First comment! Haha!
Great article, Eric. Keep it up.
Tovy in Ottawa
Posted by Tovy at January 15, 2007 01:50 PM
“Afghanistan has only 29 million wretched people”
Not that Eric cares, obviously, but they are far less “wretched” than they were under the Taliban, what with the ability to go to school, not be hanged for wearing nail polish, etc., etc.
“Like Afghanistan after the US invasion in 2001, Somalis have been slow to oppose invasion.”
Slow indeed! Here we are, what, 5 years after the invasion of Afghanistan, and polls there still show the people of Afghanistan supported the arrival of US troops by an overwhelming majority?
88% think the U.S.-led invasion was a good thing for their country
74% continue to express a favorable opinion of the United States
88% prefer the current Afghan government to Taliban rule.
80% support the presence of U.S., British and other international forces on their soil; that compares with 5 percent support for Taliban fighters.
Posted by Bino at January 15, 2007 02:13 PM
PS - Damn you, Tovy!
Posted by Bino at January 15, 2007 02:13 PM
Freedom in Somalia now?
Posted by Weary at January 15, 2007 03:26 PM
Eric Margolis is a very fascinating individual. However, in Tom Bower’s new book “Conrad and Lady Black: Dancing on the Edge” I was surprised to find out that Eric dated Barbara Amiel who is as anti-Muslim as western pseudo-intellectuals get. I am just glad that he refused her demand that he marry her, and instead joined the great jihad against the Russians in Afghanistan.
Thank you Eric, for writing what few others dare to.
Posted by Van at January 15, 2007 03:43 PM
Van, I was shocked to learn that Eric is the majority owner and chairman of Jamieson Laboratories. You know how previlant their goods are? Wow.
Always found that pretty wild.
Posted by Bino at January 15, 2007 04:06 PM
Maybe the US and Ethiopia just wanted to bring the whole Somalia “issue” back up front, kinda like how Eric viewed the brutal Pakistani incursion into Indian Kashmir in spring of 2000:
“Pakistan staged the operation to internationalize the Kashmir issue, which was fading into obscurity at a time when brutal Indian repression was threatening to extinguish the uprising”
So…a brutal incursion into Indian Kashmir and killing in cold blood can be justified for bringing back an issue into the front pages?
Sweet!
Posted by Bino at January 15, 2007 04:29 PM
Bino, I knew about Jamieson and it didn’t surprise me that much considering Eric is such a staunch supporter of capitalism. I believe he inherited Jamieson from his father Henry Margolis, who died in 1989. His mother was also a great lady, although not well known. Eric does seem to be a fairly private person, which is too bad, his (auto)biography would be a very interesting read considering all that he has witnessed.
Posted by Van at January 15, 2007 05:17 PM
i’ve always been a fan of eric’s reporting, but i find it odd that he’s so pro-capitalist and pro-corporation…he dumps on the bush administration yet at the same time supports corporations who are part in parcel of the problem…very hypocritical imo…
Posted by blitz at January 15, 2007 05:32 PM
Thanks Eric for your research on Somali. You truly bring a different prospective that you don’t usually see in the western media. You are one of few Western journalist that understand the Muslim world and the turmoil it is going through.
The question that we (Somalis) are asking ourselves is why do the West hate us, specially the US. I can under the Ethiopian pigs. They occupy our land (Ogaden) and now the rest of Somalia. They are our eternal enemies and won’t hesitate to crush any functioning government in Somalia on the first opportunity they get. What I don’t underhand the US motive other than their hatred towards anything is remotely associated with Islam. However, 100% of the Somali populations are Muslims, other than few warlords (Transition Federal Government) that sold their honor and religion to the US and Ethiopian.
The UIC might have been defeated, but their aspirations to unite the Somali people under the banner of Islam is alive and well.
—Dalmar
Posted by Dalmar at January 15, 2007 06:28 PM
Eric, this is a balanced analysis of the situation in Somalia. We hope all goes well in Somalia.
The U.S. seems like it’s not learning anything from Iraq and Afghanistan.
I’m particularly concerned about the Islam-phobia tone of the U.S. and its Ethiopian army. The UIC has done what the Mighty America couldn’t in 1993 Black Hawk Down, and have librated Mogadishu from the blood-sucking and brutal warlords. I guess the U.S. prefers the warlords over the liberators of Mogadishu. Something must’ve been lost in translation. Or there is a different plan in place for Ethiopia and the U.S.
Fools are those who don’t learn from their own mistakes/experiences. I think Ethiopia and the U.S both underestimate the will of the Somali people. Somalis are tire of the civil war and we want PEACE. Lets hope Ethiopia and U.S. can be civilized and stop the aggression before its too late.
One of the best coverages I’ve seen.
Thanks
Mohamed
Posted by moe Sofa at January 15, 2007 09:23 PM
It’s sad really… the UIC may bring order to Somalia, but it’s a very harsh sort of order, replete with misogyny, religious repression, and joyless fatwas summoning images of the “Ministry for the Prevention of Vice and the Promotion of Virtue.”
While I scarcely doubt the chaos of warlordism is worse than the Sharia hardline order of the UIC, I can’t help but think that the Somalians really have no good options when it comes to living meaningful and prosperous lives.
With the mineral wealth of Somalia and many other African countries, one wonders why the continent as a whole is such a mess. It makes me wonder if living in a land with an abundance of natural resources is a curse rather than a blessing. If they didn’t have those resources, perhaps the people would focus on developing their human capital, instead of squandering it so cheaply at the bidding of warlords, or proxies on the bankroll of Western neo-Imperialists.
Posted by chatman at January 16, 2007 01:28 AM
Man, reading some of Eric’s old articles is a trip.
Shazam, Leftside, Hyperbolus, Oldfan:
Did you guys ever read this one?
http://www.ericmargolis.com/archives/1998/10/pinochet_is_a_h.php
Posted by Bino at January 16, 2007 09:05 AM
Bino:
If you the read my response to EM’s piece on Castro, you will find for the record that I am not in agreement with his soft treatment of the criminal and mass murderer Pinochet.
I do not as a rule agree with EM’s view on every point but overall find his observations to hit the mark.
Having said that, I am wondering what your motivation is to bring this to the forefront, what are you trying to highlight.
EM has been consistent of his treatment towards Pinochet for reasons that elude me. Perhaps his utter dislike for communism has created a blind spot that otherwise clouds his sound judgement.
Posted by oldfan at January 16, 2007 01:04 PM
The difference between Afghanistan and Somalia is that strategic control over Afghanistan was needed before the invasion of Iraq. Otherwise Taleban could have severely hindered American plans in Iraq, something that the Iraqi mujahideen are doing now.
