textbooks has come from government branches and agencies controlled by the BJP and its allied organizations, which have relied upon the grassroots network of Sangh charities and educational institutions to carry them out. In the United States, the call for rewriting textbooks has apparently come from Hindu parents who feel the books demean or misrepresent Hinduism. The first known case charging anti-Hindu bias in U.S. textbooks occurred in Fairfax County, Virginia in 2004. Scholars from George Mason University and Georgetown University were consulted and, while they found some difficulties with the textbooks, they recommended that the school board adopt them.20 In September of that same year, however, the Educator’s Society for the Heritage of India (ESHI), which has links to many Sanghaffiliated institutions in the United States and India,21 held a conference at Rutgers University to plan a strategy for challenging the representation of Hinduism in California, Texas, and Florida state textbooks.22 The 2004 conference, which included officials from the New Jersey Department of Education, also featured representation from other Sangh-affiliated organizations, including a speaker from the Vedic Foundation in Austin, Texas, which would play a major role in the California textbook debate.23 It is evident, then, that the California campaign emerged less as the effort of concerned Hindu parents, and more as the outcome of concerted planning and preparation from Hindu national-
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ist organizations in the United States. While we do not wish to discount the legitimate questions Hindu parents may have about the representation of Hinduism in textbooks, it is of considerable concern that parents and state education officials may unknowingly be working with Hindutva, or Hindutvaled organizations. The California State Board of Education (CBE) reviews educational materials for its core subjects (History and Social Science, Mathematics, Reading and Language Arts, and Science) every six years. In 2005, the history and social science texts were up for evaluation. Over the summer of 2005, the Hindu Education Foundation (HEF) and the Vedic Foundation (VF) of Austin, Texas, wrote to the California Department of Education Curriculum alleging that California sixth grade textbooks contained errors and stereotypical views of Hindus. As mandated, the
figure
CBE makes the proposed textbooks available for public scrutiny and commentary. During public hearings at the end of September 2005, representatives of several Islamic, Jewish, and “Hindu” organizations testified to problematic aspects of the educational materials. The HEF and VF proposed a large number of changes to the textbooks. In the end, some 160 edits were submitted and taken up for review by the California authorities. The California State Board of Education appointed an ad hoc review panel to vet proposed textbook changes with Dr. Shiva Bajpai, a retired professor at California State University, Northridge, and a member of the World Association for Vedic Studies (WAVES), an organization known for its Hindutva ties.24 Dr. Bajpai endorsed most of the changes proposed by the HEF and VF, including a number that were historically inaccurate. The most
1: The Sangh Parivar’s U.S. Connections†
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Visweswaran, witzel, manjrekar, bhog, chakravarti
important and contentious of the edits, as in India, was the attempt to say that the earliest and most sophisticated civilization in ancient India, the Indusvalley civilization, was contemporary with Aryan or Vedic civilization—thus claiming the achievements of the former as “Aryan” and, in so doing, ignoring the historical evidence that Aryans had migrated to India from Central Asia. The HEF and VF revisions thus sought to pose the Vedic texts of the Aryans as proof that early Hinduism was the oldest or “indigenous” religion, erasing adivasi (aboriginal or “first peoples”) histories, and presenting South Asian Christians and Muslims who have lived in India for centuries as “outsiders.” Further, the rewrites to the California curriculum glossed over gender and caste hierarchies in ancient Indian history, excised references to caste and gender inequalities in contemporary India, and deleted the word dalit (former “untouchable” castes) from textbooks altogether. The historically accurate description of women in ancient India as having fewer rights than men was changed to “other rights than men.”25 Perhaps most seriously, the text presented the many varieties of Hinduism as a monolithic, monotheistic religion of “one God: his name is Bhagwan,” marginalizing the multiple female and male deities that Hindus throughout India worship.26 Many of the HEF/ VF edits sought to emphasize a Vedic form of Hinduism, which contains a religious justification for the caste system, while at the same time attempting to de-link Hinduism from the caste system and then minimizing or eliminating mention of the effects of caste discrimination upon lower caste and
Culture&Society
dalit communities. The edits of VF/HEF as sanctioned by Dr. Bajpai were scheduled for a final vote on 9 November 2005. A few days prior to that vote, though, scholars who had been alerted to the impending politicized edits sent a letter of protest to the CBE signed by forty-seven South Asia specialists from around the world, many of them Sanskritists, Indologists, or historians of India.27 In response, the CBE suspended the ratification process, and appointed a three-member faculty committee consisting of Dr. Michael Witzel (Harvard), Dr. Stanley Wolpert (UCLA), and Dr. James Heitzman (UC-Davis) to review the changes. That committee’s report, delivered in November, rescinded most of the VF/HEF edits.28 A group of 109 U.S.-based South Asia scholars sent a letter to the CBE on 30 November, urging it to accept the faculty committee’s recommendations.29 The CBE held several public hearings between December 2005 and 8 March 2006, at which a number of U.S. Sangh-affiliated groups and others testified. However, the Sangh organizations put enormous pressure on the board, and it caved in to what it saw as popular sentiment by accepting most of the VF/HEF edits. This did not stop the protests against the California edits, however. Another letter sent on 7 December 2005, signed this time by 146 U.S.-based scholars of South Asia expressed concern about the CBE decision30 and asked it to formally reconsider.31 In subsequent CBE meetings in January and February, numerous other Indian and South Asian community organizations also testified,32 contesting the Hindutva view of Indian
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history; and a group of South Asia scholars submitted two reports to the CBE detailing flaws in the textbook revisions.33 This ultimately led the CBE to reverse its initial opinion and abandon most of the HEF/VF changes. A lawsuit later filed against the CBE by the Hindu American Foundation, a group with links to both the HEF and VF, was ruled invalid on all four major points of contention. In a lengthy, well-reasoned opinion the court called the proposed changes unscholarly.34 In the spring of 2006, a new Hindutvaaffiliated organiation, California Parents for Equalization of Educational Materials (CAPEEM), launched another case in California Federal Court alleging discrimination against Hindus in California textbooks.35 This case is still pending and may be resolved in early 2009.
Conclusions. While Hindutva as a
form of aggressive and militant nationalism is focused on the capture of state power in India, it is less clear what its
the content of that expression, it cannot condone the teaching of ideas that foster and justify prejudice and intolerance toward minority groups. Textbook revisions in India which have been successfully introduced into the United States deliberately conflate pride in Hinduism with Hindu superiority. As one of the co-authors of this paper has discovered, ideas of Hindu superiority encourage college students in Texas who have absorbed them to be suspicious and intolerant toward Muslims and other Indian minorities in the United States.36 The most important area of overlap between the textbook revisions in India and those in California was the ideological effort to make “Aryans” the progenitors of the Indus Valley civilization, thereby establishing them as the indigenous originators of a “Hindu” India and rendering Christians and Muslims as “foreigners.” Yet there were also points of divergence in the strategies for rewriting history. Textbooks in Gujarat present
The historically accurate description of
women in ancient India as having fewer rights than men was changed to “other rights than men.” aims are as a transnational movement, beyond appeals to the U.S. Indian diaspora to support its various projects in India. Why then, should U.S. citizens and residents be concerned about the infiltration of Hindu nationalist ideas in U.S. schools? While the United States appropriately recognizes freedom of expression, regardless of
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the caste system as an achievement of Aryan civilization, while the tendency of Hindutva groups in the United States was to erase evidence of the connection between Hinduism and the caste system. We have also seen that the modifications of textbooks in Gujarat resulted in a reformulation of Indian nationalism as an essentially militant one,
Visweswaran, witzel, manjrekar, bhog, chakravarti
which conflated Muslims with terrorists and reframed Hitler’s legacy as positive, while more generally (and perhaps insidiously) inserting mythic themes and figures into historical accounts. In California, on the other hand, the textbook revisions focused mostly on the ancient civilizations curricula where the origins of the world’s religions are discussed, so the emphasis has been less on introducing religio-mythic figures and more on reifying Brahminical texts such as the Rig-Veda as foundational to Hindu and thus Indian identity. Yet the notion that the Vedas define Hinduism also leads to a contradiction in the Hindutva strategy of separating the caste system from Hindusim, for it is in the Rig-Veda that we find the earliest central evidence and religious justification for the caste system.37 In dating the origins of Hinduism to the Vedas, California and other U.S. textbooks have unwittingly reinforced the Hindutva view that such texts are definitive of Hindusim rather than a part of a vibrant, pluralistic, and constantly changing tradition that has also included challenges to the caste system in the forms of bhakti devotional worship.38 The California textbook controversy takes on added importance because textbooks adopted in California and Texas tend to set national trends for the adoption of textbooks elsewhere in the United States. The social studies textbooks in Texas, where Houston branches of the VHPA and HSS are extremely active, are now up for review. At the point of textbook review, most states are primarily concerned with whether textbooks meet the state-approved standards, and public participation in the review process is limited to correction of factual
Culture&Society
errors. This structural feature in the textbook review process helped stymie Hindutva attempts to introduce more broad-based ideological content into California textbooks. After the School Board reversal and the court verdict in California, however, Hindu nationalist organizations appear to have changed their strategy. Most states allow school districts to supplement their textbooks with additional materials. In California and Texas, Hindu nationalist organizations have made supplemental materials freely available to interested teachers. For example, online “educational” materials from the ESHI website present exaggerated and unsubstantiated claims about Indian history and Hinduism that are in line with the changes made to textbooks in India. One slide, for example, renames the “Khyber Pass” in present day Afghanistan as the “Pass in the Himalayas for Foreign Invaders! Greeks, Muslims, Europeans,” but of course neglects to mention that Aryans also entered India through the same Khyber Pass. Still another slide announces “NASA images of Rama’s bridge!” showing an image of Rama and Sita from the Ramayana counterposed to an old aerial photograph purporting to show the ruins of an underwater bridge between the “Tip of India” and Sri Lanka.39 Such assertions would be laughable were it not for the Hindutva movement’s success in spreading such materials among the U.S. Indian Diaspora through after-school and day-care programs. Teachers, too, are eager for supplemental materials to use in the classroom, especially if they are lowcost or provided for free; California teachers have clearly been exposed to
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Hindutva materials, as have teachers in Texas. At a University of Texas Title VI “Hemispheres” Outreach Workshop with K–12 schoolteachers this summer, some teachers from Houston area schools, perhaps drawing upon similar anti-immigrant sentiment in the United States, passionately argued that since Hindus were the original inhabitants of India, minority populations in India should be treated like immigrant foreigners. Thus, regardless of how challenges to state-adopted textbooks in Texas and Florida play out in the future, Hindutva propaganda continues to circulate and to make its way into U.S. classrooms.
Our recommendations to remedy this are twofold: (1) The U.S. government should increase the outreach and programming budgets for South Asia Title VI Programs with specially earmarked funds to hire additional staff to develop and widely disseminate academically vetted supplemental materials on Hinduism for use in U.S. classrooms. (2) Policymakers should consider whether a national panel of South Asia scholars drawn from federally funded Title VI South Asia programs should be created to vet controversial materials in the event of continued court challenges to state approved teaching materials on Hinduism in the United States.
Notes
1 See Nandini Manjrekar, “The national curriculum framework in Gujarat—children’s education in a Hindu Rashtra,” University of Baroda, 5 April 2002 (material submitted to the Editors’ Guild of India), People’s Union for Civil Liberties, Baroda and Shanti Abhiyan. 2 See “The Need for Strengthening Education Change” J.B. Rajput, Pioneer, 20 November 2002. 3 For an analysis of Hindu-Americans post9/11, see Prema A. Kurien, “Multiculturalism and ‘American’ Religion: The Case of Hindu Indian Americans” Social Forces 85, no. 2 (December 2006): 723-741. 4 See for example the numerous human rights reports on the 2002 Hindu nationalist violence against Muslims in Gujarat: “An Interim Report to the National Human Rights Commission,” People’s Union of Civil Liberties, 21 March 2002, Internet, http://www.pucl.org/Topics/Religioncommunalism/2002/gujarat-nhrc-submission.htm; “Ethnic Cleansing in Ahmedabad: A Preliminary Report,” SAHMAT Fact Finding Team, 10-12 March 2002, Internet, http://www.sacw.net/Gujarat2002/ sahmatreport032002.html; National Human Rights Commission, “Annual Report, 2001-2002,” 20-25 and 268-319, Internet, http://nhrc.nic.in/ Publications/documents/AR01-02e.pdf; “Gujarat Carnage 2002: A Report to the Nation,” Kamal Chenoy et. al., 10 April 2002, Internet, http:// el.doccentre.info/eldoc/l53a/GujCarnage.htm; Human Rights Watch, “‘We Have No Orders To Save You:’ State Participation and Complicity in Communal Violence in Gujarat,” 30 April 2002, Internet,
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http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2002/04/30/ state-supported-massacres-gujarat; Amnesty International, “India: Five Years On—The Bitter and Uphill Struggle for Justice in Gujarat,” 8 March 2007, Internet, http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/ info/ASA20/007/2007/en. On recent violence against Christians in Orissa see also “Communalism in Orissa,” Indian People’s Tribunal, September 2006, Internet, http://www.iptindia.org/main/ipt. php?Page=Report&Report=40. 5 We must stress however, that while these are the main U.S. Sangh-affiliated organizations, there are numerous front organizations the Sangh uses to advance its agenda which also claim to be independent of the Sangh. In practice however, these apparently independent organizations have placed in key positions of leadership prominent members of recognized U.S. Sangh organizations. The Sangh Parivar in India, as well as the United States, also works through the strategy of placing its members in positions of leadership in local community or temple organizations. Two reports by a group of scholars, The Campaign to Stop Funding Hate, are important for meticulously documenting and tracing the links between Sangh and front organizations: “The Foreign Exchange of Hate: IDRF and the American Funding of Hindutva” is available online at http://stopfundinghate.org/sacw/index.html; and “Unmistakably Sangh: The National Hindu Students Council and its Hindutva Agenda” is available online at http://hsctruthout.stopfundinghate.org/Report/ iindex1.html. In addition, another important report on Sangh charitable organizations in the United Kingdom is “IN BAD FAITH? BRITISH CHARITY
Visweswaran, witzel, manjrekar, bhog, chakravarti
& HINDU EXTREMISM” (Awaaz: South Asia Watch Ltd., 2004) available online at: http://www.awaazsaw. org/ibf/index.htm. 6 As one example, most indefinite detentions under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) were against Muslims while few if any violent members of the Hindu nationalist organizations were ever charged under this act. See “The Terror of POTA and Other Security Legislation: Report of the People’s Tribunal on the Prevention of Terrorism Act and Other Security Legislation,” (New Delhi, March 2004). As a result of the overwhelming evidence of the use of POTA to harass the Muslim community, POTA was repealed by the Indian government when the Congress party came to power in 2004. 7 While the idea of Hindutva may have first come into circulation in the late nineteenth century, V. D. Savarkar, a former RSS member implicated in the plot to assassinate Gandhi, first systematized it in his 1926 political treatise, Hindutva. See Chetan Bhatt, Hindu Nationalism: Origins, Ideologies and Modern Myths (Oxford: Berg, 2001). 8 Internet, http://www.ercwilcom.net/indowindow/sad/article.php?child=29&article=28 (date accessed: 6 December 2005). See also Martha Nussbaum, “The Education Wars” in The Clash Within: Democracy, Religious Violence and India’s Future. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000). 9 See Mridula Mukherjee and Aditya Mukherjee, “The Communalisation of Education and the History Textbook Controversy: An Overview,” The Delhi Historian’s Group (Delhi, 2002), 1. 10 U.S. Department of State, “International Religious Freedom Reports—India (2002-2004),” Internet, http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/ (date accessed: 5 December 2005). 11 See National Council of Educational Research and Training, National Curriculum Framework (2000), 35, 13. 12 “Social Science Textbook” for Std. IX, 94. 13 Internet, http://www.india-together. org/2007/feb/edu-gujtexts.htm#continue (date accessed: 5 October 2008). 14 See also the forthcoming Nirantar study of History textbooks in five states. This study has been conceptualized and coordinated by Nirantar a center for gender and education studies in Delhi. The study covers West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, and Uttar Pradesh state textbooks. In addition to these states, nationally produced textbooks by NCERT and private publishers have also been studied. The Tamil Nadu study was coordinated by Dr. V. Geetha, the West Bengal study by Dr. Paromita Chakravarti, the Gujarat study by Dr. Nandini Manjrekar, and the Delhi study by Dipta Bhog. 15 See Marzia Casolari, “Hindutva’s Foreign Tie-Up in the 1930s: Archival Evidence.” Economic and Political Weekly 22 January 2000 available online at http://www.sacw.net/DC/CommunalismCollection/ ArticlesArchive/casolari.pdf.
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16 See Internet, http://www.petitiononline.com/ cedpra51/petition.html, 11. 17 Gujarat State Board of School Textbooks, Social Science Std. 9 (Gandhinagar, Gujarat, India, 2005) 11. 18 Gujarat State Board of School Textbooks, Social Science Std. 9 (Gandhinagar, Gujarat, India, 1997) 43. 19 See Apoorvanand, “Return of the Rightwing Textbook,” Tehelka, 20 January 2007 available online at http://www.sacw.net/HateEducation/apoorvJan07.html. 20 See Maria Glod, “Wiping Stereotypes of India off the books,” Washington Post, Sunday, 17 April 2005, C(07), Internet, http://www.washingtonpost. com/wp-dyn/articles/A59613-2005Apr16.html (date accessed 26 October 2008). See also “Fairfax County School Board Meeting Minutes,” 31 March 2005 on file with authors Witzel and Visweswaran. 21 See the Campaign to Stop Funding Hate report on the Hindu Student Council “Unmistakably Sangh: The National Hindu Students Council and its Hindutva Agenda,” Internet, http://hsctruthout. stopfundinghate.org/Report/ch2.html#4 (date accessed: 26 October 2008). 22 Internet, http://www.eshiusa.org/NL-vol1_030805.htm (date accessed: 26 October 2008). 23 Internet, http://www.eshiusa.org/NL-vol1_030805.htm (date accessed: 20 November 2008). 24 Bajpai is one of the founders of WAVES (World Association for Vedic Studies), Internet, http://www. hindunet.org/hindu_history/ancient/indus/waves. html; see report available online at http://www. indiadivine.org/audarya/vedic-culture/189265abstracts-1st-waves-conference.html. 25 Ibid., see p. 117, edit 22; and p. 122, edit 47. 26 Internet, http://www.cde.ca.gov/be/ ag/ag/documents/hssnotice022706a1.pdf (date accessed: 7 November 2008). 27 Internet, http://www.southasiafaculty.net/ catext/letters/Indologists_CBE1.pdf. 28 Internet, http://www.cde.ca.gov/be/ag/ag/ documents/hssnotice022706a1.pdf (date accessed: 7 November 2008). 29 Internet, http://southasiafaculty.net/catext/ letters/FacultyCBELetter1.pdf. 30 Internet, http://southasiafaculty.net/catext/ letters/FacultyCBELetter2.pdf. 31 On 6 January 2006, the Curriculum Commission asked Professors Shiva Bajpai (Northridge) and Michael Witzel (Harvard) to debate, for six hours, each one of the 160-odd proposed changes in an attempt to resolve the issue. Agreement could easily be reached on obvious errors and insensitive statements, but not on the four major points of contention (the Vedic four varna system and low caste status of Dalits, the status and role of women in India, the construction of a monolithic monotheistic Hinduism, and Aryan “invasion” or migration). 32 These included the Ambedkar Center for
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Justice and Peace, the Indian Buddhist Association of America, New Republic India, and Californian Dalit Sikh temples such as the Guru Ravi Dass Gurdwara, Federation of Tamil Sangams in North America, Non-Resident Indians for a Secular and Harmonious India, the Vaishnava Center for Enlightenment, the Indian American Public Education Advisory Council, the Friends of South Asia (FOSA), and the Coalition against Communalism (CAC). 33 These were 1) “Problems in Identifying Hinduism with Ancient India: Hinduism is a Plural Tradition,” 2) “Problems Identifying Ancient India with Sanskrit: Dual classical traditions in north and south India, 3) Hinduism and the Caste System, 4) Women and Hinduism, 5) Other Important Beliefs of Hinduism: “Ahimsa” (non-violence). See http:// southasiafaculty.net/catext/files/Faculty_overview. pdf; pp. 3-5; Title VI Committee, “Biogenetic Data and Historical Scholarship: Sources of Evidence Regarding ‘Aryan Migration,’” Title VI Centers Report (presentation, California State Board of Education, Sacramento, CA, February 27, 2006), Internet, http://southasiafaculty.net/catext/files/ Faculty_biogenetics.pdf. 34 See http://groups.yahoo.com/group/IndoEurasian_research/message/4861; original ruling no
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longer available on the court website http://www. saccourt.com/courtrooms/trulings/d19archives/. 35 See http://www.capeem.org/ and Pei-hsuan Wu, “Hindu Nationalist Groups in the U.S.: An Overview” 36 This is based on one author’s experience teaching Indian-American students in discussionbased courses on contemporary India at the University of Texas - Austin from 2005 to 2008. 37 Rg Veda,10.90.12. 38 In conflating “ancient civilizations” with the emergence of Hinduism in India, the California textbooks also left no room to discuss Tamil literature, the other Indian classical literary tradition besides Sanskrit. 39 The formation in question is actually geological in nature and is about 17 million years old; Hindu nationalists believe the “bridge” was built 3,500 years ago to allow Ram to cross from India to Sri Lanka to defeat Ravana. See http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/ news/world/asia/article1572638.ece (date accessed: 27 October 2008). At a Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh conference in December 2004, one speaker used similar materials to prove the existence of this “manmade bridge:” See http://www.hssus.org/content/ view/35/2/ accessed on 10 November 2008.
Law&Ethics The Common Good and Rights A Neo-Communitarian Approach Amitai Etzioni The moral value of human rights and liberty is so central to scholars, activists, and citizens in the West that they are taken as more or less self-evident truths. This essay shares this assumption. However, it asks: Do human rights and liberty provide a sufficient moral foundation for a good society? And if not—What must be added? If commitment to the common good is an essential part of our shared moral understandings (or ought to be), how can the commitment to the common good be reconciled with our commitments to human rights and liberty? Part I of the essay outlines the case for including the common good as a central part of our public morality. Part II deals with the issues that arise by combining the commitment to rights with that to the common good.
Amitai Etzioni is a university professor at George Washington University, where he is the Director of the Institute for Communitarian Policy Studies. He has written twenty-four books, and in 1990 he founded the Communitarian Network, a not-for-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to the moral, social, and political foundations of society.
