Journal of Global Affairs : Vol. 5

Journal of Global Affairs .(33(;05 :*/663 6- 05+0=0+<(30A,+ :;<+@ c =VS\TL c

Conversations of the Body: Overcoming Oppression through Communities of Suffering

By Shimrit Lee Islamism in America: An Uncomfortable Discussion, but a Necessary One

By Brendan Goldman

T is for Truth, F is for Fact: Confronting the New F Word

By Olivia Webb How to get to Tofo

By Rudyard Moats

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Journal of Global Affairs .(33(;05 :*/663 6- 05+0=0+<(30A,+ :;<+@ c =VS\TL c

Editors in Chief Meghan Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Connell Sarah Zapiler

Managing Editors Amanda Holpuch Jenna King Brill

Web Editor Maggie Carter

Special Thanks: Kate Bennett Michael Carter Erin McLaughlin Samantha Shapses Lauren Nelson Jean Nguyen Rick Stern

DISCLAIMER The articles that appear in the Gallatin Journal of Global Affairs ( JGA) represent the views of a wide-ranging group of students and scholars. They do not collectively seek to speak for a singular opinion or set of beliefs. While we may not agree with all of the observations and diagnoses of our writers, we support their pursuit of serious university-level academic research and the fruits it yields. We hope that the thoughts and arguments found in this journal serve as a stimulus for further debate and discussion on the issues addressed within. Please enjoy the pages that follow.

Contact the Journal of Global Affairs at jga@gallatinstudent.com or visit gallatinstudent.com/jga

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Letter from the Founder Welcome to the 2009-2010 edition of the Gallatin Journal of Global Affairs!

As a former Gallatin student and the JGA’s founder, it is with great pleasure that I accepted the editors’ request to prepare the introduction to this year’s edition. In doing so, I hope not only to call your attention to the exciting features appearing in this edition, but also to provide you with insight into the JGA’s history and development over the past several years.

The JGA was founded by a group of Gallatin students in 2006 in an attempt to draw awareness to various social, political, cultural, and other issues taking place throughout world, while offering NYU students a new forum in which to showcase their work. The JGA’s early activities in pursuit of this mission were surprisingly successful given our small editorial staff and the limited funding available through the University.

In addition to publishing two online editions during the JGA’s first year of operation, we also published an annual print edition and hosted several film screenings and panel presentations on topics ranging from international human rights to Mardi Gras bead manufacturing in China.

Several years later, I am proud to report that the JGA has without a doubt surpassed its founders’ expectations in this regard. In particular, the Journal has remained highly committed to its goal of engaging NYU students in the study of global affairs by hosting campus wide events and simultaneously maintaining a strong publication record. The JGA’s annual print edition continues to draw attention to many pressing issues, as is readily evident from even a cursory perusal of its pages. I for one was especially pleased to see color headings on the interior of the last journal (and a four-color cover too!). Having spent one year working in academic publishing after graduating from NYU, I can objectively attest to the fact that from a cost perspective, this is no small feat! And, as any journal needs funding to operate, I take this as a clear (if easily overlooked) indicator of the JGA’s success.

Obviously, the addition of color is not the only measure of the JGA’s success. On the contrary, the Journal’s pages are replete with interesting articles, op-eds, and photographs documenting and commenting on an ever-expanding range of timely and pertinent issues of interest to Gallatin students and the broader NYU community. In keeping with Gallatin’s commitment to individualized study, I am also pleased to observe that the JGA’s unique position beyond the confines of any single department has enabled it to express a more diverse range of viewpoints than would ordinarily be possible, as evidenced by the breadth of topics receiving coverage in the past several issues.

With this in mind, I hope that this year’s edition affords you the opportunity to learn about new and exciting issues taking place in the world around you, broaden your horizons, and consider becoming involved with the JGA by contributing content or joining the editorial team. The production of the JGA’s annual print edition is a fine endeavor in which to take part; more thought-provoking reading undoubtedly awaits within.

Founder and former JGA President, Jason McMann

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Letter from the Editors Well, as Jason said, we've really come a long way! But even now that we have color photographs, our mission is still the same: through campus-wide events and the publication of this journal, we continue to strive to stimulate general interest and increase awareness of the global affairs that affect the world we live in.

At our events, Gallatin students and the broader NYU community have the opportunity to come together and open their minds and eyes to new ideas. This winter, we hosted a holiday clothing drive where all donations went to benefit Housing Works, a New York based organization committed to ending “the twin crises of AIDS and homelessness.” This spring, the JGA held two film screenings both followed by talk-back sessions with the creators. Special Circumstances, a documentary directed by Héctor Salgado and Marianne Teleki, is an autobiographical account of a Chilean man returning to his home after being exiled during Pinochet's regime.

The screening also served as a fundraiser for Mano a Mano con Chile, a disaster-relief organization providing aid to areas hit by the earthquake. Our second screening was of the new and still not released TV Series, Bridge the Gap. The shows host and executive producer, Chris Bashinelli, travels to developing countries around the world and investigates each for 30 days. We were able to screen the pilot episode, set in Tanzania, and to speak with Chris afterwards.

The second part of our mission is the creation of an annual publication. The goal of the JGA is to present readers with a wide range of student perspectives on global social, economic and political issues and allow undergraduate students (from Gallatin, NYU, and beyond) to publish their work in a scholarly forum.

As editors of the Journal, we seek to incorporate unique opinions on current topics to generate awareness, interest, and activism within the NYU student body that will serve to keep us actively engaged in the global community.

This year's journal includes a myriad of pieces from personal narratives to investigative reports to op-eds, on issues spanning across five continents. We hope that the journal gives you a perspective you have not yet encountered, sparks your interest in a particular issue, gives you the creative stimulus you need to tackle an issue that matters to you, or simply opens your mind to a broader world view.

We have also just re-launched and completely redesigned the web version of the JGA. Soon, you will be able to view not only this year's journal online, but every past edition as well!

We at the JGA have put a great deal of effort into this year's Journal and hope that you enjoy reading it as much as we enjoyed creating it. We'd also like to extend congratulations and gratitude to each one of the Journal's contributing authors and photographers, without whom this project would be impossible. These students represent the kind of intellectual curiosity that our journal hopes to inspire, and we both admire and thank them for it.

We hope you enjoy!

Amanda, Jenna, Maggie, Meghan and Sarah

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Table of Contents SOUTH AMERICA

EFFECTS OF WAR: Conversations of the Body: Overcoming Oppression through Communities of Suffering

Finding a Way Back Home

RELIGION: Religion as a Means to Survival

ECONOMICS: Reform and Reversal: The Argentine Political Economy in the 90s and 2000s

Andean Cemeteries on the Hilltops of Argentina

AFRICA

TRAVEL: How to get to Tofo

The Other Side of Vakpo

LANGUAGE: The Struggle Against Internal Colonialism

POLITICS: Cote Dâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Ivoire Conflict: Authoritarianism, Ethnic Clash, and Resource Mismanagement

MIDDLE EAST

Place as Tension in the Middle East

Shimrit Lee UNICEF

Laura Esposito Courtney Cauthen Jordan Schnee

Rudyard Moats

Shimrit Lee Sarah Zapiler

Ben Chadwick

Sarah Zapiler

FOREIGN RELATIONS: A Journey on Pause Samantha Feld & John Hering TORTURE: T is for Truth, F is for Fact: Confronting the New F Word

Olivia Webb

AMERICA

Isolation out West

IMMIGRATION: Foreign in a Native Land

Children March for Life in Washington D.C.

ASSIMILATION: Islamism in America

EUROPE

Preserving Memories in Modern Berlin

Maggie Owsley Samantha Shokin

Chloe Moore %UHQGDQ *ROGPDQ

Shimrit Lee

GLOBAL

FOOD SYSTEMS: The Glocalization of Food: Global Understanding, Local Cultivation

Gabrielle Redner

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EFFECTS OF WAR

Conversations of the Body: Overcoming Oppression through Communities of Suffering Shimrit Lee Between the late 1970s and mid-1980s, 440 Mayan peasant towns disappeared from Guatemala’s map.

This state-sponsored campaign of political violence and repression, known as “La Violencia” or “La Situación” was designed to defeat a left wing revolutionary insurgency, including any threat to the government’s long-standing structures of domination and exploitation. It also served to weaken and eventually eradicate Mayan communities and culture. The Mayan Indians in the western highlands were labeled as revolutionary sympathizers and consequently many Mayan women lost husbands, sons and other family members who were brutally murdered or who simply “disappeared.” By the early 1980s the highlands had become infamous in international human rights circles as the “land of eternal tyranny,” because of the bloodshed wrought by the Guatemalan military.[1] The widows of “La Violencia” still suffer, as the violence of postcolonial Guatemala has left a strong imprint on their minds and bodies. This phenomenon of suffering based on social context has best been discussed by psychiatrist and postcolonial theorist Franz Fanon, who explored the effects of French colonization on the mental health of the colonial subjects of Algeria. Fanon documented the homicidal impulses in a survivor of mass murder, the phobias to electricity developed by survivors of torture, and impotence in an Algerian following the rape of his wife.[2] The following paper will assess how Mayan widows in rural Guatemala have been psychologically and physically traumatized by “La Violencia” and its continuing aftermath in socially meaningful ways. Themes of anger, violence and solidarity will be explored through the lens of symbolic silences, persistent memories and chronic fear that are present in the daily lives of Mayan women.

Although “La situación” was reportedly tranquila (calm) in 1988, there has yet to be any real accountability at the national level. The December 1996 Peace Accords officially ended the thirty-six year civil war, documented the historical truth about the period and provided some compensation to victims’ families. Yet the accounts did not name individuals

responsible for human rights violations. The Guatemalan Congress approved a National Reconciliation Law (NRL) that “established provisions for ‘extinguishing criminal responsibility’ for crimes committed by members of the military, civil patrollers, and politicians…” [3] Former Guatemalan president Ramiro de Leon Carpio has suggested that to forgive and forget is the only way that democracy will ever be achieved.

Anthropologist Linda Green’s fieldwork within the Mayan community of Xe’caj aims to document the current situation through the eyes of widows living in the altiplano.

Although the situation is described as pues tranquila, it is nevertheless a fragile calm, as the widows whisper their fears of a return of the violence.[4] Green delves deeper into this immense silence that permeates everyday life, as evidenced by the innumerable clandestine cemeteries that only now are being excavated and the “half secrets” about what was done to whom and by whom.[5] Indeed, the impunity and the silence surrounding the murders and disappearances of their husbands and loved ones have made it impossible for the Mayan widows to simply ‘forgive and forget.’ Rather, they internalize the anger felt towards the injustice committed against them.

As women's communities have been drastically altered, torn apart and oppressed, the body serves as a last resort, “a repository of both history and memories, much as ancestral lands had been before.”[6] Although the voices of the women have been mostly silenced by the state of trauma and sadness, of loneliness and desolation, chronic poverty and doubt, these women are not simply passive victims of violence; through their bodies they are able to communicate and chronicle the social, cultural and political transgressions that have been perpetrated against them, and thus they develop a sense of agency and solidarity.

It is impossible to live in a constant state of alertness, and so the chaos that the widows of Xe’caj feel becomes diffused throughout their bodies. In his assessment of mental health, Fanon argues: “there is no need to be wounded by a bullet to suffer from the effects of war in body and soul.”[7]

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Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a severe anxiety disorder common in Mayan widows, characterized by a reexperiencing of the traumatic event, emotional numbing and detachment, as well as hypervigilance and chronic arousal.[8] The body normally has a natural response to stress that prepares it for fight or flight. In the short term, this response is highly adaptive but, if it is chronically aroused, it can cause physical damage.

Although the scorched-earth massacres and the large population displacements have halted, selective repression is still used to “threaten, intimidate, disappear, or kill” labor leaders, students, and campesinos.[9] Further, within the Mayan villages there is a militarization of daily life, with military checkpoints, army garrison and civil patrols still very present. As Green argues, “A war continues in Guatemala today, even though it is a war called peace.”[10] The counterinsurgency war has left rural Guatemala in a constant state of repression, coupled with increasing poverty, hunger and misery.

According to researcher Hans Selye, the body reacts in three phases to a stressor. In the first phase, alarm, the body mobilizes to confront the threat, which temporarily expends resources and lowers resistance. In the resistance phase, the body is actively confronting the threat and resistance is high.

If the threat continues, the body moves into exhaustion.[11] The constant state of distrust, paranoia and unspoken fear experienced by Mayan widows in Guatemala has manifested itself into exhaustion in the face of prolonged stress and trauma.

a lot of my energy with all the worries I’d had. I’d been ill in bed, I hadn’t eaten for many days, and I had an ulcer.

Everything was piling up together: it was all on top of me.”[15] If left untreated, the victim literally (though often slowly) wastes away.

The situation in Guatemala is also being left untreated.

The 1996 Peace Accords failed to address the fundamental problems in Guatemalan society, namely those of land and impunity. The Accord on the Identity and Rights of Indigenous Peoples acknowledged the centuries-long discrimination against Mayas and addressed the issue of basic human rights, yet it failed to demand land redistribution, a factor vital to rural Mayan economic and cultural survival.

Further, most Mayas have not had a central voice in these negotiations and have been denied the power to define their own realities or their own vision of the future.[16] A culmination of silence, repression and persistent memories leads to fear, paranoia and mistrust within the Mayan communities. According to Green, “Terror is the taproot of Guatemala’s past and stalks its present.”[17] The policies of the modern Guatemalan state echo the mechanisms used during the Spanish colonial conquest of the 16th century: a complete dismantling of communities, culture, and the bonds between people and place. Like the structure of any colonial relationship, terror does not only pervade the everyday lives of those that are victimized, but affects the perpetrators as well. The elite, dominant classes are driven by racist fears of Indians and use violence as a psychological coping mechanism to combat such terror.

Culture-bound disorders such as Susto symbolically link symptoms to social context. The women interviewed

by Linda Green describe their headaches, nervios and other pains as a direct result of the anger and sadness caused by the death of their husbands, their poverty, and the impunity surrounding the injustice they experience. Illness related to political violence represents a refusal to break ties with the person who was killed or disappeared. According to Green, pain and trauma, rather than introducing “a conscious split between mind and body, self and world, self and other,” join the women in ways that render their pain personally and socially meaningful.[18] Not only does the body serve as a political testimony of injustice and anger, but pain also acts as a powerful source of solidarity, creating “communities of pain and healing.”[19] Although the government has failed to address the political injustices committed against Mayan communities, the widows have found outlets with which to communicate their pain, through their bodies.

According to psychologists Taylor, Iacono, and McGue, the ways in which stress affects health in women may be different from those in men. Instead of engaging in fight or flight when faced with a threat, females engage in a pattern

Not only does the body serve as a political testimony of injustice and anger, but pain also acts as a powerful source of solidarity...

In exploring the attributions of illness onset to social sources, it is important to take into account the ways in which culture shapes the expression and recognition of psychiatric problems. Although Western cultures make a clear distinction between the mind and body, the Mayan culture does not. In Mayan medicine, there is no separation between the body and the soul, between the physical and spiritual realms. Thus, the Mayas experience more somatic symptoms of distress, as psychological trauma manifests itself into physical complaints.[12] Mayan communities recognize a disorder called Susto, which is the loss of “the essential life force as a result of fright.”[13] Susto is characterized by “depression, weakness, loss of appetite, restlessness, lack of interest in work, duties and personal hygiene, disturbing dreams [and] fatigue.”[14] Rigoberta Menchú, an indigenous Guatemalan of the Quiche Maya ethnic group, hints at symptoms of such exhaustion in her autobiography: “I’d lost

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termed “tend and befriend.”[20] Rather than attempting to fight or flee from an aggressor, females join social groups to reduce their vulnerability and to gain resources. Green describes her experiences with El Grupo, a group of widows in Xe’caj who ranged in age from mid-twenties to late sixties. In the meetings the women spoke about their fragile health and their illness as a consequence of violence as well as internalized anger and fear. The women of El Grupo found ways to nurture their daily lives and cultural practices, collecting locally available medicinal plants and herbs and utilizing the knowledge of their ancestors in order to provide themselves with a means of alleviating their suffering in the present.

Theorist Achille Mbembe describes post-colonial theory as the process of imagining a better system. It is about building solidarity by understanding and breaking down the systems of violence that constitute colonial thinking and all forms of oppression. This process of “unlearning” is intended to grant the opportunity to imagine a new politics – a politics that is not oppressive and hierarchical.

Although the Mayan widows of Xe’caj are able to find solidarity through the embodiment of the violence inflicted upon them, they are ultimately unable to move forward in the process of deconstructing and re-imagining reality. The victims of “La Violencia” are in desperate need of justice. The government needs to be held accountable for gross human rights violations and the silences surrounding the violence need to be broken. Land redistribution and the eradication of chronic poverty are crucial in the healing process. Lastly, spoken testimony would serve as a ritual of both healing and condemning injustice. As long as a culture of impunity, silence and fear continues to take root within Guatemala, Mayan widows will be forced to communicate and find a sense of solidarity through the physical pain in their bodies.

Shimrit Lee is a student at Gallatin, graduating in January 2011. She is from Jacksonville, Florida and is studying Gender in Conflict and Transitional Justice.

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Finding a Way Back Home

Early this year, Gallatin students partnered with UNICEF to raise money for the Haiti earthquake relief effort. Donations were routed directly to UNICEF emergency operations in the country, where far too many children were displaced and left without homes, schools, proper medical care, and even families. Through GallaServe, a community service initiative created by the Gallatin Student Council, the Give to Haiti campaign was launched before the spring semester began. Since then, Gallatin students, faculty, and staff have raised enough money to provide over 700 displaced children with academic supplies and recreation kits so they could return to their education as quickly as possible. Some Gallatin students also took it upon themselves to help Haiti in other ways, by sending volunteers during spring break to help build temporary schools, creating a better communication network so relief agencies could work more efficiently, and by recruiting foreign doctors to travel to Haiti. Pictured in these photographs is one of the girls helped by UNICEF, separated from her father and searching for a family memberâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s home amongst the ruble. With the pens and paper found in a recreation kit, she was able to draw parts of her neighborhood so relief workers could identify where she lived so she could find her way back home. All pictures property of UNICEF.

Relief efforts are far from over in Haiti. You can still donate to UNICEF by visiting gallatinstudent.com/give.

RELIGION

Religion as a Means to Survival Laura Esposito Several religions and belief systems coexist in Latin America. Though Latin America is predominantly Catholic, other religions have developed vis-à-vis social, economic, political, or religious oppression. Latin Americans who subscribe to different religions often use syncretism, the amalgamation of those religions, to address all of their needs. This creates a system of mobility and flexibility within the sphere of religion and allows the participants to create an individualized spirituality that represents the fulfillment of their spiritual needs. In Latin America, the presence of Candomblé, Evangelicalism, and liberation theology reveal the diversity of spirituality on the continent.

Specifically, these religions provide a new space for women, the marginalized, and the poor to receive guidance, support, and freedom from the oppressive structures of their societies.

Syncretism in Latin America developed as a result of colonization and Christianization. Indigenous religious systems were removed from everyday life as colonizers brought Christianity and other Western beliefs to the region.

Those who still maintained indigenous beliefs tended to be outside, geographically, of the colonizer’s reach. Because colonizers were primarily concerned with penetrating the developed centers of the indigenous people, most were not preoccupied with converting the indigenous groups in rural areas. Christianization was a difficult task for colonizers because the indigenous populations outnumbered them.