In Somalia no such control is needed. America just wanted to nip the popular Islamic movement in the bud before they could inspire others in Africa. For now they’ll be content to let Ethopia and the Courts fight it out. If things get rough, they’ll probably have another cycle of Ethopian aid and sea/air attacks.
However a real possibility exists of the Courts taking guerilla war into Ethopia itself, forcing Ethopia to pull out for its own sake. Also Ethopia is the only country available to rent its army for fighting USA’s dirty war in Somalia, so they could twist it to their advantage.
The criminal US administration is creating more and more problems for its future successors, and trying to assure the continuation of its henious policy, by making retreat look like a grand act of failure.
Posted by Zawar Qayyum at January 16, 2007 01:58 PM
As I said, oldfan, I was just tooling around the archives and found that particular article pretty interesting.
Posted by Bino at January 16, 2007 02:44 PM
Zawar Qayyum:
On the issue of help from neighboring countries, isn’t the Sudan a potential source of safe haven or re-supply of the UIC in Somalia? What is the relationship between the Sudan’s majority Arab government and the UIC?
Arka C.
Posted by chatman at January 16, 2007 03:54 PM
It would now seem that General Boykin, previously of Mogudishu fame, having earlier diagnosed the difficulty there as “spiritual” and decided that the preferred method of treatment was “coming at [it] in the name of Jesus” has had an important role to play in this episode. As convinced as anyone of the power of the Lord, I’m a bit hesitant to identify Him with the imbecile enthusiasms and projects of General Boykin. Boykin is now said to have been sacked by Gates.
John Lowell
Posted by John Lowell at January 16, 2007 05:01 PM
FYI
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/810011.html
Posted by oldfan at January 16, 2007 06:00 PM
It’s encouraging to see that since the departure of the person who called himself Rampart, this group has taken on a civility not seen for some time. It is nice to see posters who have very different perspectives on the issues that are spoken about here and who can broaden our own understanding.
I’ve followed Eric’s views from his days on Diplomatic Immunity and, while I find his views quite engaging and with a good background of personal experience, his main weakness is a blind spot when it comes to U.S. foreign policy – despite a few changes of President in the interim – and despite his professed American citizenship. I fall somewhere between Eric and Bino in my views. I’m not prepared to take everything Eric says at face value because of that blind spot and I believe Bino exaggerates the “U.S. is good” side of many issues, but he offers a useful counterpoint.
Bush’s legacy will include his “roll of the dice” in the Middle East, which has probably reduced American influence in that area of the world forever, his loss of any influence in Latin & Central America (or Europe for that matter) due to inattention, a phobia about anything resembling a socialist viewpoint (un-American) and an inability to recognize the importance of Asia and the environment in our future. In short – his presidency was entirely focused on the “short term” – about the maximum span of his personal intelligence.
I agree with Eric that Somalia is just the latest last gasp – an attempt to eliminate any vestige of Islamic ‘supremacy’, a throwback to the old domino theory with about the same lack of hard evidence or any understanding of the real issues. I’m not convinced the results will be worth the effort mainly because there isn’t enough time (for him anyway) – most of the world has written this administration off as a lame duck that will soon be consumed by internal battles with Congress over a number of issues – he might as well have joined Saddam on the gallows for all that he means now. The real strategists are looking beyond 2008.
Posted by restless at January 16, 2007 07:54 PM
First a thank you to Mr.Margolis. Though I took for granted he’d be writing about Somalia sooner or later, how many other western journalists are acknowledging what’s going on there?
Regarding the Jamieson comments, Eric’s personal thoughts and his private life are two seperate matters. We are privilege to his thoughts and should deal with them on their own. Dragging in his private life and trying to tie them in with his columns is nothing more than muckraking.
As someone who goes back to the 1980s reading Mr.Margolis I can inform you that he has always been pro-capitalist(anti-communist) and pro-american. He’s also been one of the few writers to consistently speak out against Israel. Thus G.W.Bush produced a clash between Eric’s Islamic sympathies and his American patriotism. Luckily he showed his humanity and his sided with the less privileged. Perhaps, thanks to GW, he has had a road to Damascus experience and is now a little less pro-capitalist and less an American patriot. Can you blame him?
Posted by Paul Whiteside at January 17, 2007 09:23 AM
It takes westerners to believe a strict, authoritarian government is a greater human rights abuse than chaos and violence. Sorry but for people living in these countries any government is better if it provides law and order. Lack of peace is the greatest of all human rights abuses.
Somalia finaly had peace, after 15 years. The US decided it didn’t like that kind of peace and the fighting is on again.
Once again it proves that the best thing the West can do for the developing world is to stay out of it. We only create harm and destruction.
BTW the only question regarding those Afghan pole numbers is this: If everyone loves the occupation then why are the Taliban getting stronger?
Posted by Paul Whiteside at January 17, 2007 09:33 AM
Come on, Paul. Don’t be so sensitive WRT a mere mention of Eric’s global, billion dollar corporate entity which happens to be Canada’s largest vitamin maker, exporting their product to dozens of countries around the world and acquiring smaller companies like PanGeo Pharma’s Wampole and Quest brands. Gobble ‘em up – yum!
It’s no biggie, just a fact, and hardly muckraking. Did you know they offer a hair-color product called “Snob Girls”? Neat branding! Also, Jamieson Laboratories was chosen as the exclusive provider of nutritional products for Chinese athletes by China’s National Olympic Sports Centre – that’s cool!
Once I found out the connection I made my girlfriend promise to never buy Jamieson products again. She resisted until I had her read one of the archived articles titled, “Does Israel Have Smart Germs?”
That sealed the deal!
Posted by Bino at January 17, 2007 03:27 PM
“It takes westerners to believe a strict, authoritarian government is a greater human rights abuse than chaos and violence.”
Not greater perhaps, but maybe equal. If you think of chaos and violence as creating unhappiness through uncertainty of a given citizen’s future or livelihood, authoritarian governments may create equal unhappiness by confirming the damning certainty of oppression. In that light, I wonder what women or religious minorities might think of your unqualifued preference for the UIC’s brand of law and order over anarchy. You might be right about Somalia; Islamic male tyrannies reduce about half the population to gender-based slavery, while anarchy imperils everyone, including women. Further, given much of Africa’s predilection to patriarchy, it may not take a government to propagate the most vicious propensities of male tyranny.
That said, I don’t buy the universality of your argument that law and order is always better than anarchy, from the standpoint of human rights or popular happiness. Unhappiness can arise from the uncertainty of right to life and safety that anarchy creates, but it can also arise under ordered regimes that are certain to deny large segments of the population their human rights. The Taliban presumably imposed the same sort of harsh order sought by the UIC, and were extremely unpopular in general. They were particularly hated among women and religious minorities, who were the most substantially oppressed; in most cases, the government’s lofty proclamations of protecting a woman’s virtue did little to stop widespread rape, child marriage, and systematic exclusion of half of Afghanistan’s population from the public sphere. I would contend that, while violence and chaos is never a good thing, some forms of law and order might be just as bad.
