Nabil Al-Tikriti, associate professor of history, gave a keynote address, “The State of Middle East Studies in the American Academy,” at the 5th Joint International Workshop held in Tokyo, Japan February 12-13. Al-Tikrit also served as a discussant for the graduate student workshop ”Science, Institutions, and Identity in the Muslim Societies” organized jointly by Kyoto University and the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies.
Potpourri:
1) This is the level of discourse for many Americans. On this “Amerisrael” posting University of Mary Washington ‘Stealth Jihadist’ Faculty, a completely anonymous person (10-1 he’s male) goes after me and my colleagues at Mary Washington following a fairly placid interview with the Fredericksburg Free-Lance Star, for an article entitled: Violence Exposes Mubarak’s Real Intent, UMW Expert Says. What’s particularly annoying here is that someone carries out a semi-coherent internet attack piece without so much as identifying himself — yet refers to us who argue within the public domain as “stealth jihadists.” What’s slightly scary is the possibility that this actor and his followers are local, because the local Fredericksburg paper is not that widely circulated, we’ve seen some of this rhetoric before, and one demographic you find plenty of in Fredericksburg are folks fitting this political profile. All his opinions are fair enough — if he dares tell us who he is.
2) Apparently, Saddam Hussein’s tomb is now a full “turbe,” or mausoleum. Nobody should really be surprised, and the next time any of you happen to be in Tikrit, you now have somewhere to visit. Here are some pictures and an article, from Turkey’s NTV website.
3) This little gem of an article, is proof positive that you can live somewhere and not have the first idea what’s going on around you, as you’re too busy running with fools and haven’t an ounce of empathy or self-awareness. Clearly, not everyone learns something by traveling and living abroad. For those who don’t understand why this is so objectionable, go back and read the introduction to Edward Said’s “Orientalism,” which this is a very crude version of. And by the way, what is this “World Affairs Journal,” and what are they striving for?
4) Now, for something completely different. The Guardian has posted an article analyzing how al-Jazeera English has had an explosion of interest in its broadcasts — especially in the U.S. — since the Egypt revolution began: al-Jazeera’s Coverage of Egypt Protests. May Hasten Revolution in World News
One interesting point in the article grabbed my attention — the Chinese government is investing $7 billion in its media outreach. That seems like an awful lot of money. What will they be able to do with that? How does it compare with U.S. government investment in state media?
5) This from George Monbiot, whom I think of as the geek’s revolutionary. As usual, he’s taken an obscure tax policy shift and shown us how much it matters. According to the article, large UK corporations, particularly banks, will soon be able to both deduct their expenses from doing business abroad while no longer paying the difference between foreign tax rates and the normally higher UK corporate tax rate. Sounds obscure, but it’s going to blow a huge hole in the UK national budget, while encouraging their corporations to move operations abroad — and other countries to match the UK’s “race to the bottom” (to borrow a term from U.S. municipality politics). What Monbiot doesn’t get into is how over the past decade it’s gotten progressively harder for international proles to shelter money here and there as they consult outside of their home territory. So, while BP and RBS can make boatloads of cash with operations worldwide, we’ve got to pony up no matter where we make our money. They’re out to get us all: To us, it’s an obscure shift of tax law. To the City, it’s the heist of the century.
Nice excerpt: “I used to think of such processes as regulatory capture: government agencies being taken over by the companies they were supposed to restrain. But I’ve just read Nicholas Shaxson’s Treasure Islands – perhaps the most important book published in the UK so far this year – and now I’m not so sure. Shaxson shows how the world’s tax havens have not, as the OECD claims, been eliminated, but legitimised; how the City of London is itself a giant tax haven, which passes much of its business through its subsidiary havens in British dependencies, overseas territories and former colonies; how its operations mesh with and are often indistinguishable from the laundering of the proceeds of crime; and how the Corporation of the City of London in effect dictates to the government, while remaining exempt from democratic control. If Hosni Mubarak has passed his alleged $70bn through British banks, the Egyptians won’t see a piastre of it.
Reading Treasure Islands, I have realised that injustice of the kind described in this column is no perversion of the system; it is the system. Tony Blair came to power after assuring the City of his benign intentions. He then deregulated it and cut its taxes. Cameron didn’t have to assure it of anything: his party exists to turn its demands into public policy. Our ministers are not public servants. They work for the people who fund their parties, run the banks and own the newspapers, shielding them from their obligations to society, insulating them from democratic challenge.