In order to assert control, Christianization was forced upon non-believers and those who continued to refuse were expelled from the area. Therefore, Christian centers were surrounded by a variety of indigenous belief systems that survived based upon their relative isolation from the colonizers. Furthermore, upon the arrival of slave labor in the colonies, African religions were also introduced into the already tense religious sphere. Christianity, once again, sought to eradicate these foreign religions from taking hold. However, the separation between slaves and their masters allowed some practices to continue, which subsequently allowed African religions to take hold among the marginalized laborers of Latin American society. The different levels of geographical separation and

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marginalization preserved indigenous and African religious practices, despite the strong influence of Christianity on the region. However, this separation between religious sectors was not concrete, as slave-owners often believed that their slaves should practice Christianity because they were under their control. Enslaved indigenous and African people therefore maintained their primary religion in private, while publicly following tenets of Christianity, as dictated by their masters. Religious syncretism evolved because of the coexistence of Christianity and indigenous and African religions. In addition, the separation between Christianity and the other religions was blurred when European colonizers married, or had relationships with, indigenous people. Racial mixing in Latin America strained religious and class boundaries, and so those who had no place in a racially segregated society sought a religious mixture reflective of their diverse backgrounds.

The religious practices of Candomblé originated when the slave trade brought African religions to Brazil in the nineteenth century. In Brazil, the various African tribes consolidated their gods and beliefs to primarily reflect the Nagô and Yoruba traditions.[1] Candomblé, while a popular religious system, attracted participants outside of the traditional society. Instead, it created a place of worship for a variety of people, from different races, classes, and genders.

This may have contributed to the relative persecution that Candomblé received at the hands of the press in the nineteenth century. Newspapers frequently criticized Candomblé “as expressions of barbarism, superstition and sexual promiscuity.”[2] The fact that the media condemned Candomblé probably contributed to its placement outside of the traditional religious sphere in Brazil, and its subsequent appeal to people who were already displaced from society.

As a result, women and slaves became two major participants in the practices of Candomblé.

Women, usually relegated to the domestic sphere in the nineteenth century, gained power through running Candomblé houses, which required significant capital to maintain. In addition, women gained more power and prestige by assuming leadership roles within the

Candomblé practices. João José Reis, in his book Slavery and Abolition, found that out of 81 Candomblé leaders, 31 were women.[3] He also writes that women were allowed to practice divination, usually restricted to men, and that this “may indicate that gender bias was not an important factor in the formation of religious leadership in nineteenthcentury Bahia.”[4] A reduction in the gender bias shows that Candomblé was actively allowing women to practice in the same way as men. As opposed to Catholicism, which provides little room for female participation, Candomblé provides both men and women with the opportunity to assume leadership roles in their chosen religion.

Slaves also played a prominent role in the development of Candomblé and were even able to become priests.

Furthermore, many Candomblé houses “served as hideouts for fugitive slaves” and attendance at public ceremonies “hindered slave/master relations because it interrupted labour.”[5] For slaves, Candomblé became a refuge outside of their enslavement on plantations and provided them with complete independence, or rather temporary spiritual solace.

Candomblé’s spiritual inclusivity allowed it to transcend the race, class, and gender boundaries in Brazil. Additionally, Candomblé’s success can be attributed to its “openness and flexibility [that] represented a crucial strategy of survival, because it facilitated negotiation with the local population, including the powerful.”[6] By existing on the outskirts of society, Candomblé was allowed to defy the traditional roles that society imposed upon women and slaves. Instead, Candomblé provided a new space for spiritual expression that created other economic opportunities within traditional society and legitimized it's existence.

The growth of Evangelicalism in Guatemala has been another religious movement that provides opportunities and spiritual support for women. However, Guatemala also employs syncretism to bridge the gaps between different sects of Christianity and remnants of Mayan cosmology, which in turn also creates mobility between the different religions. Also, Guatemala’s political violence and oppression has created a greater dependence upon religion for survival, and so people are willing to participate in, or move between, as many religions as possible to receive the most protection.

For example, in the 1980s, the murder of Catholic priests and lay leaders led Catholics “into evangelical meetings as a haven from repression.”[7] Linda Green, in her article “Shifting Affiliations: Mayan Widows and Evangélicos in Guatemala,” furthers this argument and writes, “by the 1980s Protestant evangelicalism… was uniquely situated to offer a religious alternative to people who have experienced rapid and radical social change as a result of political violence.”[8] In Guatemala, the impetus to associate with

a specific sect or religious group is primarily motivated by survival.

This desire for survival under threat of political violence allowed the church to permeate other aspects of society as well. For instance, “Lacking a strong hierarchy of town elders […], many converts turned to the church to provide social control. Missionaries, for example, became involved in settling disputes involving inheritance rights, rights to property, and local feuds.”[9] Because the Guatemalans allowed the church to govern their spiritual bodies, they felt no conflict in asking the church to rule over their material possessions as well, and become involved in other socioeconomic disputes on a local level. This is also consistent with the Guatemalan women using the church and other religious groups to rebuild the communities, relationships, and trust that were affected by government violence.[10] The women view religion as a unifying factor, and powerful enough to meet their spiritual and material needs.

However, though the Mayan women are dependent on religion for the fulfillment of these needs, they sometimes feel the need to draw from different groups and belief systems in order to achieve the desired effect. Green writes, “the Mayan women’s religious affiliations are neither fixed nor static, nor do changes in membership necessarily represent their rejection of Mayan cosmology. Christian religious affiliations, which may be multiple, are in part survival strategies that emerge from their lived experiences.

As such, religious mobility between Christian churches is the women’s response to profound social upheavals.”[11] The syncretic approach to religion in Guatemala exemplifies the use of religion as a tool to achieve a desired emotion or feeling of protection. Religious affiliation reflects a certain degree or insecurity or inconsistency within a particular society.

It is a commentary on the social and political state of the country, instead of a woman’s particular affinity for a certain system of beliefs. Therefore, syncretism in Guatemala is used to affect the current state of life, and whichever social,

It is a syncretism of traditional Christian thought with the application of God’s teachings to form a space in which the poor can be recognized and liberated from the sins of others. political, or economic factors exist in that moment.

In the 1960’s, the Christian Church of Latin America began to support the new doctrine of liberation theology.

Throughout the period of colonization in Latin America, Christianity upheld the traditional hierarchies and segregation imposed by the colonizers. The Church viewed indigenous people as inferior and felt compelled to bring them salvation and civilization through their conversion

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to Christianity. The systems of racial and socioeconomic oppression enforced by the colonizers are still the primary divisions within Latin American society in the twentieth century. The Church in Latin America realized their role in maintaining these institutionalized structures of oppression and sought to remedy it through the advent of liberation theology. Liberation theology, as a recent doctrine, is founded upon a reinterpretation of the Bible and God’s definition of poverty. While it is not syncretism in the traditional sense, it merges Christian teachings with the lives of the poor and their struggle against socioeconomic and political forces.

It is a syncretism of traditional Christian thought with the application of God’s teachings to form a space in which the poor can be recognized and liberated from the sins of others.

Liberation theology is described as “a time of zeal for full emancipation, of liberation from every form of servitude, of personal maturity and of collective integration.”[12] The goal of the Church is to provide a “preferential option for the poor,” where “the very word 'preference' denies all exclusiveness and seeks rather to call attention to those who are the first—though not the only ones—with whom we should be in solidarity.”[13] While some people disagree with liberation theology because it shows preferential treatment, the distinguishing factor is that it is not exclusive. By eliminating poverty and the oppressive structures under which these people live, everyone is free of the sin of imposing and maintaining these structures to begin with.

In this sense, it is bringing God’s kingdom to everyone, as another tenet of liberation theology disagrees with the idea that the poor can only be rich in heaven.[14] Liberation theology seeks to provide the poor with a spiritual and economic freedom and do away with the poverty that God does not want in the world.[15] Once the poor can be freed from these constraints, the sinners will also be free.

Liberation theology is acknowledging that the poor live in conditions that no one should have to live in. Therefore, the Church is consciously creating a space within God’s kingdom on earth for the poor, where they can be freed of the oppressive structures that prevented their progress for so long. They can acquire rights and freedoms that had been out of their reach because of socioeconomic, political, or racial boundaries. The introduction of colonization and Christianity into Latin America led to socioeconomic and religious oppression, the effects of which liberation theology seeks to reverse through the liberation of the poor.

However, liberation theology has also created a divide within Catholicism, between the Vatican and the Latin American churches. The Vatican maintains that the poor will find salvation and freedom in the kingdom of heaven, through prayer and the gift of the grace of God.[16] Additionally, the Vatican claims that the basis of liberation theology is a Marxist class struggle, and one in which they will not get involved.[17] In Latin America, religion has been directly related to class struggle. Class, and the power derived

16

from it, is the very foundation upon which Christianity was proclaimed as a superior religion during the colonization and Christianization of the region. Christianity displaced indigenous people from their homes and forced them to survive. It relegated the indigenous and African laborers to the outskirts of society, because neither they nor their beliefs would be accepted within the confines of society. This led to a forced religious syncretism, one that mandated adherence to Christianity in order to have a place in society. If survival implied having basic needs met, survival was easiest in the developed and Christianized areas. The syncretism of Christianity with indigenous religions depended upon the needs and materials required for physical survival, as opposed to the spiritual and emotional benefits of combining aspects of other religions. Instead of creating a preferential option for the poor and providing them with a place in society, Christianity empowered the colonizers by legitimizing their conquests and rewarding them with land and wealth.

Contrary to the religions that ensured refuge outside of society’s boundaries, Christianity marginalized the majority of people in Latin America unless they subscribed to a forced syncretism of beliefs. Liberation theology seeks to regain the space within society that Christianity originally took from the marginalized people and provide them with the spiritual benefits that were neglected, because of the need for survival, during colonization.

Religion is one of the most unifying and divisive systems in Latin America. Though a predominantly Catholic continent, Latin Americans seek fulfillment through other religions and belief systems. While some of these religions merge cultures, others merge different religious sects, or beliefs within one sect. The syncretism that is so prevalent in Latin America sometimes contributes to a short-term affiliation with a religion. Though some people associate primarily with one religion, the flexibility and mobility inherent in syncretism questions the degree to which people ascribe to their “religion.” This changes the concept of what religion really is: whether it is actually a system of beliefs and trusting an unknown higher power, or merely a system from which once can derive a more immediate, material result. However, a consistent theme within these varying religions is their ability to provide a space for a marginalized or oppressed group within society. Women, slaves, and the poor all become distinct and powerful within their religious sphere, whether it is Candomblé, Evangelicalism, or liberation theology. They are given opportunities, pathways to equality, and most importantly, the ability to be liberated from the oppressive material world that they live in. Religion is no longer ascribing to a higher power without knowing; it is a conscious choice in order to guarantee survival.

Laura Esposito is a student at Gallatin, graduating in

2011.

She is from Bethesda, Maryland and is studying

International Development.

ECONOMICS

Reform and Reversal: The Argentine Political Economy of the 90s and 2000s Courtney Cauthen In the 1990s, Argentine President Carlos Menem reversed the nation’s populist economic past and promised to usher the nation into an era of wealth and growth. Less than a decade later, President Nestor Kirchner denounced Menem’s reforms and promised a return to the very protectionist, nationalist policies that Menem had so enthusiastically removed. The only thing certain about these movements was the immense public and political support for both. But if economic policies are based on political momentum and retaliation, where does that leave the economy?

The 1990s and President Carlos Menem’s administration brought far-reaching reforms to the Argentine economy.

These reforms included extensive privatizations, trade liberalization, and investment deregulations. While these reforms led to growth and stability in the short-term, problems with their implementation, among other variables, led to the crisis of 2001. Subsequently, liberal counterreforms of the 2000s have taken advantage of popular suffering during the crisis and have implemented opposing backlash policies such as protectionism and nationalization paired with continued deficit spending.

The 1980s were deemed the ‘lost decade’ for Argentina.

A stagnant economy and debt accumulation were punctuated by hyperinflation at the end of the decade. Carlos Menem took presidential office in 1989 and, along with his Minister of the Economy Domingo Cavallo, implemented farreaching reforms described as neo-liberal, which are often connected to the crisis of 2001. These policies include the privatization of State Owned Enterprises, trade liberalization and investment deregulation. Each of these policies has a unique economic motivation, political justification, shortterm effects and problems of implementation.

One of the more controversial reforms of the Menem years was the large number of privatizations that occurred. State Owned Enterprises (SOEs) became known for inefficient services and products, and the modern economic consensus at the time supported the privatization of government-run entities. The World Bank encouraged this process and cites

that privatized industries are, on average, two to three times more productive than state-run enterprises.1 This orthodox principal was generally agreed upon among the powerful economic actors of the time, including the United States and International Monetary Fund (IMF), from whom Argentina was trying to gain credibility for borrowing.

Privatized enterprises were generally sold to a foreign entity or domestic conglomerate. The most notable privatizations of the 1990s in Argentina included telecommunications, energy, water, highways, railways and more.2 The effects of privatization can be positive, and in the case of Argentina there was strong economic benefit.

Unfortunately, this benefit only lasted in the short-run, due to problematic implementation. One of the clearest benefits gained from privatization was an improvement of fiscal accounts. This occurred not only through the sale itself, but also elimination of the expenses of running an enterprise that may not have been making a profit. Argentina did make hundreds of millions of dollars selling various SOEs in the 1990s, the highest revenue generated from privatizations in the 1990s, second only to Brazil.3 This large profit would have had a significant impact on fiscal accounts if it had not been for the deficit spending and corruption.

Another significant benefit gained from privatization is an increase in efficiency. With some exceptions, it is generally agreed upon that privatization has a positive impact on quality, availability, and sometimes even price of products.4 In Argentina in the 1990s, investment in the privatized industries increased 350% and experienced “substantial increases in their profitability and operating efficiency.”5 Increases in output as well as an introduction of more modern management practices are also observed.

However, the privatizations of the 1990s are viewed today with little focus on the positive outcomes. This is because the privatization process, that in theory yields many benefits, was implemented fraught with corruption and with few regulations put in place to prevent ownership concentration or to provide for consumer protection.6 Privatization is just one of the many examples of a theoretically beneficial

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policy that was subject to problematic implementation in Argentina in the 1990s.

One way in which the Menem administration tarnished the reputation of the privatization process and harmed its economic outcome was through corruption. The bidding process was highly political and unregulated. According to Ariceta, international bidders “lobbied the decision-makers heavily and used their already enormous power to set contracts on favorable terms.”7 In this way, the politicians benefited from implementing the privatizations on terms that were harmful to the consumer.

These terms of implementation resulted in a lack of regulations concerning ownership concentration and consumer protection. Ownership concentration led to the emergence of monopolies, which defeated the free-market benefit of reduced prices that should accompany properly implemented privatization. The sale of these enterprises also contained few consumer protection regulations, which in some cases reduced the benefit of improved quality of services. For example, if no post-privatization regulation of certain service industries was put in place, complaints of service cuts in rural areas arose. Another regulatory shortcoming was the lack of incentives put in place to sustain linkages with local suppliers, resulting in increased importation and rising unemployment. This lack of regulations during the privatization process led to “a situation in which the significant productivity increases in most privatized activities were not fully transferred to the consumers but rather augmented the privatized firms’ profits.”8 The chart below displays that this was popular opinion as well; people generally viewed privatization as a positive economic choice, but not one carried out effectively by the Menem administration.9 During the 1990s, free-market, neo-liberal policies were gaining popularity throughout the world. Just as powerful international economic organizations supported privatization, actors like the United States and IMF also supported liberalization of trade. A long history of protectionism and Import Substitution Industrialization made the liberalization policies of the 1990s a significant divergence from familiar trade policies. The average tariff rate was reduced from 45 percent to 9.2 percent.10 A successive round of tariff reductions eventually led to rates of 0 percent for raw materials, 11 percent for intermediate inputs, and 22 percent for manufactured final goods.11 Trade Liberalization policies continued with the creation of MERCOSUR (the Southern Common Market), which implemented even freer

trade, through tariff reductions, among the four member countries as well as created a common external tariff.

Trade liberalization led to many benefits for the Argentine economy, including greater investment and access to raw materials and physical capital, an increase in quality of goods available, and a decrease in price for consumers. Because tariffs on imported machinery and equipment were lowered, producers could now afford to invest in this capital, leading to greater efficiency, which ultimately benefited the consumer. As Chudnovsky puts it, “the easy access to imported [goods] favored investment and facilitated productivity gains in most sectors of the economy.”12 The greater availability of imports also benefited the consumer directly, both in terms of price and quality of goods. Not only did they gain access to highquality imports for lower prices, but the flow of imports “forced domestic producers to compete in the local markets by launching new products and production processes and increasing productivity.”13 Though there were many economic benefits to trade liberalization, the situation was not without problems. But just as privatization was a theoretically positive policy that was implemented poorly by Menem, trade liberalization too could have been implemented more effectively. More effective implementation would have limited the problems that domestic industries faced and enabled the country to more holistically reap the benefits of freer trade. Because the price of imports were lowered, domestic industries struggled to compete which led to domestic failures, growing unemployment, and an unfavorable balance of trade. The Menem administration put in place few effective policies to encourage productivity growth or strengthen competitiveness. The dominant opinion and, according to Agosín et al., “the main findings are that structural transformation has been scarce in Argentina, resulting in relatively low levels of sophistication of exports and specialization in activities that offer…little scope for technological catch-up to the world frontier.”14 Had more effective restructuring programs been put in place, the effect of trade liberalization may have been more positive for the Argentine economy. However, policies that would dedicate resources to aid domestic industries were associated with protectionism and the liberalization program “was thought to be incompatible with any kind of “old-style industrial policy,” leading to hardships for domestic industries.15 This mentality underscores the idea that many of the economic policies enacted in Argentina in both the 1990s and 2000s

Many of the economic policies enacted in Argentina in both the 1990s and 2000s are policy products of political retaliation, not what is best for the economy as a whole.

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are policy products of political retaliation, not what is best for the economy as a whole.

Another reform that was enacted in the 1990s was deregulation. Industry deregulation occurred in the oil, agriculture, fishing, mining, electricity and gas, retail and more. Deregulation came in another form, as legal barriers that formerly had hindered Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) were removed. Foreign Direct Investment is the process of ownership of assets by a foreign entity. As a result of deregulation, FDI operations no longer required any registration, approval, or formal procedures.

Deregulation of FDI operations proved to be very beneficial. Over US $76 billion flowed into the country and Argentina was cited as “one of the main destinations for FDI inflows in the developing world in the 1990s.”16 Foreign Direct Investment can lead to higher quality products and services. The oil, chemical, automobile, and food and beverage sectors benefited most from the increase in investment.

What occurred in 2001 was a confluence of economic variables that resulted in a devastating crisis for the Argentine economy. An explanation of the causes and details of the crisis is complex, complicated and controversial. While the manner of implementation of many of these policies did in fact contribute to economic decline, so too did their specific combinations (such as convertibility simultaneous with trade liberalization), very high deficit spending by the Menem administration, and external and international variables as well. However, since the crisis, liberalization policies of the 1990s have largely been blamed for causing the pain of 2001.