On the other hand, some governments might replicate the ‘uncertainty’ of anarchy by randomly arresting and imprisoning people, as was typical in in Stalin’s Soviet Union under the Article 58 prosecutions. This was not a happy situation either, Though never performed, I would love to see a study comparing the relative happiness of Soviet citizens from 1935 to 1953, and of Russian citizens during the period anarchy that followed the 1990 coup attempt by the Red Army.
I also am unpersuaded by your casual implication that westerners are naïve for disproportionately valuing individual rights, social tolerance, and upward mobility. And before you resort to arguments of how evil Western capitalists work to deny such rights to those abroad, you must concede that most people in the developed West enjoy the freedom to live as we choose, and to speak and worship freely. Hence, it is hard for some of us to imagine what it must be like for over half the people in a society to be denied those basic rights.
Posted by chatman at January 17, 2007 05:29 PM
Chatman,
Your well thought out rebuttal aside, I still agree with Paul.
DCanuck
Posted by D. Canuck at January 17, 2007 07:32 PM
chatman, the naivete is in your basic assumptions.
In the first place, what do you know of the UIC? As a Canadian who worked in Somalia at the end of Siad Barre’s rule, I am shocked at the capacity of my countryfolk’s ability to ignore an issue for decades, and then suddenly assume they know all there is to be known based on some politician’s sudden discover that “The UIC are radical Islamists like the Taleban, and give shelter to terrorists.”
Frankly Siad Barre was a corrupt terrorist, who bombed his own second largest city because of the rumour of dissent. The warlords who have dominated the society since Barre’s fall have done nothing if not terrorised the country, and where it suited the US’s convenience, they have supported their terror, as they supported that of Siad Barre. In the 90s it was a daily occurrence for the supporters of one of these warlords, to invade the territory of another in the jeeps they called “Mad Maxes” with gimble mounted machine guns on the backs, shooting anyone in the street. Now there is personal freedom for you.
The UIC are an extension of the system of justice administered by tribal elders throughout Barre’s time and the time that followed. They were a touch of sanity. If the objective is to shock western sensibilities, we need only mention that one of their functions was to negotiate “blood money” settlements. Barbaric! Yet most westerners have no inkling what that means. It is simply one of the necessary mechanisms in the ancient culture, for arriving at a peace agreement after an offence, however accidental that offence might have been. It is a mechanism for getting to peace.
AS an aside for that matter, what did you know of the Taleban? While it suited the convenience of the west to negotiate oil pipelines with the Taleban, there was no interest whatsoever on the part of western governments, in their human rights record. No more so, than there was on the part of the Americans, when they were funding them to fight the Soviets, the intervention which eventually brought them to power. As a result, diplomatic pressure for change was not exerted by the west. That was at the time when countless individuals and human rights agencies were pressuring their governments to exert pressure on the Taleban…not go to war with the Taleban.
Did the Taleban give shelter to Osama bin Laden? No, it was not a matter of giving him shelter. He arrived there before the Taleban came to power, under the same sponsorship that brought the Taleban to power… That of the US. Did they refuse to hand him over? No, they offered to hand him over to a neutral party. Would that decision be justified, given the refusal to offer proof of his crime, and the standard of proof and justice that has prevailed at Guantanamo Bay, Abu Graib, and countless other American prisons since? I would have to say so.
Secondly, just where and when in history has the form of government made such an absolute difference to people’s lifestyles and freedoms? You assume that “individual rights, social tolerance, and upward mobility” are properties of democracy, and that oppression of women is a property of Islamic fundamentalism. Have you considered that culture and not law, might be the controlling factor? India has had a democracy for almost 60 years now. Pakistan has had democracy for most of that time. Are Indian and Pakistani women blessed with “individual rights, social tolerance, and upward mobility”? In each of these cases, the minority of women who have risen to the top, tend to be a function of their own families’ willingness to depart from the cultural norm, and believe me, the path has been long and arduous. Naturally, you will believe that in our own societies, that degree of bias is lost in prehistory. (I can remember my own engineering class of 600 first year students, of whom three were women.) Naturally, you will believe that you can overcome the cultural norm by conquering them. So did the British and all of the colonial powers who came before.
Naturally you can assume that individual rights, social tolerance, and upward mobility, were absolutely non-existent under the Soviet system, but I noticed that your speculation concerned specific periods of repression under that system. I suppose, in fairness in your mind’s eye, you will be comparing those periods to the US under McCarthyism, or the tolerance of Muslims under the Patriot act?
No, I do not think that we “must concede that most people in the developed West enjoy the freedom to live as we choose, and to speak and worship freely”. Like everywhere else in the world, most people do not perceive constraints on their freedom, speech, or worship, until they try to worship, speak, or do differently from their society. That is the meaning of social norms.
Posted by Raven at January 17, 2007 07:37 PM
Raven,
I enjoyed your rebuttal to Chatman and agree with most of your statements. It is easy to read western MSM and conclude that the Taliban and UIC are evil incarnate without having a clue to the backdrop that they developed in and what they actually bring to their societies (good and bad). I recently read an article from a Russian living in Canada talking about the death of his friend’s son in the Canadian army. He talked about when he was in the Russian/Soviet army invading Afghanistan and how he heard and thought (at the time) the exact same phrases the Canadian military are using over there - we are here to help these people, to reconstruct, etc etc. It struck a chord in me. The western media rarely portrays the intentions of others as anything but evil. Never have I read in the MSM anything that could make me even think that the Russians had similar intentions/propaganda as the Americans and Canadians. They were always invading countries to oppress them, to instill brutal rule, etc.
This takes me to the current conflict against Islam. There can be no good to the Taliban or the UIC and no indepth or detailed investigation or reporting is required to make that statement unequivocally. That is the world we live in.
One question for you though. I do not understand this statement “Naturally, you will believe that in our own societies, that degree of bias is lost in prehistory. (I can remember my own engineering class of 600 first year students, of whom three were women.) Naturally, you will believe that you can overcome the cultural norm by conquering them. So did the British and all of the colonial powers who came before.” It seems to state that if the west did not conquer its bias, then there would still be only 3 women / 600 engineers and I think that number has changed. Are you stating that bias is only recently lost? If so, they why can not Islamic fundamentalist bias against females also be lost in a generation as most current colonial powers believe? (not that I think they really care, I am just looking for a clearer explanation of your point).
Regards,
Posted by guesswho at January 17, 2007 09:03 PM
Raven: And what happens when “blood money” is the punishment doled out for crimes like being raped?
http://www.helpnazanin.com/Updates.aspx#20070114
Posted by Bino at January 17, 2007 09:21 PM
Bino, I once had to explain to Rampart, and see that I now have to explain to you, that just because I agree with Eric sometimes or even often doesn’t mean I agree with him always. I disagree with Eric on Pinochet, as on Russia/Chechnya and Serbia/Kosovo.