Our political system protects and enriches a fantastically wealthy elite, much of whose money is, as a result of their interesting tax and transfer arrangements, in effect stolen from poorer countries, and poorer citizens of their own countries. Ours is a semi-criminal money-laundering economy, legitimised by the pomp of the lord mayor’s show and multiple layers of defence in government. Politically irrelevant, economically invisible, the rest of us inhabit the margins of the system. Governments ensure that we are thrown enough scraps to keep us quiet, while the ultra-rich get on with the serious business of looting the global economy and crushing attempts to hold them to account…”
6) This is literary criticism at its best. Excerpt: “Remember: Thomas Friedman is the Carrie Bradshaw of current events. Think Sex and the City , write “Sects and Tikriti.”: Write Your Own Thomas Friedman Column!
7) Rumsfeld tries to clear his record — and I’m not buying what he’s selling: Donald Rumsfeld Book Admits ‘Misstatements’ on WMD Sites
Egypt Postings:
8 ) For those who want an eyewitness perspective from someone watching it closely, here’s a diary of the revolution up to now, by anthropologist Samuli Schielke: Hurry, You’ll be Late for the Revolution.
9) “There is no doubt that the post-Mubarak era is afoot, but it is not necessarily a democratic one. The Egyptian military leaders that are governing the country seem content to leave Mubarak in his place so Suleiman can act as the sitting president.”: Egypt’s Democratic Mirage.
10) Here’s a potentially important statement in support of the movement from Faculty of Law at Cairo University. It includes an English translation.
11) Omar Suleiman wanted Israel to fight Palestinians from Egypt. Wikileaks “documents disclose that Mr Suleiman was stung by Israeli criticism of Egypt’s inability to stop arms smugglers transporting weapons to Palestinian militants in Gaza. At one point he suggested that Israel send troops into the Egyptian border region of Philadelphi…to “stop the smuggling.” This article does not exactly make Suleiman look like someone ready to defend Egyptian sovereignty: WikiLeaks: Israel’s secret hotline to the man tipped to replace Mubarak
12) This interview with Omar Suleiman has been panned by a lot of people whose opinion I trust — but I can’t watch it on my slow internet connection. Comments include that he’s out of teach, she’s clueless as to what’s really going on, etc.
13) Remember that New Year’s bombing of a Coptic Church in Alexandria? Now they’re opening a probe fingering the recently resigned Egyptian Interior Minister, Mr. Adly: Ex-Minister Suspected behind Alex church bombing.
14) Here is a “zar” (propitiation, whatever that is) encourage the expulsion of the bad spirits attached to the Mubarak regime: Zar on Tahrir. Egyptian “popular religion” at its best.
15) Here’s an analysis by “friend of the show” Khaled Fahmy, who argues that the Muslim Brotherhood should be part of the negotiation process. Khaled is about as secular as they come, incidentally: Muslim Brotherhood Should Get Seat at the Table
Here is an excellent interview with maps, covering the more significant of changes made in Iraq’s provincial borders over the 20th century, by an American PRT planning consultant. There are a couple of information typos by the blogger, but otherwise it’s very nicely done. I’ve hoped to publish an article on this at some point, and should I do so, some of the credit and maps will have to come from this posting.
Today this came in from Tahrir: “They just had a priest lead a Christian prayer and they’ll have a Muslim one at noon followed by another Christian prayer at one. During the Christian prayer a Sheikh from Al Azhar was holding a cross. They’re now chanting “a civil state, one nation”
I see it this way — if the U.S. government really wants to obliterate Middle Eastern Christianity (the oldest Christian communities in the world, because, lest we forget, that’s where it all began), then go ahead and support dictators and “bring democracy” by invading and occupying countries. That’s the quickest way to ensure al-Qaida’s growth. If Uncle Sam wants Middle Eastern Christianity to thrive in its birthplace and take its rightful place in the pantheon of Middle Eastern religions, support this movement. Apropos Christianity, here Sarah Palin effectively declares her support for such measures that would further obliterate Middle Eastern Christianity to…The Christian Broadcasting Network.