Politicians have taken advantage of popular anger and have used the political opportunity to enact a myriad of counter-reforms that completely reverse the fundamentally sound economic policies of the 1990s. The election of Nestor Kirchner in 2003, and his wife Cristina in 2007, reveal support for Peronist objectives that not only reverse the policies of the 1990s, but also support a culture of blame and ‘anti-neo-liberalism.’ Unfortunately, “financial liberalization…would have helped Argentina escape from [economic hardships], however, since 2002, a backlash against Argentina’s financial liberalization has occurred, with... market unfriendly interventions in financial and goods markets.”19 Some of the most significant retaliatory policies include a return to protectionism and “disengagement” from the international community, as well as nationalization and renationalization of enterprises- all of this paired with continued deficit spending.

The trade liberalization policies of the 1990s in Argentina resulted in some suffering of domestic industry due to lack of aid in structural transformation. However, the policy had a positive effect on price and quality of goods for the consumers as well as capital investment opportunities for businesses. Instead of continuing this fundamentally positive practice and including measures to address the shortcomings of its prior implementation, such as resources dedicated to structural transformation, the Kirchner government has harnessed political hatred for neo-liberal policies and reverted to protectionism and “disengagement”.

Though the 2000s have not seen the extreme tariff rates of earlier Argentine history, the rates have been raised since the liberalization of the 1990s. From under 10 percent in the 90s, the average tariff rate was raised to 14 percent in 2007. This increase in import tariffs is considered “one of the largest hindrances to economic growth” for Argentina as it raises prices for consumers, and encourages inefficient and non-competitive domestic industries.20 An assessment of Argentina’s trade freedom claims that “import and export controls, tariff escalation, import and export taxes, reference pricing, burdensome regulations, restrictive sanitary rules, subsidies, and issues involving the enforcement and protection of intellectual property rights add to the cost of trade.”21 Along with the implementation of export taxes and protectionist positions in discussions concerning the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) and MERCOSUR actions, the 2000s mark a reversal in the path to freer trade.

These trade policy reforms as a whole signal a turn away from “engagement” with the world economy. Agosín et al. refer to engagement as facilitating and encouraging FDI, trade, capital goods imports from technologically advanced countries, and quality of communication infrastructure.22 These actions are associated and can be achieved through the trade liberalization and encouragement of FDI that were achieved in the 1990s because “inward flows of foreign technological [knowledge, goods, and capital] are an increasing source of domestic productivity growth.”23 Instead, the “disengagement” that is being implemented in the 2000s could result in a collapse of research intensity and divergence from world total factor productivity (TPF).

The 2000s mark a strong backlash against the trade policies of the 1990s through increased import tariffs, the implementation of export taxes and increasing “disengagement” with the world economy. Not only does this “inconsistency of domestic trade policy contribute significantly to insufficient structural transformations” and make adjustment of the labor force and domestic industry

Had more effective restructuring programs been put in place, the effect of trade liberalization may have been more positive for the Argentine economy.

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volatile, but these counter-reforms and return to the old protectionist policies reverses the progress that was and can be made through trade liberalization.24 Another policy of the 1990s that is targeted by the Kirchners and Peronists as a cause of the economic crisis and the population’s suffering is the wave of privatizations

by President Menem. Though the privatizations improved fiscal accounts, increased efficiency, and in many cases improved quality and price of service, they were implemented with a variety of issues concerning corruption and lack of regulations. Instead of implementing regulations among the private sector in order to address the shortcomings of this theoretically sound practice, the Kirchners have taken political advantage of the anti-Menem mentality and begun a process of nationalization among various Argentine enterprises.

Some of the industries that have been nationalized or re-nationalized since 2001 include water, postal service, train, overseas radio (Thales Espectrum) and Aerolineas Argentina. Unlike the increased cost-effectiveness of privatized industry, these nationalized enterprises relay heavy costs onto the fiscal accounts. Aerolineas Argentina alone has a debt of $890 million and could be losing up to $1 million a day, not including “$14 million in back salaries, unpaid bills for fuel, rental fees for airplanes, and replacement parts.”25 In 2008, President Kirchner also nationalized pension funds, which was claimed to increase social security for the working Argentine, however this money is being used to service debt and public spending.

The 2000s have brought about a complete reversal in economic policy following 2001 as politicians take advantage of the pain of the crisis. Instead of continuing effective policies while addressing their implementation problems and the over-spending of the Menem administration, these politicians feed an anti-neo-liberal, anti-Menem culture

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in order to maintain power. Along with ineffective policy backlashes, these politicians also continue deficit spending in their process of political pandering. Financing social programs, funding tax cuts and financing the nationalized industries are just some ways that the government is growing its deficit. While these are not all undeserving initiatives, the counter-reform policies of the 2000s have not brought sufficient growth to finance these endeavors. According to the Economy Ministry, in just the first ten months of this year the government has posted a deficit of $1.73 billion, with an agricultural tax cut that will widen the deficit to 1% of GDP in 2010, an increase of .2% this year.26 The economic policies enacted in the 1990s, including privatizations, trade liberalization and deregulation are theoretically sound economic practices whose poor implementation (fraught with corruption, lack of regulation and poor structural transformation), along with various external economic factors and significant fiscal deficits, led to a severe economic crisis for Argentina in 2001. Instead of continuing these liberalization policies that had encouraged growth in the 1990s, while addressing their shortcomings in implementation, politicians of the 2000s have harnessed the pain of the economic crisis in order to gain political support. This political support has manifested itself in backlash policies such as increased protectionism and “disengagement,” nationalization, as well as a continuation of deficit spending. These policies do not comprise sound economic practices so much as they reveal the overly political nature of Argentine economic policy.

Courtney Cauthen is a student at Gallatin, graduating in 2011. She is from Annapolis, Maryland and is studying Public Policy and Economic Policy.

Andean Cemeteries on the Hills of Argentina

Jordan Lee Schnee Boston, MA • Gallatin • 2013 Transmission

This series, shot in Argentina’s northwestern province of Salta, explores the Andean concept of the hilltop cemetery. Argentina is a catholic country, yet here in the North, Andean culture remains prevalent. Before the arrival of Christianity to South America, the people here worshiped the mountains and the earth. They buried their dead on hilltops above their already high-altitude settlements, thus bringing them closer to the holy mountains. The location of the cemeteries and the burial practices therein are a triumphant assertion of the old culture, one decidedly un-Christian. Colorful flowers and offerings of wine and food abound and the dead are often laid to rest in above-ground houses or mounds. The Salta hilltop cemetery is an assertion of native culture’s power to hold out against, or blend itself with, imperial colonialism.

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TRAVEL

How to Get to Tofo Rudyard Moats For the first month you are wary of people on the street.

You wave them away when they show you tattooed cloths and crooked ebony sculptures. You don’t meander through the puddle filled slums or venture too far from the cracked, upturned sidewalks between the hostel and the restaurant with the great egg sandwiches. You carry a blue pack of cigarettes. It doesn’t matter when people ask for those since they only cost a dollar a pack. You bundle your clothes under the creaky bottom slats of the third bunk in the second room in the best hostel within the Maputo city limits and you say hello to every backpacker, tourist, student, and European family that comes into the common room to watch the French news in English. They tell you about Tofo, the long white beach there, and the whales that “glide, just glide by like you weren’t even there. Incredible things!” they say with an exhale of your smokes and a slow swoop of a hand.

And everyday more come. They come in the dusk and they leave before dawn. They don’t stay for the city; they’re just passing through, just heading up the coast to Tofo for a week and speeding back down. You hear them every morning, catching the 6:00am shuttle with a ruckus. After they zip up their last black backpack with the jingling tassels, you sometimes manage to fall back to sleep for an hour before you have to wake, shower, and iron your same light brown suit for work. You wait on the overgrown corner for the beat up grey Volvo carrying Lucilia and her kids who stare at you shyly until she tells them to “Be nice and say hello to our friend!” The office is bright and you stare at the screen of a too-slow, old Acer that hums and clicks until it accepts what you write. Your eyelids hover closed.

Then one day while typing you hear from Aly and Sadya that they’re taking a trip and they’ll be gone for a week. So you sit silently still and consider your task and how useful you’d be if you were there by yourself... “You certainly can, but be back by Monday,” says your boss.

You take the packed-up, top-heavy Tofo shuttle out of the diesel veil of Maputo’s dawn, past muddy alleys lined with rusted, tin-topped shacks and barefooted children ambling alone down streams of plastic waste. Men in suits

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and carefully cleaned hats wait for crowded chapas, as dreadlocked women awaken to flap woolen sheets out the cinder block frames of homes that were never finished. You jet past derelict villas surrounded by crumbling barbed wire fences, their soot-stained Portuguese tiles in a suspended tumble through the collapsed roofs’ holes. It’s a bumpy ride on the edge of the road so the driver rides the dividing line, swerving to the left to avoid the oncoming trucks loaded up and covered with grey, cloth tarps that flap loudly as they pass.

On the drive you doze uneasily, leaning forward against your pack. The road cuts down red clay cliffs, black birds circling the vined trees crowning it, onto the broad floodplain spread out before Xai-Xai where new aluminum powerlines skip over the waving purplish white tipped maize.

Boys drive dusty mules along the irrigation ditch and far away a man, dark as the earth he works, heaves a hoe. The road rises over the plain and crosses a reed-banked river.

Your minibus stops at impromptu roadside markets where turbaned women surround you with ice cream bananas and tough-skinned tangerines offering a bundle for ‘vinche,’ but they’ll take ‘dez’ if you hold it up to them by mistake. There are boys too, with cans of Coca-Cola and purple Fanta beaded with cold melted ice.

The woman sitting next to you holds a baby and it tugs at your shirt in its sleep, she apologizes and pulls it out of his clasped, chubby hand. Xai-Xai passes, a whirl of Vodacom blue, Coca-Cola red, Mcel Yellow, and the pale taupe of the store fronts which didn’t get paid to be painted. Out in the country again the road curls up past shaded huts of palm thatch. Every fifty kilometers or so the bus slows and eases onto the shoulder, ambling past heavy yellow machinery and shoveling, hard-hat-wearing workers; their Chinese foremen pointing and checking clipboards. You crest a hill in Quissico and you glimpse the tropical blue sea surrounding a jungled peninsula, “two hours to go,” the girl ahead shrugs.

The woman sitting next to you has handed her baby back to the man she got on with and now leans forward quietly coughing into a dark scarf. She raises her head to catch her

breath and you notice a deep wet shine on the cloth.

The bus stops for gas at a Petromac and you sorely clamber out the windows or, if you can, the luggage filled aisle. The store looks empty even though it’s fully stocked, the shelves adrift on the shined, white linoleum floor. You buy a bottle of water and a bag of potato chips for lunch then walk to the bathroom on the other side of the building.

You wait a bit, standing in a shallow puddle of water (you hope), watching a maroon chicken cluck its way through some overgrown ruin, shattered concrete exposing rusted rebar. The bathroom’s no worse than a West Virginian rest stop on I-64, cleaner even, ‘cause you can’t understand all the scrawled notes on the wall. You still haven’t decided whether it’s rude to flush and waste water so you walk out the door and bum a light from an Irish guy smoking with his mates on the edge of the parking lot. He’s got a scuba job lined up for him in Tofo, “not a bad gig at all”, you smile.

“Pays for the stay,” he grins. Back on the minibus you roll on, Phil Collins blasting out the speaker strapped to the ceiling over the driver. The road breaks from the hills and the view opens up to a wide bay. Black husks of dead trees break the rippling azure sea. You pass a South African family posing in front of the blue-skied seascape, their white SUV and fishing boat drawn along the road.

You stop in Inharrime and the woman sitting next to you gets off followed by her husband clutching the baby. Bags of produce and toilet paper are unloaded too. Before you can stretch into the newly opened space next to you a man boards with a cooler of cheese and a t-shirt that reads “Mozambique: Land of Nice People”.

He’s a bartender in Tofo, “Two hours more,” he assures you.

The Irish guy in front of you peels the tangerine he just bought and the smell fills the bus. He offers you one and you oblige- sweeter than you were ready for, but so good all the same. Inhambane arrives, all chipped plaster and broken sidewalks. A couple of tourists haggle outside the Mercado Central and a Mozambican man in a black beanie swings out the back window when you stop. His neighbor hands him his bag with a laugh and the bus pushes on. Twenty minutes further and you stop for more gas. The ATM shows a frowning red face and the policeman holding an AK47 by

the barrel shrugs.

“Não trabalho?” You ask.

“Não.”

You climb back on for the last ten minute leg to Tofo.

You check in, chuck your backpack on a bunk and stride out to the hotel bar. Nothing left to do but order a beer, some prawns, and watch the waves crash on the white sanded shore.

The food hits your stomach and the beer warms your neck. You take out a cigarette. You decide you would rather breathe the air and put it away. You doze on the sand and wake to a growing dusk and a lone, distant figure treading the wet sand under a bruised sky. The shadows and slanted sunlight project onto massing thunderheads a mile tall as they roll on like Alexander’s cavalry on Darius. The man trudges on, halting to rearrange his bundle- driftwood, as worn as his hands. There is some strength to him though, forcing himself on, step by staggered step- not arriving anywhere too soon, just skirting that foaming sea, unfathomed in it’s reach, as the inverted sky strikes down through black inked canyons, concealing squids and whales and the gnashing teeth of sharks in the darkness. He has a hat, white once, but

The bathroom’s no worse than a West Virginian rest stop on I-64, cleaner even, ‘cause you can’t understand all the scrawled notes on the wall. now worn to grey and flapping against his face. His red shirt is wet, plastered to his sinewy chest, his shorts sagging low.

The sun has all but passed him now, roaming on behind the long arc of the bay. He won’t be home for another hour and the tide is coming in, but when the waves cease crashing and the wind opens up you hear a faint, whistled song, skipping along the shore.

Rudyard Moats is a student at Gallatin, graduating in 2010. He is from Atlanta, Georgia and is studying International Relations and Development.

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The Other Side of Vakpo

Shimrit Lee Jacksonville, FL • Gallatin • 2011 Gender in Conflict & Transitional Justice

In a satirical article entitled “How to Write About Africa,” Kenyan author Binyavanga Wainaina writes that Africa should only be depicted as being “pitied, worshipped or dominated”. Two summers ago, I had the opportunity to spend seven weeks in the Volta region of Ghana. Through the lens of my camera I attempted to depict a different side of Africa. My photos illustrate the vitality, character, and rich culture of every day life in the village of Vakpo New-Adomi. The cover of this year’s journal is from this photo essay.

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LANGUAGE

The Struggle Against Internal Colonialism: The Linguistic Subjugation of Algerian Berbers Under Postcolonial Arabisation since 1962 Sarah Zapiler Decolonization is the dynamic process that transforms the colonized identity, of both the nation and the individual, into the independent identity. As a result of the stifling oppression of colonialism, there is a tendency for the agents of decolonization to reject, as forcefully as possible, their colonial past. In the context of the language policy of Arabisation in postcolonial Algeria, this forceful rejection took the form of internal colonialism. During the French colonization of Algeria, the French language became a tool used to repress the colonial subject. Independence, however, did not end linguistic oppression. Instead, the language policy developed during the struggle for independence and post-independence has resulted in the continued subjugation of Algeria’s largest minority: the Berbers.

Algeria had an indigenous population of nomadic people called Berbers,1 who fell under Arab control in the middle ages. During the 7th century Arab conquest of Northern Africa, both Islam and Arabic came to Algeria.

Several hundred years later, the second French colonial empire began with the colonization of Algeria. The policy governing the French colonization of Algeria was one of assimilation. Essentially, the French focused the colonizing effort on bringing French culture and language to the colony.

Faced with independence, Algeria responded with the policy of Arabisation in which there was a “replacement of French

by Arabic in all walks of life,” including culturally and linguistically. Arabisation, and in particular the associated linguistic revolution, has been “systematic and assertive in Algeria.” 2 In fact, as Djite writes, “Nowhere else in Africa has the language issue been so central in the fight against colonialism [as in Algeria].”3 It is for these reasons, France’s assimilationist approach and the acute linguistic backlash in the form of Arabisation, that the Algerian experience typifies the phenomenon of postcolonial policy as an extension of colonial principles. The linguistic make-up of Algeria prior to French colonial occupation was quite diverse, with the largest portions of the country speaking either Arabic or Berber.4 Arabisation largely ignored the Berber community in the wake of independence. In fact, the principle and

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application of language policy under Arabisation paralleled French colonial policy and has effectively continued the subjugation of Algerian Berbers.

While the initial military invasion on Algeria by French forces came in 1830, the attack on Algeria would continue for 132 years. That attack, part of the French mission civilisatrice, was the beginning of the second French colonial empire. While the application of the mission civilisatrice principle assumed different forms in different countries, the overall policy was essentially assimilationist.5 Raymond Betts (1961) explains that the goal of French assimilationist policy was to make the colony “part of the mother country, with its society and population made over – to whatever extent possible – in her image.” 6 While not every French colonial venture was viewed as assimilatory in nature, “Algeria was recognized as a special case.” The French National Congress of 1889-90 deemed Algeria une terre française and asserted that the goal of the colonizing effort was “to inspire French sentiments among the natives, to favor French colonization by all possible means, to assimilate to the European foreigners.” 7 The French colonizers saw language as both a means and an end to assimilation and the complete colonization of Algeria. In 1900, the Indigenous Education Bulletin8 stated: “French marches with our soldiers and when they have won it will assure and consolidate the results of that victory because language remains the surest instrument of colonization.” 9 In particular, the primacy of French language became embedded in the education system. Essentially, this amounted to the marginalization and delegitimization of the indigenous languages in Algeria.

Prior to colonization, Algerian education was done in Classical Arabic, the language of Islam. While the vast majority of the Algerian education infrastructure had collapsed before the turn of the 20th century, a law passed in 1905 separating Church and State became the legal justification for the destruction of its remnants.

Education in Algeria was inextricably tied to religion both

ideologically in terms of curriculum and corporeally since education had never been within the purview of the central Algerian authorities and instead depended on mosques.10 Secular French schools systematically replaced Algerian ones, providing French-only instruction and, in some cases, Arabic as a second language. Whether retained in some instructional capacity or not, Arabic was effectively regarded as inferior to French in every way. Philosopher Jacques Derrida, who was born and completed his primary education in colonial Algeria, said, “The optional study of Arabic remained, of course. We knew it was allowed, which meant anything but encouraged.”11 The French taught Algerians that the French language was not just a tool for rational thought, but also its source.

While living under the hegemonic linguistic pressures of French colonialism, the Arabic community did not uniformly accept the marginalization of its language.

Many Arab Algerians were skeptical of the French insistence on secular French language instruction and decided to abstain from it, choosing not to send their children to school at all and preferring that “their children remain illiterate rather than lose their faith.” 12 This played into an apparent contradiction in the French assimilation policy. While bringing French language (and ostensibly with it the capacity for thought and reason) was the stated goal, there was at the same time a suspicion with regards to educating the Algerian population.

Despite the effort to subvert the Algerian consciousness, there were active rejections of the language policy in Algerian political movements. One such outspoken anticolonial group, the Association of the Algerian Muslim Ulemas (AOMA), called for the end of assimilation policy and an independent Algerian nation whose nationhood was respected: “This nation has its own history, illustrated by many great deeds. She has her linguistic and religious unity.”