Oldfan, thanks for the link. It looks like Congress (or at least the Senate) is now literally Israeli-occupied territory.
I liked Eric before, but now that I hear he “dated” Barbara Amiel (nice face and figure, hideous brain) but avoided marrying her, I really like him.
Posted by hyperbolus at January 17, 2007 09:34 PM
Raven
You make numerous unwarranted assumptions in your rebuttal which makes me wonder whether you even read what I wrote.
I did not conclusively state that the UIC would necessarily be worse for the country than anarchy; in fact, I conceded that in the case of Somalia, Paul might be right; I can’t be sure. What I did say, or imply, is that I don’t think the UIC is much better for the women of Somalia than anarchy; they may certainly be worse for religious minorities. As we already know, the UIC attempted to implement some of the harsher Sharia norms upon ‘infidels’ in their midst. While the warlords may have been worse hooligans than the UIC in aggregate, it still saddens me that Somalis are so cursed by their history and circumstances that they, and you, will rise to defend UIC simply because they can bring ‘law and order’ to a country that so desperately needs it. It may be the lesser of two evils, but unless you can show me that they are proponents of religious tolerance and women’s rights, you are not going to convince me that they’re an objectively wonderful group of people.
As for the Taliban; one thing that makes it particularly difficult to discuss issues on this forum are the continuous invocations of Western economic hypocrisy. I KNOW Western governments pursue foreign policy based on their self-interest. I resent the fact that it was my government, through its officious intermeddling in the affairs of Central and South Asia through the 70’s and 80’s, that gave rise to all of these politically motivated barbarians. I hate the fact that we are there today, engaging in bona fide military imperialism. I admit it was our fault, and that we are still bad. Happy now?
The fact that we have given rise to these groups doesn’t change what they are, or the fact that I deplore what they represent. The Taliban are reversion to medieval social norms. Again, I don’t care if their judicial philospophies are Islamic, tribal, or some combination. I’ll grant you that a lot of Hindu tribal law looks as bad as Sharia. Nonetheless, the Taliban’s seizure of power in Afghanistan codified barbaric norms into the highest levels of government. One of our clients was a woman who was kicked out of her second year of medical school in Kabul simply because she was a woman. Another was trying to fly her sister, who had been raped under official sanction from one of the Taliban’s courts, out of Peshawar, where she was taking refuge. Imagine; a court sanctioning rape as a punishment. It happens in Pakistani and Indian tribal courts too I suppose, but in the Taliban’s Afghanistan, such punishment might be sanctioned at the highest levels of government! Amputations and other forms of corporal and capital barbarism were commonplace. Law and order indeed…
Again I don’t really care whether they harbored Osama Bin Laden or not, and I’m not sure why you bring it up, aside from setting up a straw-man. Such shelter (or lack thereof) has no bearing on my perspective. I thought they were ‘bad’ because they oppressed women, oppressed religious minorities, destroyed ancient religious icons, and did little for the country ASIDE from bring an unpopular semblance of law and order (and put an end to heroin production). Forgive me if I hope for more from a government.
My comments about the Soviet system had nothing to do with social tolerance or upward mobility, though those were certainly casualties of Stalin’s regime. I raised it as counterpoint to the absolute benefits of law and order. In anarchy, one may lose his life to lawless hooligans at any time, without warning; this makes people uncertain, and unhappy. In Stalin’s Soviet Union, anyone could be dragged sent off to a Gulag under an Article 58 conviction, just to fill a local official’s weekly arrest quota; this would also make people uncertain of their safety and unhappy. Yet few would say that the Soviet Union was not a ‘law and order’ sort of government. So how is this system better than anarchy, insofar as keeping people from being unhappy?
You may attempt to equate Stalin’s Paranoia (counts range between 20-40 million killed) to McCarthy or the Patriot Act. I might suggest that the scope and effect of the Soviet purges (which, optimistically claimed as many lives as the population of California) was a greater contribution to civic uncertainty and unhappiness than anything similar in the United States. That said, I certainly find it disturbing that our modern government has found it so natural to use the methods of Soviet interrogators upon detainees in nameless prisons, and holds people without granting them due process.
Your third to last paragraph blows me away. You really believe that governance has no effect on “individual rights, social tolerance, and upward mobility?” You make some big assumptions… Islamic fundamentalism, in my view retards the abandonment of primitive social norms (as does Hindu Brahminism in much of India) by giving those norms a religious context. However, look at what India and Pakistan are up to nowadays. When was the last time you went there? Almost 50 years of economic misgovernance fostered substantial decay, poverty, inefficiency, and the persistence of tribal barbarism disguised under religion. What a difference a decade and a half of economic liberalization has made! With the government facilitating, rather than restraining, its human capital, both countries are being transformed at a historically impossible rate. I’ll grant you that there are still a lot of problems, but when governments build schools, courts, and impose some REASONABLE and SENSIBLE form of law and order, they can play at least an important a role as culture in a society’s journey to prosperity.
Finally, I challenge you to prove to me that most people in the United States, Canada, or Europe (that means greater than 50%) cannot speak, live, and worship freely as compared to what the UIC might impose, or what the Taliban did impose. Perhaps a way around your impossible argument is just to say that we here in the West take a broader definition of what conduct falls within “social norms.” Like shaving, listening to music, marrying only one woman, and allowing her to walk around unescorted without a giant sheet covering her from head to toe.
Posted by chatman at January 17, 2007 09:57 PM
I can’t resist adding the questions of identity and scale here.
The US government explains what nasties the UIC are, and I suppose it would be foolish not to believe that they have some warts. Nevertheless, before imposing our solution on the Somali people, perhaps we should put those assurances in perspective.
Saddam was a baddie. We know that because he did all the bad things we urged him to do with the weapons we gave him. The US and British governments weren’t sure he was bad enough that we would support going to war with his people, so they told a few little lies: dodgy dossiers; WMD; 45 minute attacks; uranium from Niger; aluminium tubes. Those lies didn’t make him bad enough for some, so they added some flights of fancy: plastic chippers an other tortures. (You notice those were as elusive as the WMD?) So as a matter of scale, how bad a monster is bad enough? So bad that we have to lie to make him worse? And do we notice the irony of claiming that we should attack his people because he abused his people?