The Common Good. Unlike the moral claims posed by
rights, those posed by the common good are far from selfevident to many in the West. Many libertarians and some liberals hold that each person should rule on the good for herself and that society ought to base its public policies on the aggregation of individual choices. They shun more robustly communal formulations of the good because they fear that Winter/Spring 2009 [ 1 1 3]
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if such formulations are embraced, the government will be tempted to coerce people to serve them. This would, in turn, diminish individual liberty—the good that, for libertarians and liberals, trumps all others. In actuality, the common good is not merely the equivalent of an aggregation of all private or personal goods in a society. It connotes those goods that serve all members of a given community and their institutions. As such, it includes goods that serve no identifiable particularistic group as well as goods that serve members of generations not yet born. Contributions to the common good often offer no immediate payout or benefit, making it difficult to predict who will receive such benefits in the long run. Yet members of communities that support the common good invest in it not because it will necessarily or even likely benefit them or their children, but because they consider it a good that ought to be nurtured. What follows is a discussion of three examples of common goods: basic research, national defense, and environmental preservation. Basic research is widely recognized as a common good, even by economists whose theories tend to favor a libertarian position. Studies show that basic research typically pays off only many decades after it is carried out, so that individuals investing in it cannot expect a reasonable rate of return. It is often quite hard to predict to what usages the research will lead, and impossible to predict who will benefit from it.1 Despite these conditions, societies do invest in basic research for the good of the community. The same principle holds for nation-
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al security. Unlike the purchase of an alarm system for one’s home, taxes dedicated to defense and homeland security are levied on all citizens, whether they live in high- or low-risk areas, and are pooled together. These funds pay for the defense of the nation as a whole— of its collective institutions and assets above and beyond those of the individual citizens. Although some industries and their shareholders, along with professional soldiers, benefit disproportionately from these investments, the end product of national security still benefits the community as a whole and thus it is a common good. Protecting the environment, which includes preventing the climate from overheating and developing sustainable energy sources, will only pay off over the long term and then only to unknown, unpredictable beneficiaries. Millions of people paying for these endeavors at present cannot be sure that they will be alive to see the benefit of their contributions. Individuals interested in maximizing their selfinterest could gain a much better rate of return on their money if they invested in stocks and bonds, and then used the dividends to purchase air conditioners and sunscreen. The fact, though, is that environmental protection is ever more widely recognized as a common good worth pursuing.
Community as a Common Good. Like the common good, the
value of community is also far from selfevident to many in the West. Indeed, some have argued that the term itself is so vague it cannot even be defined. Others argue that community is an idea employed to suppress the disadvantaged
etzioni
or that it refers to a generally oppressive societal design. In contrast, communitarians hold that community can be clearly defined as a group of individuals that possesses two characteristics. The first is a web of affect-laden relationships which often crisscross and reinforce one another (rather than merely one-on-one or chain-like individual relationships). The second is some commitment to a core of shared values, norms, and meanings, as well as a collective history and identity—in short, a particularistic moral culture. Neocommunitarians hold that community is basically a major common good in itself as well as a major source of other common goods; “basically” because like all goods, community can take on dysfunctional forms, especially when its social bonds, culture, or political structure are oppressive. Hence the special import of balancing the community as a value with commitments to rights. A significant body of data demonstrates that when communities are weak or absent, people suffer.2 The absence of sufficient communal bonds causes a person to feel detached and alienated, which leads some individuals to withdraw from society or engage in antisocial behavior. These actions range from abusing drugs and alcohol to joining gangs and militias in a quest for community. Other scholars have noted that modern loneliness makes people neurotic, selfish, or narcissistic.3 Indeed, some have argued that the mark of the “modern self” is that its development is truncated—indicating the ill effects of deficient connectedness and moral anomie.4 Another important facet of communities is their ability to provide informal
Law&Ethics
social controls that reinforce the moral commitments of their members. This helps to make for a largely voluntary social order. The most effective way to reinforce norms of behavior is to build on the fact that people have a strong need for continuous approval from others, especially from those with whom they have affective bonds of attachment, such as members of their community.5 Neo-communitarians see this persuasive power as a key function of communities, in part because it allows the role of the state and its coercive means to be greatly curtailed and be replaced by the promotion of the common good based on informal social controls that communities provide. In summary, communities are a major source of human flourishing, and should be regarded as a common good as well as contributing to numerous other common goods.
Rights and Community. Many
philosophers favor systems of thought that are centered on a single core value, and philosophers often favor parsimony and coherence. Such moral monism is particularly evident in libertarianism, the philosophy that strongly favors individual rights and promotion of liberty as its single overarching moral principle. In this system of thought, other core values are either contested or relegated to the category of exceptions.6 In contrast, key sociologists, on whose work neo-communitarians draw, show that societies cannot be understood by drawing on a single overarching moral principle. Members of societies have complex and not fully compatible needs.7 The neo-communitarian position seeks to understand as well as design society in light of the inevitable
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conflicts between rights, which privilege the person, and concerns for the common good, which privilege the community or society.
ing them) to adapt them to the changing needs of the common good. Historical accounts of rights are often cast in terms of a frequent expansion of their scope and power in constitutional democraKey Modes of Accommoda- cies. In Western societies, one margintion. Neo-communitarianism holds alized group after another gained the that the best accommodation between right to vote and to hold office. New
The fact, though, is that environmental
protection is ever more widely recognized as a common good worth pursuing. rights and the common good is where conflict between them is avoided in the first place. For instance, to the extent that people discharge their social responsibilities because they have been persuaded rather than coerced by the state, the conflict between rights and the common good is prevented. Where members of the community go far beyond what any law requires in attending to their children, volunteering, voting, and so on because they seek the approbation of their fellow members of the community, rights are simply not engaged.8 No one has a right to be free from social criticism if they commit social violations. Nor is anybody entitled to the community’s approval, as this must be earned. For some anti-social behaviors, there are of course also legal punishments. However, the more a society relies on legal measures, the more limited its capacity to reconcile the two key sources of moral claims.
Recalibrate Rights. The conflict
at issue is significantly further curtailed by recalibrating rights (or reinterpret-
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rights were also articulated, such as the right to privacy. Much less attention is paid to developments that take the opposite pattern: rights that have been recast in line with the common good. Basic rights, as originally stated in the Magna Carta, the U.S. and French Constitutions, and those enumerated in the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, tend to be lacking in specificity. Over time legislatures and courts have provided specifications—and changed them to suit the times—while showing respect for the basic intent of the right. This is what is meant by those who refer to the U.S. Constitution as a “living document” and is a justification to chastise those who seek to adhere to the original intent or bare text. Recent developments in the interpretation of the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution illustrate this idea. The Amendment stipulates that “no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”9 As new technologies emerged, the scope of such war-
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Law&Ethics
rants required re-specification. Before 9/11, warrants authorizing American law enforcement to wiretap U.S. persons were limited to a particular phone. If authorities found that the suspect had switched to another phone, then they were obliged under law to return to the court and show cause before they could be authorized to tap this additional phone. After 9/11, the specification was changed to limit warrants to a given person rather than to a given instrument, vastly increasing the power of law enforcement authorities. The new specification did not violate the basic right that protects people from search without warrants. However, this adaptation stands out when one contrasts this re-specification of the right with the warrantless searches that have been carried out, including many in violation of the Constitution.
the case when respect for both is very low but begins to rise. For instance, amidst the anarchy and criminality that prevailed in Russia in the early 1990s and that plagued major Iraqi cities in the years following the U.S. invasion in 2003, respect for rights as well as for the common good was particularly low. In such settings, the restoration of basic security simultaneously enhanced both the observations of rights and the service to the common good. Once basic security was restored, evidence shows that not only was respect for people’s rights better protected, but so were their ability and inclination to attend to their family members and friends, as well as other members of their immediate community, extended communities, and the nation as a whole. It is only at somewhat higher levels of social order that the tension between rights and the common good comes into focus. Balancing Rights and the ComOnce these sources of moral common Good. Although scholars debate mitments come into conflict, tension whether there are one or two major is limited by applying principles that sources of moral commitments, courts determine which of these two core valin constitutional democracies take it for ues should take precedence in spegranted that full consideration must be cific cases—rather than assuming a priori given to both rights and the common that rights or the community will govgood. Courts, and the jurisprudence ern. One widely used principle is to upon which they rely, do not merely determine whether there is a “cominclude the common good as a mar- pelling public interest”—a legal phrase ginal or exceptional consideration but often used in reference to the common give it full measure. They readily weigh good—for setting aside rights considwhether there is a strong public interest erations. For instance, regarding the and the extent to which rights may have Fourth Amendment’s prohibition on to be curtailed to serve the given com- unreasonable searches and seizures, mon good. courts have found searches to be reaBefore this is further discussed, it sonable when they serve a compelling should be noted that rights and the public interest, defined as “an interest common good are not always in con- that appears important enough to justiflict. There are conditions under which fy the particular search at hand, in light they complement one another. This is of other factors that show the search
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the common good and rights
to be relatively intrusive upon a genuine expectation of privacy.”10 Similarly, people’s rights to assemble and to travel have been legally curtailed when they were found to carry contagious diseases such as tuberculosis. Another example is the principle of eminent domain, where the individual’s right to private property can be set aside when there is a compelling public need for usage of that property. The law also takes into account the extent to which rights are violated. Hence, extended detention of suspected terrorists before they are charged is tolerated, but the courts and legislatures have opposed the indefinite suspension of habeas corpus. Authorities have also been required to show cause to a judge that detention without charge should be extended.
Legitimate a Procedure or Institution. Another familiar way
the said conflict is treated is to agree on a procedure or institution to curb such conflicts—without assuming a priori that either side will take precedence. Allowing the matter to be adjudicated by a court or a legislative assembly provides such an exit. Such treatments work only to the extent that the given procedure or institution is considered legitimate, not only in general terms, but as the morally appropriate locus for dealing with the specific issue at hand. This accommodation is a particularly familiar one and hence needs no further discussion. These modes of accommodation here discusseed do not form an all-encompassing list. Rather, they are merely intended to illustrate the general idea at issue—how the two compet-
[ 1 1 8 ] Georgetown Journal of International Affairs
ing sources of moral commitments can be reconciled in a single society.11
Conclusion. This essay holds that a
good society must respect commitments to the common good, not merely to individual rights. This position is in sharp contrast to those who deny the standing of either of these major values. Some hold that individual rights are “nonsense on stilts,” and others believe that individual rights are merely expressions of particularistic Western values.12 Still others maintain that the very notion that there is such a thing as “society” is a fiction.13 Instead, this essay adopts a key neo-communitarian assumption that individual rights and the common good are irreducible moral commitments, and that both are essential pillars of a good society with neither side entitled a priori to the moral high ground.14 At the same time, it recognizes that conflicts between rights and the common good are competing moral principles. Fortunately, the conflicts between rights and the common good are not insurmountable. As demonstrated, there are examples of various principled accommodations that can curb these conflicts and allow societies to find ways to serve both without being torn apart, mired in conflict or subjecting their public policies to gridlock. The author would like to thank Alex Platt for research assistance on this essay, as well as Judith Lichtenberg, Lisa Baglione, Radhika Bhat, and Tom Haslett for their comments on previous drafts, and Kathryn Robinette for exceptionally valuable comments.
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Law&Ethics
Notes
1 For instance, in the early twentieth century, it was not expected that Einstein’s work on the theory of relativity would help pave the way for the nuclear generation of electricity (and bombs). 2 Robert D. Putnam, “Health and Happiness,” in Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2000), 326, 329, 331-33. 3 Christopher Lasch, The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1979). 4 Ibid. 5 See, e.g., Dennis H. Wrong, The Problem of Order, (New York: Free Press, 1994). 6 For example, economists treat defense and basic research, which are not governed by the laws of economics and hence require government financing and control, as rare exceptions to overriding principles. See, e.g., Paul A Samuelson, “Public Goods,” in Economics, 11th ed. (New York: McGrawHill, 1980). 7 See, e.g., Talcott Parsons, The Structure of Social Action (1937). 2 vols. (New York: Free Press, 1968). 8 See, e.g., Wrong, The Problem of Order; Jonathan Rauch, “Confessions of an alleged libertarian (and virtues of ‘soft’ communitarianism)” in The Communitarian Reader; Beyond the Essentials, eds. Amitai Etzioni, Andrew Volmert, and Elanit Rothschild (New York: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers Inc., 2004). 9 U.S. Const. amend. IV. Available online at
http://www.archives.gov/. 10 See Vernonia School District 47J v. Acton, 515 U.S. 646, 661 (1995); United States v. Doe, 61 F.3d 107, 109-10 (lst Cir. 1995) (“[R]outine security searches at airport checkpoints pass constitutional muster because the compelling public interest in curbing air piracy generally outweighs their limited intrusiveness.”); Marshall v. Horn Seed Co., 647 F.2d 96, 102 (10th Cir. 1981) (holding that “the compelling public interest in preventing or speedily abating hazardous conditions . . . demands relaxation of the traditional probable cause test for administrative inspections.”). 11 For more discussion, see The New Golden Rule. 12 “Anarchical Fallacies; Being An Examination of the Declarations of Rights Issued During the French Revolution” in The Works of Jeremy Bentham, vol. 2, ed. John Bowring (Boston: Adamant Media Corporation, 2001), 501; and Richard Rorty, “Human Rights, Rationality, and Sentimentality” in The Philosophy of Human Rights, ed. Patrick Hayden (St. Paul: Paragon House, 2001), 241-257. 13 Margaret Thatcher, interview on 23 September 1987, Woman’s Own, 31 October 1987. 14 Neo-communitarianism—which has also been called responsive or political communitarianism—is used throughout this paper to remind the reader that the position followed here is much closer to civic republicanism or civic humanism than to East Asian or authoritarian communitarianism.
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Law&Ethics
Extreme Measures
The U.S. Removal of “Protected Persons” From Occupied Iraq and Afghanistan Gary D. Solis The prisoners held in the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay remain an American moral millstone. How did they come to be transferred there from Iraq and Afghanistan? This article examines the history and legal background of Geneva Convention IV prohibiting such transfers during periods of occupation and analyzes the circumstances that gave rise to application of the Convention’s prohibition. When does the international prohibition of deportations apply and to whom? This article also considers whether the Convention’s prohibition in fact applies to the Afghan and Iraqi armed conflicts. If the prohibition of transfers does not apply, what circumstances negate it? If the Convention’s prohibition is applicable, what legal justification or rationale does the U.S. government offer in defense of its apparent violation? Finally, if the Geneva Convention prohibition on transferring prisoners was violated, what action should be taken?
Gary D. Solis is an adjunct professor of Law at Georgetown University Law School. He previously taught at the London School of Economics and the United States Military Academy. He is currently working on a book entitled The Law of Armed Conflict. The views expressed in this article are solely the responsiblity of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the views or policy of the U.S. Military Academy or the U.S. government.
History and Codification. The 1863 Lieber Code, adopted as a general order for Union Army soldiers during the Civil War, was the first codification of the rules of war written for soldiers in the field.1 Article 223 of the Code guaranteed that private citizens could not be transported to distant places. Yet that brief statement hardly closed the
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Consequences of removing “protected persons” from occupied territory
issue. During World War I, Germany deported several thousand French and Belgian citizens to Germany as forced laborers. The German action was called “an act of tyranny, contrary to all notions of humanity.”2 During World War II, Germany again used deportation in conjunction with terror and extermination in order to implement a slave labor program.3 In response, the 1945 Charter of the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg specified that the deportation of civilians from occupied territories, for any purpose, was a crime against humanity and a breach of the laws and customs of war.4 National tribunals also prosecuted individuals for carrying out deportations.5
After 1949. Article 49 of the 1949
Geneva Convention IV regarding civilians is applicable in international armed conflicts and addresses the removal of protected persons: “Individual…transfers, as well as deportation of protected persons from occupied territory to the territory of the Occupying Power or to that of any other country, occupied or not, are prohibited, regardless of their motive.” Reinforcing this article, the International Committee of the Red Cross’s (ICRC’s) Commentary to Convention IV explains, “There is doubtless no need to give an account here of the painful recollections called forth by the ‘deportations’ of the Second World War…[T] he prohibition…is intended to forbid such hateful practices for all time…[T] he prohibition is absolute and allows of no exceptions.”6 In light of these provisions, how can the history of forced movement of individuals from Afghanistan and Iraq to Guantánamo Bay dur-
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ing the “war on terror” be explained? The question of unlawful removals is significant. Article 147 of Geneva Convention IV makes the unlawful transfer of a protected person from an occupied area a grave breach of the law of armed conflict, as does the 1977 Additional Protocol I, which supplements the 1949 Geneva Conventions.7 In non-international conflicts, the 1977 Additional Protocol II mandates that “[c]ivilians shall not be compelled to leave their own territory for reasons connected with the conflict.”8 Although the United States is not party to Additional Protocols I and II, some provisions are considered to be part of customary international law and are thus observed. The ICRC’s Customary International Humanitarian Law (IHL) states, “Numerous military manuals specify the prohibition of unlawful deportation or transfer of civilians in occupied territory,” and the study notes that the legislation of thirty-nine states makes the deportation of civilians a domestic offense.9 These states include Canada, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, and the United Kingdom. The ICRC study finds state practice to establish the rule against the deportation, in both international and non-international armed conflicts, as customary international law.10 Finally, Geneva Convention IV also mandates that “protected persons accused of offenses shall be detained in the occupied country, and if convicted they shall serve their sentences there.”11 These multiple sources indicate the incontrovertible nature of Article 49’s prohibition. It is well-established, customary international law that provides for no exceptions, reservations, or derogations.
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Law&Ethics
When Does Article 49 Apply? tions continued to apply. Although It has been established that the 1949 Geneva Conventions and 1977 Additional Protocol I apply during any international armed conflict and during subsequent periods of occupation. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that certain provisions of the Geneva Conventions also apply in conflicts involving non-state actors, such as al-
some contend that the United States continues to occupy Iraq, the United States argues that an Iraqi government assumed sovereignty in June 2004, fifteen months after the U.S. invasion.15 Article 49 applied throughout these periods of armed conflict and U.S. occupation, prohibiting the deportation of protected persons from the
Multiple sources indicate the
incontrovertible nature of Article 49’s prohibition. It is well-established, customary international law that provides for no exceptions, reservations, or derogations. Qaeda. For example, the Bush administration did not have the authority to create military commissions to try Guantánamo detainees because such tribunals violate the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the Geneva Conventions, namely Article 3.12 The international armed conflict in Afghanistan began with the U.S. invasion in October 2001. Coalition forces removed the Taliban from power in December and Afghan sovereignty was re-established with the creation of the Interim Authority.13 The “war” lasted sixty-two days and U.S. occupation a mere fifteen days. Regarding the war in Iraq, which was also an international armed conflict, U.S. combat operations commenced in March 2003 but the date of their conclusion is unclear.14 The precise end of the international armed conflict stage is irrelevant, as U.S. occupation of Iraq immediately commenced and the Geneva Conven-
occupied states, Afghanistan and Iraq, to Guantánamo. The Supreme Court has established that Guantánamo is the “territory of the Occupying Power.”16
“Protected Persons” and “Unprivileged Belligerents.” Who is a “protected person” whose deportation is prohibited? Geneva Convention IV, Article 4, tells us that “persons protected by the Convention are those who…find themselves, in case of a conflict or occupation, in the hands of a Party to the conflict or Occupying Power of which they are not nationals.” Simply put, a protected person is someone in an international armed conflict, other than a prisoner of war, who finds himself in the hands of the other side. However, there are a few limitations on the application of protected person status. The traditional view, known as the “nationality requirement,” is that a protected person must
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hold citizenship in a state different from the detaining one. The Convention’s framers, concerned that they not interfere with a state and its citizens, believed that nationals of the detaining state could resolve their problems through the diplomatic offices of their mutual state. The nationality limitation is satisfied, vis-à-vis the United States, by detained Afghan and Iraqi nationals. Another limitation on protected person status is if a detained person is an ally of the detaining state—a cobelligerent—and if the co-belligerent’s state “has normal diplomatic representation” with the detaining state. Under these conditions, the detainee cannot claim protected person status.17 The requirement of diplomatic representation is significant because at the time of their respective armed conflicts with the United States, neither the Taliban government in Afghanistan nor the Hussein government in Iraq had diplomatic relations with the United States. Accordingly, these limitations on protected person status did not apply to nationals of the two enemy states vis-à-vis the United States. Nor can extraordinary measures such as deportation be taken in the case of unlawful combatants, as was the experience for many Afghan and Iraqi insurgents. However, the terms “unprivileged belligerent” and “unlawful combatant” do not appear in the Geneva Conventions or the 1977 Additional Protocols. Thus, can unprivileged belligerents such as insurgents be deported? Unlawful combatants are not entitled to the privileges and protections of prisoner-of-war status. As fighters without uniform or distinguishing insignia, they violate the concept
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of distinction. When the distinction requirement is disregarded, opposing combatants cannot discern fighters from civilians. This uncertain situation erodes the lawful combatant’s presumption that civilians he encounters are noncombatants who present no danger. The ICRC has characterized unprivileged belligerents as “all persons taking a direct part in hostilities without being entitled to do so and who therefore cannot be classified as prisoners of war on falling into the power of the enemy.”18 Furthermore, other scholars have established that “a person who engages in military raids by night, while purporting to be an innocent civilian by day, is neither a civilian nor a lawful combatant. He is an unlawful combatant. He is a combatant in the sense that he can be lawfully targeted by the enemy, but he cannot claim the privileges appertaining to lawful combatancy. Nor does he enjoy the benefits of civilian status.”19 An unlawful combatant is not outside all law. Captured unlawful combatants are entitled to the basic humanitarian protections of Geneva Convention Common Article 3 and of Article 75 of Additional Protocol I.20 In addition, being an unprivileged belligerent is not a war crime in itself. Rather, the unlawful combatant forfeits the immunity of a lawful combatant: the combatant’s privilege to kill and wound without penalty. He also forfeits potential prisoner-of-war status and may be charged under the law for war violations he committed that made him an unlawful combatant.
“Deportation” and Its Applications. What is deportation under international
humanitarian
law?