13 The rejection of French colonialism, therefore, became an affirmation of the Arabic language as a source of identity.

While the AOMA was not the only anti-colonial party, they all sought a decolonized Algeria centered around “the defense and maintenance of Arabic as the language of the people.”14 This revolutionary mentality completely ignored the linguistic and cultural reality within Algeria, specifically the nearly 20 million Berbers who had also fallen victim to French colonization. It was this exclusionary view that was the impetus for Arabisation in post-independence policy.

After gaining independence in 1962, Algeria began the process of Arabisation. Arabisation was designed to

supplant the French language and culture with the Arabic language and Arabo-Islamic culture.15 These two goals were deeply entwined, making the centrality of language in the revolutionary movement difficult to overstate. Just months before gaining official independence, the National Liberation Front (FLN) drafted the Tripoli Programme.

The Tripoli Programme, “specifically concerned with the shape of post-independence Algeria,”16 declared that the primary goal of the revolution was “to restore to Arabic – the very expression of the cultural values of our country – its dignity and its efficacy as a language of civilization.”17 Upon achieving independence, the emphasis of the Arabic language was written into article five of the constitution: “Arabic is the national and official language of the state.” 18 While there was a pervasive view that “the removal of French [was] essential to the achievement of ‘autonomy’ and dynamism in the intellectual and cultural spheres in the postcolonial state,” the intended suppletion of French by Arabic was, in reality, just an echoing of the same policy.19 First, Arabisation followed the colonial model of a “linguistically homogenous nationstate,” which came out of the spread of French during the French 20 Revolution. Prior to the French Revolution, a “systematic policy of eradicating dialects and regional languages” in favor of linguistic hegemony was not seen as necessary for a politically unified region.21 Arabisation accepted the notion of a nation as unified by one language, and as a result employed the same category of systematic policy with, in many ways, the same model of implementation.

In the same way that the French language was declared an important part of colonization, Arabic was embedded in what can be seen collectively as the independence documents (the Constitution and the Tripoli Programme) as the source of independence. Propelled by the belief that to use the language of the colonizer would be tantamount to accepting colonization, Arabisation advocated the replacement of French with Arabic in every way. As the French colonizers used the education system to ensure French would take hold of the Algerian community, Arabisation also centered on the schools. The substitution of Arabic for French, however, was even more zealous than the original French policy.

While efforts had been made since the moment of independence to make Arabic the language of education, the period between 1970 and 1977 became particularly important. First, the Ministry of Education was split into three separate ministries. The Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education continued the step-by-step process

In an effort to assert a post-colonial identity, Algeria assumed the colonial paradigm of linguistic hegemony and control as necessary for the formation of a nation-state.

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of replacing French with Arabic one grade level at a time.

The Ministry of Higher Education Arabized literature, philosophy, history, geography and sociology Bachelor of Arts degrees.22 In addition, twenty new Islamic schools were opened under the aegis of the Ministry of Islamic Education. 23 Throughout this period, Berber was either suppressed or completely ignored by policy makers. The teaching of Berber language and culture was banned at the University of Algiers in 1973 while the 1976 National Charter, which reaffirmed Arabic monolingualism and the status of French as a foreign language, failed to acknowledge Berber at all. The 1986 National Charter went further and said, “The Arabic language is an essential constituent part of the cultural identity of the Algerian people.”24 With this assertion, Arabic was equated with Algerian nationalism and identity such that its exclusive use became part and parcel of asserting post-colonial independence.

The language policy of Arabisation embodied “the passion for the assertion of a separate identity,” one distinct from a colonial identity in every way. However, it has been unable to free Algeria from colonial paradigms. If French assimilationist policy was “a Jacobean centralist hegemonic model” whose aim was a “linguistically and culturally homogenous Algeria,” so too was Arabisation.25 This colonial model was not solely an implicit component of Arabisation; Algerian officials have admitted to modeling Arabisationist legislation off of French linguistic legislation.26 While Arabisation’s stated goal was the rejection of everything French, its implementation was hardly able to achieve that. In an effort to assert a post-colonial identity, Algeria assumed the colonial paradigm of linguistic hegemony and control to be necessary for the formation of a nation-state.

As a result, the Berber community within her borders has been forced to continue living beneath a colonial apparatus, albeit with a new name.

This is seen most clearly in the reference made by the Berber opposition party (FFS) within the 1979 “Political Platform Pre-Project” to “internal colonialism.”27 The Berbers have become outspoken and often violent in an attempt to fight this internal colonialism. Just months after this declaration, a series of student and worker riots for Berber rights were followed by police crackdowns in which

1963-1964. Resistance to the formation of a postcolonial Algeria began, in fact, immediately after independence, with the majority of the Berber population boycotting the election of anti-Berber president Ben Bella. It was not until the Berber Spring, however, that any concessions were made to the Berber community. Berbers have still been unable to influence the government enough to achieve two of their main goals: to have Berber recognized as an official language of Algeria and to have it legitimized within the education system.28 The question of linguistic rights, and in particular language-in-education policy, is one that has become more significant in the field of Human Rights as the urgency of language loss has become more understood. With 96% of the languages in the world being spoken by only 4% of the population, the risk that minority languages29 will disappear is growing.30 The question inherently arises: why save or promote minority languages? While there are many justifications for preserving linguistic tradition,31 within the Algerian context it is the connection between language and culture that must be the motivating force for realizing Berber linguistic rights. As Salhi (2002) explained, “Language is involved in the totality of the culture of a society and its people… It can therefore be said that every language is the complete expression of the life or as is very often said, ‘the soul’ of a people.” 32 The French assimilationist policy was meant to rid Algeria of her culture; it was against this force that the Algerian Independence fought. The actualization of language policy after independence, however, has subjugated the language, and through it the culture, of the Berber population.

Within Arabisation is a realization of Franz Fanon’s assertion that, “The colonized subject is a persecuted man who is forever dreaming of becoming the persecutor.” 33 The weight of years under colonization incites the colonized to assert the control they have been denied and to assume the role that the colonizer has held. While Fanon deals extensively with the role of the colonizer as the perpetrator of violence, and decolonization therefore necessitating violence, it is not difficult to extend this to the language planning situation in Algeria. Since the French made the role of language planning central to the colonizing effort, it is understandable that Algerian decolonization would need to reconcile the issue of language.

Independence for Algeria, however, has proved to be a recolonization under the aegis of Arabisation.

As the violence to which Fanon refers is a natural and fecund response to colonial violence, language planning has the potential to bring Algeria out from colonization into a new, independent identity. In Fanon’s assessment, violence by the colonized is first directed “against his fellow countryman” and only after that “against colonialism” itself. Language policy in Algeria has, so far, been patterned off the French

The absolute rejection of a colonial past, however, is unable to completely decolonize the colonized.

50 Berbers were killed and hundreds injured. These became known collectively as the Berber Spring. The Berber Spring came at the precipice of a collective consciousness that had been growing since the failed Berber armed resistance from

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model such that the Berber community has been denied their linguistic and cultural rights in the same way that Arab Algerians saw their rights disregarded under the French colonial system. In this linguistic incursion on Algerian Berbers, Arab Algerians “endeavor to convince [themselves] that colonialism has never existed.”34 The absolute rejection of a colonial past, however, will not be able to completely decolonize the colonized.

The desire to erase the colonial past leading to a regressive, colonized independence is by no means a phenomenon unique to Algeria.35 Across the globe, colonized peoples have desired to assert their identity after achieving independence and have been inhibited in part by the colonial apparatus that came before. A quintessential example is the Negritude movement which arose from the decolonized Caribbean. Like Negritude was a “construction of blackness as a sign of the colonized condition and its refusal,” 36 the Arabisation revolution intended to reject the hegemony of French colonialism. In both cases, however, there was an

implicit acceptance of colonial constructions of identity: the negritude movement accepted “blackness” of the individual while Arabisation accepted “monolithiclingualism” of the nation.37 As a result, Arabisation acted as a hegemonic and imperialistic force, denying the Algerian Berbers their right to culture.

Instead, the act of decolonization, viewed rightly as a dynamic process, must reconcile with the colonial past in order for the colonized to emerge with collective and individual identities distinct from those that were constructed for them by the colonizer. In the context of Algeria, that is only possible if there is an end to the language policy of Arabisation and in its place an embrace of the rich history of sociolinguistic pluralism within Algeria.

Sarah Zapiler is a student at Gallatin, graduating in 2011. She is from Denver, Colorado and is studying Linguistics and Language Philosophy.

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POLITICS

POLITICS

Cote D’Ivoire Conflict: Authoritarianism, Ethnic Clash, and Resource Mismanagement Ben Chadwick Cote D’Ivoire, a small nation-state along the western coast of Africa, has transitioned from a prospering cocoaexporting state to an ethnically divided state in a short period of time following independence in 1960. Under successful, yet autonomous leadership by Felix Houphouët-Boigny and the Democratic Party of Cote D’Ivoire (PDCI), Cote D’Ivoire became one of the most successful post-colonial states in western Africa relying predominately on the Cocao industry for state revenue.1 The PDCI successfully funded their single-party system through exporting over 26% of the world’s cocoa and compiled a massive stronghold over the economic and political platforms in the Cote D’Ivoire for nearly 30 years. However, with declining economic conditions in the 1980’s and political instability with the death of Houphouët-Boigny in 1993, the conditions began to spiral downward for the autocratic government. After Henri Konan Bedie assured power in the PDCI, the government emphasized “Ivorianness” to attempt to unify native Ivorians against political opposition parties and salvage PDCI’s economic control over the country.2 Beginning in 2002, Cote D’Ivoire’s political instability heightened ethnic division within the country, leaving rebel forces, comprised primarily of immigrants and Muslims in the north, and government forces, supported by native Ivorians in the south, in constant disagreement.3 Since independence, Cote D’Ivoire’s autocratic leaders have manipulated the population against one another, forming a national movement of southern Christians against foreigners and Muslims. With unstable economic conditions, the government is unable to install order due to a lack of revenue; the cocoa industry that once kept the Cote D’Ivoire stable has come back to haunt the small heterogeneous state. In order to resolve the conflict in this highly heterogeneous state, Cote D’Ivoire’s currently single-party regime under Laurent Gbagbo needs to drastically decentralize it’s powers, open the door to political opposition groups, and most importantly, create a more diverse, transparent economy.4 Before looking at Cote D’Ivoire’s present day crisis, it is important to look at the historical roots of the conflict. With

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European interest in colonization increasing, France began to thoroughly explore the interior of Cote D’Ivoire in 1887.

By 1893, Cote D’Ivoire was officially declared a French colony with Louis Binger appointed governor. In order to suppress the native population and fully benefit from the colony, France designated Gabriel Angoulvant as governor in 1906 and began to forcefully rule Cote D’Ivoire through direct rule.5 The previous local elites in Cote D’Ivoire had been degraded, and the French appointed random subjects to local ruling positions in order to eliminate cultural structure. By regulating a new elite class, France focused on educating and granting French citizenship to these newly selected leaders.6 Due to their location in southeastern Cote D’Ivoire, the Baoule were often placed in this newly formed elite class, continuing to benefit from French colonial rule. France hoped to appear bipartisan on the exterior by educating Ivorians, but in reality, the French eliminated the formation of a civil society and prevented a potential resistance movement with a controlled elite (mostly Baoule) class in place.7 As World War II came to an end, western African colonies began to transition towards independence.

After the Brazzaville Conference in 1944 recommended both French and Africans should be allowed to vote and participate in the upcoming African Delegate Assembly to be held in Paris, Cote D’Ivoire held its first elections open to everyone placing Felix Houphouët-Boigny (a Baoule) from the Democratic Party of Cote D’Ivoire (PDCI) as Cote D’Ivoire’s African delegate.8 With relative success at the African Delegate Assembly gaining more political and social rights and with growing Cote D’Ivoire nationalism and increasing political strength under the PDCI, France began to liberalize and slowly hand over power to Houphouët-Boigny and his educated elite Baoule bourgeoisie. Because of the Baoule’s privileged existence in the southern region of the country during colonialism, France was blindly aiding the establishment of a single-party state. As Houphouët-Boigny worked to gain independence from France, he manipulated his political circle to benefit

Baoule, setting up a similar hierarchical political system to colonial administration. Cote D’Ivoire established its first constitution in 1960 with “legitimate” political regulation and formed a National Assembly to supposedly balance powers, officially declaring its independence from France.9 With a strong economy in place from French control and a seemingly just constitution, Cote D’Ivoire appeared to be a model for other post-colonial states. Cote D’Ivoire was a leading exporter of cocoa and attracted many immigrants from neighboring states in search of labor. Through the booming cocoa industry, however, Houphouët-Boigny and the PDCI began to usurp political control throughout the government and protect a single-party government, similar to the French colonial powers model of control. Despite the seemingly fair and just government in place based on the constitution, the PDCI declared that in order to create a unified country Cote D’Ivoire should sponsor one political party to efficiently manage the state; the PDCI believed that without elections, the government would operate much smoother and effectively keeping the power within the hands of Houphouët-Boigny and the Baoule.10 Cote D’Ivoire’s high level of ethnic fragmentation left the PDCI and Houphouët-Boigny in control of public policies and economic opportunities, allowing for an uncontested autocracy to form completely funded by exploitation of the cocoa exporting industry.11 Felix Houphouët-Boigny leadership “began with a successful ‘instrumentalisation, limited but effective, of the colonial administration’ and a ‘political union of the majority of the parties.’ . . . spurred on by this capacity to manipulate men and institutions, Houphouët-Boigny established de facto authoritarianism by means of systemic resort to repressive laws, banning of opposition parties and many organs of expression.”12 The PDCI and its leadership controlled both the presidency and the National Assembly with no opposition parties to threaten Houphouët-Boigny dictatorship. The military was even manipulated in PDCI’s favor; it was reduced from 5,300 to 3,500 and was predominately Baoule in order to prevent any coup attempts. Houphouët-Boigny’s tight grasp on the cocoa industry and strategic and ethnic favoring allowed him to keep every branch of the government in check and preserve a lasting autonomous government from 1960 until his death in 1993.13 Throughout Felix Houphouët-Boigny’s time as a dictator, Cote D’Ivoire became one of the most economically successful post-colonial states in Africa, despite the hidden corruption. With the cocoa industry flourishing providing over 26% of the world’s cocoa, Cote D’Ivoire relied solely on cash crops as a channel to the global economy.14 The southern region of the country around Abidjan exported the most cocoa, creating

mass immigration and rapid urbanization around the area.

Although Cote D’Ivoire was succeeding economically, there were numerous conflicts between the general population and the autocratic government’s economic policies.

Unfortunately, Abidjan and other southern cities’ booming economies failed to support everyone equally and sparked conflict. The Baoule ethnic group, which created the PDCI, controlled the most fertile land and administrative jobs while other ethnic groups failed to benefit equally; “while they (PDCI) provided relative economic growth in Cote D’Ivoire, these aspects were disproportionately accentuated.”15 With increasing numbers of ethnically diverse Ivorians to urban areas with high expectations, many were left unemployed in urban shantytowns. The cocoa industries failed to provide enough jobs for the ethnically diverse Ivorians in search of labor in the southern region of the country.16 Under Houphouët-Boigny, the Baoule enjoyed rich economic opportunities while, conversely the rest of the state citizens dipped deeper into poverty.17 Another conflict arose between native Ivorians and immigrants from neighboring regions in search of fiscal opportunities. Being one of the most successful economic states in western Africa, Cote D’Ivoire attracted hundreds of thousands of immigrants. The government also supported the influx of cheap labor believing it would help to expand economic opportunities for the country’s cocoa industry. However, in reality, the influx of cheap labor only benefited Houphouët-Boigny and the government’s revenue, leaving many native Ivorians jobless and stricken with ethnic anxiety. The majority of the immigrants were Mossi from the Upper Volta (present day Burkina Faso) and neighboring Ghana.18 With nearly 25% of the population considered foreigners, Cote D’Ivoire became increasingly fractured. Poor immigrants took low-paying jobs on cocoa plantations, leaving native Ivorians with decreasing economic opportunities. Immigrants made up 57.9% of the labor population, leaving millions of native Ivorians unemployed.19 Native Ivorians believed they deserved precedence over foreigners flooding Cote D’Ivoire, and with a growing disparity between native Ivorians and immigrants, Cote D’Ivoire former fluidity began to boil with xenophobic tension.20 As Ivorians dissatisfaction continued to grow, Felix Houphouët-Boigny strengthened PDCI’s power in order to prevent the threat of any potential uprising while at the same time attempted to appear more liberal and democratic.21

Throughout Felix Houphouët-Boigny’s time as a dictator, Cote D’Ivoire became one of the most economically successful post-colonial states in Africa, despite the hidden corruption.

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Houphouët-Boigny protected his political power by strategically and subtly satisfying his Baoule bureaucratic bourgeoisie by granting them high-paying jobs, especially in the cocoa industry, suppressing potential ethnic revolts by appointing ethnically diverse Ivorians to useless government positions, and downsized the military to around 2,000 troops in order to further prevent the threat of a coup.

Publicly, the government also openly encouraged “Ivoirianization” within the economy in order to create more labor opportunities for native Ivorians.22 The government used the large immigrant population as a tool to rally the ethnically diverse Ivorians around the PDCI and a national cause; “ . . . the massive presence in the political sphere of foreigners enabled a scapegoat rhetoric to emerge in a difficult economic situation and channeled resentment towards even poorer people, without challenging the system.”23 Although native Ivorians are comprised of over 60 different ethnic groups, Houphouët-Boigny created a national identity that different ethnic groups could rally around together against Muslims and foreigners.24 As the elites on top of the hierarchical system in place strived to maintained their place at the top and immigrants continued to take low paying jobs, Houphouët-Boigny’s popularity continued to decrease as he further consolidated his power up until the end of his reign in 1993.25 The collapse of the global cocoa market at the end of the 1980s left Cote D’Ivoire in political upheaval. With the expectations of Felix Houphouët-Boigny’s rule coming to end, Cote D’ivoire’s political scene completely collapsed and endured over a decade of instability. Throughout the 1990s, Cote D’Ivoire’s government increased ethnic tension in order to rally Ivorians around a nation identity and eliminate the voice of foreigners demanding equal treatment from the elites in power. As the economic and living situation throughout the country continued to decrease and southern Ivorians continued to hold onto their political power, there was little improvement with peace talks. After a failed French-supported cease-fire agreement in 2003, the United Nations, African Union, and other international players established strict economic sanctions on Cote D’Ivoire in order to halt that country’s cocoa revenue that has for years financially supported the conflict. South African president, Thabo Mbeki, attempted to construct a stable government in Cote D’Ivoire with peace talks between major internal political players, but failed to mediate successfully. The northern and southern regions were both wary to agree to a treaty; the north was fearful they’d fall back into a neglected backwards group and the south refused to liberalize their

single-party government. However, thanks to immense international pressure from the U.N., Guillaume Soro (leader of a rural northern immigrant rebel group, New Forces (NF)) and Laurent Gbagbo (leader of newly formed Baoule political party, Ivorian Patriotic Front (IPF)) met in neighboring Burkina Faso to attempt to construct another peace agreement in the end of 2007. Soro was appointed as the interim Prime Minister while Gbagbo remained president and elections were scheduled for 2008, opening the door for a more democratic state. By September 2008, the military zone separating north and south Cote D’Ivoire was officially eliminated, creating a symbolic unification within the country.26 Although Cote D’Ivoire has been plagued by several different issues including authoritarianism and natural resource mismanagement, ethnicity seems to be the most powerful paradigm constricting the country’s growth and development. Despite the recent improvements in peace discussions between opposition groups, the government distributed identity cards throughout the country prior to the scheduled 2008 elections, attempting to categorize each individual living in Cote D’Ivoire. Labeling citizen’s identities has already delayed the 2008 elections until 2009, and could potentially revive the conflict between immigrants and native Ivorians. Creating permanent ethnic groups among the population provides government documented differences among the population and cements the variations among people living in Cote D’Ivoire. Hopefully, with fair elections in 2009, Cote D’Ivoire can rise above the ethnic and religious differences between the north and south and establish a legitimate, democratic governmental structure.