1) Mona Eltahawy has in the course of the last week made herself into the glowing spokesperson for a movement that really extends well beyond Egypt when it comes to Islamophobia, U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, and other related issues. Here she grapples with Bill Maher in a forum most of us can only dream to appear on: Mona Fights the Stereotypes. And here, Mona El-Tahawy takes on the disseminator himself, Alan Dershowitz. She’s clearly doing well.
2) Here’s an AJE story detailing the California company behind Egypt’s cyber crackdown on its own citizens. Think this story would have made Fox? Yeah, me neither: Deep Packet Inspection
3) Here Shiva Balaghi reiterates the connection between events in 1989 Eastern Europe and 2011 Middle East, and how the U.S. is stuck on the wrong side of this one — and how one day, we’ll all be teaching how the moment was lost: Preparing to Teach Tomorrow’s History Lessons
4) Frank Rich clearly gets it, in one op-ed pointing out the effect of Americans’ obsession with their own technological Twitters and Facebook accounts, their growing ever more Islamophobic, and their reliance on pseudo news outlets like Fox News at the expense of al-Jazeera English, which most Americans can only get on a live internet feed — which millions have been doing this past 2 weeks: Wallflowers at the Revolution
5) This article presents Turkey as a potential model for Egypt, which is a meme that’s been making the rounds particularly in the past 3-5 years. While there’s something to it, Turkey’s got some geographic great good fortune that Egypt’s somewhat less lucky with, and Anatolia’s been richer than Egypt for at least the past 150 years. There would be a lot of catching up to do to replicate Turkey’s success. Still, not a bad aspiration at this point: In Turkey’s Example, Some See Map for Egypt
6) Here’s Footage of New Orleans protest in support of Egypt’s democratic movement. There are also two local TV news station reports: Fox 8 and WDSU.
7) Op-Ed from Lebanon’s Daily Star newspaper, by noted Beirut columnist Rami Khoury: Just Changing Generals is not Freedom
8 ) This article basically asks how the demonstrators are managing the logistics of maintaining the presence of thousands of people in a public square over several days. This is where I think the organizers of the New Orleans Jazz Festival might be able to make a contribution: Revolutionary Logistics
UPDATES:
9) Here’s a NYT piece announcing that the famous crossed swords monument in Baghdad’s going to be restored after all (for now). Cultural and arts policy arguments in Iraq will continue for years to come: Iraq Restores Monument Symbolizing Hussein Era
10) Long book review of Sari Nusseibeh’s new book by David Shulman, who also ruminates on the future course of Israel and Palestine: Israel and Palestine: Breaking the Silence
11) Pratap Chatterjee analyzes the lobbyist firms in DC which have long supported the Mubarak regime, ensuring access, military contracts, and security training. Principals include Frank Wisner, Jr., and home boy from Metairie, Robert Livingston: Obama envoy Wisner works for Egypt military, business lobbyists
12) In this subtitled video, Anti-regime demonstrators discuss their motivations.
13) Louis Fishman adds his observations of the day: One more Day in Tahrir Square and the Meaning of Victory
In order to keep this blog from going silent, I’m going to try reverting back to what I used to do with truthtalkz, and summarize important news analysis every day. It adds a step for me, but it might keep things going, and inspire more. Think beyond the FB…:
1) Here’s Elliott Colla, starting with the “culture of anarchy” discourse, and then focusing on the Egyptian state’s culture policy under Mubarak. I had no idea that the new Minister of Culture Gaber Asfour taught CASA students in 1991. I probably met him at some point that year, but no longer remember: State Culture, State Anarchy
2) From the same Jadaliyya website (founded by a cooperative of Middle East studies academics within the past 6 months), this posting compares Egypt’s current stalemate with that of Poland’s in 1989. This is the parallel that I’m hoping more people see — Tahrir and the Arab World today is like Berlin and Eastern Europe in 1989. No parallel’s perfect, but I sure prefer this one to Fox’s harping of Iran 1979: How Can Egypt Get from Tahrir to Democracy? Lessons from Poland in 1989
3) A serious policy analysis of the Muslim Brotherhood appearing in the venerable Foreign Affairs journal. Thesis: they’re not as fearful, or competent, as you might think: The Muslim Brotherhood after Mubarak
4) An analysis of the revolution by Hani Shukrallah, in al-Ahram English online. This one comes widely recommended: A Uniquely Egyptian Revolution
5) …and finally, a word from Le Monde English and Alain Gresh: Freedom Makes You Giddy
6) This is a Human Rights Watch posting about a secret jail answerable to Iraqi PM Nouri al-Maliki recently discovered in Northwestern Baghdad: Iraq: Secret Jail Uncovered in Baghdad
[Updated Below]:
7) Issandr El-Amrani picks apart the events, moves, and counter-moves of the Egyptian revolutionary movement up through 3 Feb. His take on the parallels (and non-parallels) between Tunisia and Egypt, as well as his take on moves by the Ministry of Interior and Army, are especially valuable: Why Tunis? Why Cairo?