Ahmedinejad is a rather lame duck president of Iran, elected after his more progressive predecessor was shown to be ineffective. (At getting allies where he might have expected to get them.. in the west.) Aside from that, you notice that he is the subject of a media blitz where none of his gaffs, or even translations of his gaffs appear to have been quoted directly. Rather they are paraphrased by those reporting them. When you ask for the actual words, you find that a variety of translations of his speeches are available, but none of them actually say what he is paraphrased to have said. There doesn’t appear to be much agreement that he meant to say what they claim he said either. There is some question in my mind whether he is as ineffectual a speaker as he appears, particularly as he seems to have set up the west to be the butt of a grand personal joke with his recent conference on the holocaust. Remember the cartoons of the prophet Mohammed? Remember how ardently the west claimed that it was simply a matter of freedom of speech? Do you remember how many times he pointed out to his detractors, that the conference was simply a matter of free speech? The irony went right over our heads, and western leaders, commentators, and press all fell for the bait, and denounced the conference as hate-mongering holocaust denial.
Well, then there is the Taliban. Do we remember who they were when the US was arming them against the soviets? Ok, were they the same people as the Taliban that ruled in Kabul? Almost certainly some of the same people, though I’m sure some of the grunts demobilised after the Soviets left. Now are they the same Taliban that NATO is fighting today? Well, probably some of the same people who ruled on Kabul are among them. Probably some of the grunts who demobilised when the Soviets left are among them, but the majority? It would be hard to claim that the majority are the same Taliban, as they are simply tribesmen fighting within their own tribal home territories. So does it make much sense to liberate the Pashtun tribesmen from the Pashtun tribesmen? Only if we refer to them as Taliban when we are killing them, and Pashtun when we are liberating them, thus “liberate Pashtun tribesmen from Taliban”. It is just a matter of managing identities.
Well, there are lots of other examples, both historic and current, of managing identities in order to justify killing, torturing, or just plain robbing.
The point with regard to the UIC, is that our good guys, who are pretty bad, are justified in attacking their bad guys, who aren’t quite as bad as our good guys, but they are bad guys just the same, and that should be obvious because we keep saying it. Now since our good guys aren’t very handy with all the good weapons we gave them, we need to do a little cleaning up in the areas where the bad guys might be hiding, so we strafe a few villages and nomad camps. This is perfectly justified, as we know that at some time or other, some really bad guys have been in the country, and just might have been in those villages and camps, which coincidentally, our good guys also thought their bad guys might have been.
Isn’t it lucky we’re good?
Posted by Raven at January 17, 2007 10:33 PM
guesswho,
Unless I misunderstand you, your point is the same one I was making, though perhaps I was unclear. I do indeed believe that societies evolve in a healthy manner if given the chance. Social pressure and example from well intentioned neighbours, can also contribute to healthy change.
War is the wrong kind of social pressure and the wrong kind of example.
Posted by Raven at January 17, 2007 10:53 PM
Great posts Chatman and Raven, Cheers! I wasn’t specifically thinking of women as I had in mind the idea of innocent people dying and that for me will always be a greater human rights abuse than living in an oppressive society.
Yet if we focus on women the issue suddenly isn’t just about the UIC or Taliban. You could just as easily mention the Saudis in Arabia and they’ve been going strong much longer than the Taliban. Nevertheless the Taliban are of interest because of the extremes they aimed for. How did Islamic society get to this point? Could the Taliban rise up in a western nation tomorrow? Of course not. They are not the disease, they are the symptom. It isn’t about bad government, its about backward societies.
In that light, the last thing these poor people need is the violence of anarchy to add to their woes.
Posted by Paul Whiteside at January 17, 2007 10:56 PM
chapman,
I read what you wrote. Sorry I have offended you. I am sure much of what you seemed to imply was innocent of malice. That is why it seemed naive to me.
Do you know what anarchy has meant in the Somali context? Barre’s government was bad, to the extent of bombing Hargeisa, the country’s second largest city, because there might have been insurgents among the people there. Anarchy, or the rule of the warlords has been much worse. I have described elsewhere, the incursions of “Mad Maxes” into opposing warlords’ territories. These jeeps had anti-aircraft guns or gimble mounted machine guns in the back. They would storm each other’s territory, and woe betide anyone on the streets.
No, I don’t expect that I will convince you that they are proponents of religious tolerance or women’s rights. I suspect that you and I have different ideas of what might constitute religious tolerance and women’s rights. I, for instance, would consider it bigoted in the extreme, to make a statement such as “Islamic fundamentalism, in my view retards the abandonment of primitive social norms (as does Hindu Brahminism in much of India) by giving those norms a religious context.”
You actually believe that the west accepts Islamic norms and dress with regard to “Like shaving, listening to music, marrying only one woman, and allowing her to walk around unescorted without a giant sheet covering her from head to toe”? We have courts demanding that women remove their head covers. (I suppose they believe they are liberating them?) We have men thrown off planes for looking “Muslim”. We have people thrown into jail and tortured indefinitely without recourse to law. We have wars justified on the basis that people are fundamentalist Muslims, yet those who are promoting the wars may be fundamentalist Christians or Jews.
I have reread my third last paragraph, and am convinced that it must have just been too difficult for you to understand. It does not say that governance has no bearing on “individual rights, social tolerance, and upward mobility”.
I asked where and when in history, the form of government has made an absolute difference to people’s lifestyles and freedoms. I went on to say that you assumed that “individual rights, social tolerance, and upward mobility” were properties of democracy, and that oppression of women was a property of Islamic fundamentalism. Certainly law might have a bearing, but I asked you whether you have considered that culture and not law, might be the controlling factor?
You might still not understand the above, as it strikes me that using the same words again may lead to the same confusion again.
Finally, it strikes me that you don’t hold our own societies to a very high standard, if you are concerned about small minorities in other societies, yet challenge me to prove that greater than 50% “cannot speak, live, and worship freely as compared to what the UIC might impose, or what the Taliban did impose.” I have already pointed out above, that we here in the west have recently taken a decidedly demonic approach to some of the very indicators that you mention.
I think your belief in your own tolerance is naive.
Posted by Raven at January 17, 2007 11:59 PM
Raven:
“You actually believe that the west accepts Islamic norms and dress with regard to “Like shaving, listening to music, marrying only one woman, and allowing her to walk around unescorted without a giant sheet covering her from head to toe”? We have courts demanding that women remove their head covers. (I suppose they believe they are liberating them?) We have men thrown off planes for looking “Muslim”.
I completely disagree; call me bigoted if you like, but you are off the mark. We tolerate Islamic norms far better than the Taliban tolerated non-Islamic norms; to my knowledge, no law in North America requires a Muslim woman to remove a hijab or chador (France is another matter). We also don’t require Sikhs to remove pagris, Muslim men to remove a fez, or jews to remove a yameluke; I wonder how far you would get in Taliban Afghanistan donning any of these pieces of religious headgear. Do you really think the years of racial profiling that came on the heels of 9/11 rises to the level of Taliban intolerance of religious diversity? The Talibs spent the scarce resources of the state on iconoclasm, destroying religious artifacts that pre-dated their ascendancy by over a millennium. While I will concede that the views of Afghan society are not entirely inconsistent with some of the views espoused by the Taliban, does that consistency justify elevating some of the most primitive tribal traditions of the region into state policy?