However, in order to create a sustainable democracy, Cote D’Ivoire needs to commit its government structure to a more open, inclusive system. With recent improvements between NF and IPF leaders’ relationships, it is essential that Cote D’Ivoire establish a legitimate federal government to manage the heterogeneity within the state with free and fair democratic elections. Past and present Ivorian leaders have dramatically manipulated the ethnic divide between native Christian Ivorians, immigrants and Muslims on a national level.27 They have strategically used their association with southern natives to their benefit; as ethnic entrepreneurs, they have usurped total political control and neglected to account for millions of immigrants and Muslims living in Cote D’Ivoire.28 However, the territorial division, which stems from the ethnic division created by the government, can be appropriately governed through federalism.

Federalism, which divides the government up into different

Past and present Ivorian leaders have dramatically manipulated the ethnic divide between native Christian Ivorians, immigrants and Muslims on a national level.

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levels of power between the national and local levels, would help to establish a more fluid democratic state.29 According to political scientist Donald Horowitz, federalism in a heterogeneous state, like Cote D’Ivoire, is the most appropriate solution to ending an ethnic conflict. Horowitz states that federalism helps to establish local politics and provide a legitimate political voice to more citizens. He also believes that federalism creates opportunities for peaceful political relations; diversifying political structures forces interethnic groups to collaborate, which can decrease tension. If the conflict does persist, however, decentralizing power also helps to take the conflict away from the masses and turn it into a village-by-village issue. In a diverse state, federalism opens the door for alternative groups to generate a political voice and eliminate the threat of autonomous rule by one group.

In Cote D’Ivoire, federalism would hopefully create a functioning democracy and restore peace among the divided population. On the national level, federalism would help to decentralizing Laurent Gbagbo and IPF’s single-party control over the state and provide more political opportunities for Muslims and immigrants. Decentralization would help to take power away from the president and provide the National Assembly with a more important role. The National Assembly, which is currently dominated by the IPF, would need to be representative of the various groups from around Cote D’Ivoire through fair and free elections.

On a local level, breaking up the political power in Cote D’Ivoire would allow the different ethnic and religious groups to each govern their specific geographic region accordingly; in the north, Muslims and immigrants would be able to establish local constitutions and laws while in the south, native Christians would be able to maintain their policies locally. Diversification of the national government and the legitimation of local governments would help to downsize the conflict between native Christian Ivorians and Muslims and immigrants that has been highlighted by the autocratic rulers over the past several decades. Allowing groups to flourish locally and govern nationally through a democratically elected national assembly would drastically reduce the ethnic tension and redirect Cote D’Ivoire towards a successful future.30 Beyond reconstructing the political landscape, it is essential that Cote D’Ivoire establish a functioning, transparent economy in order to prosper in the future. With the emergence of third world nation states after World War II, many newly formed governments looked towards

natural resources readily available within their borders to spark economic growth. After living under colonial rule for decades, developing states lacked the economic structure to compete in the global market, therefore making raw resource extraction the easiest and quickest way for states to gain revenue. “In 1970, 80.4 percent of the developing world’s export earning came from primary commodities; by 1993 . . . three-quarters of the states in sub-Saharan Africa and two-thirds of those in Latin America, the Caribbean, North Africa, and the Middle East still depend on primary commodities for at least half of their export income.”31 Post-colonial developing states invested a lot into extracting raw resources without first contemplating the future consequences. Over the past several decades, Cote D’Ivoire has used its massive cocoa export revenue to fund a singleparty dominate government and benefit specific ethnic groups. Mismanaging cocoa production has left Cote D’Ivoire in political chaos and economic collapse, and it is vital for the government to be honest about its cocoa exports as well as invest in diverse domestic markets.

Paul Collier, a leading scholar on the resource curse, analyzes the correlation between natural resources and conflict by looking at the economic and political environments of third world states. Collier defends the idea of the resource curse by using “causal mechanisms, relying primarily upon a mixture of (econometric) theory and case study evidence” breaking down different routes that third world countries take from “natural resource dependence to development problems.”32 Paul Collier attempts to locate potential solution packages for developing states relying on primary commodities.

First, Collier demands that governments use revenue transparency to prevent potential conflict over natural resources. Opening reporting primary commodity export revenue will create an open connection between the state and the general population; detachment will become less of an issue, and it will force governments to avoid behindthe-scenes corruption that is so common in developing authoritarian regimes.

Developing states will be forced to be honest and open about their economic decisions, and hopefully force them to turn primary commodity revenue towards statewide development instead of selfishly holding revenue for personal gain.

Also, revenue transparency will eliminate many secession threats by rebels, according to Collier. “Rebel movements will deliberately attempt to exaggerate the value of natural resource revenues,” strategically working towards

Over the past several decades, Cote D’Ivoire has used its massive cocoa export revenue to fund a single-party dominate government and benefit specific ethnic groups.

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independence; however, revenue transparency will force political players, state or rebels groups, to be honest about their income and often downsize the threat of secession.33 The second solution package that Collier suggests is scrutiny by primarily domestic players, but also international players. He looks at domestic scrutiny as a powerful tool to combat authoritarian governments from neglecting statewide development. Collier states that, “citizens and their representatives are the legitimate beneficiaries of public revenues,” and if the central government is abusing primary commodity revenue then the public has a right to complain.

Beyond revenue transparency, scrutiny demands to know “how natural resource revenues are spent.”34 Collier further states that normally in developing countries authoritarian regimes are far more powerful than, and are often in control of, other government institutions, such as parliaments or court systems. Therefore, scrutiny of the executive branch of government allows direct pressure from the electorate to the elite group or leader in power over primary commodity revenue.35 Thirdly, Collier points to properly tracking commodity exports in order to curtail abuse of natural resource wealth.

Whoever is in control of the primary commodity region or industry, whether it is a dominant single-party government in power or a rebel group vying for power, strategically extorts natural resource revenue to their benefit. Tracking natural resource exports will force factions in control of the industry to be honest and up-front about their revenue, creating a more open market.

The final solution that Collier suggests is for states to create “broad strategies for reducing the exposure to price shocks.”36 One way to reduce the effects of potential price shocks is through private and public insurance; privately, governments should hold natural resource to benefit themselves in the global market, and publicly, governments should open its doors to potential donor aid in case of a economic crisis. Also, states dependent on a primary commodity for an income should also look to diversify their exports and develop alternative resources of revenue.

Opening their market to alternative industries will reduce the threat of commodity price shocks, allowing states to depend on alternative sources of revenue in case of one commodity’s market potentially crashing.37 In order to continue working towards a stable future, Cote D’Ivoire’s leadership needs to follow several of Collier’s development suggestions. In Cote D’Ivoire, combating constricting autocratic rule and opening up the market to alternative revenue sources is essential to a successful future.

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First, the government needs to be open and honest about its exports and revenue. The single-party dominant system has been so successful and impenetrable due to its access to government funds; during the late 20th century, Felix Houphouët-Boigny and the PDCI usurped total political power by unjustly using government funds to finance their constricting control over leadership. As a world leader in cocoa exports, Cote D’Ivoire’s government managed the states economy behind closed doors, allowing the singleparty in control to distribute revenue to its benefit. Second, Cote D’Ivoire citizens and international players need hold the state accountable for fair, just economic decisions. It is vital to take control away from the centralized government in power and force politicians to use state funds for the general welfare of the state. For the majority of Cote D’Ivoire’s existence, the executive branch has been far too powerful and unquestioned; according to Collier, it is essential to scrutinize the politicians in power and hold them liable to follow the constitution. Third, beyond being transparent and honest about exports and revenue, Cote D’Ivoire’s government needs to track natural commodities, especially cocoa. As one of the main contributors to cocoa across the globe, Cote D’Ivoire needs to provide legitimate information about its natural resource industries. Natural resources have been abused for far too long, and in order to prosper in the future, Cote D’Ivoire needs to make sure their natural wealth is being honestly accounted for. Finally, Cote D’Ivoire needs to diversify its markets and sources of income.

The state is far too reliant on cocoa production; for example, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Cote D’Ivoire plummeted from a prospering West African state to a dangerously poor nation simply because the world cocoa prices dropped. In order to prevent similar economic shock, Cote D’Ivoire needs to invest its efforts in alternative markets outside of natural resources.

With a legitimate federal government and a more open, diverse economy, hopefully Cote D’Ivoire will become a model nation in West Africa. It is up to the political leaders to relieve Cote D’Ivoire of its strict authoritarianism, ethnic conflict, and natural resource mismanagement that has plagued the nation since independence in 1960.

Ben Chadwick is a student at Bowdoin College, graduating in 2011. He is from Needham, Massachusetts and is studying Government with a concentration in International Relations.

Place as Tension in the Middle East

Sarah Zapiler Denver, CO • Gallatin • 2011 Linguistics and Language Philosophy

“Life is neither good nor evil, but only a place for good and evil.”

- Marcus Aurelius The Israeli/Palestinian conflict is so often put in terms of good and evil, right and wrong, just and unjust. I have always felt that these binaries do not describe the situation so much as prescribe it.

Outside of descriptive or prescriptive notions of the conflict, however, there exist real tensions.

When I visited, I expected the external environment to serve as a background; what I found was different. Place - architecturally, agriculturally, spatially, politically - is tension. It is this physical instantiation of tension and the relation between exterior and interior that I attempt to explore.

FOREIGN RELATIONS

A Journey on Pause Samantha Feld and John Hering I never envisioned that nearly eight months later I would still be writing letters to Josh in Evin Prison, Tehran.

When I heard the news on CNN back in August—that Josh Fattal and his two friends Sarah Shourd and Shane Bauer—were captured by Iranian officials and put in prison after mistakenly crossing the border from Iraq, I could not believe what I was hearing. “No. No. No. It can’t be,” I told myself. But I knew full well that Josh had been traveling in the Middle East, hoping to learn Arabic after our study abroad program had come to an end, so it was not altogether implausible In July of 2009, Josh had landed in Damascus, Syria, two months after our program had ended in Cape Town, South Africa. Josh, 27 and a graduate of UC Berkeley, was visiting his college friends Sarah and Shane who were living in Damascus at the time. Shane was working as a freelance journalist and photographer and Sarah was teaching English with the Iraqi Student Project, a program which gives Iraqi students living in Damascus the skills to continue their education in U.S. schools. Sarah had some time off from work, and the three decided to leave the city and spend a few days hiking in the mountains of Kurdistan near the Ahmed Awa waterfall. This is a peaceful region, popular with Western tourists, that has seen no conflict since 1991 when the United States imposed a no-fly-zone after the first Gulf War. In fact, when trying to piece together and understand the situation, I came across two pieces from the New York Times travel section profiling this region for its natural beauty, rich history and “cultural treasures.” Josh, no stranger to traveling, studied abroad himself for a year on a “global ecology” program with the International Honors Program in the UK, India, the Philippines, New Zealand, and Mexico.

In the Spring of 2009, I spent four months with Josh on a traveling study abroad program with the International Honors Programs through India, China, South Africa and Switzerland studying health and community. Josh’s official title on our trip was the teaching fellow — essentially the person responsible for coordinating logistics and serving as a

liaison between students, faculty and program coordinators.

In actuality, Josh played the role of friend, brother, cultural broker, comic relief, teacher and role model. Josh is one of the most intelligent people I know. He is outrageously funny and honest beyond belief. Whether he was teaching us how to build a solar-heated water tank, learning an ancient form of Indian martial arts with the group, comforting me when I was ill, or discussing anything from economics to family matters, Josh opened my eyes to new ways of thinking and learning. He exposed me to new ideas, philosophies, and ways of life. Josh challenged me and pushed me to live in a more thoughtful, conscious manner.

After the news began to sink in, I began organizing in the community with friends and family of Josh, Sarah and Shane to raise awareness and call for their release. I imagined the US State Department would soon step in, clear up the misunderstanding, and then Josh and Sarah and Shane would be sent home. This was the case for the five British sailors who also mistakenly strayed into Iranian territory, as well as for the two Belgian tourists who were captured in September on suspicions of espionage. Instead, we are fast approaching eight months that Josh, Sarah and Shane have been held in Evin prison in near isolation, not yet brought up on charges, and denied contact with the outside world.

While it seems peculiar that these three hikers have not been released, it is not out of the norm in the history of USIranian relations. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard has long been a supporter of the terrorist organization Hezbollah, in Lebanon, which took American hostages in the 1980’s.[i] And the Islamic Republic is perhaps most famous in the US for detaining 52 American Embassy workers for over a year following the overthrow of the Shah in the Islamic Revolution of 1979. What is less known is that the Iranian students who took over the embassy, with government support, were acting in response to a perceived threat from the United States during the ‘79 revolution. 25 years prior in 1953, the United States CIA, led by the young Kermit Roosevelt, covertly sponsored a coup-de-tat to overthrow Iran’s first democratically elected leader, Mohammad

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Mossadeq. Mossadeq had nationalized the Iranian oil fields and the US feared he had become vulnerable to Soviet influence. And so to protect Cold War interests, the United States reinstated the autocratic, pro-western Shah Mohammad-Reza Pavlavi.[ii] The 1979 revolution would again remove him from power.

When the Shah finally fled Iran in 1979, he was allowed to come to the United States for treatment for cancer.

Following this, panic broke out in Iran as it appeared that the United States was again supporting the Shah against a revolutionary movement. The fear was that the ailing Shah would again be reinstated by the United States; that the “Great Satan” would again try and dictate who would rule Iran.[iii] To protect their sovereignty, the Iranians held the US embassy workers hostage for 444 days to prevent President Carter from taking any action against the nation while the new government of the Islamic Republic established itself under Ayatollah Khomeini. The hostages were only released once Carter left office.[iv] The 1979 events are emblematic of a young nation struggling with its identity and sovereignty in an isolated diplomatic environment. Having no real allies in the region, the Islamic Republic is forced to guarantee its own security against much more powerful nations. And current circumstances facilitate this mentality more than ever. With civil unrest, mass unemployment and nuclear ambitions which will undoubtedly result in escalating global economic sanctions (not to mention Israeli neighbors who have requested bunkerbusting bombs from the US and rights to Iraqi airspace to attack Iranian nuclear sites), the nation’s sovereignty is extremely vulnerable from forces within and without.[v] And while it seems unlikely if not impossible that Josh and his friends could be seen as legitimate threats to Iran, like Kermit Roosevelt and the embassy workers had been, the isolated nation may see them as valuable diplomatically as the western world continues to put the squeeze on Iran.

Just as in ‘79, there is perhaps much more motivation for Iran to hold its political prisoners as potential diplomatic bargaining chips than to release them, especially amidst such international pressure. Iran may feel that keeping the prisoners will help to deter overly aggressive actions from

the United States. Conversely, one can expect to see the State Department downplay the situation in an effort to minimize the political value of the prisoners as the United States works towards its other policy objectives in the region.

In many ways, the more visible the prisoners become, the less reason there is for Iran to release them.

It is painful to think about the psychological distress that Josh, Sarah and Shane must be experiencing: the perpetual loneliness from being in isolation and the fear of not knowing what will happen to them, or when they may ever see their loved ones again. This could be anyone’s family or anyone’s friends. Josh, Sarah and Shane never meant to cross into Iran. They all share a passion for learning about cultures, religions and civilizations across the world. Quite simply, Josh and his friends got lost. More than seven and a half months later, they are still suffering the consequences, mentally and physically.

Except for a fleeting oneminute phone call that the hikers were permitted to make to their parents earlier this week, they have been denied all contact with friends or family, who, while remaining hopeful, fear constantly for their health and well-being. While the State Department has been in close contact with the families, significantly more pressure is needed from the American public and US representatives to urge the Iranian authorities to let the hikers go. Seven and a half months is long enough.

It is time to release Josh, Sarah and Shane, now.

To learn more about Josh, Sarah and Shane and find out what you can do to help bring them home, please visit http://freethehikers.org.

They all share a passion for learning about cultures, religions and civilizations across the world.

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Samantha McGovern Feld is a student at Gallatin, graduating in 2010. She is from Mill Valley, California and is studying Public Health and Community Empowerment.

John Hering is a student at Boston College, graduating in 2010. He is from Natick, Massachusetts and is studying Political Science.

TORTURE

T is for Truth, F is for Fact: Confronting the New F Word Olivia Webb

“My impression is that what has been charged thus far is abuse, which I believe technically is different from torture. And therefore I’m not going to address the ‘torture word,’” said former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in a 2004 press conference concerning the Abu Ghraib photographs.1 As Susan Sontag observes in the May 2004 issue of The New York Times Magazine, Rumsfeld not only fails to differentiate “torture,” but even goes so far as to replicate the rhetorical tactic demonstrated by the Clinton administration one decade earlier, when “it was the strenuous avoidance of the word ‘genocide’ while some 800,000 Tutsis in Rwanda were being slaughtered, over a few weeks time, by their Hutu neighbors…that indicated the American government had no intention of doing anything.” 2 However, by April 17, 2009 The New York Times eschewed the “torture word” as thoroughly as Rumsfeld.

Yet if The New York Times condemned Guantanamo’s atrocities in 2009 as strongly as The New York Times Magazine viewed Abu Ghraib in 2004, then why describe torture as “intensive interrogating methods” when such a wording would effectually endorse Rumsfeld’s definition?

A liberal-oriented paper, the periodical stood poised to accurately convey the previously-classified Guantanamo memos’ interrogation methods to the general public.

In a nutshell: Rumsfeld did not want the press to use “torture.” In 2009 the press, for whatever reasons, justifications or qualms, obliged. Regardless of motive, the effect stands the same: a watered-down vocabulary defines the issue for a segment of the politically apathetic and active alike.

The situation reeks of George Orwell’s Newspeak.

According to this concept, to define is to control; words hold power; to rename is to delete; to delete is to destroy – or so argues Orwell in Politics and the English Language, an essay which traces society’s ready acceptance of political euphemisms as a trend reciprocal to the English language’s grammatical decline. Orwell’s criticism of language extends far – from this standpoint, few acts are more political than

misnomers. In this light, inhibited speech does more than just lend itself to inaccurate thought; he who possesses control over language eventually possesses control over thought.3 In other words: “Take away words, and you have taken away mental function; take away mental function, and you have taken away the possibility of political action.”4 The aim of this essay is to utilize Orwell’s conception of language in order to explore the consequences of Rumsfeld’s 2004 intentional misuse of the word “torture.” I propose that the media’s later hesitation to use the term in light of the Guantanamo memos’ 2009 release implies an internalization of Rumsfeld’s redefinition on the part of the press– one that betrays the consequences of indulging a hegemonic curtailment of language and, in turn, of critical thought.