Solis
Deportation is not defined in the Commentary to the Geneva Conventions, but International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) case law provides a definition: Deportation…involves the movement of individuals, under duress, from where they reside to a place that is not of their choosing. Deportation would involve such transfer when an international border is crossed. It must be proven that the accused intentionally perpetrated an act or omission to effect such deportation…that was not motivated by the security of the population or imperative military reasons.21 ICTY jurisprudence further defines deportation simply as forcible transfer beyond one’s home state borders and finds it an inhumane act.22 There need be no intent to permanently remove the individual in order to consider a transfer a deportation.23 We know what deportation is and that it is contrary to IHL, the law of armed conflict, human rights law, and ratified treaties. We know where the prohibition is applicable—in occupied territory. Furthermore, we know it is unlawful both in non-international conflicts and international conflicts. We know when the prohibition applies—during any occupation—and we know that it is protected persons to whom the prohibition applies. Finally, we know that captured unprivileged belligerents are protected persons. In the two pertinent timeframes, seventy-seven days of U.S.-Afghan conflict and fifteen months of conflict in Iraq, whose deportation to Guantá-
Law&Ethics
namo was prohibited? In Afghanistan, captured insurgents, unlawful combatants who were nationals of a state other than Afghanistan—and Afghan nationals held by the United States in occupied Afghanistan, because Afghanistan lacked normal diplomatic relations with the United States—were considered protected persons. As captured unlawful combatants, they all were protected persons whose deportation was prohibited. During the brief international phase of the U.S.-Afghan conflict, the Taliban, who were the armed force of a party to the conflict, did not merit POW status because of their failure to comply with two of the four preconditions for that status—specifically, not wearing a distinctive sign recognizable at a distance and not complying with the law of war.24 Captured Taliban fighters were criminals who could be tried under Afghanistan’s domestic law or by military commission for acts they committed that rendered them unlawful combatants. Thus, any U.S. prisoner held during the brief U.S.Afghan armed conflict and during the minimal U.S. occupation period was a protected person whose deportation was prohibited. In Iraq, as in Afghanistan, captured unlawful combatants who were nationals of a state other than Iraq and nationals of Iraq held by the United States in occupied Iraq (because Iraq, like Afghanistan, lacked diplomatic relations with the United States) were also protected persons whose deportation was prohibited. The case of Lakhdar Boumediene is instructive. Born in Algeria, he immigrated with his family to Bosnia-Herzegovina in the 1990s and became a citizen. He did not travel to Afghani-
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stan or Iraq and committed no belligerent act towards the United States or its allies. Yet he frequented a proIraq mosque and evidenced an antiAmerican bias. Under U.S. pressure, Bosnian police arrested Boumediene on suspicion of plotting to attack the American embassy in Sarajevo. After a three-month investigation, on 17 January 2002 he was released for lack of evidence. The Bosnia-Herzegovina Human Rights Chamber, recognizing the danger, ordered that Boumediene not be removed from Bosnia. The same
known U.S. government document addressing deportations to Guantánamo is a March 2004 fourteenpage draft memorandum written by the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel entitled, “Permissibility of Relocating Certain ‘Protected Persons’ from Occupied Iraq.”27 Given this title, those familiar with IHL would immediately think of Article 49 of Geneva Convention IV and know the answer. However, senior lawyers in the Department of Justice took a different view. The draft memorandum is clear
Boumediene’s case illustrates the willingness of U.S. authorities in 2002 to disregard national boundaries and foreign laws in seizing suspected enemies. day, Bosnian police, in defiance of the order, seized and delivered him to U.S. military personnel in Bosnia.25 They transported Boumediene to Guantánamo. His six-year effort to gain a habeus corpus hearing was the subject of a 2008 U.S. Supreme Court decision.26 Viewing Boumediene as a detainee in an international war against terrorism, he was a protected person once in U.S. military custody, even before deportation. Bosnia was not in U.S.occupied territory, however, so Article 47 was not applicable, although Geneva Convention Common Article 3 was. Boumediene’s case illustrates the willingness of U.S. authorities in 2002 to disregard national boundaries and foreign laws in seizing suspected enemies.
evidence of the government’s misinterpretation of the treaties it has ratified. Relying on a definition of deportation taken from Roman times, the draft memorandum argues that Geneva Convention IV does not prohibit the deportation of protected persons who are illegal aliens—presumably meaning foreign fighters—captured in Iraq. The memorandum contends that Article 49 only contemplates the deportation of “inhabitants” of the state. The intended distinction here is unclear. The memorandum reads, “Passages from the ICRC Commentary…illustrate that the words ‘transfers’ and ‘deportations’ were used loosely…to capture the atrocities practiced by the Nazis and Japanese in occupied territories.”28 Creating IHL from whole cloth, the memorandum The U.S. Approach to Arti- argues that protected persons, even if cle 49’s Prohibition. The only they are nationals of the state in which
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Law&Ethics
they were captured, may be deported as long as they have not been formally accused of wrongdoing. This is an obvious effort to circumvent Article 76 of Convention IV, which requires that protected persons accused of offenses be detained in the occupied state. The draft memorandum’s creative conclusion is that the United States may remove—deport—protected persons if the intent is not to accuse them of wrongdoing but only to interrogate them. The memorandum additionally states that “[A]rticle 49(1)’s prohibition of forcible transfers and deportations out of occupied territory…should not be construed to extend to temporary transnational relocations of brief but not indefinite duration.”29 This novel interpretation would allow U.S. authorities to simply designate a protected person as destined for interrogation and deport him without further accountability, disregarding provisions of Geneva Convention IV and U.S. military regulations that require a system ensuring an accounting of prisoners. Although Alberto Gonzales confirmed the draft memorandum’s conclusions when he was nominated to be attorney general of the United States, the memorandum was never finalized.30 In addition to the issue of detainees from Iraq and Afghanistan, little attention has been paid to the fate of individuals who have been detained in undisclosed locations.31 The draft memorandum was the basis for the CIA’s secret removal of at least a dozen detainees from Iraq.32
It is unlikely there will ever be a satisfactory answer. The first group of 160 prisoners arrived at Guantánamo in January 2002, shortly after the conclusion of armed conflict with and occupation of Afghanistan. During the official occupation of Iraq, approximately 76 more prisoners arrived.33 Details of their origins have not been made public. It is safe to say that a significant portion of the 236 prisoners were protected persons in Iraq or Afghanistan. The number matters because they are human beings. More important are the circumstances that allowed them to be deported to Guantánamo, where some remain, in contravention of Article 49. The deportation of protected persons from Iraq and Afghanistan to Guantánamo in violation of international humanitarian law is disturbing. Equally disturbing is the brazenness and seeming contempt with which it was accomplished without any serious effort to justify or explain the apparent illegality. Those who played leading roles in initiating the deportations are well known. They should be called before Congress to account for their official actions and to explain how this errant policy arose and was carried out. Congress should then consider amending the 1996 War Crimes Act to make it a crime to plan, execute, or participate in such future deportations, with a penalty including confinement. In considering these deportations of protected persons from occupied territory, the words of a recent U.S. Supreme Court opinion come to mind. In the Boumediene case, Recommendations. How many which involved abduction from BosAfghan and Iraqi prisoners held by the nia by U.S. soldiers and a transfer to United States were deported to Guan- Guantánamo lasting six years without tánamo in contravention of Article 49? trial or charges, Justice Kennedy wrote
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for the majority, “Security subsists, too, in fidelity to freedom’s first principles.
Chief among these [is] freedom from arbitrary and unlawful restraint.”34
Notes
1 Also known as “Instructions for the Government of Armies of the United States in the Field,” the Lieber Code dictated behavior for American soldiers during wartime, especially in regard to military jurisdiction, martial law, and treatment of prisoners of war, spies, and deserters. 2 James W. Garner, American Journal of International Law 11 (January 1917), 106. 3 Georg Schwarzenberger, International Law, vol. 2, The Law of Armed Conflict (London: Stevens & Sons, 1968), 230. 4 Charter of the International Military Tribunal, art. 6 (b) and 6 (c). 5 Permanent Military Tribunal at Strasbourg III, “Trial of Robert Wagner,” Law Reports of Trials of War Criminals 23 (23 April 1946); Permanent Military Tribunal at Nancy VII, “Trial of Jean-Pierre Lex,” Law Reports of Trials of War Criminals 74 (13 May 1946). 6 Jean Pictet, ed., Commentary, IV Geneva Convention (Geneva: ICRC, 1958), 278-79. According to Article 11 of the 1977 Additional Protocol I, a “grave breach” as it relates to protected persons is defined as “any willful act or omission which seriously endangers the physical or mental health or integrity of any person who is in the power of a Party other than the one on which he depends and which violates…other stated prohibitions.” 7 Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and Relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (Protocol I), art. 85.4(a), 8 June 1977. 8 Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and Relating to the Protection of Victims of Non-International Armed Conflicts (Protocol II), art. 17.2, 8 June 1977. 9 Jean-Marie Henckaerts and Louise DoswaldBeck, eds., Customary International Humanitarian Law, vol. 1, Rules (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), Rule 129, at 458. The study notes that Israel argues that Geneva Convention IV art. 49 was not meant to apply to the deportation of selected individuals for reasons of public order and security and that art. 49 is not customary international law and contrary deportation orders under Israeli domestic law were lawful. 10 Ibid., 459 and 457. 11 Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War (12 August 1949), art. 76 (hereafter cited as Geneva Convention IV). 12 Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, 548 U.S. 557 (2006), slip opinion, 65. 13 U.S. Department of State, “Key Events in Afghanistan’s Political and Economic Reconstruction,” Internet, http://www.america.gov/st/pubsenglish/2006/January/20060126120012dpnosmoht 0.9750482.html; The Bonn Agreement, “Agreement
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on Provisional arrangements in Afghanistan Pending the Re-Establishment of Permanent Government Institutions,” (5 December 2001), Internet, http:// www.afghangovernment.com/AfghanAgreementBonn.htm, par. I.3: “Upon the official transfer of power, the Interim Authority shall be the repository of Afghan sovereignty… As such, it shall, throughout the interim period, represent Afghanistan in its external relations and shall occupy the seat of Afghanistan at the United Nations.” 14 Thomas E. Ricks, Fiasco (New York: Penguin Press, 2006), 116. 15 Hassan M. Fattah, “Saudi King Condemns U.S. Occupation of Iraq,” New York Times, Internet, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/28/world/ middleeast/29saudicnd.html; Kenneth Katzman, Iraq: Reconciliation and Benchmarks (Congressional Research Service Report for Congress, 12 May 2008), 1: “After about one year of occupation, the United States handed sovereignty to an appointed Iraqi government on June 28, 2004. A government and a constitution were voted on thereafter, in line with a March 8, 2004, ‘Transitional Administrative Law.’” 16 Rasul v. Bush, 542 U.S. 466, 480, 487; Boumediene, et al. v. Bush, et al., 553 U.S. ____ (2008), slip opinion 24-25: “…[W]e take notice of the obvious and uncontested fact that the United States, by virtue of its complete jurisdiction and control over the base, maintains de facto sovereignty over this territory.” 17 Geneva Convention IV, art. 4, par. 2. The four preconditions are (1) be commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates; (2) have a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance; (3) carry arms openly; and, (4) conduct operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war. 18 Knut Dörmann, “The Legal Situation of ‘Unlawful/Unprivileged Combatants,’” International Red Cross Review 85, no. 849 (2003), 45. In U.S. domestic law and in the Military Commissions Act of 2006, an unlawful combatant is defined as a person who has engaged in, or purposefully and materially supported another, in engaging in hostilities against the United States and its allies, and who does not qualify as a lawful combatant, or an individual who has been deemed an unlawful enemy combatant by a Combatant Status Review Tribunal or any other competent tribunal. Military Commissions Act of 2007, 10 USC 47(A), § 948a. (1). 19 Yoram Dinstein, The Conduct of Hostilities Under the Law of International Armed Conflict (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 29. 20 Jelena Pejic, “‘Unlawful/ Enemy Combatants:’ Interpretations and Consequences,” in International Law and Armed Conflict: Exploring the Faultlines, ed. Michael N. Schmitt and Jelena Pejic (Leiden, Netherlands:
Solis
Martinus Nijhoff, 2007), 340; FM 27-10, The Law of Land Warfare (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1956), par. 31; UK Ministry of Defence, The Manual of the Law of Armed Conflict (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), par. 9.18.1, 225; Prosecutor v. Delalic, IT-96-21-T, Trial Judgment (16 November 1998), par. 271. 21 William A. Schabas, The UN International Criminal Tribunals (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 252-53, citing Prosecutor v. Naletilic, et al., IT-9834-T (31 March 2003), par. 519-521. 22 Prosecutor v. Kristic, IT-98-33-T (2 August 2001), par. 521 and 531-32. “Forcible transfer” is defined as “the movement of individuals under duress from where they reside to a place that is not of their choosing.” Prosecutor v. Naletilic, ibid., par. 519; Prosecutor v. Stakic, IT-97-24-T (31 July 2003), par. 662. 23 Prosecutor v. Brdjanin, IT-99-36-A (3 April 2007), par. 206. 24 See Geneva Convention IV, art. 4 A. (2). 25 Facts of the case are from Boumediene v. Bush, No. 06-1195, Brief for Petitioners, 1-3. 26 Boumediene v. Bush, supra, note 19.
Law&Ethics
27 Draft Memorandum for Alberto R. Gonzales, from U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Legal Counsel, Permissibility of Relocating Certain “Protected Persons” from Occupied Iraq (19 March 2004) in Karen J. Greenberg and Joshua L. Dratel, The Torture Papers (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 367. 28 Ibid. 29 Ibid. 30 John R. Crook, “Contemporary Practice of the United States Relating to International Law,” American Journal of International Law 99, no. 2 (April 2005), 484. 31 Jelena Pejic, “Terrorist Acts and Groups: A Role for International Law?” British Yearbook of International Law 75 (2004), 71-100, 94. 32 Dana Priest, “Memo Lets CIA Take Detainees Out of Iraq,” Washington Post, 24 October 2004. Six of the initial number were Algerians captured in Bosnia who were reportedly turned over to the CIA. 33 Tim Golden, “U.S. Says it Fears Detainee Abuse in Repatriation,” New York Times, 30 April 2006. 34 Boumediene v. Bush, supra, note 19, slip opinion 68-69.
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Business&Economics Pipeline Power
The War in Georgia and the Future of the Caucasian Energy Corridor Svante E. Cornell Though it is only several months since hostilities ended, it is increasingly clear that the August 2008 War in Georgia was a watershed event in post–Cold War international politics. While warning signs had abounded, the war provided undeniable testimony to what kind of country Russia has become. In fact, following the war, convincing evidence has emerged that Russia’s attack on Georgia was long planned and aimed at radically changing the balance of power in the east of Europe. The conclusion that Moscow’s war was planned and not spontaneous, and that it may very well have sought to achieve the toppling of a democratic government, suggests that the war forms part of the broader evolution of Russian policy in a more aggressive direction. Indeed, Moscow now overtly seeks a return to a Europe divided into spheres of influence, demanding exclusive influence over all former Soviet states—irrespective of the wishes and aspirations of their peoples and leaders. Clearly, this Putin doctrine applies to Ukraine and Azerbaijan, as well as the Central Asian states. And having been the main vehicle for the building of independent states in the past decade, energy is by necessity a chief component of the geopolitical struggle at hand. This implies that the
Svante E. Cornell is research director of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute and Silk Road Studies Program, a joint center affiliated with Johns Hopkins University-SAIS and the Stockholm-based Institute for Security and Development Policy.
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The War in Georgia and the future of the caucasian energy corridor
expansion and perhaps even continued existence of the West’s major achievement in the region—the Caucasian energy corridor—is incompatible with Moscow’s current geopolitical ambitions. Moscow’s war put on public display the West’s utter inability to provide security for key strategic partners in Europe’s immediate neighborhood. Whether this will lead to a rollback of the achievements of the past decade will be greatly dependent on the evolution— or lack thereof—of Western policies in this region. Key in this regard will be the approach taken by the incoming American administration, which may well come to determine the future of the Caucasian energy corridor.
The Building of the Energy Corridor. The dissolution of the
Soviet Union provided an opportunity for captive nations of Eastern Europe and Central Asia to become subjects of the international community in their own right. But much as other European colonial powers had distorted the foundations of their colonies’ economies, so did the Soviet Union, in a process exacerbated by its command economy. Given the dilapidated state of Soviet industry, upon independence raw materials formed the main source of these states’ economic wealth. With the exception of Georgia, the states of Central Asia and the South Caucasus were all landlocked, making the transportation of these resources to world markets complex and subject to a “distance tariff”—one particularly debilitating because they lacked the infrastructure that would connect them to the outside world, such as railways, highways, and pipelines.
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That said, substantial oil and natural gas resources that had been locked up inside the Soviet Union were now available to world markets, and moreover in countries eager for investments by multinational companies. As states own and control nine-tenths of the world’s hydrocarbon reserves, this was a welcome opportunity from the corporate perspective. From a political perspective, both local and Western leaders understood that the development of these resources and their export to world markets was a huge factor in the overall development of the successor states, and that export route choices for these energy reserves would go a long way in determining whether these states would manage—in spite of being small states surrounded by great powers—to become fully sovereign and independent actors on the world scene. While there were a multitude of suggested pipeline routes from the energyproducing states around the Caspian Sea, U.S. policy rested on the principle of “multiple pipelines,” which sought to prevent any actor from exercising a monopoly over the export of the Caspian energy resources. There was no technical, economic, or political justification for relying entirely on either a Russian, Iranian, or Caucasian Energy Corridor to deliver Caspian hydrocarbons to markets; and, the policy sought to prevent a single power from being in a position to control the export of these resources, which would effectively allow that power to reduce the sovereignty of the energy-producing states. The U.S. government therefore supported three concrete projects. The first, the Caspian Pipeline Consortium, relied exclusively on Russian territory for the export of
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Kazakh oil from the Caspian (indicating that U.S. policy was not anti-Russian, but anti-monopolistic). The second, the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline project, was to connect Azerbaijan’s Caspian oil fields with the Turkish Mediterranean coast through Georgia. This pipeline was completed in 2005,
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from the pipelines provide a serious source of income for Azerbaijan, and for Georgia and Turkey. In Azerbaijan, the pipeline’s completion created a major boom, where lately the country’s GDP growth has averaged over 25 percent per year. This growth poses its own set of problems for the country’s
The war was not about South Ossetia, but more likely aimed at bringing about the demise of the Georgian government. with the addition of a parallel gas pipeline through the same corridor, after the Shah-Deniz field off the Azerbaijani coast was found to hold large reserves of natural gas. The third element of the strategy, a pipeline that would cross the Caspian to Turkmenistan to provide an export route to Europe for that country’s vast reserves, was not built, foundering in the late 1990s mainly due to Turkmenistan’s erratic leadership and its territorial disputes with Azerbaijan. It has been resuscitated in recent years, but its future remains uncertain.
The Importance of the Energy Corridor. The building of the Baku-
Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) and the parallel Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum gas pipelines (the latter also known as the South Caucasus Pipeline) was a substantial achievement. First, the completion of the project created a transportation system able to bring over one million barrels of oil per day to Europe. While that is only about 1 percent of world consumption, it represents most of Europe’s increase in consumption over the past decade. Second, transit fees
economy, but creates a tremendous opportunity for development. The project also formed the engine of regional cooperation between Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Turkey which spread into many other areas, while also showing investors that these small countries were capable of implementing huge infrastructural projects. Moreover, these pipelines provided Europe with a stake in the South Caucasus states. As diversification of supply has been gaining importance on the European agenda, the Caspian region has come to be seen as one of the leading candidates for alternative supplies. Finally, the building of the twin pipelines created an infrastructure for the export of additional Caspian oil and natural gas westward. This made the prospect of a western export route a real alternative for both Central Asian leaders and investors into energy projects east of the Caspian. Most concretely, this provided the ground for the EU-backed Nabucco pipeline project, which is designed to bring Caspian (and possibly Middle Eastern) energy resources to Europe. The proj-
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ect proposes to build a pipeline from Turkey to central Europe via Bulgaria, Romania, and Hungary, which would source natural gas from the Caspian Sea region or the Middle East. Azerbaijan is scheduled to provide a substantial portion of the gas in the subsequent phases of the Shah-Deniz project; additional volumes may nevertheless be needed to make the pipeline economically feasible in the longer term, with Turkmenistan and Iran being the primary candidates. Turkmenistan, with its giant reserves, would hardly have been on the agenda had the twin pipelines across the South Caucasus not been successfully constructed.
most journalistic accounts state that the war began with the Georgian move on 7 August, and that Russia “reacted” to this move.1 While there is general agreement that Russia widely overstepped any legitimate response by its opportunistic invasion of Georgia, there is also a sense that Saakashvili has himself to blame for starting a war with Russia. Yet closer analysis indicates that this explanation is at best simplistic, as a growing body of evidence suggests that Russia was determined to wage war with Georgia this summer regardless of Georgian actions.2 Many analyses in fact suggest Russia “set a trap” for Saakashvili, and that the Georgian president “foolishly” stepped into it.3 The War in Georgia and Russian Long before the war, Russia put Designs. The war in Georgia imperils to use a set of instruments of presthe entire larger trend described above sure against Georgia that no other forfor several reasons: in a general way, mer Soviet state had been exposed to.4 because the premeditated character of Already in the early 2000s, the Kremlin Russia’s warfare suggests that Moscow began intervening more boldly in the aims to rewrite the political map of unresolved civil wars of Abkhazia and Eurasia and parts of Europe; more spe- South Ossetia, conflicts that it had itself cifically, because it physically threatens helped instigate in the early 1990s. the Caucasian energy corridor. Moscow distributed Russian passports The way the war began provides key en masse to the populations of these two insights about Russian motivations, regions.5 With the coming to power of a and therefore also about the war’s pro-Western and democratic Georgian broader implications. The prevailing government after the Rose Revolution Western view is either that Georgia in 2003, the pressure gradually mountstarted the war; or, that Russia may have ed into a set of developments that led to sought a conflict with Georgia, but that the summer 2008 war. Moscow began President Mikheil Saakashvili foolishly to systematically exploit the unregave Moscow a pretext for interven- solved conflicts in Abkhazia and South tion when he sent Georgian troops into Ossetia. The Kremlin began to appoint Tskhinvali. Tskhinvali is the capital Russian military and security officials of South Ossetia—a Georgian province to the regions’ governments, somethat fought a brief Moscow-supported thing that the supposedly independent war with the central government in the regions appeared to be in no place to early 1990s and which has been outside contest. For example, South Ossetia’s Georgian control ever since. Indeed, prime, interior, and defense ministers
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are serving Russian security or military officials, who have been seconded from the Russian government to the self-proclaimed republics, effectively showing the degree of control wielded by Moscow.6 Georgia found itself in a patently absurd situation: Russia was considered a mediator and peacekeeper in its internal conflicts—but was effectively a party to the conflict. In 2006, Russia imposed a full economic embargo on Georgia, banning all transport, trade, and postage links.7 The next year, Russian attack helicopters shelled administrative buildings in a Georgian-controlled area of Abkhazia,8 while on 6 August (a year to the day before the descent to war in 2008) attacking a Georgian radar station near South Ossetia.9 In early 2008, having explicitly linked the conflicts in Georgia to the forthcoming Western recognition of Kosovo’s independence, President Putin opened direct ties to Abkhazia and South Ossetia, effectively beginning to treat them as parts of Russia.10 He then dispatched several hundred paratroopers and heavy artillery into Abkhazia—according to Moscow, parts of its peacekeeping operation. The addition of railroad troops to repair the railroad linking Russia and Abkhazia seemed an oddity.11 But railroad repairs finished on 30 July and, ten days later, thousands of Russian troops and hundreds of tanks were sped down the line, opening an entirely unprovoked second front to the war that had just started in South Ossetia.12 By late June, respected Russian military analyst Pavel Felgenhauer asserted in an interview that the Kremlin had already decided to wage war against Georgia, and that it would happen in August.13
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Over the mountains in the North Caucasus, Russia used the summer months to finalize an impressive military buildup. Between 15 July and 2 August, Russia conducted a major military exercise, dubbed “Kavkaz-2008.”14 When the exercise ended on 2 August, the troops did not return to their barracks—some belonging to faraway Pskov and Novorossiysk.15 They remained on alert in North Ossetia, just across the Georgian border. Meanwhile, the Black Sea fleet, based in Sevastopol, was made ready for military action. In the intervening days, tensions escalated in South Ossetia. In early August, South Ossetian militia forces under the control of Russian generals began to shell Georgian posts and villages in the conflict zone more aggressively than before, leading to exchanges of fire between the two sides.16 A Reuters reporter traveling to Tskhinvali, the South Ossetian capital, on 4 August found fifty Russian journalists in a hotel apparently waiting for “something to happen.”17 On 7 August, much evidence suggests that Georgian forces began their attack on Tskhinvali and the road leading to the Russian border at a time when Russian tanks had already begun pouring through the Roki Tunnel connecting South Ossetia with Russia. Telephone intercepts suggest this, as does an amusing episode featuring a wounded Russian officer, who told the Russian military newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda that his battalion entered Georgian territory already on 7 August, a day before Russia acknowledges that to have happened.18 A wounded captain may misspeak, but the cover-up is, as always, what is telling. Krasnaya Zvezda first changed the text on its website—
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then re-interviewed the captain, who now claimed his forces only entered Georgia on 8 August, before disappearing from public view.19 That Moscow’s invasion of Georgia was premeditated is also borne out by the extremely rapid and coordinated introduction of the Black Sea fleet and air force bombardments of Georgia proper—especially the opening the very next day of an entirely unprovoked second front in Abkhazia, followed by the landing of over six thousand troops by sea and railroad. What did Moscow seek to achieve? In all likelihood, the war was not about South Ossetia, but more likely aimed at bringing about the demise of the Georgian government. Indeed, both U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner have alluded to Moscow’s aim to overthrow the democratically elected Georgian government.20 That, in itself, makes the war an extraordinary event, taking place between two member states of the OSCE and the Council of Europe.
tanker-train carrying Azerbaijani oil.22 News networks cabled out footage of a tanker train-car labeled AZPETROL against the background of thick black smoke, a vivid reminder of the vulnerability of the east-west transportation link.23 Again, the purpose was clearly to show the vulnerability of Georgia’s infrastructure. As if this was not enough, the only known terrorist act committed so far against the BakuTbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline occurred two days prior to Russia’s invasion and only ten days after the ceremony beginning construction of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railroad, a major element in the EastWest corridor. The attack took place in Turkey, and was claimed by the Kurdish separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). Yet the timing, and the PKK’s strong historical ties to Moscow, raise the question whether this was indeed a coincidence.