You equate being thrown off a plane for “looking Muslim” in the U.S on the same level as being beheaded for not being Muslim in Somalia? That is exactly the sort of punishment the UIC had in mind for heresy. In your zeal to show that the Western governments are as intolerant as the Taliban, have you even thought about what life would be like under the UIC’s order? Do you think that governments are justified in codifying the most backward social norms as state policy, or should they at least attempt to govern with some semblance of tolerance civility, and interest in progress? Are there economic or political incentives to retaining the most medieval of regional traditions as the general policy of the state?
I can concede that the “order” of the UIC is a step above anarchy or warlord hooliganism, but I still can’t help but feel sorrow for a people so forsaken by history and politics that they are trapped between anarchy and the kind of order promised by the UIC.
“We have wars justified on the basis that people are fundamentalist Muslims, yet those who are promoting the wars may be fundamentalist Christians or Jews.”
With respect to religious intolerance (if you presume American wars are primarily driven by religious hostility), this is the only argument that you make that I find persuasive. We kill many more people through our illegal wars than Islamic tribal governments kill through their peculiar laws. We also happen to have some scary Christian and Jewish fundamentalists at the helm, prosecuting those wars. I tend to think that these wars are motivated more by economics (and bad economics at that) than religion, but given the existence of, and persistent defense of, Israel, I tend to agree that there is an inescapable religious dimension involved.
Nonetheless, this fact does not change my thinking about governments that rule based on tribal law. The people of desperately poor nations like Afghanistan and Somalia are subject to governments that institutionalize, rather than combat, tribal barbarism. Your efforts to convince me that what these groups do is NOT barbarism are totally unpersuasive; just because it’s culture doesn’t mean that the government should turn it into law. And just because we in the West engage in a more insidious sort of barbarism against our enemies does not mean that there isn’t a great deal that we do well.
“I went on to say that you assumed that “individual rights, social tolerance, and upward mobility” were properties of democracy, and that oppression of women was a property of Islamic fundamentalism.”
These assumptions are false, and you don’t need to patronize. I am not so foolish that I don’t comprehend the role culture plays in the evolution of society. However, I disagree that governments cannot play an even more critical role in shepherding societies to prosperity. Maybe bare imposition of law and order in some places is enough to start that process, but I happen to think that visionary governments can do more; the Chinese government (not a democracy) is among the most visionary governments of the modern era; few have been able to foster the kind of upward mobility and prosperity that the Chinese have accomplished (arguably, at the expense of human rights and the environment, but unlike in Afghanistan, few Chinese are complaining).
I never associated progressive values democracy. I would argue, however, that UIC and the Taliban do not represent progressive values, even against the backdrop of their constituencies. The Taliban were quite unpopular during their brief tenure in power.
Finally, the other point you make that I find to be regrettably true, but ultimately unpersuasive…
“We have people thrown into jail and tortured indefinitely without recourse to law.”
We in the US do, in fact, throw people into jail without due process, and it is unforgivable. In terms of terrorism and ‘Use of Force Authorization’ imprisonments, the numbers may be in the hundreds or thousands. For ordinary criminal offenses, errors in process may be in the tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands; we live in a country of 300 million people. Even if you figure that every person who enters the criminal justice system in this country encounters fatal errors in due process, you are still talking about a very small minority. Moreover, the rules of the system are designed to prevent, rather than enshrine, unjust outcomes. How many cases can you name in the U.S where people are jailed for religious beliefs, or for their speech? If you do the research, you’ll find the numbers to be miniscule, and few prosecutions of such speech or practice make it to trial. While I find denial of habeas corpus petitions to inmates in Guantanamo and elsewhere to be repugnant in the extreme, it represents a relatively small, very public, and highly controversial set of cases in what is ultimately a very populous country. They are not codified in our framing documents, and may still be overturned if the Federal Judiciary can ever acquire jurisdiction of inmates held by the (insane) Executive.
Compare the general entitlement to, and rules of, process to tribal laws practiced in Afghanistan and embraced by the Taliban. Justice is frequently imposed upon people who were not even necessarily guilty of the crimes. Such punishments are common in tribal Panchayats as well; I’m sure you’ve read the story about the woman in Pakistan (NWFP) who was sentenced to a gang raping by other men in the village for the crimes of her brother. I know of similar stories in India’s Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. Under codified tribal governments, such punishments would be legitimized, and not necessarily exceptions. Responsible governments should seek to eliminate, rather than codify, these kinds of traditions.
Posted by chatman at January 18, 2007 01:39 AM
Hey chatman. Sorry for not replying earlier. I don’t visit here often; only to read the articles once a week.
As to Sudan supporting the UIC, this would be logistically difficult what with Ethopia between Somalia and Sudan. I don’t see much of a relationship, current or potential. But then I don’t know much about Gaddafi’s current geopolitical strategy. What do you think?
Posted by Zawar Qayyum at January 18, 2007 11:17 AM
FYI:
How North American Tax Dollars Fund Occupation
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTVazzSz8_k&eurl=
Posted by oldfan at January 18, 2007 04:46 PM
chapman,
I wrote you a long answer, but I’ll erase it and give you a short one. You disagree with me that other faiths and their practices are not barbarism, but feel you are not intolerant. I feel that attitude is nothing if not intolerant. I agree that the practices of many people of other faiths are barbaric, though not necessarily a direct product of their faiths, any more than the barbaric practices of people of our faiths, including our religious or political fanatics are a direct product of our faiths. You are grossly patronising, and you grossly minimise the atrocities committed by our societies, and blindly accept the propaganda and grossly biased accounts about other societies.
Is this discussion so emotional for you that you must now engage in inflation not only of the atrocities attributed to the UIC, but also of the intentions attributed to them? Much of it sounds to me to be lies. Washington has become adept at seeking out lies and cultivating the tellers of lies in order to justify their aggressions.
I would like to see your references for what you claim the UIC “was planning to do”, along with your evaluation of your sources. I have seen the real results of the warlordism our leaders barbarically promoted. I have seen the tribal justice system, the precursor of the UIC, and it was not barbaric. It was furmulaic, specifically designed to achieve settlements without recourse to violence and revenge. The Islamic content of it had helped to avoid barbarism.
I suspect that you would find that gross abuses such as rape are not codified in any of the Islamic nor tribal traditions. You are too willing to attribute such injustices to minor malfunctions within your own justice system, while assuming that they are the norm in other societies justice systems. And you call me patronising?
Interesting too, is your pride in the penal system in the US. The statistics say it all.