8 ) Adam Shatz provides another overview of the movement in Egypt, this time looking at it in terms of U.S. foreign policy and the Israeli angle. Excerpt: “A democratic government in Cairo would have to take public opinion into account, much as Erdogan’s government does in Turkey: another former US client state but one that, in marked contrast to Egypt, has escaped American tutelage, made the transition to democracy under an Islamist government, and pursued an independent foreign policy that is widely admired in the Muslim world. If Egypt became a democracy, it might work to achieve Palestinian unity, open up the crossing from Gaza and improve relations with Iran and Hizbullah: shifts which would be anathema to Israel…”: After Mubarak
9) This two hour broadcast by Democracy Now was widely praised, including field reporting and segments by “friends of the show” Rashid Khalidi, Paul Amar, and Khaled Fahmy: Uprising in Egypt: A Two Hour Special…
10) Escaped Egyptian prisoner interviewed after capture in Tahrir (Arabic): Video of Prisoner Interview
11) Police Murder a Demonstrator in Alexandria
12) This article discusses the effects of Egypt’s current instability on Study Abroad programs: After Egypt
The Free Lance-Star interviewed Associate Professor of History Nabil Al-Tikriti about the ongoing protests in Egypt. In the February 3, 2011 article by reporter Heather Brady, Dr. Al-Tikriti briefly explained the calculations of the Mubarak regime, and the situation on the ground faced by certain friends and colleagues.
Over the years I’ve noticed a disturbing trend by government officials all over the world to progressively remove themselves from those needing their services — with many discrepancies remaining between tourism destinations, rich and poor countries, and those who fear visitors and those who know they need visitors. The examples I give here are anecdotal, and no surprise to those who travel internationally (outside of tourists from powerful countries, who have no idea what goes on for the rest of us).
1) The first example is the most recent, most disturbing, and the inspiration for this blog. This past November 10, Aylin, my former Turkish teacher, an academic who already holds a Ph.D from Boğaziçi Üniversitesi, is resident in Istanbul, and had nearly completed a second Ph.D at the UK’s University of Bedfordshire, was notified that her dissertation defense date would be December 8. In order to organize this defense, she and her committee of three academic advisors would need to physically meet in Bedfordshire on that date. While it was difficult enough to get the three British academics to schedule a common free date to meet, getting the Turkish academic to the UK proved to be the most difficult part of this defense — because of the British visa she needed to attend.
In the old days (like 2 years ago), this would have required Aylin to run down to the British consulate in Pera, deposit her paperwork and passports, and wait 7-10 days for her visa to come through — at which point she would return to the consulate and pick up her passport. In recent years, if you were willing to pay enough (like $2.50/minute), you could call the consulate office to push your case if you were having difficulties, or you could even enter the consulate and respectfully entreat the nice officials through a 2 inch glass thick window (or yell at those faceless fucks who live off your misery, but then that’s not likely to get you the visa, now is it?).
Following a global trend — and using the 2003 bombing of this same consulate as the immediate justification, one can no longer attain a UK visa in person. Instead, now you must first fill out an online application, take a case number, and deposit your passport and papers with one of several private companies spread throughout the city and country, which then deposits your materials with the consulate for you (for an extra fee, of course).
You cannot enter the UK consulate under any circumstances (except for the summer garden party, which of course you’re not invited to) — that is only for UK nationals, and it’s even quite difficult for them to enter. There is no phone line to the consulate, not even one with ridiculous charges — although you can call the passport processing company (which has no power whatsoever) if you’re willing to cough up $14. Instead, if you need to press your case directly with consulate officials, you must send an email through the online application — at which point you get an automated response (Some of the responses Aylin received were spectacularly dismissive, but she hasn’t saved them, unfortunately). For those who want to check out the process, here is where you would start. Here is where you would continue the process, with UK’s centralized forms.