Implications of the War in Georgia. The war’s implications for the future of the energy corridor can be
The War’s Direct Impact on divided into short-term and long-term Energy Infrastructure. The war implications, the latter being heavily did not cause a major direct disruption to energy transportation infrastructure. However, a series of incidents suggest that an intentional side-effect of the Russian invasion was related to this corridor. First, and most graphically, Russian forces blew up the main railroad bridge at Kaspi, west of Tbilisi, thereby cutting Tbilisi off from western Georgia and the Black Sea coast.21 Secondly, when leaving the territories it had occupied surrounding the east-west communication artery through which the energy corridor goes, the Russians left behind a mine that blew up a
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dependent on Western responses and policies. In the short-term, Moscow has dealt a severe blow to the prospects for expanding and strengthening the energy corridor. Georgia was always considered the weakest link in the East-West corridor, given its internal instability and unresolved conflicts. The Saakashvili government sought to change that, building a functional Georgian state and a democratic polity. Yet precisely because of that evolution, Moscow sought to deal a mortal blow to Georgian statehood and democracy. While failing to topple
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Saakashvili’s government, Moscow did manage to raise suspicions regarding Georgia’s stability that could be sufficient to keep many investors away. The war’s other most direct effect, however, has been psychological. It exposed the vulnerability of the successor states of the former Soviet Union to Russian bullying, as well as the West’s total
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major stakeholders. Sooner or later, Azerbaijan will have to make a choice, the outcome of which will be based on entirely pragmatic considerations, meaning that Baku may be forced to build closer ties with Moscow unless feasible alternatives present themselves. As for Central Asian producer states like Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan,
The premeditated character of Russia’s
warfare suggests that Moscow aims to rewrite the political map of Eurasia and parts of Europe. inability—or unwillingness—to prevent an invasion of its perhaps closest partner in the region. In so doing, Moscow has managed—at least in the near-term— to change the strategic calculus of all energy producer and transit states in the former Soviet Union. In Ukraine, the war precipitated a government crisis that tore apart the pro-Western Orange Coalition. In Azerbaijan, which has been and remains strongly allied with Georgia, it led to a symbolic decision to diversify oil export routes, sending a message to the West that Baku has options. In Central Asia, Kazakhstan has already canceled two important investments in Georgia, most likely at Moscow’s direct urging. Longer-term scenarios are less clear. On the one hand, the negative shortterm impact may very well prove lasting. Georgia may fail to shake off the blow dealt to it and go through protracted internal convulsions as a result of the war. As for Azerbaijan, the war exposed the vulnerability of its attempt to follow a balanced foreign policy based on functioning relations with all
they may well decide to rule out western transport routes completely, opting for appeasing Russia through additional energy supply deals, while betting on China rather than Europe for diversifying their export routes. Such a combination of events would likely doom the Nabucco project, effectively killing prospects of having larger Caspian natural gas reserves reach Europe through the Caucasus and Turkey. These resources would instead be transported via Russian-controlled pipelines, increasing rather than decreasing Europe’s energy dependence on Russia. That would in turn reduce the likelihood of European integration in Europe’s Eastern Neighborhood, and weaken forces of reform and democracy while strengthening the entrenched and authoritarian forces that exist in all of the region’s countries. It would accelerate Russia’s resurgent predominant influence, and could effectively lead to a European acceptance of Russia’s sphere of influence in the former Soviet Union, in spite of the likely protestations to the contrary.
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Such a dire scenario is indeed plausible, but it does not need to happen. Indeed, it may even be unlikely. Avoiding it, however, requires farsighted and coherent Western policies, capitalizing on the forces that Moscow has mobilized against it. Moscow’s war has in fact mobilized unprecedented forces across Eurasia. Georgia is likely to survive. Even before the war, the prospect of a pro-Russian government in Tbilisi was extremely remote; now, it can be ruled out. Secondly, Russia’s behavior managed to mobilize an alliance between Poland, the Baltic states, and Ukraine, loud protagonists of greater European engagement in the Eastern Neighborhood that will not go away. Third, even in Western Europe, the blatant aggression committed by the Kremlin has led to a fundamental rethinking of Russia’s nature. In America, where both the Clinton and Bush administrations spent endless hours bickering internally on the merit of engaging Russia, the Obama administration will come to office with a much clearer view of what Russia is and the threats to U.S. interests that the Kremlin elite poses.
Policy Implications. A year from now, we may look back at the August 2008 war in Georgia as one of the last nails in the coffin of a Europe “whole and free,” and be well on the way toward a Europe divided into spheres
of influence in a manner reminiscent of the Cold War. In that scenario, the energy corridor from the Caspian Sea to Europe will exist only to the extent to which Russia allows it. Alternatively, the war may turn out to have been the inauguration of a new era of Western engagement spun from a cooler analysis of Russia’s intentions and Europe’s interests—and signify a move toward the next big stage of the building of the East-West corridor, its extension into Central Asia. Hence, the war in Georgia poses opportunities as well as challenges. Indeed, it may now be more rather than less possible to seek European and Transatlantic consensus on the merit of a serious political engagement in the diversification of supply routes—most obviously, through a political commitment at the highest level to support the Nabucco project and make it a reality just as was the case with the BTC. Should Caspian states perceive a movement in this direction on the part of the West, they are likely to seize the opportunity—but only at the moment when they perceive the engagement and commitment of the West as credible. For this to happen, the next U.S. administration will need to deal with Russia and the Caspian Sea region in a long-term and strategic manner, and accord the region a level of attention denied to it in the final two years of the Bush administration.
Notes
1 See “Russia-Georgia Talks Suspended Until November,” Reuters, 15 October 2008; “Georgia Confirms Russian Pullout,” International Herald Tribune, 8 October 2008. 2 For a detailed discussion, see Svante E. Cornell, Johanna Popjanevski, and Niklas Nilsson, “Russia’s War in Georgia: Causes and Implications
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for Georgia and the World,” Central Asia-Caucasus Institute and Silk Road Studies Program Policy Paper, August 2008. Available online at http://www. silkroadstudies.org/. 3 See Michael Emerson, “Post-Mortem on Europe’s First War in the 21st Century,” Policy Brief 167, Centre for European Policy Studies, 27 August
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2008. Available online at http://www.ceps.eu. 4 Svante E. Cornell, “Georgia after the Rose Revolution: Geopolitical Predicament and Implications for U.S. Policy,” (Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College, March 2007). Available online at http:// www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/. 5 Igor Zvelev, “Russia’s Policy toward Compatriots in the Former Soviet Union,” Russia in Global Affairs, no. 1 (January-March 2008); Wojciech Górecki, “Abkhazia,” in Krysztof Strachota, Armed Conflicts in the Post-Soviet Region: Present Situation, Prospect for Settlement, Consequences, no. 9 (Warsaw, Poland: Center for Eastern Studies, 2003), 58-61. 6 Yulia Latynina, “South Ossetia Crisis Could be Russia’s Chance to Defeat Siloviki,” Radio Free Europe/ Radio Liberty, 8 August 2008; Nicu Popescu, “Outsourcing de facto Statehood: Russia and the Secessionist Entities in Georgia and Moldova,” Policy Brief 109, Centre for European Policy Studies, July 2006, 6. See also the Georgian government’s official factsheet available online at http://www.mfa.gov.ge/ files/461_8053_309110_Annex2Russianofficials.doc. 7 “Russia Mounts Pressure by Cutting Links with Georgia,” Civil Georgia, 2 October 2006, Internet, http://www.civil.ge/eng/article.php?id=13742; Bill Gasperini, “Russia Imposes Economic Sanctions on Georgia,” Voice of America, 3 October 2006. 8 David J. Smith, “Russia’s Attack on Georgia: the U.N. Report,” Central Asia-Caucasus Analyst, 11 July 2007, Internet, http://www.cacianalyst. org/?q=node/4655. 9 See Svante E. Cornell, David J. Smith, and S. Frederick Starr, “The August 6 Bombing Incident in Georgia,” Central Asia-Caucasus Institute and Silk Road Studies Program, Washington and Stockholm, October 2007, Internet, http://www.isdp.eu/files// publications/srp/07/sc07georgiabombing.pdf. 10 Jason Cooper, “Putin: Russia will Support Abkhazia, South Ossetia,” Tiraspol Times, 4 April 2008, Internet, http://www.tiraspoltimes.com/news/ putin_russia_will_support_abkhazia_south_ossetia. html; “Russia Links Kosovo with Georgia,” BBC News, 15 February 2008, Internet, http://news.bbc. co.uk/2/hi/europe/7246505.stm. 11 Vladimir Socor, “Russia Deploys Railway Troops to Abkhazia,” Eurasia Daily Monitor, 3 June 2008, Internet, http://www.jamestown.org/edm/ article.php?article_id=2373110. 12 “Russian Railroad Troops Complete Mission in Abkhazia,” Eurasia Daily Monitor, 31 July 2008; Sukhumi Apsnypress, quoted in “Festive Ceremony Held in Georgia’s Abkhazia to See Off Russian Railway Troops,” BBC World Monitoring Service, 30 July 2008.
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13 “Фельгенгауэр: В Москве Приняли Политическое Решение Начать Войну С Грузией [A political decision to
start war in Georgia was taken in Moscow],” Rezonansi, Tbilisi, 21 June 2008. See also Pavel Felgenhauer, “The Russian-Georgian War was Preplanned in Moscow,” Eurasia Daily Monitor, 14 August 2008. 14 “EU capital faces Georgia and Russia propaganda campaign,” EU Observer, 30 August 2008. 15 Pavel Felgenhauer, “Ossetian Separatists are Provoking a Major Russian Intervention,” Eurasia Daily Monitor, 7 August 2008, Internet, http://www. jamestown.org/publications_details.php?volume_ id=427&issue_id=4583&article_id=2373294; See also Felgenhauer’s response to an online discussion on Johnson’s Russia List at http://www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/2008-161-10.cfm. 16 “21 Wounded in Fighting around South Ossetia,” Forbes, 7 August 2008; personal communications with author, Tbilisi and Washington, D.C., 1-7 August 2008; “Moscow Orchestrates War Scare In South Ossetia,” Eurasia Daily Monitor, 4 August 2008. 17 Brian Withmore, “Scene at Russian-Georgian Border Hinted at Scripted Affair,” Radio Free Europe/ Radio Liberty, 23 August 2008, Internet, http://www. cdi.org/russia/johnson/2008-157-10.cfm. 18 Steve Gutterman, “Georgia: Intercepted calls prove self-defense,” USA Today, 16 September 2008. 19 Niklas Nilsson, “New Evidence Emerges on Start of Georgian-Russian War,” Central Asia-Caucasus Analyst, 17 September 2008, Internet, http://www. cacianalyst.org/?q=node/4943. Wikipedia has an entry on the episode available online at http:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_Goes_On_(The_Article). 20 Kouchner was quoted in Newsweek as saying, “We had to stop those tanks rolling toward Tbilisi. We had to demand an immediate ceasefire, otherwise Tbilisi was taken and Saakashvili’s regime would fall.” See Tracy McNicoll, “We Want to Believe: Bernard Kouchner on France’s Efforts to Unite Europe, without Quite Confronting Russia,” 15 September 2008, Internet, http://www.newsweek.com/id/157510/output/print); “Rice: Russia becoming Isolated, Irrelevant,” CNN, 18 September 2008, Internet, http://edition.cnn.com/2008/ POLITICS/09/18/rice.russia/index.html. 21 “Bush Says Russia Must Honor Georgia Pullout Agreement,” Bloomberg, 16 August 2008. 22 “Oil Train Derails, Burns in Central Georgia,” International Herald Tribune, 24 August 2008, Internet, http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/08/24/ europe/EU-Georgia-Russia-Train.php. 23 “Russia blamed for AzPetrol train blast,” Azernews, 27 August 2008, Internet, http://www. azernews.az/site/shownews.php?news_id=6367.
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Calming Troubled Waters The Bailout of Fannie and Freddie Robert Martin On 7 September 2008 the United States Department of Treasury took direct control of the two home mortgage giants, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. At the time of the takeover, the agencies had issued $5.4 trillion of guaranteed mortgage-backed securities and other debt. These liabilities represented almost 40 percent of U.S. GDP, roughly equal to the publicly held debt of the U.S. government. Why did the government take this unprecedented action? Part of the answer lies in the events of the Great Depression. Many economists, including Milton Friedman and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, believe that lack of government action during the financial crises of the early 1930s prolonged and exacerbated the Depression.1 The financial market turmoil we are currently experiencing is eerily reminiscent of that period, a time when a few key bank failures led to the near-collapse of the international banking system. The Treasury Department is not about to repeat the policy mistakes of the 1930s; the prospect of a second Great Depression is so daunting that, if anything, Treasury is willing to err on the side of over- rather than under-reacting. The current financial crisis originated in the subprime mortgage market. The effective collapse of this market shook
Robert Martin is a macroeconomist with the Federal Reserve Board and a former senior economist for the President’s Council of Economic Advisers. His research areas include housing economics, housing finance, and international finance. Dr. Martin is an adjunct assistant professor at Georgetown University and Johns Hopkins University. This paper reflects the views and opinions of the author alone. The statements herein do not reflect the views of the Federal Reserve Board, the Federal Reserve System, or their respective staffs.
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the confidence of investors, and in the face of a rapidly declining housing market, investment in many types of mortgage-related assets came to a standstill. The uncertainty spread to other credit markets both in the United States and abroad. The international reach of the crisis reflected both widespread balance sheet problems of the global banking system and a general increase in the price of risk as investors lost faith in their ability to assess risk. To alleviate the crisis, the government assumed responsibility for the liabilities of both Fannie and Freddie.
of their debt has risen. History shows that government support of insolvent industries has a poor record of success and that success often requires substantial amounts of public resources. The takeover of Fannie and Freddie did not end the financial crisis. Since the takeover, governments throughout the world have taken steps to alleviate financial market strains, as no government wants a second Great Depression. The total financial commitment grows by the day. By framing the takeover of Fannie and Freddie in both an historical and an international perspec-
There is abundant evidence that Fan-
nie’s and Freddie’s difficulties do not owe to liquidity problems alone; they also suffer from a solvency problem. The government rightly feared a possible collapse of the financial system if they failed to act. Fannie and Freddie were so big that their failure would have roiled global markets. Also forcing the government’s hand was the widespread perception of an implicit government guarantee. A failure to act might have had implications for the perceived credit worthiness of the U.S. government, raising the cost of borrowing. Yet, the success of this intervention is only guaranteed if the problem owes to liquidity and there is abundant evidence that Fannie’s and Freddie’s difficulties do not owe to liquidity problems alone; they also suffer from a solvency problem. The value of their assets—which depend almost entirely on timely payment of the underlying mortgages—has declined and the value
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tive, we may come closer to understanding why governments around the world are taking an “all-in” approach to the current crisis and what factors will determine success or failure.
The Great Depression. Economists
do not agree on the causes of the Great Depression. Some economists believe a world-wide fall in productivity led to the decline. Others believe that bad monetary policy was the true culprit. Few economists deny that widespread bank failures and the accompanying financial crises exacerbated the downturn and perhaps prevented an early recovery. The number of bank failures in the Great Depression was shocking. One bank failure led to the next: “A contagion of fear spread among depositors, starting from the agricultural areas” but
Martin
soon spread across the country.2 This loss of faith led depositors to demand repayment of their deposits irrespective of the health of their individual banks. The international nature of the Great Depression is important. Since the late 1800s, financial markets had become increasingly international. Capital flowed across borders more efficiently than ever before and by the 1920s, these flows of funds allowed large increases in leverage and sharp rises in stock markets. Financial linkages seemed a source of strength, a new financial architecture that could insulate the rapidly growing financial markets from shocks. The markets seemed safe from downturns; no single country could destabilize the market. When banks began to fail, especially one or two particularly large banks, this new-found confidence collapsed and the system imploded. Between 1930 and 1932, bank failures averaged seventeen hundred per year; failures peaked in 1934 when over four thousand banks failed.3 A few key events seemed to trigger these collapses.4 The bankruptcy of the largest bank in Austria and the subsequent failure of the Bank of the United States in late 1930 were especially important. The Bank of the United States was the largest commercial bank to fail up to that time; “Moreover, though an ordinary commercial bank, its name had led many at home and abroad to regard it somehow as an official bank.”5 Given the perception that it was an official bank, the failure of the Bank of the United States may have had implications for the risk premium paid on U.S. Treasury bills. While it is impossible to answer this question definitively, the premium on T-bills
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appears to have risen between 0.5 and 1 percentage point when the Bank failed.6 There is a wide-held belief amongst economists that timely intervention by a governmental authority to prevent a few of these key failures would have prevented many of the panics that led to a near-collapse of the banking system. Given the global nature of the Depression, coordinated action across countries may have been especially helpful. Without the collapse of the international banking system, the Great Depression may have simply been another recession lost in history.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Fannie Mae was founded near the end of the Great Depression to help create a reliable market for mortgage loans.7 At the time, the U.S. banking sector was still reeling from the financial turmoil of the early 1930s and banks’ willingness to fund mortgages was intermittent. Fannie Mae remained an official government agency until it was privatized in 1968. Freddie Mac was chartered by Congress in 1970 to prevent Fannie Mae from monopolizing the secondary mortgage market. Almost every government supports housing at some level. And, although the question has been studied extensively, there does not seem to be any variation in results, across countries and over time, between those with very heavy-handed government involvement (Germany) and those with a very light touch (the United Kingdom). Both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are now in the business of buying and then securitizing mortgages.8 Fannie and Freddie are unique among the world’s government-founded mort-
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gage holders in that they funnel most mortgages to the public through securitization. Their closest cousin is in Denmark, where it is generally assumed by market participants that the Danish government backs all mortgage bonds.9 Simplifying securitization somewhat, Fannie and Freddie buy mortgages from banks and other originators. However, the two companies are limited explicitly by law in the dollar value of mortgages they may hold in their portfolios. Therefore, in order to continue buying new mortgages, they must sell some old mortgages. However, buying entire mortgages is expensive, risky, and illiquid. Very few investors are willing or able to buy four hundred thousand dollars worth of a single mortgage. The upfront cost is high and if the mortgage defaults, the entire sum is lost. More importantly, most mortgages are repaid over thirty years; if the investor wants his money back before then, he must sell the whole mortgage. Fannie and Freddie solve this problem by pooling mortgages and selling pieces of the mortgage pool to investors. The resulting assets are called mortgage-backed securities. The specifics of the security determine the exact payment stream. In its simplest form, a mortgage-backed security passes the mortgage payments of individuals directly to investors. Mortgage-backed securities can be further complicated with varying maturities, interest rates, and payment priorities. In the case of Fannie and Freddie, they did not simply sell these assets, they also guaranteed them and agreed to repurchase the assets if they failed to meet certain repayment requirements. Therefore, the dollar value of the companies’ liabilities extended to the entire
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$5.4 trillion portfolio of mortgagebacked securities and debt. Fannie and Freddie grew rapidly. Their liabilities have grown more than 11 percent per year since 1995. Despite this growth in liabilities, their borrowing costs did not rise. The two firms borrowed funds at a rate only slightly higher than the U.S. government itself and much lower than other highly-rated financial institutions. A large portion of these funds came from overseas investors and the debt of these companies indirectly funded a substantial portion of the United States’ current account deficit. Why were they able to get such favorable terms? Both companies were created by Congressional charters and both retained the right to draw on special lines of credit with the Treasury. These connections led investors to believe that the liabilities of both Fannie and Freddie were guaranteed by the U.S. government. This implicit guarantee insulated the companies from market discipline and allowed their portfolios to grow.
Solvency versus Liquidity: Is There a Difference? In theory,
the difference between solvency and liquidity is clear. A company with a liquidity problem is solvent but it faces a temporary shortfall of liquid assets, assets it can turn into cash to meet its payment obligations. If all depositors withdraw their money from a bank on the same day, the bank fails because it does not have liquid assets to meet the demand. A temporary injection of liquidity, usually by the government, solves the problem. Essentially, the bank borrows to cover the short-term run on its deposits and then pays the loan back by selling its long-term assets.