No, I only inferred that you associated progressive values with democracy. What, then, did you mean by the “developed West”, in the sentence that closely follows your reference to “individual rights, social tolerance, and upward mobility”, where you assert, “you must concede that most people in the developed West enjoy the freedom to live as we choose, and to speak and worship freely”?
Posted by Raven at January 18, 2007 08:00 PM
Short answer for you too then Raven. I find you to be equally patronizing, and your assertions of the equivalency between tribal (not religious, but tribal; you like to raise that particular straw-man quite a bit) law and Western attempts at due process to be be flawed in the extreme. Let’s leave that discussion at that.
As for evidence of the beheading threat, here you go. Confirmed by BBC and other news outlets… enjoy the emotional inflation!
http://www.somalilandtimes.net/sl/2006/255/09.shtml
For the record, I have extensive experience in seeing how tribal law is administered in by Brahminic (high-caste Hindu) Panchayats in rural regions of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and even the eastern portions of West Bengal (I’m an American born Indian with a lot of extended family in the villages out there, so I go out there quite a bit).
You might find the things that are ‘codified’ in municipal law to be quite surprising. I also have second hand testimony of the kind of Taliban tribal law you are so quick to embrace as… I don’t know… practical? Necessary? Pragmatic? I don’t even know how you justify it…
I can criticize the problems of my own government while appreciating what the system tries to do, with respect to its own people. If you really think that the UIC, or other organizations codifying tribal law, perform a great service to the people they govern, I think it best that you continue to perceive me as a patronizing bigot for disagreeing with you. I can live with that.
Posted by chatman at January 18, 2007 09:27 PM
Oh, and Raven:
Incidentally, you don’t really think that I am getting ‘emotional’ about the topic of tribal law simply for the sake of arguing with some nameless soul on Eric’s blog, do you? Some of us know more about tribal law than you might give us credit for.
The inconsistency the in the application of such laws, their frequent harshness, and their not infrequent abandonment of negative retributive principles are reasons enough, in my view, to contemplate whether their subjects might deserve something better.
Posted by chatman at January 18, 2007 09:38 PM
Rampart - where are you?
Sorry to say Chatman but your erudite posts are too BIG for a chat-oriented blogger.
I do agree with the poster who said, to paraphrase, the best thing the US can do is stay out of mid-east countries as they are there for selfish reasons, however tarted up, which usually results in a puppet government that scorns democracy. Without the US there may well not be democracy either, but at least the people will be ruled by their own. And I agree with the occasional need for a strong man. God damn, look at Iraq. Right where the Zionists want it.
Bino, what is your obsession with rape in Muslim countries? Why not trot out rapes in Israel and other capitalist-expansionist countries? You are, sadly, still trying to shoot the messenger, this time to crap on Eric as a capitalist. He may well be a passive shareholder for all we know, not that it maters, as the Jameison brand is well regarded and actually helps people stay healthy (and/or vain as the case may be). You actually came across as envious this time. You have a chip on your shoulder when it comes to Eric.
Keep up the great work Eric - you add psice and life to the otherwise distant-sounding external posts.
Posted by ghawley at January 18, 2007 09:50 PM
Chatman - too BIG for petit brain ME — obviously others are reading your tomes.
Posted by ghawley at January 18, 2007 09:51 PM
Ghawley:
I am starting to agree. I need to start cutting back. You guys just get me too excited.. :)
Where have you been? I like the comments in your first paraphrase.
Arka C.
Posted by chatman at January 18, 2007 09:56 PM
Yup, read your article. Interesting that you seem to have missed the passages in it referring to the variations, and efforts to introduce appeals procedure and better educated judges.
For your info, I would suggest you also consider the Somaliland times as an honest but very mildly hostile source. No, the fact that they report an aberation in one town does not shock me. If it is implemented, or spreads, and is not in fact refuted by the UIC, which, you will admit is a different organisation from a single Islamic court, then I would be quite disappointed in them. And no, I do not believe you have proven your case that this is what the UIC was planning to do.
As an aside, the following is quite a good link to an analysis of how the news itself can create its own version of irrefutable reality, in this case, in Afghanistan.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article16218.htm
I too spent my younger years in India, coming to Canada at age 14-1/2. My experience of tribal and religious customs and laws was not as negative as yours. Certainly 60 year of progressive government has made small changes, so I wonder why it is so easy for you to blame the tribalism and the religion itself for the aberations you claim to have encountered.
I did come back to state that I found it regrettable that we have obviously annoyed each other. Still, I can live with it.
Posted by Raven at January 18, 2007 09:59 PM
Oops, correction. The article I posted referred to Iran’s president Ahmedinejad.
Posted by Raven at January 18, 2007 10:00 PM
http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/space/01/18/china.missile/index.html
Posted by _RealityBites_ at January 19, 2007 02:53 AM
Thanks -RealityBites_
It is always interesting how Western nations bleat about military developments in other countries while having those same military capabilities themselves. The rank hypocrisy would be laughable, if it wasn’t so scary.
Also, read the latest two articles by Jonathon Cook.
http://www.jkcook.net/Latest.htm
The Middle East will conflagarate within a decade and this will lead to another world war. China is simply preparing for it.
Posted by Weary at January 19, 2007 09:10 AM
ghawley,
I, for one, enjoy reading chatman’s posts even if they are long. It is even better when someone like Raven rebuts with reasonable arguments. I believe that Chatman represents the intellectual North American quite well. He/She is well read, argues on topics well know to him and writes coherently. Unfortunately, I believe that, as Raven has suggested quite aggressively and maybe too harshly, that chatman does have racial bias that is not intentional but subtly instilled by pervasive North American media and educational system. I suggest that many, if not most, of his points are valid but any resolution to conflict or world improvement is coloured by this bias instilled by the “developed West”. That is to be expected. I think this is what Edward Said suggests in his works such as Orientalism with respect to the “other” meaning not from the “west”. Chatman will not like this post but I think this is what Raven ungraciously was hinting at in previous posts. Just my thoughts but I enjoy reading most of what is discussed in this blog.
Regards,
Posted by guesswho at January 20, 2007 08:03 PM
The current reality of Somalian life is a product of ethnocentric and colianial blundering (administration). It is rooted in complex socio-historical processes that have destabilized much of Africa people’s lives by racializing their lives and shoving neo-liberal development down their throats in the name of state building. These proccesses born of the enlightenment project and neo-Kantian philosophy continue to bring not liberty, not democracy, not freedom, but the will of neo-liberal capitalism to the doorstep of people who do not want what the West is giving in the names of development, democracy, and freedom- particular ideals about being modern which includes a particular discourse of what human rights are; there really are no universal held ideas regarding and such a declaration is ethnocentric and egotistic. In turn, the notion of modernity parented the notion of “traditional” life, which is of course backwards, state-less, and undeveloped.