In its February 2009 poll Agnus Reid Global, a Canadian-based polling firm, divided 1,010 Americans into two groups to compare how the words “Torture” and “Intensive Interrogation Tactics” impacted the pool’s receptivity to torture’s use.5 Twice as many checked “Always” when asked about how often military members should use “Intensive Interrogation Techniques” as when asked whether all conditions sanctioned “Torture”; in other words, when handed a euphemism, the number of hardliners doubled (26% vs 13% of total polled). Reciprocally, half as many (15% for Intensive Interrogation Techniques; 30% for Torture) said “never.”6 Therefore, there stands sufficient reason to state that avoiding the term “torture” ranks among the most effective means of erasing a fact. For even while the seven letters stay familiar, the term falls victim to its etymological definition (“Torture: from the Latin torture, “to twist, to distort”) as the meaning twists away from the word.7 And if Holocaust survivor Jean Amery can describe it as “a visual instruction in etymology,” then it seems prudent to first obtain a clear understanding of water-boarding as a physical process.8 When the Japanese used waterboarding to elicit information from American soldiers during World War II, there was no

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question as to whether water-boarding was permissible: the process was explicitly condemned as “torture” by the War Crimes Tribunal.9 Indeed, waterboarding involves a process in which:

A detainee is strapped to a gurney with his head lowered and a cloth placed on his face. Interrogators pour water onto the cloth, which cuts off air flow to the mouth and nostrils, tripping his gag reflex, causing panic and giving him the sensation that he is drowning.

At that point the cloth would be removed, the gurney rotated upright and the detainee would be allowed to breathe.

The technique could be repeated a few times during a waterboarding session.

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A process labeled as “torture” against Americans, now performed by Americans, still constitutes torture. Before proceeding, I must clarify: in my opinion torture, on either moral or functional grounds, cannot be justified. Indeed, this argument is written from an anti-torture stance. Even so, it must be conceded that whereas discussions concerning the media’s miscommunication are vital, this proposition plays but a small role in the struggle to end torture, itself. Both battles hold risks. According to The New York Times public editor Clark Hoyt, the headline “Memos Spell Out Brutal C.I.A. Mode of Interrogation” got chastised for using such a “loaded” word as “brutal” from one segment of readership, and condemnation for its “timid euphemism” from the

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other.11 Alas, a dangerous passivity occurs when journalists accept redefined words. As Hoyt asserts, “When the paper needs a short description, the word brutal is accurate and appropriate, whether the acts were justified or not.”12 But as Hoyt reveals and Orwell explores, such brevity comes at a price.

“The fingertips are kept well away from the individual’s eyes,» the memo advised, in regards to the interrogationmild head grip.13 Rumsfeld did attempt to cover eyes; once that first effort failed, he relied upon muddled vision. Now reread the previous paragraph. Look close, and look hard.

Because according to Orwell’s criteria, I have engaged in manipulative crimes.14 Orwell warns against pretentious diction; “alas” thoroughly qualifies. Also, to cut unnecessary words; the previous sentence’s “thoroughly” qualifies. He despises florid arguments; “a kind of euphemism,” which he calls «the inflated style”; and would particularly despise the near-incoherent [intentionally so] labyrinthine structure in the present sentence. Similarly, though “near-incoherent” effectively communicates the point of the last sentence, it is not a real word, and consequently corrupts this sentence.

Orwell further encourages writers to rip their writing’s original bits from the “ready-made” [But both battles;a dangerous passivity; plays into the hands of ]; in short, cut out the clichés.15 In regards to terrorism, “The USA Patriot Act shrewdly exploits semantic vagueness. It defines terrorism so broadly…that virtually all political struggle falls under its rubric.” 16 Beneath the pressure, peacetime morality falters; and so “vindication” seems bookended between intention and outcome. In regards to torture, the text adopted by the United Nations’ 1984 Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment states “any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information” qualifies as torture.17 Furthermore, “No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification.”18 In a democratic society, authorities cannot, like the Soviet Union, confiscate history books – what they can do, and effectively, is turn the tables of representative government, and transform a “fact” into a semantic perspective.19 Place doubt in a word: it will place doubt in the evidence.

Undermine a word if that doubt fails to undermine the evidence. Undermine the doubter if you can’t undermine the speaker; effectively follow one interrogation tactic and place listeners in a head grip. Through avoiding the word – through relying instead upon “pretentious” surrogates which “dignify the sordid process of international politics” – the perpetrators allowed a new breed of habeas corpus to enter: a wasteland in which infractions are irrelevant, rights are outdated, and the assertion of one’s impeccable

“scrupulousness” endorses the heinous equation 2+2=5.20 In respect to waterboarding, not even interrogators’ instructions are specific. From the onset, interrogators are limited to either “Five days of use in a month, with no more than two ‘sessions’ a day,” or “Up to six applications (something like a dunk) lasting more than 10 seconds but less than 40 seconds per session” or “12 minutes of total ‘water application’ in a 24-hour period.”21 It would take someone akin to Orwell’s O’Brien to make this case of 2+2 = 5. Let’s try: by one rule, 12 minutes would allow for 720 seconds. Yet a combination of the other two – a maximum of 12 pours in 24 hours, running at approximately the maximum length of 40 seconds each equals “only” 480 seconds, so that the interrogator’s individual accountability becomes, literally, unaccountable. Consequently, the regulations regulate nothing: for all their supposedly “scrupulously counted” and “thoroughly documented” sessions, abiding the regulations proves literally impossible.

In this sense, it seems reasonable to argue that the outrage incited by the “Memos Spell Out Brutal C.I.A. Mode of Interrogation” headline implies that its journalists communicated its message to the greatest effect. To be outraged, one must first listen: before it can anger, the message must be potent enough to offend. Responsive outcries remind writers why their cause is worthy – critics lend them motivation. Switch directions. To be tortured, one must first suffer – whether or not the possessor of information. Switch again. “The whole tendency of modern

prose is away from concreteness,” Orwell explains. And yet, some would argue there are times when Orwell’s emphasis upon accurate language must be set aside, just as Geneva’s statements on prisoners must be set aside: so long as the public receives the general message – so long as torture has a strong justification – constrained communication is pardonable for a worthy exception.22 In this sense, the conscientious journalist confronts a dilemma akin to that of the pro-“intensive interrogation methods” citizen, pro-torture bureaucrat, and, indeed, the actual torturer: the stakes seem high; the confrontation, unavoidable; and the price of a compromised conviction is never fully known – not even to the choice’s maker. Will the reader continue reading past the first sentence? Will the torturer uncover the ticking bomb? In both cases, one morbidly thirsts for the worst-case scenario – one for an acid response, the other, a ticking bomb – for those are the only circumstances by which retrospective “success” absolves the anachronism of the victim’s pre-trial punishment. If Orwell’s message is to be heeded, America must begin with an accurate vocabulary for the Geneva Convention to stand.

Let us begin “F is for Fact” and “T is for Torture,” heed wisdom, and look out when fingertips cover our eyes.

Olivia Webb is a student at Gallatin, graduating in 2011. She is from Sunnyvale, Texas and is studying Politics and Communication.

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Isolation Out West “What I wanted to do was to keep a visual diary of the trip and started photographing every person I met, the beds I slept in, the toilets I used, art on walls, every meal I ate, store windows, residential buildings, commercial buildings, main streets and then anything else that came my way...”

-Stephen Shore This project was inspired by Stephen Shore, an American photographer. I wanted to follow his use of color photography, mainly with a point and shoot 35mm camera. This series is a personal response to the region of the United States where I spent my childhood. I wanted to revisit the places I went on family road trips. To explore the themes of memory, re-visitation, and isolation. To reexamine the psychological state of being a child and to see how differently I see those same places now. To see more of Maggie’s photos, visit her website: www.andthenphotos.com

Maggie Owsley Brooklyn/Boston/China/Colorado • Gallatin • 2010

IMMIGRATION

Foreign in a Native land: Confessions of an Ethnocentric Samantha Shokin You will hear countless stories about the “immigrant experience.” Stories of individuals who adopt foreign lifestyles and languages in the spirit of newfound patriotism.

Words and phrases often get thrown around, triggering thoughts and painting idealized pictures in our heads: Immigrant. Émigré. Refugee. Home of the brave. Land of the free. Land of opportunity. The American dream. The golden door. Give me your tired. Give me your poor.

And then, yes, you often hear of the strife, and the spirited tales of men and women coming to America with nothing but the clothes on their backs and the accents on their tongues; working their ways up the rungs of society through hard work and diligence and eventually finding nice satisfying nooks somewhere, tucked away among the throngs of the middle class.

You will occasionally hear of the hardships of immigrant life, maybe even from your own friends and neighbors: a classmate anxiously awaiting his official green card. Another stifled by looming threat of an expired visa. A woman beside you on the subway studying for her naturalization test, squinting at the Chinese translation of an English passage.

And that man who, for the life of him, cannot communicate his order to the McDonald’s cashier and thus gestures his hands madly to no avail.

These are average people that you probably encounter every day without paying them much attention—usually, neither do I. But then I recall that some time ago, these people were my own parents.

Being an American-born child of immigrants put me in a state of social limbo growing up because I often felt foreign in my native country. My first language was Polish, then Russian; then, after being exposed to other American boys and girls (and their captivating daytime TV), I finally scraped up enough English to babble my way through preschool.

But school was only one side of the double-life I led. My weekends were spent at my grandmother’s neighborhood in Brooklyn which seemed suspended in a post-Soviet bubble.

For the longest time I associated New York City with a kind of nouveau-Eastern Europe. My summers were spent in a

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similar fashion, vacationing at dachas with dozens of other Russian kids, playing durak and eating pelmeni with as much enthusiasm as anyone. The old folks had some trouble understanding my name, but I didn’t bother explaining to them that my parents wanted me “born Americanized.”

Instead I went by my Russofied nickname, Sema—sparing both my American ears and their foreign tongues.

I would return to my suburban elementary school and be puzzled by others’ claims that my English was tainted with a foreign accent. I had always embraced my ethnic background as something that made me unique, and didn’t realize that my emphasis on “being unique” was what perhaps drove some people away. Nonetheless I continued with this habit, sharing Russian storybooks at show-andtell and befriending the only other Russian-speaker in our entire elementary school.

However, just as children eventually take once-esteemed parents off their respective pedestals, I began to see flaws in my ethnocentricity and eventually became more disgusted than enthusiastic about it. My boyfriend in high school, a rather progressive immigrant, was perplexed by my fascination with heritage—something he considered rather trivial. He would point out instances of my being closeminded and occasionally hint at a perceived racism. Right or wrong, this message resounded with me. A tiny seed of guilt was planted, and it grew.

I walked down the streets of my grandmother’s neighborhood where I once relished the ethnic sights and sounds filling the air. Slews of people bundled in fur coats and hats passed me by, clutching expensive cell phones and jabbering in the vernacular of their motherland. Why, I wondered, would one immigrate here, only to ostracize oneself from the rest of the country? Was I simply bitter, or were these compatriots blatantly un-American? A store clerk looked at my American clothes and tried his sales pitch on me in broken English. I humored him for a bit, until he sensed something vaguely European about my demeanor.

“Do you speak Russian?” he asked, and I responded with a hesitant yes.

I saw right through Eastern European mentalities

which struck me as more backward and old-fashioned than anything. I secretly resented my close-knit group of friends, the majority of whom were immigrants or children of immigrants, though I really had no justifiable reason to. Mostly I was angry at my former self for subconsciously having kept the rest of the population at a distance.

And yet something undeniably ethnic still thrived within me. I scoffed at others’ claims of “Russian pride” or “Jewish pride,” adapting some arbitrary notions of political correctness, while feeling a strange longing for the sense of community I had forcefully abandoned. It became increasingly frustrating to substitute English words for appropriate Russian phrases, and (perhaps this was my imagination) I was convinced my sense of humor had been better received by the Russianspeaking community. Clearly, I had an identity crisis on my hands, manifested in a spontaneous accent that seemed to come and go on a whim. Other Russian-speakers gravitated toward me though I never actively pursued their friendships.

And finally, all efforts to downplay my ethnicity became futile when I realized my American friends had been referring to me as “the Russian chick” all along.

But perhaps this wasn’t a bad thing. I looked to my parents who sacrificed everything in order for me to be born American. My mother speaks political jargon with the verve of a young politics major, always subtly rolling her r’s with a pleasant crispness. My father is a self-taught expert in Judaica, expanding his breadth of knowledge by inhaling countless Russian and English books alike. I saw

the dual identities in my parents, and commended them for embracing that which I had systematically defied. They had

I saw the dual identities in my parents, and commended them for embracing that which I had systematically defied. achieved the illustrious “American dream” while staying true to their identities, and this made me immensely proud. I realized then that identity is a beautifully delicate thing and should be treated as such. It’s like a tango between two sides of the self; having a good time without stepping on any toes.

Now I have come to terms with the conflicting sides of my identity and embraced them both. I cannot help but gravitate to my like-minded peers, but ethnicity is only an accessory, never a prerequisite. To be open-minded in a diverse city like New York is like reaching into a treasure chest with the biggest mitts in the world. And thus, I have finally arrived; ready and eager to harvest an unbridled wealth.

Samantha Shokin is a student in Gallatin, graduating in 2012. She is from Brooklyn, NY and is studying Literary Nonfiction.

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Roe V. Wade Anniversary Rally Washington DC, 2010

Chloe Moore Hilton Head, SC • Gallatin • 2010 Photography through a Sociological Lens

My friend, Sarah Patterson, was working in Washington DC as an aide to US Senator Lindsey Graham (Dem-SC) when I headed south to visit her. I attended several political functions in an effort to photograph democracy at work. However, the most valuable images I got from the trip came from a “Pro-Life” rally that descended on the capital on the anniversary of the Roe V. Wade ruling. Having never witnessed anything like this, I was particularly drawn to involvement of children in the rally. I understand the principle of including children in the march but something about it struck me as completely out of place and somewhat eerie.

ASSIMILATION

Islamism in America: An Uncomfortable Discussion, but a Necessary One Brendan Goldman Addressing the issue of Islamist elements of the American Muslim community has been proscribed as racist by the American Left and celebrated as a legitimate cover for prejudice by some sectors of the Right. Islamism is the philosophy that Islam is not just a religion but also provides an idealized political system, generally modeled on the rule of a righteous caliph over a society governed

by Shari’a law. It is anachronistic: a creation of the 21st century that superimposes its vision on the early Islamic world, claiming the two are one and the same. It is not a unified, coherent movement, garnering support from Sunni and Shi’a Muslims, violent terrorists and ostensibly moderate politicians alike.

American Muslims, like other ethnic groups, are far from monolithic in their perspective on global or domestic affairs. There are some statistics that suggest a more optimistic perspective of their position in this country, for instance, according to a Pew poll from 2007, 71% of American Muslims are optimistic about economic mobility in the US and only 47% consider themselves Muslim before American. However, according to the same poll, only 40% of American Muslims believe 9/11 was carried out by al-Qaeda, often indicative of a belief in a Western conspiracy against Islam. African American Muslims—an estimated 85% of American-born converts to Islam and 20% of this country’s overall Muslim population—tend to take even more extreme position on issues of terrorism, government conspiracies and anti-Semitism. Although there have been relatively few incidents of domestic terrorist plots in this country, African American converts remain disproportionately represented among their perpetrators. The legacy of the Nation of Islam (NOI), a racist, anti-Semitic group that the majority of African American Muslims belonged to before NOI Imam Warith Deen Muhammed led his followers to Sunni Islam in the mid-1970’s, continues to influence the outlook of some members of this community. Younger American Muslims are also more likely to hold extreme beliefs, including that terrorism against civilians can be justified.1 The pervasiveness of such extreme positions is an

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inconvenient truth for liberal America, which would prefer to believe that such fringe elements of the American Muslim community are either benign or irrelevant. It is true that the history of racism in this country has alienated African American Muslims and that relative to Muslim communities in Europe, American Muslims tend to be less sympathetic to Islamist causes. However, ignoring the prevalent issue of radicalism within sectors of the American Muslim community does not serve the interests of the broader American Muslim community or this country as a whole. The articles below, adapted from pieces I wrote for PajamasMedia.2 and American Thinker3, describe incidents in which domestic Islamists movements have hindered the assimilation of Somali Muslim refugees, undermined FBI investigations of terrorist activities, and radicalized members of the African American Muslim community. They portray the image of a community besieged by a vocal minority of its own constituents and held hostage by a radicalized leadership functioning under the guise of respected civilrights and community organizations.

Islamists Sabotage Assimilation of Somali-Americans The mainstream media has publicized a few cases of Somali-American youth that have returned to their homeland to fight for Islamist forces there.4 What the media has neglected to investigate is how Islamist members of the Somali-American community have formed organizations to advocate their agenda here in the United States. These organizations, which claim to represent the larger Somali community, silence moderate Muslim voices and impede the integration of Somalis into American society.

There are approximately 200,000 Somalis living in the United States, the largest community of some 70,000 people residing in Minneapolis-St. Paul (population statistics for Somalis in America are rough estimates because many Somalis are here as refugees and therefore are not counted in official surveys). According to Andrew Liepman, the deputy

director of intelligence at the National Counterterrorism Center, Somali-Americans face “greater insularity compared to other, more integrated Muslim immigrant communities, [which] has aggravated the challenge of assimilation for their children.”5 Islamists have taken advantage of this insularity to disseminate their ideology within the community. The Islamists’ actions have led to clashes between Somalis and their host communities.

In one such incident, Hassan Mohamud, a prominent Somali-American imam, recently encouraged his congregants to give to Islamist causes in order to ameliorate “the hell of living in America.”6 Under the leadership of Mohamud and three other imams, Somali cab drivers in 2007 boycotted patrons carrying alcohol or accompanied by dogs — including those required for the visually impaired — because they claimed driving such passengers violates Shari’a law.7 In another Islamist-inspired incident, radical Somalis organized a labor strike in September 2008 at a meat packing plant in Grand Island, Nebraska.8 The factory workers at the plant were expected to work during the time allocated for the prayer that marks the end of the daily fast during the month of Ramadan. The Islamists’ agenda was to force the factory to adopt a different work schedule that would necessitate non-Muslim workers to come to their jobs on Saturdays for the entire month in order to receive their 40 hours of pay.

Fidencio Sandoval was one of over a thousand workers at the plant who counter-protested against the Islamists. “A new culture comes in with their demands and says, ‘This is what we want,’” he explains, contrasting the Islamists’ demand for concessions with the expectation of assimilation applied to other immigrant groups in America.9 The Islamist Somalis also asserted their influence at the Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis. The center was forced to hire an almost entirely female obstetrical staff in order to placate Islamists who refused to have male doctors deliver their babies.10 The Somali Islamist Sharia campaign has even reached the Bible Belt. The small town of Shelbyville, Tennessee, was besieged by Islamist Somalis who, according to local journalist Brian Mosely, refuse to deal with women in stores, demanding to see a male salesperson.11 Somali Islamists have marketed their organizations to parents, emphasizing that their programs are a means to escape from the rough neighborhoods where many Somali immigrants find themselves. According to Liepman, “Parents and outsiders often view [these radical Islamist organizations] as a seemingly innocuous alternative to more common violent subcultures associated with gangs and criminality.”12

A number of prominent Somali-American leaders have condemned the radical Islamists who claim to represent their community. These leaders seek to facilitate the integration of Somalis into American society. One such leader is Hussein Samatar, director of the Minneapolis-based African Development Center.13 “The mosques and community must be open and transparent,” argues Samatar. “Our faith must be uplifting, unifying, inspiring, and hopeful.”14 Unlike Mohamud and other Islamist Somalis, Samatar praises the opportunities available to Somalis in America.