Martin
Presuming the bank is solvent, there is little risk in providing the funds. Solvency problems arise when the liabilities of a firm exceed the value of its assets. To prevent bankruptcy (which is not always desirable) the government may inject capital into the firm, but, as opposed to the case of liquidity, success is not guaranteed. First, the firm did not become insolvent without cause. Either because of bad luck or bad business practices, it has failed. An injection of capital on its own is unlikely to solve this fundamental problem. Second, even if the firm’s luck has turned and it only needs capital to restart its business, the capital injection must be large enough to not just make the firm solvent but to allow the firm to invest and grow. As a result of these two main differences, intervention in cases of insolvency is not guaranteed to be successful. The history of bailouts illustrates these two points. A comprehensive study by the Social Science Research Center identifies seventy-nine cases of industry bailouts by European Union governments between 1995 and 2003 alone.10 The interventions were concentrated in the manufacturing sector, but touched every major sector. The study shows that the probability of bankruptcy increases in the first four years following government intervention and only 41 percent of firms survive more than ten years. This result does not mean that the government action hurts the industry; rather, the result indicates that even aggressive government action is not a panacea in the case of insolvency. When Treasury took over Fannie and Freddie, they purchased preferred stock with a 10 percent dividend payment. The bankruptcy rate in the
Business&Economics
previous paragraph shows the reason for the lack of private-sector investment at this seemingly favorable rate of return. With a 40 percent survival rate, a ten-year bond with a 10 percent coupon has an expected yield of only 4 percent, a rate of return below that of most government bonds. The European experience calls for judgment in the use of bailouts. Even in a case where it is clearly in the national interest for an industry or firm to survive, government intervention may not prevent the collapse. The government should use its resources wisely and only intervene when the probability of success is high. The government bailout of the banking system in Japan aptly illustrates the second point. In the 1990s, Japan’s banks were saddled with nonperforming loans. By any reasonable accounting measure they were, for the most part, insolvent.11 The Japanese government injected enough capital to keep the banks solvent but not to return them to a truly functional status.12 As a result, Japanese banks were unable to lend and the Japanese economy suffered ten years of substandard growth. Why did the Japanese government make this mistake? They were undoubtedly aware that a barely solvent bank could not function in an economically meaningful way. The Japanese government believed that the banks suffered from a lack of liquidity rather than a solvency problem. The government was not alone. Even as late as 2000, the academic literature remained focused on liquidity problems.13 Yet Japan’s banks did not recover and begin fully functioning until the banking reforms in 2002 and 2003 when the Japanese government finally acknowledged the solvency
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problem and took the nonperforming loans off the bank balance sheets. One of the largest problems currently facing governments is distinguishing between liquidity and solvency. Governments are in a poor position to properly assess the value of assets on a firm’s balance sheet: Are the asset prices low because of temporary market failures, or are they priced low because they are not worth very much? Nevertheless, making the distinction is important as liquidity interventions should always be conducted and solvency interventions should, at the very least, only be attempted when there is a reasonable probability of success.
Why Rescue Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? Placed in historical perspective, the reasons for the rescue of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are clear. With $5.4 trillion in liabilities, a failure of Fannie and Freddie would have wide-spread effects on the financial system, likely leading to the failure of other banks and financial companies. The failure of these firms could lead to the failure of others. This systemic risk was not necessarily due just to U.S. financial firms; there is an important international dimension. As of June 2007, more than 25 percent of Fannie and Freddie’s liabilities were held outside of the United States.14 Perhaps more importantly, this debt accounts for almost 20 percent of the total increase in foreign holdings of U.S. assets between 2000 and 2007. Similar to the default of the Bank of the United States during the Great Depression, a default by Fannie and Freddie might have been perceived as a default by the U.S. gov-
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ernment. In this case, the interest rate on U.S. government debt would rise, reflecting the higher risk premium, and the United States as a whole would have increased difficulty funding its substantial current account deficit. More than financial risk, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac helped to support the housing market. If the two companies fail, mortgage issuance could cease to exist, knocking the last leg of support out from housing. According to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, “our economy and our markets will not recover until the bulk of this housing correction is behind us. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are critical to turning the corner on housing.”15 In addition to the concerns of systemic risk, the Department of Treasury felt the need to act because of the special relationship between the two Government Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs) and the government. This relationship allowed Fannie and Freddie to borrow at interest rates near that of U.S. Treasury Bonds and “fostered enormous growth in GSE debt.”16 In the words of Treasury, “because the U.S. government created these ambiguities,” the Treasury has a responsibility to address the risks created by them.17 This bailout’s necessity, however, does not guarantee its success. If the problems owe to liquidity, then Treasury’s current intervention is likely more than sufficient. However, insolvency seems the more likely cause. Since the takeover, spreads of Fannie and Freddie debt over other safe assets have increased, indicating ongoing troubles with the companies. The value of mortgages is likely to continue to fall. The European and Japanese experiences tell us that
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Business&Economics
government intervention may not be As a result, the value of Fannie and sufficient to reinvigorate the two firms. Freddie’s assets are likely to decline further. The U.S. government can Conclusion. Treasury’s actions with save the companies by injecting a sufrespect to Fannie and Freddie are the ficiently large amount of capital—uncorrect response to a liquidity crisis. So like intervention in the manufacturlong as the possibility of runs on finan- ing sector, their product, financial cial institutions and the resulting illi- intermediation, is unlikely to go out quidity are the main cause of financial of style. However, the government’s instability, Treasury’s actions have likely actions in such a case must be underhelped prevent an economic downturn stood not as a temporary injection or, at the very least, reduced the sever- of liquidity but instead as a permaity of any downturn. Inject enough nent injection of capital, a transliquidity into the system and financial fer from taxpayers to the two firms. problems evaporate. But what if the In this case, bailing out Fannie and underlying problem is one of solvency? Freddie becomes a public policy deciFannie and Freddie special- sion. The special status of the compaize in the safest classes of mortgages. nies as financial intermediaries fades Nevertheless, the falling house prices and they become similar to any other and a weak economy have increased large company. Are they too big to defaults. As of July, the serious delin- fail? Maybe. The $5.4 trillion in liaquency rate on single-family conven- bilities and the widespread belief that tional mortgages bought by Fannie Mae these liabilities were backed by the U.S. rose to 1.5 percent, more than dou- government argues for intervention. bling over the past twelve months.18 However, the intervention may not The U.S. housing market is still fall- necessarily keep Fannie and Freddie in ing. Even according to the conservative business. There is a wide gap between OFHEO purchase only index, house providing enough funds to pay off prices through August 2008 had fallen investors and providing enough funds 6.5 percent from their peak value. that Fannie and Freddie remain ongoThis decline is the largest fall in house ing concerns. The U.S. housing mar-
The U.S. housing market can survive
without a large quasi-government presence. prices since the U.S. government began tracking them in the 1970s. And, when house prices fall, households have less incentive to pay off their mortgages and the most financially sensitive ones will default. Delinquency rates are likely to rise considerably before stabilizing and eventually declining.
ket can survive without a large quasigovernment presence. Seemingly every industrialized country has a unique way of supporting the housing market, yet housing-market outcomes do not seem to be determined by where a country lies on the spectrum between strict government control and laissez
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faire capitalism. The U.S. housing market would change, but it would survive. Since the takeover of Fannie and Freddie, governments around the world have announced a seemingly unending array of measures, the “allin” approach, with which to combat the global financial crisis. For the most part, these interventions have been aimed at alleviating an underlying liquidity problem. While it is too early
to fully judge the success of the interventions, the fact that they have not yet solved the crisis points to problems that extend beyond a shortage of liquidity. In this case, the policy problem is not simple. Much as a general must take care in committing his reserve forces before the enemy plan is clear, governments should be cautious in committing their finite resources before the true nature of the crisis is revealed.
Notes
1 Ben S. Bernanke, “FRB Speech, Bernanke—On Milton Friedman’s ninetieth birthday,” (remarks, Conference to Honor Milton Friedman, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, 8 November 2002). Internet, http://www.federalreserve.gov/BOARDDOCS/SPEECHES/2002/20021108/default.htm. 2 Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz, A Monetary History of the United States (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1960), 308. 3 John R. Walter, “Depression-Era Bank Failures: The Great Contagion or the Great Shakeout?” Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond Economic Quarterly 91 (2005). 4 Ben S. Bernanke, “Nonmonetary Effects of the Financial Crisis in the Propagation of the Great Depression,” in Essays on the Great Depression, ed., Ben S. Bernanke (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000), 61. Originally published in the American Economic Review 73 (June 1983). 5 Friedman and Schwartz, A Monetary History of the United States. In addition to the name itself, the Bank may have been confused in people’s minds with the First and Second Banks of the United States, defunct by 1929, but both of which had been government banks. 6 Treasury bill rates fell between 1 and 1.6 percentage points per trimester between early 1930 and the summer of 1931. Immediately after the failure of the Bank of the United States, Treasury rates fell only 0.4 percentage points. The inference is made from this observation. 7 See background information on Fannie Mae in “An Introduction to Fannie Mae,” Internet, http://www.fanniemae.com/media/pdf/fannie_ mae_introduction.pdf. The Congressional Budget Office has also written several analyses of the GSEs, most of which contain background information. 8 The Office of Housing Enterprise Oversight offers an accessible and thorough description of the mortgage market in “Mortgage Mar-
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ket Note 08-3,” Internet, http://www.ofheo. gov/media/mmnotes/MMNOTE083.pdf. 9 Allen Frankel, Jacob Gyntelberg, Kristian Kjeldsen, and Mattias Persson, “The Danish Mortgage Market,” BIS Quarterly Review, March 2004. 10 Ela Glowicka, “Effectiveness of Bailouts in the EU,” Discussion Paper SP II 2006-05, Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung (2006). 11 Alan Ahearne, Joseph Gagnon, Jane Haltmeir, and Steve Kamin, “Preventing Deflation: Lessons from Japan’s Experience in the 1990s,” International Finance Discussion Paper 729, Federal Reserve (June 2002). 12 Charles Calomiris and Joseph R. Mason, “How to Restructure Failed Banking Systems: Lessons from the U.S. in the 1930’s and Japan in the 1990’s,” National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper 9624 (2003). 13 Michael Hutchinson, “Japan’s Recession: Is the Liquidity Trap Back?” Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco Economic Letter 2000-19 (2000). 14 Treasury International Capital (TIC) System, “Foreign Portfolio Holdings of U.S. Securities as of June 30, 2007,” Internet, http://www. ustreas.gov/tic/shl2007r.pdf. Figure refers to total foreign holdings of GSE debt divided by total outstanding liabilities of Fannie and Freddie. 15 Henry M. Paulson, “Treasury and Federal Housing Finance Agency Action to Protect Financial Markets and Taxpayers” (statement, Washington, D.C., September 7, 2008), Internet, http://www.ustreas.gov/press/releases/hp1129.htm. 16 Department of the Treasury, “Fact Sheet: Treasury Senior Preferred Stock Purchase Agreement,” Internet, http://www.ustreas.gov/press/releases/ reports/pspa_factsheet_090708%20hp1128.pdf. 17 Ibid. 18 A loan is considered seriously delinquent when the homeowner has missed three or more consecutive payments but has not yet entered foreclosure.
Science&Technology
Russia’s Nanotechnology Revolution Paul R. Josephson Nanotechnology is the science of assembling devices out of individual atoms or molecules. It involves the application of physical laws in order to control matter on the atomic and molecular scale. The products of nanotechnology research will include high-performance materials, more efficient manufacturing processes, increased computer storage capacity, energy saving and producing devices, insulators, and biomedical applications ranging from efficient drug delivery systems to cancer therapies and biosensors. Russian scientists and leaders see nanotechnology as an investment in the future and a way to demonstrate that Russia’s greatest capital is its minds, not its oil and gas. Major players in the program’s development include former President Vladimir Putin, his Minister of Science and Education, Andrei Fursenko, and Nobel Prize–winning physicist Zhores Alferov. Nanotechnology reflects an effort to harness the next technological revolution to help Russia regain superpower status like space and nuclear power before it. With the break-up of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War in 1991, Russian science and technology fell on hard times. By 1993 Russia’s premier institute of scientific research, the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), oper-
Paul R. Josephson is chair of the History Department at Colby College as well as an expert on Russian and Soviet science and technology policy.
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ated with roughly one-thirtieth of its previous budget. Many institutes had abandoned research, channeling limited funds into utilities and salaries. Brain drain buffeted many fields especially those of theoretical disciplines and mathematics, and young people began to choose other careers over science, leading to a generation gap in the industry. By 2008 the budget for basic research recovered to roughly one-sixth of its former Soviet level, and with the Russian economy’s rapid growth, the Putin and Medvedev administrations have resolved to harness “Petrorubles” to reinvigorate scientific research and development. In a program reminiscent of the space race, Russia intends to pour hundreds of billions of rubles over the next seven years into nanotechnology. According to government officials, potential economic gains, estimated to amount to trillions of rubles in revenue by 2015, are major reasons to support this program.1 Another reason is Russia’s assertion of its military might through scientific prowess. At an 18 April 2007 visit to the Kurchatov Institute for Atomic Energy (KIAE), the center of the nanotechnology initiative, Putin spoke about the glories of Soviet science, including KIAE’s researchers who created “[the] country’s nuclear shield” during the Cold War.2 He mentioned the success of rebuilding the institute from its decline in the 1990s through substantial government investment to “upgrade laboratory facilities.”3 The former president also called the expansion of nanotechnology research vital to the fields of defense, industry, medicine, transportation, aerospace, and telecommunications, saying, “I am
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convinced that this could be and absolutely will be of crucial importance with regards to establishing the very newest, most recent and most effective weapons systems, both offensive and defensive weapons, as well as communications systems.”4
Fundamental Research and Nanotechnology. During the
Yeltsin years of economic crisis and political uncertainty, Russia’s scientific enterprise aged, shrank, and stagnated. In this environment, nanotechnology foundered. According to U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) specialist M. C. Roco, while “support for the generation of nano-particles and nano-structured materials” had “a long tradition in the former Soviet Union,” research on nano-devices had “been relatively less developed.”5 Funds went mostly to personnel instead of research and infrastructure. The Russian Foundation for Fundamental Research, which provided 40 percent of all funding for basic research in Russia, offered little to nanotechnology from 1993 to 1996. In the same years, Russia received several hundred million dollars from George Soros’s International Science Foundation, INTAS (the EU-funded International Association for the Promotion of co-operation with Scientists from the New Independent States of the former Soviet Union), the U.S. Civilian Research and Defense Foundation, and the well-funded International Science and Technology Centers dedicated to keeping military research and development specialists within the borders of the former Soviet Union. This support was of little value to nano-researchers as it only funded a
Josephson
few of their projects.6 In 1997 there was no centralized program on nanotechnology although scientists had held a series of national conferences on the subject. The Russian government supported nanotechnology in a piecemeal fashion through some appropriations from the Ministry of Atomic Energy and through its so-called federal target program for “Electronic and Optical Properties of Nanostructures” in such institutions as the Ioffe St. Petersburg Physico-Technical Institute (LFTI), the Lebedev Physics Institute in Moscow, the Novgorod Institute of Microstructures, and the Novosibirsk Institute of Semiconductor Physics.7 Before deciding on a national nanotechnology initiative, Putin likely became acquainted with the idea through his future Minister of Science, Andrei Fursenko. Fursenko began his career at the LFTI, the leading center of solid state physics research in Russia
Science&Technology
Petersburg, which included Putin as one of its members. Kovalchuk became one of the wealthiest bankers in Russia while his brother, Mikhail, became the KIAE’s director.9 Kovalchuk met Putin through the cooperative, making it one of the surprising origins of Russia’s nanotechnology revolution.
The Nanotechnology Initiative. Fursenko shares the belief that
science must serve the market more directly by generating income outside of limited government support.10 The interest of the Russian government in funding a huge nanotechnology endeavor while holding the RAS’s budget to a minimum reflects the attitude that scientists must engage in research of immediate value rather than that which may not have immediate applications. In September 2006 Minister Fursenko announced a law that would give President Putin the right to approve
Russian scientists and leaders see nanotechnology as a way to demonstrate that Russia’s greatest capital is its minds, not its oil and gas. whose former director, Zhores Alferov, had pushed to expand nanotechnology research and development. Alferov hired Fursenko and Iurii Kovalchuk in 1988 to develop income-generating strategies during perestroika. They proposed the creation of several businesses based on institute facilities and personnel. Alferov rejected the proposal and they left the institute to pursue their own endeavors.8 Fursenko became a founder of the Ozero summer home cooperative outside of St.
future RAS presidents and changes to its charter. The RAS would continue to receive roughly one-third of its budget from the state, while simultaneously being held more accountable. Alferov, a Communist minority deputy in the Duma, rejects what he believes are the government’s designs on RAS resources, its excessive emphasis on applications at the expense of basic research, inadequate financial support, and lack of understanding about how to best rejuvenate the nexus between higher
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education and science. With Russia’s economic recovery well in hand, in 2004 Fursenko announced government interest in nanotechnology and a modest appropriation of 49 million rubles. This development could conceivably have been a response to Alferov’s persistent criticism of the low level of funding for research and development.11 The plan for a Russian “Silicon Valley” grew out of a March 2002 joint meeting of the President’s Council for Science and High Technology, the Presidium of the Council of the Federation, and the Security Council. The participants adopted a program that included a title with more words than substance: “On the Political Standpoint of the Russian Federation on the Issue of the Development of Science and Technology until 2010, and Its LongTerm Perspectives.” This program reiterated the need to reform the RAS along government lines while shifting three-quarters of the government’s budget for fundamental research and applied science to such “technology of governmental significance” as nuclear power, space, and nanotechnology.12 In December 2006, Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov revealed a Federal Target Program aimed at nanotechnologies in the amount of 1.1 billion rubles effective through 2010.13 Shortly thereafter, the Putin administration announced the establishment of a nano-research foundation, Rosnanotekh. The size of the initiative, the amount of funding, and the profile of the endeavor have all grown rapidly, with the government planning to invest 7 billion rubles between 2008 and 2015. According to Wired magazine, for
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Russia to succeed in nanotechnology, it must overcome “the yawning chasm between its deep intellectual resources and its economic infrastructure.”14 As has been a long tradition in tsarist Russia and the Soviet Union, the nation’s scientists have often been pioneers of theoretical endeavors, but have encountered significant obstacles to seeing their discoveries find market success. While researchers have made great progress in establishing nano-research programs, the country has little industry to put that research to use. When St. Petersburg hosted Russia’s first international nanotech conference in the fall of 2007, Russian companies were poorly represented and overshadowed by major Western firms such as Intel, Siemens, and Bosch. A reason for this has been the state’s central role in scientific innovation, its determination to promote modern industry only after a crisis, and the weakness of market mechanisms. The government has again become engaged in the innovation process, this time because of its recognition that Russia cannot rely solely on its oil and gas reserves to regain its superpower status and must foster its great intellectual potential. The nanotechnology program indicates a determination not to miss out on the next big high-tech revolution in ways reminiscent of the recent past. In many ways the USSR missed the computer revolution. While the impact of ideological interference in the development of computing technology has been exaggerated, the negative effect of statecontrol and management on the field cannot be disputed.15 Soviet scientists had brilliant successes in developing optico-electronic devices, but reverse
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engineering of American computers, legendary bureaucratic obstacles, and the domination of the field by the military-industrial complex isolated researchers and slowed development. Today, however, the government aims to plug business and science together through nanotechnology ventures. The targeting of nanotechnologies signifies the desire to stay technologically well ahead of India and China. Judging by recent words and actions in the areas of atomic energy and space, the Russian government intends for the nation to become a superpower not only because of its nuclear arsenal but also because of its role as a major player in big science and technology. Again, the state rather than “the market” will initially play the major role. Specialists have long debated whether government funding for new technologies has the impact on the economy that its promoters contend. Those who support greater government involvement in fostering technological innovation point to the “Asian miracles” of Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, as well as the examples of Ireland and Argentina. In the United States several individuals have already framed the growing pursuit of nanotechnology as a new space race or perhaps even a threat to liberal democracies if the new, powerful manufacturing techniques are developed for “aggressive military interests.” As the Cold War experience has shown, a technological breakthrough in another country is unlikely to put the United States at significant risk. Nevertheless, fear of a rival country’s scientific breakthrough, or framing programs in terms of national security, will always secure U.S. funding. Like Russia, the U.S.
Science&Technology
government hopes to identify crucial areas of cutting-edge technology to ensure its technological competitiveness and bolster its national security.16
Putin’s Nanotechnology Initiative. Not surprisingly, Russian
officials also see nanotechnology as the next frontier of international competition. Putin personally ordered his cabinet to develop a nano-initiative while the government transformed the initiative into policy, law, and capital with amazing speed, indicating that it was a done deal even before receiving Duma approval. Putin endorsed the effort and emphasized that his government would provide it with “all necessary means” and “significant financial resources.” Fursenko then presented the cabinet with a draft document spelling out promising directions for nanotechnology. He announced a competition, which KIAE won, to designate a national center or parent organization for the nanotechnology industry.17 At a June 2007 cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov reported on preparations for the first meeting of the Government Council for Nanotechnology.18 A month later the Duma passed a law, which Putin immediately signed, to create Rosnanotekh, with an infusion of 7.7 billion rubles through 2015.19 Rosnanotekh will award funds, based solely on merit, to some fifty institutes involved in nanotechnology research, but KIAE will oversee the scientific direction in which these funds are used. Official spokesmen maintain that the government will not focus on such traditional big players as the space and nuclear power industries but “create
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opportunities for small and medium businesses engaged not in trade but in the production of science-intensive goods and scientific work.”20 There is some evidence that smaller players will be involved, especially in the medical, molecular chemistry, and metals sectors. One such early venture,
abuse for personal goals are the usual Russian dangers.” Alexander Nekipelov, an RAS vice president, added: “Risks do exist, but the money involved is so huge that scrutiny will be very good this time.” RAS officials hope that such scrutiny ensures that their institutes receive some of the funding, especially
The nanotechnology program indicates a determination not to miss out on the next big high-tech revolution. Biochip IMB, was set up at the renowned Engelhardt Institute of Molecular Biology in Moscow. Researchers at the Engelhardt Institute have been working for two decades on using nanotechnology to create biological microchips for the rapid diagnosis of various diseases. Such diagnostic biochips will assist in the analysis and diagnosis of cancers, influenza viruses, the detection of herpes, hepatitis A, quickly mutating strains of tuberculosis sensitive or resistant to antibiotics, and additional medical conditions.21 Yet Wired reporters question whether Rosnanotekh will be able to award merit-based funds or whether funds will instead go to “Kremlin insiders with little public accountability and oversight.”22 As Nature reported, the precise structure, goals, and content of the Rosnanotech initiative remain unclear and questions of how projects will be monitored and selected for funding have been raised. The close ties between Putin and the Kovalchuk brothers lead to additional concerns.23 As former Science Minister Boris Saltykov said, “Lack of transparency and program
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since the nanotechnology program will garner a budget larger than that of the entire RAS.24 The choice of KIAE as the lead institute for the nanotechnology endeavor may be one indication of the continued importance of tradition, inside actors, and name recognition in Russian science. The Putin and Medvedev administrations see KIAE’s designation as meeting the stated aim of improving the research functions of institutes out of touch with the modern economy. Yet the falling out between Alferov and Fursenko may provide another reason for the KIAE’s selection. Many observers found the appointment of Mikhail Kovalchuk as the scientific director of the nanotechnology campaign surprising. Kovalchuk, a specialist in materials science, is not a full member of the RAS and is therefore prohibited from being appointed an RAS vice president—an appointment legally required for official designation as nanotechnology tsar. Instead, his title is “acting” vice president of the RAS for nanotechnology. Putin’s substantial involvement in the internal workings of the
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RAS has led to widespread rumors that Kovalchuk might become its next president.25 Kovalchuk’s uncertain position between microchips and money may therefore mirror the power struggle between the Kremlin and RAS. Some observers suggest that Kovalchuk’s brother Iurii drew him into the inner circle of Kremlin politics. Iurii worked with Fursenko at LFTI before becoming president of Rossiia Bank, (with its close connections to the massive, lucrative Severstal metals operation) gaining the moniker “Putin’s Purse.” As a result of these close ties, a number of Russian scientists fear a lack of transparency in nanotechnology funding. Five Russian companies, including Severstal, have received support for their investment projects and are already producing nano-products.26 As with any effort to create scientific or industrial policy, debates will ensue that question the policy’s efficacy, its ability to pick winners and losers, and even whether its field of research is the most promising. Russia, like the United States and several other countries, has chosen nanotechnology as the major technology of the early twenty-first century. To federal officials, the choice is reasonable despite the high costs and uncertainties of the outcome, although they maintain that billions of dollars in economic activity will result by 2015.