We can no more understand what is happening in Somalia by reading the media than by reading The Hardy Boys.
After the World Trade Center attacks Dan Rather, a journalist covering world events for 25 years was asked, “Why did they attack us.”
With all of his years of following world events and politics he said so stoically, “They hate our freedom”.
The misguided and ignorant intervention in Somalia is another violent manouver of imperial state-building, that is, they must have a “state” like ours to be a part of our modernity and our development. This is the historical extension of the enlightenment project in action before our very eyes.
Posted by Joshua at January 20, 2007 08:12 PM
Oh yeah- Bino-
Could you please stop pretending that our polls regarding how the people of Afghanistan “feel” actually mean something and negating the major extra-state support/alliances the Taliban enjoyed until they would not (because they couldnt) hand over Osama.
Not many people see through the illogic of moral relativism, of which you subscribe to. In other words, it is not okay to break a few eggs to develop and dominate the world in the ways one imagines.
Posted by Joshua at January 20, 2007 08:21 PM
Bino is a Bush-loving neocon zionist. Ignore him. Stop responding to his posts. Let him talk to himself.
Posted by hedagem at January 20, 2007 10:00 PM
Guesswho:
If you want to think of me as culturally biased for holding the aforementioned view, I’m comfortable with that; I’m not sure how you toss racial bias into there, and would ask you to explain. I would contend, however, that whatever bias I may possess is not informed by superficial view of either system; I do try to understand what I hate, and what I like.
I have great admiration for the legal traditions arising from the English Common Law, and their philosophical underpinnings. A tremendous amount of insight has been poured into attempting to establish a coherent and consistent basis for policing the the multifaceted conflicts of human behavior. Tribes have probably spent even more time on these problems, but I don’t think they approach them with the same interest in consistent application of laws, or in applying the laws to the right people. Instead, they are more often consumed by the needs of the day, or the community, than in the desert of the offender, or the proportionality of the punishment.
Again, my perceptions of tribal law are not purely determined through the lens of corporate media, but also through some firsthand experience in extrajudicial proceedings in third world countries, and from secondhand testimony from friends and former clients who were subject to such systems. We’ve also had numerous speakers from all over the world, most recently Sigma Huda, an attorney in Bangladesh, speak to our school about human rights issues generated by, rather than resolved through, tribal law systems. International human rights concerns are a big part of the curriculum at our school, and it amazes me how many of them arise from gross miscarriages of tribal justice.
This is not to say that there aren’t some features of tribal law that I don’t find admirable. Some traditions, for example, allow the family of the aggrieved, or the aggrieved him/herself, to forgive an offender. That said, I’ve seen this right abused in a way that absolves relatives of horrible crimes against their servient sons, wives or daughters, because the victims are obliged to forgive offenders under social, cultural, or actual duress.
Both common and tribal law systems involve people making decisions on equitable, legal, and economic grounds, but there are principles that I think should be universally revered in any justice system. For example, I firmly believe that punishment of an individual must arise from a sincere belief in and knowledge of that person’s guilt, and such a belief must arise through some established form or process. This requirement of negative retribution is not a uniform feature of tribal law, and is quite frequently ignored on utilitarian grounds (A sin of our own system, though one that we may openly condemn and work to prevent). There are failings in our own system which I see and read every day, but the principles upon which the system is based are, in my view, philosophically coherent, and inherently correct against gross injustice in way that some tribal systems do not.
These comments apply only to a critique of a justice system seeks to resolve disputes among its citizens, and not to the blatant injustices that occur in foreign wars; that’s another matter entirely, and “military justice,” such as it is, needs some serious reappraisal in my view. In fact, the fundamental unfairness of wars is one reason why all nations should avoid prosecuting them in the first place.
Posted by chatman at January 21, 2007 05:50 PM
CM, the penalty for armed robbery in the US is about 30 years in prison. The penalty for such theft under islamic law is off with the hand. The islamic law is also dependent upon frequency of crime and theft item, so I’m talking about the extremes in both cases.
I dont know about you but I’d rather giveup my hand than spend 30 years in prison.
There is a world of difference between islamic law and tribal law. Akbar Bugti, a pretty notorious tribal cheif in Pakistan’s “wild west”, used to let alleged murderers walk on live coals in order to establish their guilt. If the “perp’s” feet got blistered, he was guilty as sin and well you know the rest…
this guy was educated at Oxford, btw. he presided over such trials, handing out punishments. this also included the “court sanctioned” rape thing, you’re talking about. if the accused person got away, a female relative from the immediate family was handed over to the other party to use and abuse as they may. this used to happen all over pakistan’s lawless areas. I can bet this is still going on in afghanistan.
none of these practises are in any way associated to islam, but they were carried out in the name of religion and custom. in reality, sharia cannot be implemented in a society where such endemic poverty exists. Ask any jurist
it can only be implemented where there is a considerable amount of social equality. and in order to confirm guilt you need alot of proof; much more than the western legal system.
fact is that poverty brings out the animal in man. another common barbaric practise was kidnapping of small children and then amputation of their arms or a leg or extreme disfigurement for organized begging. this used to happen all over south east asia; and it does continue to this day.
Posted by _RealityBites_ at January 22, 2007 03:05 AM
Pakistan’s laws do not allow for a “court sanctioned” rape. the writ of the government does not extend to these areas. there is no local police. these are no go areas where the tribes reign supreme. Pakistan has recently started enforcing its laws in these areas; Akbar Bugti was recently gunned down in a showdown with the government and such a court sanctioned rape carries a death sentence for any “judge” involved… :)
so the conditions are improving; we may not be all the way there but we are doing something.
its not that easy to take on the tribes, the Bugtis were a relatively smaller group and they could call together a fighting force of about 30,000
the bigger ones are a different story altogether
Posted by _RealityBites_ at January 22, 2007 03:14 AM
“Pakistan’s laws do not allow for a “court sanctioned” rape. the writ of the government does not extend to these areas. there is no local police. these are no go areas where the tribes reign supreme.”
I know; I commend Musharraf for going after some of these groups, and condemn RAW agents and other external collaborators for supporting such groups for supporting them. It is egregious for the tribes to impose this kind of justice while flouting the legal codes of their parent governments. I would say the same for India, where the laws on the books don’t sanction many tribal penalties, but local authorities often allow them to persist. There has been a push in some provinces (Bengal, and parts of the South) to eradicate such extrajudicial proceedings, but as you say, these groups are both isolated and politically powerful. it takes concerted and longstanding effort to break the backs of those traditions, especially when the only thing connecting these people to the outside world is an unpaved bicycle path.
Further, given that there are fewer than 10 judges for every 100,000 people in India, putting such village panchayats on trial for miscarriages of justice is next to impossible.
Posted by chatman at January 23, 2007 03:15 PM