Here’s how the process played out in reality: On or about November 10, Aylin initiated the visa process, reassured by the site’s statement (and previous personal experience with real UK consulate officials in downtown Istanbul) that “99% of all visa applications are processed within two weeks.” That left an extra two weeks, which, while not ideal, should have sufficed. She then purchased her non-refundable Easy Jet tickets, and waited.
After two weeks had passed, she started emailing the office ever more worried — and insistent — messages, and receiving ever more snarky automated responses. At some point, she broke down and revealed her disgust at the entire process, especially considering that 3 British professors awaited her confirmation of attendance, Bedfordshire really needed her to finish for its own sake, she needed to finish for her own career’s sake, and she had already purchased an Easy Jet ticket. Yet another automated response arrived, reminding her to check her updates regularly. At this point, one imagines the jolly British bureaucrats sipping tea and having a good laugh at the desperate letter telling them how mean they really were being.
So, on the day of travel (day 25 of the application process, 99% of which are finished within two weeks), Aylin had prepared for everything, leaving her 5 year old boy with her ex for 10 days of dissertation defense travel, packing, and constantly watching for the update. 9 am, nothing. 11 am, nothing. Noon — the departure hour for the Easy Jet flight, nothing. 4 pm, it comes! She’d missed her flight, but the visa had come.
She immediately rushed to the airport in the hopes of catching the last flight out, on Turkish Airlines. She made it to the airport with 30 minutes to spare, and the Turkish staff rushed her through all formalities, urging “Hocam” (my teacher) Aylin to not miss her plane (note how Turkish culture still respects teachers). At this point, she’s lost her Easy Jet ticket (which made a cool free profit in return for providing no service whatsoever, thanks to the UK government), and had to shell out some 270 YTL ($175) for the Turkish Airlines ticket. When she got to London, it was late at night and no easy transport was available from Heathrow. At the end of the day, she shelled out some extra $300 or so to make this defense on time, all thanks to the UK’s automated visa process and the faceless fucks who intentionally approved her visa in the late afternoon of her last possible day of travel. I’m not sure what torture those bureaucrats deserve, but I’m open to suggestions.
2) The second story is equally depressing, albeit shorter. In 2006 my dear spouse Gamze traveled on a bargain ticket from Istanbul to Dulles, carrying our 18 month old girl and their carry-on baggage on a long trip which included a short layover in Brussels. I forget the details (there may have been a double stopover, inside Europe, or perhaps to transfer from one flight outside of Schenken to another flight outside of Schenken, you have to pass through passport control), but for some reason she had to enter the Schenken Area in order to make a simple airplane transfer within the Brussels Airport in order to continue on to the USA.
Many Americans wouldn’t even have realized it had happened, as the Belgian border officials would have simply grunted and stamped their passports, waving them on through. However, Gamze carried a Turkish passport at the time.
She originally had something like a two hour layover, but didn’t make the connection because it took some 60 Euros and 8 hours for the Belgian authorities to let her through the damn booths. Remember, she had extensive carry on baggage and an 18 month old girl — anyone ever try to keep a baby happy that long anywhere, let alone in an airport? Luckily, a number of Turkish airport workers took pity on her and shared their tea, crackers, and a comfortable space in a maintenance closet with her throughout most of the 8 hours.
Such a system is exploitative, inhumane, and designed simply to extract the most money and pain from non-favored nations’ citizens in order to discourage immigration on the whole. It wouldn’t have taken 10 minutes for a staff member to escort her through the airport to her connecting flight (that’s what they do for criminals and VIPs — two groups who share many things in common), but she and her baby were insufficiently important to merit such “special” attention.
She’s now a U.S. citizen, but don’t think for a moment that she’ll ever forget that experience. Our daughters might, might grow up as insolent American brats expecting everyone to love them and let them through, but we’ll always know better. Ironically enough, with my own spat of travels in the past 2 years, I currently have a United Airlines gold pass, so until February 2012 I will continue to effortlessly traipse through airport lounges, sampling second rate cheese and wines wherever I go. Thus lies the difference between an ably employed U.S. citizen and a migrating Turkish citizen.