Science&Technology
They believe that nanotechnology has important military implications that will secure the nation’s future defense and ensure that Russia regains superpower status not because of its oil and gas or its Soviet technological past, but because of its continued technological prowess. They hope that Russian businesses will enter the nanotechnology market with their own funds in large numbers; hoping they that the multibillion-dollar funding for the endeavor will shake up the scientific establishment, perhaps even pushing members of the RAS to re-think their opposition to reforming their institution. For scientists, the billions of dollars in funding are a mixed blessing. Basic researchers worry that funding for nanotechnology means less funding for their own programs. They have seen recovery in levels of federal support for many fields but consider current levels inadequate to rejuvenate basic research. A number of scientists are also concerned about the seemingly close connections between the highest echelons of power and the scientific winners in what should be a transparent competition for grants and contracts. It may be another five years before we are in a position to evaluate the success of Rosnanotekh, but there can be no question that the Russian government sees the nano-initiative as crucial to the country’s recovery of superpower status.
Notes
1 President of Russia Official Web Portal, “Vladimir Putin Met with the Minister of Science and Education Andrei Fursenko,” 27 February 2007, Internet, http://www.kremlin.ru/eng/ text/news/2007/02/118983.shtml (date accessed: 31 October 2008). 2 President of Russia Official Web Portal, “Beginning of the Meeting on Developing Nanotechnol-
ogy,” 18 April 2007, Internet, http://www.kremlin. ru/eng/speeches/2007/04/18/2300_type82913type 82917type84779_123994.shtml (date accessed: 31 October 2008). 3 Ibid. 4 Ibid. 5 M. C. Roco, “Funding of Nanotechnology in Russia,” Mirovaya Ekonomika, Internet, http://
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www.wtec.org/loyola/nano/Russia/01_03.htm (date accessed: 31 October 2008). 6 Ibid. 7 Ibid. Officials ultimately identified a few federal target programs. In just one program were such products as light-emitting diodes and other light technology, nano- and micro-systems equipment, various medical applications, nano-membranes, and nano-materials. See President of Russia Official Web Portal “Meeting on Developing Nanotechnology.” 8 Mirovaya Ekonomika, “Xozhdenie po Naukam,” Internet, http://www.worldeconomics.ru/about/ Xozdenie_po_naukam_irina.html (date accessed: 31 October 2008). 9 Ibid. 10 Katherine Ters, “Nothing New Identified in Innovation,” The St. Petersburg Times, 8 April 2003, Internet, http://www.prometeus.nsc.ru/eng/science/ scidig/03/apr.ssi#1 (date accessed: 14 November 2007). 11 The Nanotechnology Group, Internet, http://www.thenanotechnologygroup.org/index. cfm?content=89 (date accessed: 17 November 2007). 12 Dan Medovnikov, Stanislav Rozmirovich, and Irik Imamutdinov, “Elephants on the Field,” Internet, http://eng.expert.ru/printissues/expert/2007/01/ innovacionnaya_sistema (date accessed: 14 November 2007). 13 Institute of Nanotechnology, “Russian Government to Spend 30 Billion for Nanotechnology,” 4 December 2006, Internet, http://www.nano. org.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2624&sid=d761030 474428b6752647ced59e5eaab (date accessed: 17 November 2007); Alexander Zaitchik, Wired, “Russia Pours Billions in Oil Profits Into Nanotech Race,” 1 November 2007, Internet, http://www.wired.com/ science/discoveries/news/2007/11/russian_nano (date accessed: 31 October 2008). 14 Zaitchik, “Nanotech Race.” 15 Slava Gerovich, From Newspeak to Cyberspeak: A History of Soviet Cybernetics (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2002). 16 Robert B. Reich, The Next American Frontier (New York: Crown, 1983); and, Lester Thurow, The Zero-Sum Society: Distribution and the Possibilities for Economic Change (New York: Basic, 1980), argued for a strong role of the federal government in indentifying promising research areas. A good overview of industrial policy is Richard D. Bingham, Industrial Policy American Style: From Hamilton to HDTV (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1998). See also Christian Ketels, “Industrial Policy in the United States,” Journal of Industry, Competition and Trade 7, no. 3-4 (December 2007): 1566-1679. For skepticism about industrial policy, see Frederick Buttel, “How Epoch Making Are High Technologies? The Case of Biotechnology,” Sociological Forum 4, no. 2 (June 1989): 247-261; and Richard Brahm, “National Targeting Policies, HighTechnology Industries, and Excessive Competition,”
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Strategic Management Journal 16, Special Issue: Technological Transformation and the New Competitive Landscape (Summer 1995): 71-91. 17 President of Russia Official Web Portal, “Developing Nanotechnology.” 18 President of Russia Official Web Portal, “Russia will Allocate around Six Billion Roubles to Developing Nanotechnology,” 18 June 2007, Internet, http://www.kremlin.ru/eng/text/ themes/2007/06/182015_134681.shtml (date accessed: 31 October 2008). See also President of Russia Official Web Portal, “President Vladimir Putin Held a Meeting with the Government Cabinet,” 18 June 2007, Internet, http://www.kremlin.ru/eng/text/news/2007/06/134627.shtml (date accessed: 31 October 2008). 19 Mikhail Melnikov, deputy editor of Russian Nanotechnologies said, “This is serious money for Russia. This is money that Russian scientists have not seen in a long time.... There’s one problem—interest from the business community. That’s why a corporation is being created; because business does not show great interest in us.” See Dario Thuburn, “Russia to Redirect Billions in Major Nanotechnology Push,” Moscow (AFP), 6 June 2007, Internet, http:// en.rian.ru/science/20070704/68326971.html (date accessed: 31 October 2008); and, http://www.kremlin.ru/ext/news/2007/07/138408.shtmlng/te (date accessed: 31 October 2008). Rossiiskie Nanotekhnologii (Nanotechnologies in Russia) has published three volumes of three to four issues per year. Mikhail Alfimov, academician and director, Photochemistry Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences, is editor. The journal publishes “interdisciplinary articles devoted to basic issues of the structure and properties of nanoscale objects and nanomaterials, technologies of their production and processing as well as practical implementation of the devices and facilities on their basis.” Articles also focus on: “self-organizing structures and nanoassemblages; nanostructures including nanotubes; functional nanomaterials; structural nanomaterials; devices and facilities on the basis of nanomaterials; and, nanotechnologies, metrology, standardization, and testing in nanotechnologies, nanophotonics, [and] nanobiology.” See “Nanotechnologies in Russia,” Internet, http://www.maik. ru/cgi-perl/journal.pl?name=nanotech&lang=eng (date accessed: 2 November 2008). 20 President of Russia Official Web Portal,“Excerpts from transcript of meeting with the government cabinet,” 14 April 2008, Internet, http:// www.kremlin.ru/eng/speeches/2008/04/14/2132_ type82913type82917_163770.shtml (date accessed: 31 October 2008). 21 Informnauka Russian Science News Agency, “Biochips on Guard of Health,” 14 December 2007, Internet, http://www.informnauka.ru/ eng/2007/2007-12-14-7_58_e.htm (date accessed: 31 October 2008). 22 Wired, “Russia Pours Billions.”
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23 Quirin Schiermeier, “Russia Pins Its Hopes on ‘Nano,’” Nature 488, no. 233 (18 July 2007), Internet, http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/ v448/n7151/full/448233a.html. 24 Ibid. 25 Andrey Allakhverdov and Vladimir Pokrovsky, “Russian Academy President Narrowly Wins Reelection,” Science 320 (6 June 2008): 12701271. See also Adrian Blomfield, The Daily Tele-
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graph, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/ europe/russia/2050057/Russian-scientists-rejectVladimir-Putin-ally.html (date accessed: 31 October 2008). 26 Nanowerk Web Portal, “Russia Companies Make Nanotechnology Products—Ivanov,” 19 March 2008, Internet, http://www.nanowerk.com/ news/newsid=4994.php (date accessed: 31 October 2008).
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Eye in the Sky
Monitoring Human Rights Abuses Using Geospatial Technology Lars Bromley Geospatial technologies is a term used to describe the range of modern tools that contribute to the mapping and spatial analysis of the Earth and human geography. These technologies, which have been influential in the advancement of commerce, humanitarian relief, conservation, and other sectors,1 include observation satellites, the Global Positioning System (GPS), and specialized digital mapping software.2 While the commercial applications of such technologies generate the most press and interest there are lesser known, but nevertheless significant possibilities for their use by human rights NGOs to monitor, intervene in, and prosecute massive human rights violations. Since 2006, the Science and Human Rights Program of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) has sought to explore these possibilities by developing and documenting applications of geospatial technologies for NGOs.3 In the last decade, the capabilities and uses of geospatial technologies have greatly increased, shifting from the domain of governments and large corporations to smaller users, including human rights and humanitarian relief organizations. These technologies allow smaller groups to gather compelling evidence of atrocities and humanitarian need
Lars Bromley is project director for the Geospatial Technologies and Human Rights Project at the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
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inside isolated regions and states such as Darfur and Burma, also called Myanmar (see Figure 1). Additionally, they provide evidence of numerous frequent human rights violations including illegal housing demolition, resource theft, and the seizure of indigenous lands. The methods of using geospatial technology to investigate these atrocities are derived from a number of disciplines including environmental science, conservation, and humanitarian relief. Adapting those tools and methods for use in the human rights community has involved the efforts and experimentation of organizations around the world. Though increasingly more accessible, geospatial technologies still present numerous challenges and costs to NGOs. These challenges inhibit their effectiveness given the speed at which human rights crises often develop and the often limited technical capacity of human rights groups. Moreover, even when used efficiently, the actual impact of such technologies can be difficult to determine. While they can clearly document and define the extent of atrocities, they often underscore the impunity with which governments and militias can oppress. However, despite their disadvantages, these technologies offer NGOs unprecedented ability to monitor human rights violations without violating territorial integrity.
Global Positioning System, Geographic Information Systems (GIS), and highresolution imaging satellites. The Global Positioning System (GPS), which consists of a collection of U.S. government satellites, allows for the precise determination of locations around the world using a single, standardized reference grid.4 The suite of software tools that form GIS allows for the integration, analysis, and mapping of multiple types of spatial data, and high-resolution imaging satellites deliver imagery suitable for applications such as the analysis of attacks on civilians, related military activities, and a range of other human rights violations. The small constellation of high-resolution satellites currently in orbit is controlled by two U.S. satellite imagery companies, DigitalGlobe and GeoEye, and a multinational company called ImageSat International.5 The first two companies currently operate four satellites while the third operates another. The governments of Russia, South Korea, and Taiwan also directly operate or partially own several satellites that provide useful but reduced-resolution imagery.6 Other inputs complement highresolution satellites. The scientific community and meteorological agencies have long used lower resolution imaging satellites due to their ability to provide important information on landscapes and weather conditions. Technological Overview. Geo- Most maps produced years ago can also spatial technologies are comprised of be digitized and analyzed in conjuncan array of specific devices, software tion with modern maps and satellite packages, and integrating methods that imagery. These map sources include provide information referenced to pre- a complete global cartographic library cise locations. Among the most prev- created by the Soviet Union and disalent geospatial technologies are the tributed by various commercial enti-
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ties; the massive U.S. Department of Defense database of coordinates for all named geographic features and locations worldwide;7 as well as topography and land cover information from NASA and other entities that is available to the global community.8 These sources alone offer detailed and nearly instant spatial reference for investigations in remote areas. Lastly and most importantly, the information compiled and reported by human rights organizations themselves provides on-the-ground guidance for
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as NGOs, to adopt them in complex and innovative ways that meet specific human-rights-oriented goals. A review of recent and ongoing efforts provides insight into how these goals are pursued by coalitions of organizations and individuals using geospatial technologies. Many geospatial technologies and applications have for decades extensively been explored within governmental circles but have only occasionally been made public. The U.S. government’s analysis of commercial satellite imagery, along with classified sources,
Precise information on where human
rights violations take place can facilitate direct interventions by outside organizations. targeting high-resolution image acquisitions and identifying areas of interest within the imagery itself. These reports enable the use of satellite imagery for analysis and research that would otherwise not be possible. The imagery in turn allows for the verification and support of many of these reports, which are otherwise often dismissed as hearsay.
Applications. The coupling of
high-tech and spaced-based assets with on-the-ground reporting networks has created a potentially powerful observation system that provides crucial input into human rights work. Beyond monitoring, advocacy, and litigation, the precise information on where human rights violations take place can facilitate direct interventions by outside organizations. As with any tool, realizing the full potential of geospatial technologies requires appropriate user groups, such
informed policy on Darfur in 2005.9 The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum later developed this, along with information from numerous UN and NGO sources, into a layer on Google Earth. Human Rights Watch and the U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea were likewise quick to adopt such technologies in a few reports dating back to 2003.10 Accurately generating similar products on a rapid, public, and ongoing basis remains a challenge and a goal for AAAS and other NGOs around the world.
Eyes on Darfur and GISCorps.In addition to the aforementioned Google Earth layer, several notable programs use geospatial technologies to observe activity in Darfur. One effort involves AAAS and Amnesty International USA (AIUSA), which teamed up to experiment with an active monitoring pro-
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gram using satellites. This program, dubbed Eyes on Darfur, utilizes highresolution satellites to observe the status of vulnerable human settlements on an ongoing basis.11 Closely related to this effort is the ongoing development of methods for rapidly finding specific locations in Darfur based on a number of resources. Darfur reflects the signif-
icant challenges facing NGOs seeking to monitor large areas with commercial satellites. Monitoring efforts in Darfur and elsewhere require a determination of the precise location of settlements and subsequent acquisition of the appropriate imagery to assess their status. Determining the exact location of a
1: The village of Malam el Hosh in North Darfur is part of the “protected” villages being monitored by Amnesty International with AAAS. As of the latest EROS-B satellite image, analysis indicates it has thus-far escaped destruction.† figure
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village, whose coordinates ideally need to be accurate to within fifteen hundred meters, is often difficult. While towns in the developed world are well mapped and cataloged, the same is not true for regions such as Darfur. A joint UN-Sudanese effort known as Sudan Interagency Mapping (SIM), which produced a settlement database for Darfur, is crucial to locating specific settlements in the region.12 Another useful resource is GEOnet Names Server, the U.S. Department of Defense’s global database of place names and coordinates.13 Locating the coordinates of settlements is rarely as simple as reading a report and looking into the SIM or National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) databases. Both reports and the databases themselves may introduce variations on the spelling of settlement names. To compensate for this, researchers use the Levenshtein distance algorithm which calculates the number of alterations needed to convert one word to another and can generate lists of closely spelled words.14 This list can then be reviewed using GIS, and other information if possible, to determine the most likely coordinates for the settlement in question. When successful, this process of defining coordinates for locations of interest is called geocoding. While more automated methods exist for locating coordinates in developed, data-rich regions, geocoding in remote regions like Darfur is unfortunately a manual and laborious affair.15 With settlement coordinates in hand, researchers can search for highresolution satellite imagery that predates any attacks. Satellites can then be newly targeted on the settlements
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in question to assess their current state. Notably, these new acquisitions may face considerable delay due to clouds and, more often, competing and more pressing orders. Once received, imagery of a settlement can be analyzed using a simple visual comparison of the older image versus the newer image, and any major damage to structures in the settlement can be identified. AIUSA is using this proactively as part of their efforts to lobby for civilian protections in Darfur. Specifically, with the process of locating and imaging the settlements made routine, AIUSA is then free to aggressively advocate on their behalf. Also, it allows their membership another route by which to get involved; they can literally e-mail Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir via the Eyes on Darfur Web site, letting him know that they too are watching. While this is simplistic on a certain level, the concept of an average citizen watching a far-removed village from space and expressing concern for its well-being is certainly remarkable. The underlying and critical process of geocoding, while not necessarily overwhelming for one or two sites, can be incredibly tedious and timeconsuming when dozens or more sites are involved. This is the case in places like Darfur, where widespread atrocities occur in hundreds or thousands of individual locations across wide expanses and over long periods of time. In an attempt to remedy this barrier, in 2008 AAAS teamed up with GISCorps, a volunteer organization of GIS professionals who provide on-site or remote geospatial services in various forms. This experimental partnership sought to use a number of volunteers from
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various locations to build a geocoded database of events in Darfur, drawn from publicly available media and UN reporting. The result of this effort was encouraging as over one thousand event reports were gathered and more than 80 percent of those were successfully located. Such a database is then available to serve a variety of other purposes, such as cross-referencing attack reports and searching for coinciding satellite imagery. More importantly, the methods tested can overcome a primary barrier to effective monitoring of human rights violations using geospatial technologies.
tions of small villages throughout eastern Burma that have been destroyed in recent years. The causes of this destruction, according to reporting groups, are generally military operations targeted at suspected opposition members. While satellite imagery cannot identify the details behind the destruction of a village, it can verify that villages are experiencing catastrophic damage. Though similar to activities in Darfur, challenges to monitoring efforts in Burma are exacerbated by a relative lack of accurate reference information on the small and scattered villages of the region. In addition, the terrain and land-cover of eastern Burma are relatively mountainBurma Monitoring and Cyclone ous and heavily vegetated, making it Response. Applications of geospa- likely that villages are hidden beneath tial technologies within Burma have tree cover or obscured by the rugged important differences from those in terrain. Furthermore, recently burned Sudan. Information on attacks and villages are quickly overcome by vegetaatrocities inside Burma is provided tion, rendering them invisible to satelthrough the Web sites of a number of lites. These difficulties are mitigated to NGOs which include exiled humani- some extent by the precise reporting of tarian relief and support groups such the previously mentioned NGOs, which as the Karen Human Rights Group, the often provide coordinates and on-the-
While governments may be fully aware of the potential for satellite imagery to publicly expose human rights violations, they may not consider it an important deterrent. Free Burma Rangers, and the Thailand Burma Border Consortium.16 These and other organizations have long provided extensive documentation of the consequences of Burmese military government rule along with essential humanitarian relief. Much of the reporting provided by these organizations identifies the loca-
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ground photos of atrocities through their Web sites and newsletters. In Burma, imagery has identified the selective burning of villages in otherwise lush tropical vegetation. Additionally, imagery has also been used to support claims of forced relocations and to indicate the appearance of dozens of new villages around a military base
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within a two-year period.17 Given the military government’s continual denial of such events, advocates and international investigators have been eager to receive this supporting imagery. Likewise, such imagery analysis serves as an important but incomplete verification of this disputed on-the-ground reporting. While not concerning human rights directly, one interesting application of geospatial technologies was tested relatively recently. This application was developed in response to the catastrophic Cyclone Nargis, which struck Burma in May of 2008. A critical problem that developed was the inability of relief and assessment teams to gain access to the area. While imagery was collected using commercial satellites, the sheer size of the affected area made damage assessments for individual villages and buildings problematic. Though a variety of UN and national relief organizations undertook their own analyses, a single and integrated effort to catalogue destroyed and damaged buildings across the affected area was needed. The UN Institute for Training and Research Operational Satellite Applications Programme (UNOSAT), the volunteer organization GISCorps, and other interested professionals sought to accomplish this.18 UNOSAT was able to provide the guidance and rationale for imagery analysis while GISCorps was able to provide the dozens of volunteers with highspeed Internet connections and the skills required to confidently analyze the tens of thousands of square kilometers worth of satellite imagery. The collection of imagery consisted of both pre- and post-cyclone images. Fortunately, DigitalGlobe,
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a commercial satellite company, had much of its pre-cyclone imagery for the region already posted to Google Earth. DigitalGlobe also donated the many missing scenes required to complete the precyclone imagery coverage for use by the volunteers. Thus, as satellites slowly collected the new post-cyclone images, they were displayed as new layers on Google Earth, and the volunteers could compare pre- and post-cyclone imagery to perform their damage assessment. The result was the cataloguing of sixty thousand features in the area, performed by dozens of volunteers over thirteen hundred hours. This information was then delivered to UN relief entities on the ground to assist their efforts.19 This is notable in that a mass of relevant information was provided at virtually no monetary cost, developed through an ad hoc coordinating effort, and accomplished using widely available software.
Conclusion. The above examples
discuss some possible applications of geospatial technologies to human rights issues. The demand for the creation and development of such applications is significant in the human rights community. Since beginning work in 2006, AAAS has been asked to participate in a number of projects to monitor such states as Zimbabwe, Lebanon, Sudan, Chad, Burma, Nepal, Somalia, Ethiopia, and Georgia. Human Rights Watch has become a frequent collaborator with AAAS, as has International Rights Advocates, and groups such as the Indian Law Resource Center. The latter has been working with AAAS to expand the use of digital mapping as a means of defining indigenous land tenure. Many smaller organizations are also
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often involved in AAAS’s efforts, taking part in wide-ranging coalitions which often include larger and more influential organizations. Various UN entities, including special rapporteurs and long-term staff, frequently take part as well. Image analysis products have been requested by the International Criminal Court, and will play a significant role in regional human rights courts as well. Beyond the simple and relatively rudimentary high-resolution observation system for human rights, several other possibilities are currently being explored, particularly Web-based information systems utilizing Google Earth, Virtual Earth, and other platforms. These systems might serve to link a variety of human rights organizations involved in monitoring and responding to human rights violations in a realtime reporting and information system that removes the stovepipes and bottlenecks of distributed communities. Also, more satellite options exist, with radar satellites and other more exotic systems potentially playing an important role in the near future. These resources, when used properly in conjunction with ground reporting, can allow for highimpact and timely interventions by human rights NGOs seeking to respond to crises as they develop. Whether these technologies, as utilized by non-governmental human rights organizations, actually impact the decision of governments to illegally target and collectively punish civilians remains to be seen. While the governments of Darfur, Burma, Russia, and Georgia may be fully aware of the
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potential for satellite imagery to publicly expose human rights violations, they may not consider it an important deterrent. NGOs will continue to test this in new ways, as more satellites are launched and geospatial capabilities increase. The fundamental impact of these technologies is however limited by the actual power and influence of the NGOs using them. Nevertheless, given their current demand for these technologies, it is unlikely that NGOs will stop using them in the near future. More broadly, even measuring the impact of these technologies, both now and into the future, is problematic. AAAS has been compiling indicators on their technical efficacy and deployment details. However, given the context, the most legitimate way to measure their impact will be their ability to avert unnecessary loss of life and minimize violence directed against civilians. Given that these are virtual and passive tools, they are not necessarily able to influence specific events. The exceptions are the rare situations where they can facilitate actual interventions in human rights violations. Over time, satellite observation will likely be influential when used as critical evidence in international litigation at all levels. In essence, the fact that even remote, well-planned atrocities can be viewed via space-based observation platforms must be established in courts of law. While this observation system is currently nascent and developing, it has obvious long-term potential for supporting human rights around the world.