“Americans of Somali descent should be ambassadors of America throughout the Islamic world,” he says. “They should show Muslim countries what is inherently great about America and the American people.”

Samatar rejects the Islamists’ attempts to impose Shari’a law on his community, lauding the freedom of religion provided in the States. “America is the best country in which to be a practicing Muslim,” he says. Recalling the civil war in Somalia, he notes, “We are well aware of the beauty of having the choice to practice one’s faith without being fearful or oppressed.”

“The overwhelming majority of Somali-Americans are or want to be contributing members of American society,” Liepman adds.15 Liepman and Samatar recognize what the mainstream media has ignored: the main challenge for the SomaliAmerican community is not a few isolated incidents of youth joining Islamist forces thousands of miles away, but the calculated effort of Islamists in their midst to hinder their integration into American society.

Islamist Groups Push Conspiracy Theories in Homegrown Terror Cases “Our Koran is off limits,” said Hussam Ayloush, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) Los Angeles chapter. “Our youth, who they try to radicalize, are off limits. Now is the time to tell them, ‘We’re not going to let this happen anymore.’”16 The above statement, taken out of context, might read like a condemnation of radical Islamists who target young American Muslims. It’s not. The “they” and “them” in the quotation above refer not to al-Qaeda or other Islamists, but to the FBI. That such a conflation is possible is indicative of how leaders of this “mainstream” American Muslim

The main challenge for the Somali-American community is ... the calculated effort of Islamists in their midst to hinder their integration into American society.

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organization have distorted the critical issue of confronting homegrown terrorism.

Ayloush was responding to the arrest in February of Ahmadullah Sais Niazi, a naturalized American of Afghan

Consultative Network, the government has co-opted Islamic extremists for its own ends. “These plots are being used to drive funding for the war on terrorism,” Carroll says.22 CAIR has made an even more peculiar claim, saying that the Bronx incident may be an FBI conspiracy to “drive a wedge between two American religious minorities” — Jews and Muslims.23 Rabbi Jonathan Rosenblatt of the Riverdale Jewish Center, one of the sites targeted in the plot, fails to see how ignoring threats to his community’s security improves Muslim-Jewish relations.

“It is clear that the aspiration to do harm and the commitment to fulfill that aspiration runs like a dark thread through this entire thing, and that’s not the FBI,” Rosenblatt says.24 The Islamists’ penchant for conspiracy theories is not benign: it is a calculated effort to deny inconvenient truths and an excuse to remain passive in the face of homegrown terrorism. By blaming the FBI for radicalized members of their community, the Islamists effectively discourage American Muslims from complying with their country’s efforts to ensure their security and that of their fellow citizens.

In choosing to side with fringe elements of their population — like Niazi and the alleged Bronx terrorists — over the FBI, the Islamists effectively portray these radicals’ world view as an accepted norm in their community. The Islamist leadership’s actions are detrimental to the image of American Muslims and a betrayal of their constituency’s broader interests.

The Islamist leadership’s actions are detrimental to the image of American Muslims and a betrayal of their constituency’s broader interests. descent who is accused of perjury, naturalization fraud, misuse of a passport obtained by fraud, and making false statements to a federal agency, including denying that he had met with Amin al-Haq, his brother-in-law and Osama bin Laden’s former security coordinator, in Pakistan in 2005.17 Instead of dealing with the facts of the case, CAIR and the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California attacked the credibility of the state prosecutor, Assistant U.S. Attorney Deirdre Eliot, and the government’s primary witness, 46-year-old FBI informant and father of four Craig Monteilh. In their magazines and in the blogosphere, the Islamists accuse Eliot of anti-Muslim sentiments and note that Monteilh has served time in prison. The facts of the case itself are relegated to later paragraphs or not mentioned at all.

In Focus, CAIR’s magazine, asserts that Eliot “runs the risk of being guilty by association herself for supporting a right-wing group that has promoted anti-Islamic rhetoric on its websites.”18 The group the magazine is referring to is the Lincoln Club of Orange County, an organization dedicated to “limited government, free enterprise, the rule of law, and the preservation of individual liberty.” Defaming Islam, apparently, did not make the cut.19 Nor is the Niazi case unique; there are many parallels in Islamist tactics responding to the arrest of four alleged terrorists in the Riverdale neighborhood of the Bronx on May 20, accused of plotting to attack two synagogues and to bring down U.S. military airplanes.20 The alleged Bronx terrorists met at Masjid al-Ikhlas, a mosque in Newburgh, New York, whose head, Imam Salahuddin Muhammad, blames the FBI informant who discovered the plot for inciting his congregants. Like his peers in California, Muhammad disparages the informant as a convict.

“I am very concerned that the hard work of building bridges here in Newburgh over the last quarter of a century will now be dismissed, because of the actions of a convicted felon,” Muhammad says.21 These conspiracy theories are echoed and expanded by other prominent Islamists and their apologists. According to Adem Carroll, the executive director of the Muslim

52

Islamists Tap Into African-American Muslim Converts Historical Grievances “America needs to understand Islam, because this is the one religion that erases from its society the race problem,” Malcolm X wrote in 1964 during his pilgrimage to Mecca.25 Malcolm’s statement reflected the difficulty of growing up Black in pre-Civil Rights America, but had no connection to the reality on the ground in the Arab-Islamic Middle East.

A look at modern Mauritania and Sudan, in which the colloquial Arabic word for “slave” is “black”26 and in the latter of which ethnic genocide against black Muslims in Darfur is ongoing,27 are but two example of the mendacity of that statement (also see the abusive treatment of SubSaharan African refugees in Egypt28).

Despite that fact, Malcolm’s words now appear on countless Islamist websites dedicated to finding black, English-speaking converts. Islamists have harnessed the legacy of the Nation of Islam (NOI) for their own purpose:

establishing an indigenous Islamist movement in the United States that can advocate their political agenda in the foreign and domestic policy spheres. The Muslim Alliance in North America (MANA) and the As-Sabiqun movement are proof that their efforts have not been in vain.

Imam Siraj Wahhaj, the founder of the primarily African American MANA, is a product of the volatile intersection of Black Nationalism and politicized Islam. A former member of the NOI, Wahhaj often has been portrayed as a “moderate” by the mainstream media. However, his words speak for themselves: “In time, this so-called democracy will crumble, and there will be nothing, and the only thing that will remain will be Islam.”29 Imam Abdul Alim Musa of the As-Sabiqun movement is even more overt about his Islamist world view. As-Sabiqun, founded in the early 1990s, advocates the establishment of an Islamic caliphate in place of America’s democratic system.

Though officially a Sunni Muslim, Musa’s views echo those of the NOI. “Who ran the slave trade?” Musa asks rhetorically.

“You’ll study and you will find out: the Jews.” His words suggest the influence of the NOI’s The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews , which first outlined this discredited distortion of history.30 Another prominent leader of the African American Islamist movement is Jamil Abdullah al-Amin, the former H. Rap Brown, who is now incarcerated for murder. Like his colleagues, Imam al-Amin has only disdain for his country of origin, saying, “[The main essence of the U.S. Constitution] is diametrically opposed to what Allah has commanded.” At al-Amin’s mosque in Atlanta, attendees sported combat uniforms and long robes, reflecting the influence of both Black Panther-style nationalism and Islamic fundamentalism.

These Islamist leaders’ statements provide a catalyst for African American Muslims involvement in domestic terrorist plots. These plots include those most recently against a U.S. military recruiting center in Little Rock, Arkansas, a Jewish community center in Riverdale, New York, and Jewish and U.S. government targets in Los Angeles.31 Today, African American prisoners are prime targets for Islamist recruiters.32 The government has neglected its

oversight responsibilities, allowing men like Imam Warith Deen Umar to become influential Islamic chaplains in the prison system. Umar has noted the utility of prisons for terrorist recruitment and made such reassuring statements as, “Even Muslims who say they are against terrorism secretly admire and applaud [the 9/11 hijackers].”33 Under the supervision of men like Umar, Saudifunded programs have introduced the most intolerant Salafi and Wahhabi interpretations of Islam to convicts.

These interpretations, claiming that an Islamic caliphate will alleviate racism and societal strife, support the radical doctrines of imams like Wahhaj and Musa over the moderate positions of W.D. Mohammed.34 Conclusion Though there are many disconcerting elements to the stories above, I would assert that the world view of the majority of American Muslims is not reflected in the rhetoric of Islamist Imams or CAIR bureaucrats.

Recognizing the Islamist character of much of the American Muslim leadership is often branded as bigotry, but the words of these leaders speak for themselves. The anti-Muslim prejudice of some elements of the Right and the willful obliviousness to the threat of Islamism of many on the Left do a disservice to the American Muslim community: one by persecution, the other by perpetuating the extremists’ influence through neglect. There are plenty of men and women like Hussein Samatar and the recentlydeceased Warith Deen Mohammed that seek through their Islamic faith personal fulfillment and a means to confront broader societal issues like drug-abuse and crime. It is our responsibility to support these moderate elements and strengthen their role in the public discourse, while working to isolate, marginalize and, discredit those who pervert Islam, turning it into an absolutist political philosophy intolerant of dissenting opinions.

Brendan Goldman is a student at CAS, graduating in 2010. He is from Oak Park, Illinois and is studying Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies.

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Preserving Memory in Berlin

Shimrit Lee Jacksonville, FL â&#x20AC;˘ Gallatin â&#x20AC;˘ 2011 Gender in Conflict & Transitional Justice

Berlin is the capital of memory. My photographs primarily deal with the ways in which such memories are preserved and represented: the looming figures of the Soviet Liberation Memorial. The abstract maze of the Memorial of the Murdered Jews of Europe. The tourist destination of Checkpoint Charlie.

And the Berlin Wall, a symbol of the division and unity inherent in all of humanity. Through the medium of experimental photography, I was able to capture and highlight the emotional and symbolic aspects of these memorials.

FOOD SYSTEMS

The Glocalization of Food: Global Understanding, Local Cultivation Gabrielle Redner I was recently talking about self sufficiency and local food production to a close family friend. He was intrigued by a conference I had been to that was dedicated to uniting farmers and others in the food business--cooks, educators, leaders of NGOs--from around the world to discuss difficulties and solutions. They are people who are trying to survive using sustainable and traditional methods in a world of industrial, global agriculture. The man's interest was touching, but I realized that it came more from a place of amusement and intellectual curiosity than faith or passion.

He bascially said, «yes of course that's a charming idea (referring to sustainable, small scale agriculture). I mean, it's socialist.» In other words, it’s cute, but it can’t really work to feed the world. For some reason, I indulged him and said, “well yeah, the man who started the movement is a Communist.” I did not know what else to say. Maybe I was just trying to carry on a conversation with someone at a lunch, but I wish I had said something else.

I should have responded something like this: Yes, I know we live in a world where much is achieved by private companies, through capitalist strategy. But why do we have to label acts as socialist, or communist, just because their sole purpose is not to make as much money as possible, but also to live healthfully, happily, in their communities and according to their own traditions? I wish I had said that food is different. Food is not industrial to all people. Food is like a breath of air that runs through all realms of life, from the earth, to the animals, to the producers, to the consumers.

If that breath is choked at any step in the chain, the resulting food that is produced will be choked of its life, as well. For many people, in the east and in the west, food is more than just a means of energy. It is culture, it is nature, it is local or national pride. It is spirituality, religion, sustenance and careers. Food, and the production of food, can sustain social relationships. But for all of us, food sustains life, so why should we reduce it to another commodity, meant to be produced in the largest quantities possible, at the cheapest prices possible? Is that what life means to us?

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The conference I attended, and was discussing with this family friend, is called Terra Madre, organized and hosted every other year by Slow Food International. This conference changed my life.

Every day we walk around, going about our business, getting our errands done, getting to work and to class, grabbing a bite to eat when we get hungry, enjoying the occasional relaxed meal or drink with friends and family.

But we live amongst strangers. We walk by many people we do not know. We do not talk to anyone, and we do not imagine ourselves to have anything in common.

Now imagine a life that is the exact opposite. We go around doing errands that hold a common purpose. We know one another, or at least know that we share some common values with everyone we pass. It is easy to converse with one another, because we are seeking the same general thing. We do not talk to everyone we pass because we still have to get things done, but we smile, or we walk by with understanding and love. It sounds utopic, it sounds hippy. It sounds perhaps a bit extreme. But this is what Terra Madre was like.

Now realize that Terra Madre was a conference of people from 153 different countries, from different walks of life, socioeconomic backgrounds, and interests. So how could I say that we shared such common values, and that we all knew one another? We knew we were all there to make the world a better place for everyone to live in. A place where people could make their own decisions, and live the kind of life that is meaningful for them, without impeding on the freedom of others. We all believe in a diverse world of sovereign people. I cannot convey the feeling of love and the ease of conversation that common belief creates. It is a powerful feeling.

The days were filled with conferences open to all who attended, where people told their stories, proposed their solutions, inspired and became inspired. Speeches were translated. People ate together, trying foods in the large Salone del Gusto that had been produced with traditional

and sustainable methods. Youth movement conferences sought to inspire young people to get active in their community.

One workshop I attended was for cooks, and the topic of discussion was about menu planning. The problem laid out was, how can chefs and restaurateurs create menus that support sustainable agriculture and local farmers, while still running a profitable business? Local food produced with minimal chemicals is often more expensive, because more human labor is involved in the planting, raising of animals, and farm maintenance. The owner of one innovative cooking school in Ireland spoke about how the first recipe her students learn is how to make compost. She tries to harbor an appreciation for the entire lifespan of food in her cooking students. Food begins to develop its health, nutritional qualities, taste, and interaction with people when it is first planted in the ground--long before it is delivered through the kitchen’s backdoor with an invoice. Speakers suggested that chefs use their local purchases as advertising, by writing the farms where the food is from on menus, or by inviting a farmer to come speak at the restaurant once and a while. Planning menus that support the local economy, local farmers, and biodiversity suddenly became an opportunity rather than a problem.

At the conference, many people were directly involved in agricultural work too, and their problems did not have to do with menus and restaurants. Instead they focused on dwindling fish populations due to industrial overfishing, or the farmer’s inability to receive a fair price for their unique crop because a modern variety of the crop is much cheaper in the global market, or about climate change and the need for more diverse crops to safeguard against rising temperatures. I began to understand the issues of food production and what it means for people who actually work the land, especially those in the global south. Growing up in the suburbs of Boston and then moving to New York City, my life has been quite removed from soil, seeds and farmer’s issues.

But for me, the most meaningful part was the conversation with others who walked by. I spoke to many young people, some of whom attended the University of Gastronomic Sciences in Bra, Italy (a university started by the founder of Slow Food, Carlo Petrini). Several of us were asked to participate in a group interview. There was a French girl, an Ecuadorian guy, a man from Kosovo, and me, the American. The girl spoke about her French identity and the importance of food in her culture. The man from Kosovo spoke about the Slivoviz brandy he makes using plums from his backyard. The guy from Ecuador spoke about a soup his great grandmother made, that his younger siblings would never get the chance to eat because the recipe was not passed along--and because they often

eat fast food anyway. How would people learn to cook? He wants to start a cooking school in Ecuador where traditions like his great grandmother’s soup will be passed on. That is why he was, at the time, studying in a culinary school in France. He admired the way the French diligently pass their culinary traditions on from generation to generation, and wanted to use the French structure to preserve his own country’s traditions. The world’s diverse cultures and forms of knowledge can inspire, and so should be encouraged and practiced so they do not to fade away.

My own connection with food was less tactile, less cultural. It was personal, part of my tumultuous relationship with food growing up, and part of my passion for food as a way of slowing down and enjoying life. But it was not part of what made me American, as it was a marker of national identity for these people from France, Ecuador and Kosovo.

Since that moment, I have begun to associate the fight for tastier, healthier, more sustainable food with my American identity. Food is part of other people’s identity--religious, personal, national, cultural--because of what food has been in their lives. Food is part of my national identity because of what I want it to become. Food must be procured by people who know and care about the communities in which it is consumed, so as to keep the breath of life moving through nature, animals and people. We are a world of passionate people, skilled in various ways. Let’s not be fooled into thinking that the only way to produce enough food for all people is to let a few massive private companies control the entire breath of life. How can they know what is good for all people? How can the same thing, the same food, the same methods of production be beneficial to the diverse human beings in all pockets of the globe?

My family friend spoke about the need to feed the world, and believed that it can only be done through intensive, large-scale agriculture. Many people believe that Genetically Modified (GM) seeds are the solution to hunger in areas where the climate is less conducive to productive agriculture. What I am beginning to realize is that there are other solutions to feeding the world, solutions that enable communities to continue their way of life. In fact, the diversity of people, knowledge, and food production is the solution to feeding the world, and keeping the world’s people empowered and self-sufficient. For example, a field with a large amount of biodiversity is better equipped in

Let’s not be fooled into thinking that the only way to produce enough food for all people is to let a few massive private companies control the entire breath of life.

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case of climate change or pests, because more than likely not all crops will be affected by the onset of an undesirable condition. This is not to say that new innovations in food production have no place, or that science has no place. It is just that the solutions to more nutritious food, to more stability for the world’s food producers, to a healthier environment are many, not just one. We do not generally think like that in the United States. We like large-scale models, applicable to large swaths of people. There may not be one large-scale solution, but there is a large-scale way of sharing ideas and inspiring new ones, through conferences like Terra Madre. These networks between people link the pockets of agricultural knowledge in a web for all to use.

This is not an issue of efficient capitalism versus idealist socialism. In fact, there should be no “versus” in that sentence at all. This is about efficiency, capital, idealism, society, community, health, nature, diversity and life all at once. Until we are wise enough to incorporate all the pieces into the model of food production and the way we think about food, we will only be creating larger problems-- ones we will not be able to solve. Because food is both a local and a global issue, it is our chance to think outside of the box.

We all eat, but we do so in different ways. We can truly use all of our biological and intellectual diversity to make the best game plans for a healthy, happy and just future.

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Slow Food’s vision is to live in a world where all people have access to food that is good for them, good for the people who produce it, and good for the environment. The notion is easy for anyone to understand, but how to make it happen varies from place to place. For example, Slow Food USA tries to improve our country’s well being through focusing on food in schools. Slow Food chapters in other countries do work that is relevant to them, as do various farmers’ groups and other organizations. The narrative that most of us hear may be the one of large scale agriculture, of Monsanto and GM seeds, of our duty to feed the world’s starving people. But the fact that there are so many other movements-- of farmers and of consumers thinking about how to feed themselves, makes alternative solutions all the more possible, if only we can help each other to remember to take care of our own needs, our communities’ needs, and our country’s needs. Once everyone who wants to be becomes an active part of creating the solution to poverty, hunger, nutrition, and social wellbeing we will begin to meet our world’s needs.

Gabrielle Redner is a student at Gallatin, graduating in 2011. She is from Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts and is studying Food Systems and Development.

Endnotes Converstaions of the Body: Overcoming Oppression through Communities of Suffering

Religion as a Means to Survival [1] João José Reis, “Candomblé in Nineteenth Century Bahia: Priests, followers, clients,” Slavery and Abolition 22:1 (April 2001): 116.