3) The third example actually counters the first two to some extent. As Turkey steadily grows in power, and continues to copy Europe and the US (as it has been for at least 150 years now), they’ve decided to crack down on their own foreign population, and isolate government officials from the people they’re meant to serve.
Now the Turkish Security Directorate also insists on an online application for a residency permit, which leads to an online chat appointment — currently averaging two months after the initial request. I haven’t yet had to deal with this, but I’m worried about it. Stay tuned.
So, what’s the true meaning of “freedom”? It’s the freedom to travel wherever you please — and it tends to be a zero sum game. My freedom to travel as an American citizen appears to be contingent on your inability as an African, Middle Easterner, Central Asian, or Latin American to do the same. I’ve come to think it’s one of several related reasons why our soldiers are sent all the world to other people’s countries without invitations and with heavy arms. They say it’s to “protect our freedom” — I think I now know what they mean. It’s to protect our gold pass.
Dear Governor McDonnell:
I write to you today in great distress and concern, about the ongoing state of Commonwealth employees in general, and those toiling in higher education in particular. After more than 3 years with frozen salaries, on the same day last month that the U.S. Congress passed a temporary 2% cut in social security payroll taxes, you announced a plan to garner that entire 2% for a permanent cut in Virginia Commonwealth employee benefits via a cut in VRS and ORP contributions. Although you have packaged the benefit cut as a salary increase resulting in no immediate net change, it shifts a Commonwealth burden to employees in a retirement system that is currently far healthier than in other states. According to our campus AAUP representative, Virginia’s VRS system is 80% funded, which is considered healthy and solvent by national standards. Our representative reports that: “VRS has a secure $50 billion pot of money, and with its 14% rate of return this past year, has already significantly reduced the $620 million deficit caused by the Governor and GA “balancing the budget” by deferring the payment to VRS.” It would appear that you are gambling that a 2% cut in VRS/ORP contributions that is not noticed in our take home pay this year will only be noticed when the temporary 2% federal social security tax cut expires in some two years – i.e. when it becomes someone else’s problem, and will then be blamed on the U.S. Congress rather than the Virginia General Assembly. Well, I have noticed, as have all of my colleagues.
I joined the University of Mary Washington’s History Department in the summer of 2004, eager to educate Virginia’s young adults and prepare them for a productive and profitable life as residents in this state, country, and world. At the time, I was offered a salary of $39,000 and a tenure track position, contingent on completing my doctoral thesis at the University of Chicago. At the time, I had progressed beyond careers in international relief work and election monitoring to come to that point. I did my part, completing that dissertation and eagerly contributing what I could to UMW’s curriculum, young alumni employment opportunities, international exchanges, and campus programs in general. I can now count former students in the U.S. Army Officer Candidate School, Department of Homeland Security, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Department of Energy, U.S. Park Service, and several prestigious graduate programs. Each of these alumni is a fully contributing member of society, and doing quite well as far as we can tell. I have advised a number of Fulbright grantees, each of whom has either become a productive global citizen grateful for the opportunities afforded by UMW and Virginia’s Higher Education system, or has actually returned home and is directly enriching Virginia’s schools or other governmental institutions. Yet again, I’ve done my part – and my students have done their part.
Unfortunately, what has become increasingly clear is that the Commonwealth is not prepared to do its part, as it does not value in the least what I and my colleagues do on a daily basis – as it equally does not appear to value the contributions made by our Commonwealth colleagues in a number of sectors, including primary and secondary school education, health provision, VDOT, DMV, and ABC, to name but a few. In my personal case, after nearly seven years on the job and three promotions, I have watched my salary evolve to (well below median for Stafford County) $5-,— per annum –(none of your damn business what I make, come to think of it) a salary that my alumni top by roughly $15,000 the moment they enter federal government service at the ripe old age of 22, should they choose that route. I have found my salary completely insufficient to support my spouse and two daughters to whom I was fortunate enough to contribute the seed of life. In fact, each month I find us some $300-500 short. Our vehicles date to 1994 and 1995 respectively; our house was purchased in 2009 for the eye popping figure of $206,000 (down payment covered by the temporary $8,000 federal tax break for first time homeowners); our vacation time largely consists of watching Gov. McDonnell give inspirational speeches on TV; we recently discovered that we cannot even afford our YMCA membership – and my girls have not yet even entered public school. If you see excess in our living standards, please share where potential cuts might come.