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Notes
1 “Where 2.0 Conference,” Internet, http:// en.oreilly.com/where2008/public/content/ home (date accessed: 31 October 2008); “Global Symposium +5: Information for Humanitarian Action,” Internet, http://www.reliefweb.int/ SYMPOSIUM/ (date accessed: 31 October 2008). 2 “Society for Conservation GIS,” Internet, http://www.scgis.org (date accessed: 31 October 2008); “2009 ESRI International User Conference,” Internet, http://www.esri.com/uc (date accessed: 31 October 2008). 3 “AAAS Science and Human Rights Program,” Internet, http://shr.aaas.org (date accessed: 31 October 2008); AAAS’s work in this area is funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Oak Foundation, and the Open Society Institute. 4 National Space-Based Positioning, Navigation, and Timing Coordination Office, “Global Positioning System,” Internet, http://www.gps.gov (date accessed: 31 October 2008). 5 “DigitalGlobe,” Internet, http://www. digitalglobe.com (date accessed: 31 October 2008); “GeoEye,” Internet, http://www.geoeye. com (date accessed: 31 October 2008); “ImageSat International,” Internet, http://www.imagesatintl. com (date accessed: 31 October 2008). 6 For further information on satellites currently in use, see John R. Jensen, Remote Sensing of the Environment: An Earth Resource Perspective (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2007). See also American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, “Guide to Land Imaging Satellites,” Internet, http:// www.asprs.org/news/satellites/satellites.html (date accessed: 31 October 2008). 7 National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, “Geographic Names,” Internet, http://www1.nga. mil/ProductsServices/GeographicNames/Pages/ default.aspx (date accessed: 31 October 2008). 8 “Global Land Cover Facility,” Internet, http:// www.landcover.org (date accessed: 31 October 2008). 9 U.S. Agency for International Development, “Darfur Humanitarian Emergency: Satellite Imagery,” Internet, http://www.usaid.gov/locations/ sub-saharan_africa/sudan/satelliteimages.html (date accessed: 31 October 2008).
10 Human Rights Watch, “Razing Rafah: Mass Home Demolitions in the Gaza Strip,” Internet, http://www.hrw.org/reports/2004/rafah1004 (date accessed: 31 October 2008); U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, “The Hidden Gulag: Exposing North Korea’s Prison Camps; Prisoners’ Testimonies and Satellite Photographs,” Internet, http://www.hrnk.org/hiddengulag/toc.html (date accessed: 31 October 2008). 11 Amnesty International, “Eyes on Darfur,” Internet, http://www.eyesondarfur.org (date accessed: 31 October 2008). 12 “Sudan Interagency Mapping,” Internet, http://www.unsudanig.org/sim/index.php (date accessed: 31 October 2008). 13 “Geographic Names.” 14 Vladimir I. Levenshtein, “Binary Codes Capable of Correcting Deletions, Insertions, and Reversals,” Soviet Physics Doklady 10 (1966): 707–710. 15 International Journal of Geographical Information Science 22, no. 10 (2008), Internet, http://www. informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=g90172325 5~db=all. 16 “Karen Human Rights Group,” Internet, http://www.khrg.org (date accessed: 31 October 2008); “Free Burma Rangers,” Internet, http://www. freeburmarangers.org (date accessed: 31 October 2008); “Thailand Burma Border Consortium,” Internet, http://www.tbbc.org (date accessed: 31 October 2008). 17 AAAS Science and Human Rights Program, “Burma: Conflict in Karen State Case Study Report,” Internet, http://shr.aaas.org/geotech/burma/burma. shtml (date accessed: 31 October 2008). 18 UN Institute for Training and Research, “UNOSAT,” Internet, http://unosat.web.cern. ch/unosat (date accessed: 31 October 2008); “GISCorps,” Internet, http://www.giscorps.org (date accessed: 31 October 2008). 19 GISCorps, “URISA GURISA GISCorps Volunteers Assist UNOSAT in Post Cyclone Nargis Relief Efforts,” Internet, http://www.giscorps.org/ index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=74& Itemid=63 (date accessed: 31 October 2008). † Image copyright 2008, ImageSat International. Reproduced with permission by AAAS and ImageSat.
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How to Make a Great Power a Smart Power Review by Sam Brannen Ted Galen Carpenter. Smart Power: Toward a Prudent Foreign Policy for America. Washington, D.C.: Cato Institute, 2008. 258 pp. $24.95. The United States is tied down in wars without clearly defined end-states in Iraq and Afghanistan and increasingly has lost influence over the direction of the international system. Transatlantic alliances are drifting, and there are nearand long-term challenges from Russia, China, Pakistan, and Iran—not to mention a protean network of radical Islamist non-state groups operating across the globe. Talk of a unipolar moment of unrivaled U.S. power has given way to discussion of “nonpolarity,” “the rise of the rest,” and pure and simple U.S. decline.1 This is the world that puts to the test Ted Galen Carpenter’s compilation of short commentaries from 2002 forward, Smart Power: Toward a Prudent Foreign Policy for America. At such a time, many would welcome the wise words of a Washington policy veteran who has shrewdly observed and opined on the course of American policy for decades. Unfortunately, in this book Carpenter only hints at what “smart power” is and at what insight and intellect he could bring to this critical moment in U.S. foreign policy.
Sam Brannen is a fellow and deputy director of the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C. He works on projects from defense strategy and policy and Middle East security to U.S. national security reform. He has served as a staff member for the Independent Commission on the Security Forces of Iraq and commented on CNN, Fox News, Al Jazeera, and NPR.
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At points, Carpenter shines and shows why he is a Washingtonian known for original thought. In an essay entitled “Fixing Foreign Policy: How the U.S. Should Wage the War on Terror,” he briefly outlines a new security paradigm that is neither isolationist nor overextended: “It is possible to adopt a security policy between the extremes of global interventionism—essentially the current policy—and Fortress America. Moreover, there are different forms of engagement in world affairs, of which the political-military version is merely one.”2 But he never succeeds in telling us what this happy medium—what one could easily term “smart power”—might be.
U.S. administration, and it is absent in Carpenter’s book. Nye and Armitage argue convincingly that not only should the United States avoid foolish mistakes, but it must also restore its power to attract. The United States can do so by “investing once again in the global good—providing things that people and governments in all quarters of the world want but cannot attain in the absence of American leadership.”4 This is why the United States maintained global leadership from World War II forward; yet discussion of U.S. soft power is notably absent in Carpenter’s analysis. He appears to share Nye’s and Armitage’s views of U.S. exceptionalism—that U.S. leadership is essential for a better world because no one else is up to the task— Defining “Smart Power.” but seems dismissive of the underlying Carpenter is not alone in arguing for motives by which other states pick their a smart exercise of power to right the friends and follow the leader. wrongs of an American foreign policy U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates badly off-track. Joseph Nye and Richard has given a series of speeches over the Armitage co-chaired a 2007 bipartisan past year tackling the need to rebalance commission, convened by the Center hard military power with soft power for Strategic and International Studies approaches to achieve U.S. security pol-
Realism is a powerful evaluative tool by which to judge foreign policy, but it is only one layer of how the world works. (CSIS), on what they also termed “smart power”—a phrase many will recognize as a play off of Nye’s concept of “soft power” balanced with hard power.3 Unlike Carpenter’s book, the commission’s report delves into the details of how to change the practice of U.S. foreign policy down to the budgetary and institutional levels. Such fidelity is necessary for the next
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icy objectives. A first for his post, Gates has gone to Capitol Hill to demand more money for the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and he noted recently that in the war on terror “we cannot kill or capture our way to victory. Where possible, kinetic operations should be subordinate to measures to promote better governance, economic
Brannen
programs to spur development, and efforts to address the grievances among the discontented from which the terrorists recruit.”5 While Carpenter does not share Gates’s view on the degree of threat posed by Islamist radicals, it is fair to say that Carpenter’s book would have benefitted from similar investigation of what has become common sense in 2008’s Washington: that military power alone, even when used sparingly, does not equate to national power and international influence.6
A Bridge Too Far and the Road Not Taken. Throughout his book
Carpenter sizes and evaluates the world by the theoretical framework of a classical realist, wary of security commitments to unworthy security partners, of overextension, and of provoking the counter-balancing behavior of other states. Carpenter is right in arguing for a clear understanding and definition of threats, standing fast on what vital interests are and what they are not. This clear vision allows him to ably dissect the war on terror as a misadventure that has missed the real threat: the remaining al-Qaeda network in Pakistan and the radicalism that thrives alongside bad governance in the Middle East and South Asia. Carpenter brings sanity to a world that seems to have forgotten what allowed humanity to weather a legitimately existential challenge in the Cold War. He comments on a range of near-term proliferation challenges for which preventive military action is often touted: “The lack of faith in deterrence is both curious and unwarranted.”7 Carpenter also reminds us that containment still works—as it would have in the case of Iraq. But by failing to ever apply
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lenses other than realism, Carpenter’s analysis and policy prescriptions suffer. Realism is a powerful evaluative tool by which to judge foreign policy, but it is only one layer of how the world works. Classical realism undervalues the complexity of and opportunities within the current global system. It undervalues leadership and the ability of states to get their way by attraction and the establishment of norms, instead of by hard power alone. It is also a shame that Carpenter did not choose to expand on some of his more original research and ideas, because his essays are not without both lessons learned and genuine foresight. His analysis of counternarcotics is particularly compelling, drawing from a previous book on the subject.8 Carpenter demonstrates an ability to read the road ahead with a series of analytic pieces on Mexico, which, he worries, looks a lot like Colombia in the 1980s. This point is particularly relevant at a time when drug war casualties in Mexico in the late summer and early fall of 2008 have in some weeks outnumbered deaths caused by the insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan.9 Transferring his detailed knowledge of the failure of U.S.-led- supply-side counternarcotics strategy in Latin America to his analysis of economic development in Afghanistan, Carpenter speaks with a compelling voice that hints at his potential contributions toward a new strategy for a rapidly deteriorating war. In this regard, Carpenter might warn that fighting a war against drugs on the supply side is ineffective and therefore needlessly destabilizing. So too, Carpenter might warn that a large footprint of foreign forces—especially U.S.
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forces—is further counter-productive and likely to foment continued insurgency by feeding into narratives that warn of a U.S. empire set to conquer the Muslim world.
the United States should quickly back away from any implicit security guarantee given to Taiwan and that the United States should also quickly withdraw all troops from South Korea. He argues that both allies have shirked their Communicating with Allies responsibility to provide for their own and Enemies. Carpenter also entic- defense at a time when both are ecoes readers with his prescription for nomically capable, and that the United bold diplomacy—what he calls “grand States has needlessly put its troops at bargains”—with North Korea and Iran, risk by honoring historical commitwhich he believes could significantly ments. Carpenter dismisses the notion alter the nature of those countries’ that the relative stability of East Asia and relations with neighbors and with the the large U.S. military footprint and United States, not to mention their capabilities in the region may not be authoritarian internal dynamics. But coincidental. The unresolved animosiagain, Carpenter gives little detail on ties between all countries in the region what these bargains would involve, how are also real. Perhaps the time has come
Too often since 9/11 the United States
has looked to its military for answers without fully understanding the questions. any future administration could implement them, or how enduring they might be. He also does not go into sufficient detail on how any such bargains may be viewed by key U.S. allies. Recent backlash from Japan to the United States’s removal of North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism is instructive about collateral costs of bold diplomacy not calculated in a multilateral context. On the subject of alliances broadly, Carpenter is ideological at the expense of sound analysis. He often skims over the complex dynamics of regional politics and fails to understand drivers of conflict or even historical animosities. In East Asia, this faulty thinking is especially evident. He argues that
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to have a deep discussion with allies in the region and to rethink military posture—as occurred to a great degree under Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld—but any rapid withdrawal of U.S. forces also seems at odds with Carpenter’s longer-term concern with China’s military modernization and the opacity that surrounds its actions and intentions.10 Carpenter is similarly dismissive of NATO, believing it is no longer a viable mutual defense alliance because of an overexpansion in the 1990s, on which he claims to have been the Cassandra: “During this [enlargement process], I pointed out repeatedly that the United States, as the leader of the alliance,
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was adding security consumers and liabilities, not security producers and assets.”11 This much is true, but the expansion of NATO also cemented a new wave of democracies in Europe and, along with military operations in the Balkans, brought lasting stability to an entire continent. In the case of further expansion of NATO, and in light of what is already on the balance sheets concerning numbers of net consumers versus providers among new members, Carpenter has a point. He is also right that at a moment of a revanchist Russia, NATO has reached a strategic low.
most recent global financial crisis has further underlined how impossible it is for any country—even the world’s most powerful—to go it alone. The greatest contribution of Carpenter’s book is its pervasive skepticism about the utility of force in all but the most dire of circumstances.12 Too often since 9/11 the United States has looked to its military for answers without fully understanding the questions. The results of this proclivity for overreliance on military power speak for themselves. Smart power, then, is fairly simple. Think beyond the barrel of the gun, Moving Forward in a Changed but do not forget that your adversarWorld. It is clear that alliances are ies might not. Reevaluate alliances and frayed and seem paralyzed by the threats defense posture in a world that has truly that face the United States today. Any transformed over the past eight years, declaration, though, that U.S. alliances but do not throw out the baby with the are no longer worthwhile defies logic bathwater. Remember why people liked and seems illustrative of Carpenter’s the United States in the past, and think unfortunate propensity to think that the about how to re-create those conditions United States can weather today’s storms going forward. America still has an by dropping anchor. Now is the time important role to play in the world—but for adaptability and restoration of lead- the question of how to play should be ership more in line with the prescrip- open to serious debate. Smart people tions of Gates, Nye, and Armitage. It is like Ted Galen Carpenter owe us more time for in-depth analysis and under- disciplined analysis on just that quesstanding of key security relationships, tion. Only then can we hope to have but not reflexive dismissal of them. This smart power. Notes
1 Richard Haass, “The Age of Nonpolarity: What Will Follow U.S. Dominance,” Foreign Affairs 87, no. 3 (May/June 2008): Internet, http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20080501faessay87304/richard-nhaass/the-age-of-nonpolarity.html (date accessed: 2 September 2008); Fareed Zakaria, “The Rise of the Rest,” Newsweek, 12 May 2008: Internet, http:// www.newsweek.com/id/135380/output/print (date accessed: 3 September 2008). 2 Ted Galen Carpenter, Smart Power: Toward a Prudent Foreign Policy for America (Washington, D.C.: Cato Institute, 2008), 86. 3 Center for Strategic and International Studies
(CSIS) Commission on Smart Power, “A Smarter, More Secure America” (Washington, D.C.: CSIS, 2007). 4 Ibid., 5. 5 Robert M. Gates (speech, National Defense University, Washington, D.C., 29 September 2008): Internet, http://www.defenselink.mil/ speeches/speech.aspx?speechid=1279 (date accessed: 30 September 2008). 6 Carpenter writes, “Compared to the lethal menaces of the 20th century, the strategic threat posted by radical Islamic terrorists is minor league.” Smart Power, 92. 7 Smart Power, 100.
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8 Ted Galen Carpenter, Bad Neighbor Policy: Washington’s Futile War on Drugs in Latin America (New York: Palgrave, 2003). 9 Smart Power, 230. 10 For Carpenter’s wariness—but not hawkishness—toward China, see Smart Power, 185-186. 11 Smart Power, 201-202. 12 In the context of the current security environment, Carpenter condones the use of force only in the cases of Afghanistan and Pakistan, and in Afghanistan he cautions against nation-building
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based on unrealistic expectations—sage advice at this moment. He argues that the real war must be fought in Pakistan (Smart Power, 68-69). He wrote this section of the book when Pervez Musharraf was still in power in Pakistan, before the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, and at a time long before the view of a harder line on Pakistan was popular in Washington. This position is to some degree at odds with Carpenter’s other admonitions on the use of force and does not give proper consideration to conditions on the ground in Pakistan’s tribal areas.
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East Asia’s Sorry Politics Review by John Feffer Alexis Dudden. Troubled Apologies Among Japan, Korea, and the United States. New York: Columbia University Press, 2008. 167 pp. $40.00. According to an age-old rule of international relations, only losers say they are sorry. Defeated Germany apologized for its Nazi past. Japan has apologized multiple times, however unsatisfactorily, for its World War II conduct. F. W. de Klerk apologized for apartheid in South Africa, but only after the white minority was on its way out of power. In the 1980s, this “say uncle” rule began to change. We have entered what legal historian Roy Brooks has called “the age of apology,” which has leveled the playing field somewhat and prompted even the leaders of powerful nations to beg forgiveness.1 Consider the United States. It has apologized and compensated Japanese-Americans for their experience of internment during World War II. On the one hundredth anniversary of the 1893 overthrow of the Hawaiian government, President Bill Clinton apologized for U.S. involvement in the coup. And in 1998 Clinton apologized for U.S. non-involvement
John Feffer is the co-director of Foreign Policy in Focus at the Institute for Policy Studies and the author of North Korea, South Korea: U.S. Policy at a Time of Crisis.
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in stopping the genocide in Rwanda. But as Alexis Dudden points out in her concise and elegantly argued new book, Troubled Apologies Among Japan, Korea, and the United States, Clinton drew the line in Asia. In 1995, he said categorically that “the United States owes no apology to Japan for having dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.”2 Around three hundred seventy thou-
category of war crime in light of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, then the Americans responsible for bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki should also be in the dock. “Blakeney’s legal gambit failed,” Dudden writes. “Truman was not tried as a war criminal, and nuclear weapons came to generate their own de facto legitimacy, standing today as the
By internationalizing history people
come to understand how every country is both victim and aggressor. sand Japanese, mostly civilians, are estimated to have died in the world’s first and so far only atomic attacks. But these atrocities took place in a war, which the United States won. Every U.S. president since Truman has maintained that without this “collateral damage” thousands of American soldiers would have died in a prolonged war. Dudden, an associate professor of history and a specialist in JapaneseKorean relations at the University of Connecticut, subjects this official narrative to a number of interesting glosses. Deploying her skills as a historian, she uncovers a fascinating tidbit of legal argumentation from the post-World War II Tokyo Trials that was never translated into Japanese or even included in the official transcript. Ben Bruce Blakeney, one of the five American lawyers defending the Japanese accused of war crimes, maintained that his clients should be acquitted because killing during wartime is not murder. If the court intended to create a new
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international community’s legal weapon of mass destruction.”3 She might have profitably continued in this line of reasoning to point out the enduring double standard on this issue: “our” nuclear weapons are legal while those of Iran, North Korea, or other “irresponsible” nations are illegal. The subsequent justification for the atomic bombings—that they saved the lives of Americans—Dudden labels an “imagined truth.”4 After all, it is impossible to state with any authority what would have happened in the Pacific war if the United States had not dropped the bombs. “Americans transferred what happened—the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki—for an event that never took place—the proposed land invasion of Japan—to stand in for history,” she writes.5 Not surprisingly, given that these justifications take place on the plane of conjecture, the number of American lives saved ranges from the standard figure of forty-six thousand to Truman’s favor-
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ite citation of half a million to the even further inflated figure of a million that appears in David McCullough’s 1993 biography of Truman.6 When it comes to counter-history, statistics are infinitely malleable. The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki—and the refusal of America to apologize for such horrors—is just one of the narratives that Alexis Dudden dissects with her historian’s scalpel. Comparatively, France and Germany have largely relegated history to the classroom and the cultural festival, while Northeast Asia is still raking over the coals of the twentieth century. Koreans demand a range of apologies from Japan for its colonial practices and wartime conduct. Japan demands apologies from North Korea for its abductions. Korea and Japan square off over a tiny island in the sea between them. There are disputes over shrines, over place names, over passages in textbooks. Troubled Apologies assesses this “sea of stories in which blame and denial masquerade as history.”7 The result is entertaining, provocative, and profoundly unsettling.
mine all the generalizations that inform national and international policy. Alexis Dudden proceeds in like fashion by presenting the standard narrative of East Asia’s apology politics and then complicating the picture in interesting ways. Take, for instance, her visit to Seoul’s Seodaemun Prison, where the Japanese colonial authorities held, tortured, and killed Korean independence activists. Now a museum, Seodaemun features exhibits that instruct busloads of tourists and schoolchildren of the perfidy of the erstwhile colonial masters. Just as she interrogated the standard version of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki story, Dudden subjects the Seodaemun narrative to a series of qualifications. “Within minutes visitors find themselves in the building’s basement where mannequins dressed in Japanese colonial uniforms whip bound and shrieking young Korean girls—also plastic— and appear to commit all sorts of other tortures,” she writes. “A detail you cannot figure out from the costumes or the fearsome Japanese language commands piped in through loudspeakers, however, is that during the colonial era The Legacy of Colonialism. In many of the men doing the whipping its simplest form, apology politics is would have been Korean.”8 a black-and-white issue. There is an Collaboration in the Japanese colonial aggressor. There is a victim. The victim structures has been a recurring problem demands an apology and perhaps some in South Korean versions of that painform of compensation. The aggressor ful history. The British, Dudden notes, complies or, as is more often the case, objected to U.S. attempts to include pleads extenuating circumstances—such South Korea as one of the World War II as all those American soldiers who might allies because British prisoners-of-war have died if those bombs had not been remembered so vividly their ill treatdropped. Historians, however, are usu- ment at the hands of Korean guards at ally more interested in the gray zones: the Japanese-run prisons. Courtesy of the ironies, paradoxes, contradictions, South Korea’s first leader Synghman and subtleties that shape and under- Rhee, many of the most brutal Koreans
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who served the Japanese stayed on in similar roles in the newly independent country. After all, Rhee needed what the British call “hard men” to put down threats to his authority at home and across the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). Park Chung-Hee, the “hard man” who seized power after a democratic uprising unseated Rhee, studied at the Japanese military academy and also served the colonial authorities. Dudden might have extended this analysis of collaboration to the topic of the “comfort women,” the hundreds of thousands of young women that the Japanese military drafted into sexual slavery during World War II. Koreans
and-white narrative in order to let one side off the hook. Indeed, her observations on Japanese myth-making are just as illuminating. Apologists for Japan’s post-war conduct point to the many apologies issued by the government, but Dudden dispatches this sophistry with great acuity. “Japan’s apology failure— not its failure to apologize—stems from the problem that, although quite a few Japanese officials have made statements of ‘remorse’ and ‘heartfelt apology,’ they and Japanese society in general have far to go in making the substance of the nation’s twentieth century elemental to modern Japanese history in the same way that Native American
Countries construct their territorries.