[1] Ball, Patrick, Paul Kobrak, and Herbert F. Spirer, eds.,State Violence in Guatemala, 1960–1996: A Quantitative Reflection. American Association for the Advancement of Science

[2]

Ibid., 118.

[3]

Ibid., 120.

[2] Fanon, Franz. The Wretched of the Earth. (New York: Grove Press, 2004). P 181

[4]

Ibid., 120.

[3] Ball, Patrick, Paul Kobrak, and Herbert F. Spirer, eds.,State Violence in Guatemala, 1960–1996: A Quantitative Reflection. American Association for the Advancement of Science. Pg. 1

[5]

Ibid., 130.

[6]

Ibid., 132.

[4] Green, Linda. Fear as a Way of Life: Mayan Widows in Rural Guatemala. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999). P 69.

[7] Linda Green, “Shifting Affiliations: Mayan Widows and Evangélicos in Guatemala,” in Virginia Garrard-Burnett and David Stoll, eds., Rethinking Protestantism in Latin America (Philadelphia: Temple U Press, 1993), 161.

[5] Ibid. pg. 5

[8]

Ibid., 162.

[9]

Ibid., 169.

[6] Ibid. pg. 13 [7] Fanon, Franz. The Wretched of the Earth. (New York: Grove Press, 2004). P 181 [8] Nolen-Hoeksema, Susan. Abnormal Psychology. 3rd ed. (New York: McGraw Hill, 2004).

[9] Green, Linda. Fear as a Way of Life: Mayan Widows in Rural Guatemala. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999). P 69.

[10] Ibid. Pg. 172 [11] Nolen-Hoeksema, Susan. Abnormal Psychology. 3rd ed. New York: McGraw Hill, 2004.

[12] Authentic Maya. “Maya Medicine”. 2005. Web. 05 January 2010.

[13] Green, Linda. Fear as a Way of Life: Mayan Widows in Rural Guatemala. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999). 111 [14] Ibid. Pg. 111 [15] Menchú, Rigoberta. I, Rigoberta Menchu, An Indian Woman in Guatemala.

(Barcelona: Argos Vergara, 1983). P 239.

[16] Sieder, Rachel. «Reframing Citizenship: Indigenous Rights, Local Power and The Peace Process in Guatemala.» Conciliation Resources. 1997 [17] Green, Linda. Fear as a Way of Life: Mayan Widows in Rural Guatemala. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999). 65 [18] Ibid. Pg. 118 [19] Ibid. Pg. 117 [20] Nolen-Hoeksema, Susan. 2000.

[10] Ibid., 173.

[11] Ibid., 174.

[12] Gustavo Gutierrez, “Introduction to the Revised Edition: Expanding the View,” A Theology of Liberation: History, Politics, and Salvation (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1988), xvii.

[13] Ibid., xxv-xxvi.

[14] Ibid., xxx.

[15] Ibid., xxv.

[16] Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, as quoted in Larry Rohter, “As Pope Benedict Heads to Brazil, Rival Theology Retains its Appeal,” New York Times, May 7, 2007.

[17] Ibid.

Reform and Reversal: Argentina in the 90s and 2000s

1 Sunita, Kikeri and Aishetu Kolo, «Privatizations: Trends and Recent Developments.» World Bank. World Bank, n.d. Web. 5 Dec. 2009, http://rru. worldbank.org/Documents/Privatization/Privatization_paper.pdf.

2 Ariceta, Maria Fernanda, «Privatization in Argentina: When Accountability Suffered.» Syracuse University, Journal of Development and Social Transformation , Dec. 2009, 54.

3

Sunita and Kolo, «Privatizations: Trends and Recent Developments,” 7.

4 Chudnovsky, Daniel and Andrés López, The Elusive Quest for Growth in Argentina, (Palgrave Macmillan, April 2007), 68.

5

Chudnovsky and Lopez, 67.

6

Ariceta, «Privatization in Argentina,” 53.

59

7

Ariceta, “Privatization in Argentina,” 53.

8 Chudnovsky and Lopez, 68.

9 Ariceta, «Privatization in Argentina,” 54.

10 Daseking, Christina et al, “Lessons from the Crisis in Argentina.” The International Monetary Fund (Washington DC, 2004), 14.

11 Chudnovsky and Lopez, 68.

12 Chudnovsky and Lopez, 70.

13 Chudnovsky and Lopez, 71.

14 Agosín, Manuel, Eduardo Fernández-Arias, and Fidel Jaramillo, Growing Pains: Binding Constraints to Productive Investment in Latin America, InterAmerican Development Bank, 2009, 71.

15 Chudnovsky and Lopez, 74.

16 Chudnovsky and Lopez, 73.

17 Hausmann, Ricardo, Pritchett, Lant and Rodrik, Dani, “Growth Accelerations” ( June 2004). NBER Working Paper No. W10566. http://ssrn.com/ abstract=557200

18 Berlinski, Julio, “WTO Trade Review of Argentina.” World Trade Organization, (Blackwell Publishers Ltd, 2000), 1196.

19 Agosín et al, 67.

20 Agosín et al.

21 Miller, Terry and Kim Holmes, “Argentina Information on Economic Freedom.” The Heritage Foundation, Washington DC, 2009. http://www.heritage. org/Index/Country/Argentina

22 Agosín et al, 83.

23 Agosín et al, 87.

24 Agosín et al, 79.

25 “The Nationalization of Aerolíneas Argentinas and Austral: Will the Government Set Them Straight?” Public Policy and Management, University of Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania, Aug 6, 2008. http://www.wharton.universia.net/ index.cfm?fa=viewArticle&id=1563&language=English

26 Raszewski, Eliana, “Argentine Tax Cuts to Swell Deficit.” Bloomberg. http:// www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601086&sid=aB02gS4fh_Mo

The Struggle Against Internal Colonialism 1 The term Berber originates from a term used by the Romans close in meaning to ‘barbarian’ which originates etymologically from “people who say ‘blah, blah, blah.’” While there is very little pejorative meaning connected with the term anymore, Berbers prefer to call themselves Imazighen (meaning “the free people”) and the language they speak Tamazight. For consistency with quoted sources, the term Berber will be used throughout this essay, however, never derisively.

2 Mohamed Benrabah, “The Language Situation in Algeria,” Language Planning and Policy in Africa : Algeria, Côte d’Ivoire, Nigeria and Tunisia, Ed. Robert B Kaplan and Richard B Baldauf, Jr. Vol. 2 of Language Planing and Policy : Multilingual Matters, 2007, 56, 25.

3 Paulin G. Djité, “The Arabization of Algeria: Linguistic and Sociopolitical Motivations,” International Journal of the Sociology of Language 98 (1992): 21.

4 There are four distinct dialects of Berber spoken in Algeria. The largest

60

of these four, constituting about two thirds of the Berberophone community, is the Kabylians. The Kabylians had a unique place within French assimilationist policy, particularly in relation to what has been coined the “Kabylian Myth,” in which French colonizers purported that the Kabylian Berbers were descended from Europeans and therefore superior to their Arab compatriots. For complete discussion, see Lorcin (1995). They have also been the most active in the development of linguistic ideology since Algerian independence (Benrabah, 33).

For that reason, reference to “the Berber community,” “Berberophones” or “Berber” will be, unless explicitly stated otherwise, a reference to the Kabylian Berbers

5 Martin Lewis, «One Hundred Million Frenchmen: The «Assimilation» Theory in French Colonial Policy,» Comparative Studies in Society and History 4.2 (1962): 145.

6 Raymond F. Betts, Assimilation and Association in French Colonial Theory 1890-1914, 1961 : University of Nebraska Press, 2005, 8

7 qtd. in Lewis, 145.

8 Bulletin de l’enseignement des indigènes

9 qtd. in Suleiman 29.

10 Benrabah, 41.

11 Derrida (37-38).

12 Benrabah, Modernization 238.

13 qtd. in Djite, 18.

14 Djite, 19.

15 Arabisation should not to be mistaken for Arabicisation. Arabicisation is concerned with solely a linguistic transition, whereas Arabisation is “both cultural and linguistic and has a much wider application with profound implications for modern Arab society” (Benrabah 56).

16 Kay Adamson, Algeria: a study in competing ideologies : Continuum International, 1998, 81.

17 With an irony that seemed to escape its drafters, the document’s actual title was “Projet de Programme pour la Réalisation de la Révolution Démocratique” and written entirely in French. (qtd. in Benrabah, 72).

18 This article, while now third instead of fifth, still remains in the Algerian constitution. (Algerian Constitutional Council, 30 Nov. 2002, The People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria, May 2009 <http://www.conseil-constitutionnel. dz/indexAng.htm>).

19 Kamal Salhi, “Critical Imperatives of the French Language in the Francophone World: Colonial Legacy - Postcolonial Policy,” Current Issues in Language Planning 3.3 (2002): 326.

20 Stephen May, “Language Policy and Minority Rights,” An Introduction to Language Policy: Theory and Method, Ed. Thomas Ricento : Blackwell, 2006, 261.

21 Salhi, 320.

22 The interaction between French and Arabic at the Higher Education level was complicated by many factors, including a relatively nonexistent and, where existent, unemployed Arabic lexicon in relation to the sciences. It is for this reason that humanities degrees were transitioned first and most effectively. (Dijte, 20).

23 The interplay between Arabisation and Islamisation is complex and deserving significant attention; however, it is outside the scope of this paper to

examine or fully engage questions of religiosity or secularism within the context of Arabisation.

24 qtd. in Benrabah, 75.

25 Benrabah, 46.

26 For example, the 1991 ‘Act N˚ 91-05 that called for complete Arabisation by 1992 (including governmental administration, media and, of course, education) was modeled off French legislation designed to protect the French language in the European Union. (Benrabah, 71)

27 qtd. in Benrabah, 74.

28 It must be mentioned that Berber led opposition nearly always claims that rights should be afforded to the Berber language as well as the non-Standard demotic Arabic, often called Algerian Arabic, which has also been marginalized and thought of pejoratively since Arabisation. Due to the distinct linguistic, social, historical and political dimensions of the Standard versus Algerian Arabic debate, it is not the intention of this paper to explore that element of the Berber claim.

(Benrabah 77-86).

29 Minority in this context should be understood as relative to the larger sociolinguistic community numerically as well as in regards to power or political representation.

30 May, 258.

31 See Ricento (2006) for further discussion.

32 Salhi, 336.

33 Franz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, 1963 : Grove, 200, 16

34 Fanon, 17.

35 Nor is it a struggle limited to the Arabic-speaking proponents of Arabisation.

It is important to note that even the Arab/Berber distinction, accepted by Arabs, Berbers and largely within the arguments made here, is a colonial one. There was a pervasive “preoccupation with language as one of the keys to unlocking a people’s past and situating it on the ladder of civilization” in 19th century France. Renowned French academics like natural sciences professor Cuvier, philologist Ernest Renan and even staunch anti-assimilationist Leopold de Saussure all saw language as intrinsically indicative of race divisions (Lorcin, 147). It was for that reason that when the French colonized Algeria, they constructed a racial divide (Arab versus Berber) from a linguistic divide (arabophone versus berberophone). While there were “certain sociopolitical and linguistic realities” of an Arab/Berber divide, those were largely exploited by French “propaganda aimed at dividing the people of Algeria” (Djite, 20). In their efforts to obtain linguistic rights, Berbers have assumed the colonial “categorization and classification” to be truth (Lorcin, 43) and argued they deserve recognition on the basis of racial rights.

36 Benita Parry, “Resistance Theory / Theorising Resistance or Two Cheers for Nativism,” Colonial Discourse, Postcolonial Theory, By Francis Barker, Peter Hulme, and Margaret Iverson : Manchester University, 1996, 182.

37 For an interesting argument that identity and nationalism stem from colonization see Dirlik (2001).

Cote D’Ivoire Conflict: Authoritarianism, Ethnic Clash, and Resource Mismanagement 1 Ball, Patrick, Paul Kobrak, and Herbert F. Spirer, eds.,State Violence in Guatemala, 1960–1996: A Quantitative Reflection. American Association for the Advancement of Science

2 Fanon, Franz. The Wretched of the Earth. (New York: Grove Press, 2004).

P 181 3

Ball, Patrick 1

4 Green, Linda. Fear as a Way of Life: Mayan Widows in Rural Guatemala.

(New York: Columbia University Press, 1999). P 69.

5

Green 5

6

Green 13

7

Fanon 217

8 Nolen-Hoeksema, Susan. Abnormal Psychology. 3rd ed. (New York: McGraw Hill, 2004).

9

Green 67

10

Green 172

11

Nolen-Hoeksema, Susan. 2000.

12

Authentic Maya. “Maya Medicine”. 2005.

13

Green 111

14

Green 111

15 Menchú, Rigoberta. I, Rigoberta Menchu, An Indian Woman in Guatemala. (Barcelona: Argos Vergara, 1983). P 239.

16 Sieder, Rachel. «Reframing Citizenship: Indigenous Rights, Local Power and The Peace Process in Guatemala.» Conciliation Resources. 1997 17

Green 65

18

Green 118

19

Green 117

20

Nolen-Hoeksema, Susan. 2000.

A Journey on Pause [i] Slavin, Barbara. Bitter Friends, Bosom Enemies: Iran, the US, and the path to confrontation. St Martin’s Press. New York, NY. 2007 [ii] Takeyh, Ray. Hidden Iran: paradox and power in the Islamic Republic. Henry Holt and Co. New York, NY. 2006. [iii] Ibid. [iv] Ibid. [v] Sanger, David. “U.S. Rejected Aid for Israeli Raid on Iranian Nuclear Site.”

NYTimes.com. Jan. 10, 2009. Accessed: April 1 2010.

T is for Truth, F is for Fact 1 Sontag, Susan. “Regarding the Torture of Others.” New York Times Magazine May 23, 2004: pg. 24 NYTimes.com. 3 May 2009. <http://www. nytimes.com/2004/05/23/magazine/23PRISONS.html?pagewanted=1> 2

Ibid.

3 Orwell, George. “Politics and the English Language.” 1949. Shooting an Elephant and Other Essays. New York: Harcourt, 1950. Project Gutenberg of Australia. Web. 2002. 8 April 2009.

61

4 Lemann, Nicholas. “The Limits of Language.” The Journalism School Columbia University. 4 November 2007. <http://www.journalism.columbia.edu/ cs/ContentServer/jrn/1165270051276/page/1175373361889/simplepage.htm> 5 “Half of Americans Reject Waterboarding.” 25 February 2010. Angus Reid Global Monitor. 29 February 2010. <http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/view/ half_of_americans_reject_waterboarding/> 6

Ibid.

7 Taylor, Diana. “Double-Blind: The Torture Case” in Critical Inquiry, vol 33, no 4. Summer 2007. University of Chicago.

8

Ibid.

3 See Black Nationalism: http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/islamist-groupspush-conspiracy-theories-in-homegrown-terror-cases/ 4

http://pajamasmedia.com../../../../../blog/somalis-leaving-us-for-jihad/

5

http://www.nctc.gov/press_room/speeches/sfr-20090311.pdf

6 http://pajamasmedia.com../../../../../blog/minneapolis-imam-decries-thehell-of-living-in-america/ 7

http://www.bloggernews.net/13767

8 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/16/us/16immig.html?_ r=1&pagewanted=all

9 Joseph Abrams. “Despite Reports, Khalid Seikh Mohammed Was Not Waterboarded 183 Times.” April 28, 2009. FoxNews.com. 3 May 2009.

9 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/16/us/16immig.html?_ r=1&pagewanted=all

10

10 http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/29/health/29immig. html?pagewanted=all

Ibid.

11 Hoyt, Clark. “Telling the Brutal Truth.” 26 April 2009. New York Times on the Web. Opinion. 3 May 2009.

11

http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/566637.aspx

<http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/26/opinion/26pubed.html>.

12

http://www.nctc.gov/press_room/speeches/sfr-20090311.pdf

12

13

http://www.adcminnesota.org/

14

http://www.allsomali.com/News-ID-Muqdisho-03-07-2009.htm

15

http://www.nctc.gov/press_room/speeches/sfr-20090311.pdf

16

ttp://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.3380/pub_detail.asp

17

http://articles.latimes.com/2009/mar/01/local/me-muslim1

18

http://www.infocusnews.net/content/view/30687/937/

19

http://www.lincolnclub.org/

20

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2009/05/20/2009-05

21

http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/article_6068.shtml

22

http://www.forward.com/articles/107109/

Ibid.

13 Shane, Scott. “Torture Versus War.” April 19, 2009. NYTimes.com. 3 May 2009. <http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/19/weekinreview/19shane.html?_r=1>.

14 Orwell, George. “Politics and the English Language.” 1949. Shooting an Elephant and Other Essays. New York: Harcourt, 1950. pgs 1-7. Project Gutenberg of Australia. 2002. 8 April 2009. <http://gutenberg.net.au/ ebooks03/0300011h.html#part42>.

15

Ibid.

16 Steve Best, Anthony J. Nocella II. “Defining Torture.” Animal Liberation Pholosophy and Policy Journal, Volume 2, No.1, 2004, pp 1-18.

17 Sontag, Susan. “Regarding the Torture of Others.” New York Times Magazine.

18

Ibid.

19 Arendt, Hannah. The Origins of Totalitarianism. 1976. New York: Harcourt Inc. pg 351.

23 http://news.prnewswire.com/ViewContent.aspx?ACCT=109&STORY=/ www/story/05-26-2009/0005032625&EDATE=

20 Abrams, Joseph. “Despite Reports, Khalid Seikh Mohammed Was Not Waterboarded 183 Times.” April 28, 2009. FOXNews.com. 3 May 2009.

24

http://www.forward.com/articles/107109/

25

http://www.colostate.edu/Orgs/MSA/find_more/m_x.html

26

http://97.74.65.51/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=21060

<http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/04/28/despite-reports-khalid-sheikhmohammed-waterboarded-times>.

21

Ibid.

27 http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/jul/20/sudan.ewenmacaskill

22

Orwell, George. “Politics and the English Language.”

28 http://www1.voanews.com/english/news/africa/north/UN-HumanRights-Chief-Denounces-Migrant-Killings-by-Egyptian-Forces-85961822.html 29 http://www.nypost.com/seven/07212008/news/regionalnews/train_ing_ day_for_jihadists_120839.htm

Islamism in America 1 The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. 2007. http://peoplepress.org/report/329/ 2 See Somali: http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/islamists-sabotage-assimilation-of-somali-americans/ See Homegrown Terrorism: http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/islamist-groupspush-conspiracy-theories-in-homegrown-terror-cases/

62

30 http://www.adl.org/main_Nation_of_Islam/jew_hatred_as_history. htm?Multi_page_sections=sHeading_2http://www.adl.org/main_Nation_of_Islam/jew_hatred_as_history.htm?Multi_page_sections=sHeading_2 31 Little Rock: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31048825/ Riverdale: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,520908,00.html LA: http://www.danielpipes.org/2920/las-thwarted-terror-spree 32

http://www.phillymag.com/articles/the_radicals_among_us/

33

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1044395093714681453.html

34

http://www.marksilverberg.com/article/WahhabisminAmerica/67/

Cover Photo by Shimrit Lee

Back Photo by Maggie Owsley

Journal of Global Affairs Volume 5 2009-2010