The Peace Revolution
July 22
Letting Afghanistan Go
There are some things that people have to do for thiemselves. Afghanistan is a case in point. A few days ago, I wrote about how the best revolutions are peaceful. Later that same day, Time magazine arrived with its cover story being about Afghanistan. British Diplomat Rory Stewart, who lives in Kabul, Afghanistan, wrote an article suggesting the United States take most of its troops out of Afghanistan, and concentrate on preventing Al Qaeda from establishing bases there with its remaining troops. The basic reason for removing the troops is that they act to increase nationalism in Afghanistan and improve the status of the Taliban. Also, there is the cost in lives lost, and injuries, as well as financially. Basically, occupation of one's homeland is not welcomed by anybody, and certainly not by the Afghans. In Stewart words, we need to "get out of the way," and let them rebuild their own society. But at the same time, other nations such as the United States can help Afghanistan build its society by greater involvement in its government and economy, in order to help it build infrastucture. Basically, Stewart is recommending following the 10 suggestions I made in the blog "The Best Revolutions are Peaceful."
Unfortunately, Barack Obama has chosen to show his toughness as potential commander-in-chief by talking about transferring some troops from Iraq to Afghanistan, rather than brining them home, although the number of troops he proposes to send to Afghanistan is around 7,000, much fewer than he would remove from Iraq. Obama should read the article by Mr. Stewart and learn more about the situation in Afghanistan from non-military sources before making a commitment to augment the U.S. troop supply in Iraq. It seems to me that politicians, especially in the Bush Administration, act as though they do not know the first thing about human nature, when they attempt military solutions to social problems. They act as though Democracy, social and political progress comes from the barrel of a gun. Perhaps the temptation to use the United States' military might is too great for politicians such as George W. Bush to resist. We need politicians who can resist this temptation; hopefully, Barack Obama is such a politician, but so far, it is difficult to tell. If we as a society cannot resist the temptation to flex our muscles in the world and use all of our military toys, before long, we in the U.S. will find ourselves falling far behind other industrialized nations in various indices of well-being. In fact, we are already far along in that process.
We need to let Afghanistan go, let the people of Afghanistan form their own nation in a way which they find suitable. We cannot micromanage the world. What we can do is to help the Afhans build schools which educate both boys and girls. help them build infrastrucure, support political reforms and monitor their elections for potential fraud, use more diplomacy and cooperation with the United Nations in dealling with Afghanistan, encourage academic exchanges between the U.S. and Afghanistan, and encourage joint business ventures between the U.S. and Afghanistan. In short, we should be taking all the steps that I suggested in "The Best Revolutions are Peaceful." But the rest we should leave up to the people of Afghanistan. We need to have trust in human nature. The desire for democracy and progress will win in the long run, no matter which nation we are dealing with. We also need to realize the psychological benefits of self-governance and self-motivated political and social progress in terms of national self-esteem. If for no other reason than this, I believe that the invasion of Afghanistan was a mistake in the first place. Subjugation to another people brings down self-esteem; building one's own nation builds up self-esteem and creates confident, creative, competent people who know how to make their own progress.
July 19
The Best Revolutions are Peaceful
I am writing about political revolutions here, not the Industrial Revolution or the Computer Revolution or any of the other so-called revolutions which are used to refer to widespread societal changes which do not directly involve politics. We in the United States unfortunately have a very violent history, one that we are paying for now. We tend to think of political revolutions as necessarily being violent, as the American Revolution, the French Revolution, and the revolutions which brought communists to power in Russia and China all were. However, this ignores the abundant evidence that revolutions need not be violent, and in fact, probably are not violent in most cases. Furthermore, the best revolutions, certainly the ones causing the least grief, are nonviolent. A quick examination of recent history reminds us of that fact. Actually, the past 20 years or so have been a remarkable time in the history of peaceful political revolutions. The breaking up and democratization of the former Soviet Union, the democratization of its satellite nations, the undoing of Apartheid in South Africa, the democratic transformation of Nicaragua, which did even better what the Reagan Administration unsuccessfully attempted to do, even the end of the monopoly of the Kuomintang Party in Taiwan, and People Power in the Phillipines which brought Corazon Aquino to power, are some examples of peaceful political revolutions in recent years which come to my mind. There was also a case of election fraud in one of the former Soviet Satellite states, which resulted in a voter revolt which broiught the true winner of the election to power. Unfortunately, I do not remember which nation that was (my apologies to its people).
In the United States, however, we have this ridiculous meme that "Freedom is not free" (which is practically straight out of George Orwell's book "1984"), and that national independence needs to be paid in blood. This is something we need to overcome. Our government, mostly Republicans, but also Democrats, have consistently supported armed revolution, with the apparent assumption that this is the real way to true democratization, despite the fact that history proves otherwise. In fact, the Bush Administration's invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq both seem largely predicated on the idea that the use of force, even if it is a foreign takeover, is the most effective way to bring democracy to a nation. Current events are proving this notion to be false. There are some things that the people of a nation have to do for themselves. Our politicians need to get the message that creating or even fomenting armed revolutions is not the right way to productive change. They need to study how nations build themselves, and how other nations can cooperate in helping this process move forward. I am sure that there are many in the United States government who would argue that the United States is doing so, and there are some efforts in this regard, but they remain inadequate, and political leaders here in the United States are consistently seduced by the power of our military might, and the great temptations to use, or let our friends in other nations, use, our various military toys. They tend to downplay the importance of international cooperation, especially among international bodies such as the United Nations, and bypass them as desired, preferring instead to rely upon our own resources in influencing other nations. Instead, our leaders, whichever party they belong to, should seek greater cooperation with the United Nations, and seek out opportunities to cooperate politically with all other nations, even those with whom we have fundamental disagreements.
Examples of international cooperation which can help transform cultures include the following:
1. Greater cooperation with the United Nations, and deference to its decisions;
2. Greater diplomacy when problems arise;
3.Academic exchanges; When academics cooperate, technology and science blossom, and international understanding (and marriage) increases;
4. Loosening of travel and immigration restrictions, making it easier for people to travel or immigrate internationally;
5. Encouraging government cooperation in business ventures;
6. Effective monitoring of elections (including our own);
7. Providing political support for peaceful social and political movements in foreign nations;
8. Charitably building infrastructure. This must not be the building of privatized roads, hospitals, electrical lines, etc. in which the recipients are asked to pay the builder in perpetuity for the one-time service of infrastructure building. This is an investment in another nation's future, not a financial investment, and the dividends to humanity are great but not guaranteed;
9. Charitable building of educational institutions. This is the most important investment that a society can make, or one can make in another. One again, this must be a matter of public works, not private enterprise in order to provide the greatest benefit to society;
10. Supporting education for women, good, productive jobs for women (not demeaning jobs such as prostitution or jobs which machines can do such as sweat-shop labor), and access to the political process for women, whatever helps to empower women and helps bring equality between men and women around the world.
I am sure there are other ways of helping nations achieve positive transformations which I have not thought of, and I know these techniques are used at times by the U.S., but not nearly enough. Far too often, the United States takes a competitive, rather than cooperative, stance toward other nations, a stance which ultimately leads to conflict between nations. As stated in another recent post, people as a whole need to internationalize their thinking, basing their social identities less on their nationality, and more on our common humanity. When this happens, a peaceful humanistic revolution will occur, a revolution of the best kind.