History is reshaped, often violently, to suit the builder’s needs. staffed Seodaemun. They served in the Japanese army. They brutalized prisoners-of-war in the Japanese prison camps. “Where were the Koreans who witnessed and were involved in such a massive recruitment of the Military Comfort Women?” asks Hyunah Yang in her contribution to the edited volume Dangerous Women.9 Korean collaboration in the comfort women system might be one explanation for why the issue did not appear on the Korean scene until the late 1980s and only after a Japanese researcher found the first incriminating documents in the Japanese archives, a fact that Dudden should have included in her book. None of this excuses Japanese conduct during colonialism. Dudden is not interested in complicating a black-
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genocide and African slavery in this country, for example, must continue to be understood in shaping the history of the United States,” she writes. In other words, Japan has treated its history as a fixed narrative, rather than as a fluid and complex set of stories. In such an impoverished historical understanding, shallow apologies and bizarre denials go hand in hand. “Put differently,” she continues, “how could a survivor of one of Japan’s slave labor camps believe the Japanese government’s words when a not insignificant number of its democratically elected politicians and highly paid pundits routinely make speeches and publish wildly popular books denigrating the survivors’ claims or look soberly into TV cameras and say they are making it all up?”10
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Rock of Contention. Japan’s colo- Korea—implying that countries connial conduct in Korea and its wartime atrocities are not the only sore point in Asia today. Currently Seoul and Tokyo are sparring over an island that the Japanese call Takeshima, the Koreans call Dokdo, and the rest of the world calls “not worth fighting over.” The relative lack of strategic or material value, however, makes the island an excellent prism through which to view contested history. As Dudden details, both sides elaborate complicated genealogies to prove that the island belongs to them. South Korea marshals documents demonstrating that its possession dates back to the sixth century, while Japan points to documents from 1905 that buttress its claims to ownership. Tokyo’s argument dances over the fact that its ownership claims depend on colonial annexation. South Korea, meanwhile, glides over the fact that it only became a country in 1948, making evidence from the sixth century not only remote in time but also in legal standing. Complicating the matter is the 1951 San Francisco Treaty, which formally ended World War II and established Japan’s diminished borders. Tokyo argues that because the treaty does not mention Takeshima, it belongs to Japan. Seoul argues that thousands of Korean islands are not mentioned in the treaty, and Dokdo naturally belongs among that number. Dudden is not interested in adjudicating this dispute. In fact, she wisely does not even assign a specific name to the island, for choosing Dokdo or Takeshima would automatically privilege one claim over the other. She avoids all essentialist arguments—that the island belongs naturally to Japan or
struct their territories. As one more tool used in this construction, history is reshaped, often violently, to suit the builder’s needs. What Dudden suggests, though does not spell out in detail, is that South Korea and Japan are both engaged in a theatrical performance in which the disputed island serves as a prop that advances the action of the play and helps elucidate the motivations of the protagonists. Sociologist Erving Goffman argued that individuals work out their identities through the “performance of self” in their interactions with others. Identity, in other words, is not intrinsic but grows out of social acts. Both South Korea and Japan are similarly defining their national identities in the post–Cold War era by performing for each other, for themselves, and for the audience of an imagined international community. In these performances, which extend to virtual wars on the Internet, Japan and South Korea explicitly address one another. In fact, however, they talk past one another, for they know each other’s lines, and authentic dialogue is not the point. The audience is the point, particularly the United States, which played such a key role in determining Japan’s post-war dispensation and in keeping important aspects of Japan’s wartime record deliberately vague—for instance, relying on the phrase “unhappy history” to stand in for myriad atrocities. The United States is ally to both Japan and South Korea, and a word from Washington could tilt the case one way or another. The internal audience, meanwhile, is just as important. Dudden recounts a
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discussion she had with a Korean man on a ferry ride to the disputed island. The man proclaims that his country would go to war with Japan over the rock. “The bravado was as much for me as for his Osh-Kosh-dressed fouryear-old son,” she writes.11 These performative acts not only make the case for the American observer but help consolidate notions of Korean-ness for a Korean audience. A Korean, in this regard, is someone willing to go to war with Japan over a symbolic rock. Both South Korea and Japan claim ethnic homogeneity, but Japan’s pretense is much thinner. Unlike South Korea, which has no significant community of Japanese, Japan is home to a large number of ethnic Koreans. Dudden’s book excellently addresses Japan’s struggle to deny its multiculturalism. Although singer-songwriter Pak Poe was born and raised in Japan, and although he sings in Japanese, she notes that his work falls under “world music” rather than Japanese music. When the children of the Japanese that North Korea abducted in the 1970s and 1980s arrived in Japan several years ago, the Japanese press described their travel as “coming home,” though these children were born and raised in North Korea, spoke Korean, and had never been in Japan in their lives. “The Korean-born, Korean-raised, Korean-speaking children’s blood won hands down over any other issue of Japanese identity,” Dudden writes. “This remains an important notion, given that being even ‘half’ Japanese, for example, is never enough for many Japanese-born, Japanese-raised, Japanese-speaking Japanese-Koreans who want to be defined as Japanese.”12
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Japan is trying to forge a post-colonial, post-pacifist identity that detours around multiculturalism. There is an important link between identity at home and identity constructed through foreign policy. If Japan treated its own ethnic communities with greater justice and tolerance, the clashes over territory and over history would have a very different character.
WTO of Apologies? Too bad
Japan is not more like Germany, many commentators lament. Particularly under former President Richard von Weizsäcker, West Germany made an art out of contrition. It buried the hatchet with historic enemy France to form the precursor to the European Union, apologized to its neighbors to the east, and compensated thousands of victims of Nazism. As Dudden points out, however, West Germany advanced this apology politik in part by suppressing its own valid claims to victimhood. The Allied fire bombings of Dresden and other German cities claimed nearly as many lives as the air war against Japan. But at least until the 1980s, when this issue was brought into the public sphere, West Germany performed its post-war identity as sinner, not sinned-against. Japan, by contrast, has highlighted its victim status—as the only country to suffer atomic attacks—at the expense of reaching out in humility to its neighbors. Pointing out this contrast, however, has not done much to bring Japan’s policies closer to Germany’s. “One consequence of the overwhelming emphasis on Japan’s shortcomings compared to Germany’s achievements was to garner the resolve of those in Japan who never favored the idea that Japan should
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apologize in the first place,” Dudden writes. “The unrelenting ‘Why can’t Japan be more like Germany?’ charge furthermore frustrated even those supportive of apology, and, as a result, as of today the anti-apology apologists for Japan’s histories of violence have accrued increasing common sense to their contention that Japan did not do anything worse than anyone else.”13 In Northeast Asia, the cycle of demands and defensiveness—which encompasses Japan, the two Koreas, China, and the United States—resembles nothing less than a trade war. Each country asserts its victim status like a trade barrier and defends its own conduct in the same way that it would justify passing protectionist legislation. Victimhood operates like a wall to protect a fragile identity, consolidate feelings of national solidarity, and keep out potentially pernicious foreign influences. The more one country asserts its victim status, the
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more the other countries build up their own claims to victimhood. To break out of this cycle, Dudden suggests that history be understood transnationally rather than solely in terms of national narratives. Only in this way can people come to understand how every country is both victim and aggressor. By internationalizing history in this way, it might someday be possible to reduce the defensive barriers of victimhood. Perhaps in the future, a World Trade Organization devoted to the trading of apologies will emerge. In 2002, Japan’s Junichiro Koizumi and North Korea’s Kim Jong Il exchanged apologies during the Japanese prime minister’s visit to Pyongyang. The next U.S. president could follow this example by visiting Hiroshima and Nagasaki and finally apologizing for one of the most devastating events of the twentieth century. Imagine the liberalizing effect such a concession could have.
Notes
1 Roy Brooks, When Sorry Is Not Enough: The Controversy over Apologies and Reparations for Human Injustice (New York: NYU Press, 1999). 2 Alexis Dudden, Troubled Apologies Among Japan, Korea, and the United States (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008), 128. 3 Troubled Apologies, 120. 4 Troubled Apologies, 118. 5 Ibid. 6 Troubled Apologies, 118-119.
7 Troubled Apologies, 131. 8 Troubled Apologies, 9. 9 Hyunah Yang, “Remembering the Korean Military Comfort Women,” in Dangerous Women: Gender and Korean Nationalism, eds., Elaine H. Kim and Chungmoo Choi (New York: Routledge, 1997), 127. 10 Troubled Apologies, 33-34. 11 Troubled Apologies, 27. 12 Troubled Apologies, 53-54. 13 Troubled Apologies, 39.
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Cooperative Threat Reduction and Nuclear Security Interview with Senator Richard Lugar The Cooperative Threat Reduction Program was established in 1991 by Senators Richard Lugar (R-IN) and Sam Nunn (D-GA). A bipartisan initiative, the program’s goal is to secure and dismantle weapons of mass destruction in states of the former Soviet Union and beyond. A ranking member of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Lugar’s leadership of the program has been instrumental in non-proliferation efforts.
Richard Lugar is a senior Republican Senator from Indiana. Much of his work in the Senate has been dedicated to global nuclear non-proliferation efforts.
GJIA: How did you become involved in the efforts that led to
the creation of the Nunn-Lugar program, and what has been noteworthy about the initiative? I think it’s significant that Senator Nunn is a Democrat and I am a Republican. We came together during the Reagan administration when a congressional delegation to monitor arms control treaties was formed. The delegation was formed because, in 1986, it appeared that the Soviet Union was prepared to enter into negotiations on weapons destruction or control. These talks started in Switzerland and did not progress as rapidly as we had wanted them to. The idea was that the delegation would be a monitoring group that would help gain a two-thirds Senate SENATOR LUGAR:
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majority for a possible treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union. At the time, Senator Nunn and I both held chairmanships; he was chairman of the Armed Services Committee while I was chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee. We both, however, took an interest in this situation because we had made a number of acquaintances with Russians at the original conference in Geneva. After the collapse of the Soviet Union some of these acquaintances came to Washington and made the case that there was a monumental problem in
major foreign policy plan be directly developed by Congress, as opposed to the more normal situation in which the president or the Department of State or the National Security Council develops policy and Congress then appropriates funds or amends a proposal. Since this was the case, we had to take the initiative ourselves, bringing officials from the administration with us to states including Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus. When President George H. W. Bush lost the 1992 election to President Bill Clinton we were faced with a new administration and that, of course,
This was no longer the Soviet Union
with ironclad control over weapons and nuclear facilities. The United States now had a problem as well. Russia. This was no longer the Soviet Union with ironclad control over weapons and nuclear facilities. The United States now had a problem as well. These conversations inspired the drafting of the Nunn-Lugar text, which was originally meant to be an appropriations bill presented in the final days of the Senate session in 1991. It passed with a good number of provisions added by others who were skeptical of so-called “giving money to the Russians.� In any event, although it passed and $400 million was appropriated to be used at the discretion of the president of the United States, President Bush did not have a plan, nor did his secretary of state or defense. Some have pointed out that this is one of the unique complexities of having a
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was again true after President Clinton ended his term and President George W. Bush came into office. This has therefore been a bipartisan effort which has continued through the administrations of both parties. But I think that more funds are likely to be appropriated in the current political climate, enhancing our possibilities. What have been the greatest successes of the Nunn-Lugar program, and what have been the biggest challenges? GJIA:
The greatest successes achieved by the Nunn-Lugar program have been the de-nuclearization of Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan. After the fall of the Soviet Union, they became the third, fourth, and eighth SENATOR LUGAR:
lugar
largest nuclear powers in the world, respectively. The biggest challenge continues to be finding ways to cooperate with numerous countries in a safe and secure manner to destroy the most deadly weapons created by man.
A Look Back
Scientists are not monitored under our program. They participate in peaceful scientific research in areas such as energy, health, and manufacturing. The products of their work are the main elements used to verify that U.S. funding is being GJIA: Can you tell us more about the used appropriately. The Nunn-Lugar initial design of Nunn-Lugar? How, program does not try to change the specifically, does the Nunn-Lugar pro- research fields of the scientists. Instead, gram reduce the harmful spread of it tries to redirect the scientists away nuclear information and technology? from weapons efforts to peaceful pursuits. SENATOR LUGAR: Senator Nunn and The scientists, as I have indicated, are I believed it was important to provide simply directed away from the weapons the first Bush administration with the programs. They are not, however, given authority and the appropriations to any additional funds or incentives. address threats that emerged from the collapse of the Soviet Union. We did GJIA: How does the program address not want to micromanage. But, we the issue of biological and chemical understood that the United States would weapons? have to move quickly if we were to stop the proliferation of weapons of mass SENATOR LUGAR: The program does destruction. In the early days, things did address the chemical weapons issue. It not move quickly, but Senator Nunn destroyed sixteen metric tons of chemiand I traveled extensively in Russia, cal weapons in Albania last year. The Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan, chemical weapons destruction facility at and worked closely with both the Bush Shchuchye in Russia will have opened and Clinton administrations to achieve by the end of 2008. At this masagreements that permitted cooperation sive facility, machines will drill two on weapons dismantlement. holes in the bottoms of two million The Nunn-Lugar program helps chemical munitions and neutralize the dismantle weapons and equipment nerve agent inside. The goal is to help required to be destroyed under the governments meet their arms control START treaty and the Chemical commitments and eliminate threats to Weapons Convention. In addition, the American security. program provides assistance to safely I would touch upon one other thing. secure dangerous materials that could Russia has always denied having prootherwise end up in the hands of ter- duced biological weapons. That may be rorists. true, but there were still laboratories in which very dangerous pathogens were GJIA: How are scientists monitored or created. Early on, we worked with the treated? Are they given financial incentives Russians to get rid of these materials, to prevent the spread of information? and in some cases, put them to use for SENATOR LUGAR:
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peaceful purposes. For example, in St. Petersburg, the Russians created a facility which sold pharmaceutical goods to hospitals in the area. Scientists who had been involved with the pathogens before now worked with them in a different
The Nunn-Lugar program has met its stated objectives and continues to make progress. Nunn-Lugar works because it takes a pragmatic approach in meeting security threats and addressing the concerns of the host government.
Each country involved in weapons dis-
mantlement is unique in the threats it poses to U.S. security. context. We now have laboratories that can collect natural pathogens and then share them with us in the United States. This alerts us to the kinds of pathogens that can be developed through agricultural programs purportedly for peaceful purposes. This is another manifestation of Nunn-Lugar that has developed because we were searching for biological weapons of mass destruction. How does the Nunn-Lugar program today compare to its initial design? GJIA:
The Nunn-Lugar program has continued to evolve over the years as it has adapted to meet new and emerging challenges. For example, in 1992, we were helping Russia secure its nuclear warhead storage facilities. After the Bratislava agreement between Presidents Bush and Putin in 2005, the two sides worked out a process by which U.S. experts could enter each Russian facility, with Russians receiving the benefit of our expert guidance before, during, and after disposition of the warheads. These visits would verify that U.S. taxpayer funds were being used efficiently. SENATOR LUGAR:
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Nunn-Lugar cannot impose weapons dismantlement on a sovereign country; it must work with the host government cooperatively to achieve dismantlement goals. Every weapon destroyed is one less that can threaten the United States, Russia, or any other country. The Nunn-Lugar program must continue its important work to eliminate as many weapons as possible as quickly as possible. Are there any aspects of the Nunn-Lugar program that work to keep weapons or materials out of the hands of terrorist organizations? Or is it just a general effort? GJIA:
It is a very general effort. But it not only means the confinement of warheads, as I mentioned earlier in the interview, in these caves or vaults or facilities with lots of guards. It also means border control. For example, Senator Nunn and I visited border-crossings in Ukraine last year, just to visit with the guards and see a demonstration of sophisticated monitoring equipment. There are a lot of attempts being made at border SENATOR LUGAR:
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crossings to stop movement of nuclear materials and to confiscate them if necessary. But more importantly, these efforts send a signal that there is no easy passage. In fact, these efforts have picked up small amounts, ounces here and there, not enough to create a weapon. One might ask why it was being carried at all—maybe for purposes of intimidation. Some would say you don’t need very much for a so-called “dirty bomb.” It doesn’t have the same implications as a nuclear explosion, but this is an ongoing problem because some believe that even ounces of this material are very valuable. Therefore, as with any contraband situation, there is a great need for border guards and good intelligence.
A Look Back
Nunn-Lugar program destroyed ten SS-25 mobile missiles in Russia. Each of those missiles carries one warhead on a truck platform. In addition, in just a few months, a $1 billion chemical weapons destruction facility will begin dismantling two million rounds of chemical munitions in the middle of Siberia at Shchuchye. The Nunn-Lugar program was originally designed to deal with nuclear non-proliferation in the former Soviet Union, as you explained. Do you think the successes of Nunn-Lugar can be replicated in other contexts to promote global non-proliferation efforts? GJIA:
SENATOR LUGAR: Yes, I believe that they
can be. Nunn-Lugar is already working outside the former Soviet Union. For example, last year the program destroyed a chemical weapons stockpile in Albania, helping Albania become the first country to meet its obligations under the Chemical Weapons SENATOR LUGAR: Well, despite the ups Convention. and downs of the bilateral relationship, the Nunn-Lugar program has con- GJIA: Do the factors considered in the tinued to dismantle weapons of mass design of the program change when destruction each year since its passage moving from a bilateral to a global in 1991. Both Russia and the United context? States understand how important this work is to their own security interests SENATOR LUGAR: Yes and no. First of and they do not wish to do anything all, Nunn-Lugar programs are differto interfere with that cooperation. We ent in each country and often within the have a window of opportunity still to same country. Each country involved in continue this important work, but I weapons dismantlement is unique in the always advise we should move quickly. threats it poses to U.S. security. Each To date, the only impact on the project is approached in a pragmatic Nunn-Lugar program was a delay in way to eliminate the threat in the safest the construction of a biological patho- manner possible. Different situations gen storage facility near Tbilisi. In fact, require different means of dismantleduring the August 2008 fighting, the ment that vary between nuclear, chemiHas the state of the bilateral relationship with Russia affected the Nunn-Lugar program at all? Has the recent Russia-Georgia conflict impacted the program? GJIA:
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Cooperative Threat Reduction and NUclear Security
cal, and biological systems, taking into account the locations of the systems, the level of safety at the location, and the proximity of civilian populations. How might uncooperative states impact the efficacy of the Nunn-Lugar expansion act? Which state or states do you perceive as posing the greatest challenge? GJIA:
occurred via non-state actors like terrorists. Do you think that the United States’s objectives for nuclear nonproliferation will change under a new administration? GJIA:
The policy objectives must remain the same, in my judgment. SENATOR LUGAR: The Nunn-Lugar We must eliminate as many weapons of idea cannot be imposed upon unco- mass destruction as quickly as possible. operative states. The program is based The nature of our program will still upon cooperation, and if a country mean cooperation between states. does not want to engage in the NunnBoth Senators John McCain and Lugar program then it is not the right Barack Obama have pledged their strong tool to engage that country. In other support for the Nunn-Lugar program. words, Cooperative Threat Reduction In addition, they have both indicated means cooperative states. that they want to conclude treaty-based Each situation is unique and poses arms control efforts that are supported security and safety challenges. Our by strong verification regimes. I menprogram operates in a number of tion this because the START treaty with countries including Russia, Ukraine, Russia will need to be renegotiated in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Belarus, the coming year. Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Albania. In the future, it is likely the program will GJIA: Do you feel like the Nunn-Lugar begin operations in countries in Africa, program gets sufficient funding and South Asia, and the Pacific. attention from Congress? Or is it something that needs more attention? GJIA: What do you think is the best way to deal with uncooperative states? SENATOR LUGAR: I would always be in favor of more attention. But I would SENATOR LUGAR: International nego- say that we have had a constant flow tiations involving the United States and of appropriations of funds and fewer hopefully many other countries bring to restrictions over the years. For several bear world opinion and world pressure years I offered legislation to reduced for action to counteract what appear restrictions and conditions on the proto be threats to the world. In most gram and eliminate a maze of paperwork instances, we have thought of coopera- that distracted the program from its tive threat reduction in a bilateral sense mission of destroying nuclear, biologionly with Russia. But these weapons cal, and chemical weapons. Sometimes could be a threat to any country if, in these problems brought projects to a fact, the materials—quite apart from the complete stop. In 2007 we were sucweapons—were stolen and proliferation cessful in clearing away these barriers.
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SENATOR LUGAR:
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A Look Back
It was a very rigorous debate among people who felt that they wanted to retain many of the restrictions, but my point of view prevailed and, as a result, we had much better flow of planning and materials and leadership.
it exemplifies the sense in which we have attempted to approach these areas. GJIA: What do you see as the future of the program? Where is it going and what are the key goals in the years ahead?
Do you see other areas of foreign policy where there are good prospects for bipartisan cooperation and Congress leading the way on foreign policy initiatives?
SENATOR LUGAR:
Since the NunnLugar program began, we have deactivated 13,300 warheads and destroyed 1473 Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs), among other things. But these still represent only 79 percent SENATOR LUGAR: I am certain that of warheads and 67 percent of ICBMs there are. For example, in the Foreign we hope to deactivate by 2012. Each Relations Committee, Senator Biden month, I receive a report from the and I have tried to fashion a new idea Department of Defense on the proof assistance to Pakistan. It would be gram’s activity during the previous a multi-year assistance program that month. As I indicated earlier, during would have a primary focus on health the hostilities in Georgia, the program and education, the building of a peace- destroyed a number of weapons includful society, as opposed to the appro- ing ten SS-25s. I mention this because priations that frequently come specifi- it indicates both how far we have come cally for weapons. Having a multi-year and also how far we still have to go. The program of this variety would show the United States and Russia still possess Pakistani people that we are thinking monumental numbers of weapons of about the poor as well trying to hunt mass destruction. Through Cooperative down al-Qaeda. This bill may not be Threat Reduction, we have verified and passed and appropriated in its entirety kept an eye on each other, but this gives this year but it clearly is already a part some idea of the immense scope of the of our foreign policy apparatus, widely work we still have to do. commented on in Pakistan as a new thrust in U.S. foreign policy. This is Richard Lugar was interviewed by Carolyn Barnett not the only such initiative, but I think and Devin Conley on 22 September 2008. GJIA:
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