Equally disturbing is the public perception of our status as university faculty perpetuated by media figures, certain politicians, and others in public life [Ohio’s governor characterized their state employees as overpaid: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/04/business/04labor.html?pagewanted=1&hp]. Before I cut our YMCA membership, one fellow met in the sauna there believed I made $95,000 as a UMW professor. Interestingly, the neighbors on my cul-de-sac do earn something approaching that figure as: an engineer at the Dahlgren naval research facility, a mid-level customs agent at DHS, a military contractor in Afghanistan, and a DEA agent. Don’t get me wrong – I don’t envy their careers, their houses, or even their salary tradeoffs. However, this reality requires some thought: where do these valuable taxpayers, citizens, and voters – each of whom ultimately works for the federal military/security complex – come from? At least two of those four examples spring from the Virginia higher education system. Who educates them? We do – and thus the circle grows full.
We UMW faculty are not interchangeable. Rather, we are damn good at our job – and the privatized online education initiatives represented by the University of Phoenix could not have educated the alumni whom we’ve successfully placed all over society. One cannot learn Arabic, critical thinking, or the sort of philosophical rigor that makes alumni valuable recruits for federal agencies through an online course and $150. If the entire country turns to that model, then the reward will be an under-educated, substandard, and frankly frightening citizenry. If Virginia turns to that model (n.b. last year, under your leadership the General Assembly cut Virginia’s higher education budget by 19%), then aspiring students will turn to other state systems, and Virginia will gradually sink to the level of Detroit or Mississippi – but with Washington’s federal economy ensuring that it can only fall so far through economic migrants coming in from those states that wisely eschew your proposed educational model. While such an outcome might ultimately preserve the Virginia economy, what of the Virginians whom you serve?
I, and all of my colleagues resident in Virginia, will be watching these developments closely. We urge you to protect state workers and make sure that we are treated equitably and with respect, with conditions that make our career worth continuing.
Nabil Al-Tikriti
Associate Professor
Department of History
University of Mary Washington
Below is a supplement to the application statement I made in 1998 while applying to Princeton University’s Near Eastern Studies Ph.D program. At the time, Chicago was pretty much giving me the boot (long story), and I was searching for an alternative while gradually descending into insanity. The below statement, meant to demonstrate familiarity with medieval/early modern Islamicate correspondence protocols, instead seems to have demonstrated the aforementioned insanity:
Huwa
Professors of Princeton, generous and grand; Orientalists of the East (Coast), reticent and renowned: [1]
When your celestial garden was visited last, matters of deep import were discussed between your most humble servant and the lofty presence exhibited within the august shadow of your side filled with exoteric knowledge and esoteric learning. Since that moment, further developments and deportments have manifested themselves within this provincial grain-gathering depôt unworthy of the slightest consideration within the confines of the lofty boardrooms of your paradisical Jersey-i Jadid. Your weakest son can no longer rest his unworthy yet weary head amongst the natives and newcomers of the flatlands within the contested Gharb al-Awsat. Naysayers of the nattering sort, together with well-wishers of the flattering sort, have urged this exhausted petitioner to the shore of your limitless virtue. Having resided in the protected capitals of Constantine and Cairo as well as the Peace-less City of Peace; having visited the epicentre of divine divisiveness known as Holy, the central and western parts of Turan and Iran, and the various vicissitudinous loci of provincial piety between the land of black and the sea known as black; having exhausted all epistemological options and departmental cautions – following upon arduous and ponderous years of five within which were contained the holy vessel of learning connected to the esoteric believing tongues of exacting Arabic, poetic Persian, and terrifying Turkish, as well as the accursed Frankish tongues of the fluid if not so fluent French, and gradable if not so grand German, the estimable Classical Sources, inestimable Ottoman esotericisms, and uncontainable secrets of Middle Period Islamica; having expended the balance of masterly support and teacherly rapport within the brotherly confines of the Park of Hyde; the request of this butcher-bewildering apprentice and forest-infuriating servant is thus: should your sublime paragons of professorly charm choose to extend their lofty pinkies of garden-like grace toward this unworthy penitent marked by the unfortunate anomaly of academic anemia and symptomatic syntactic amnesia; should the clouds of Chicagoan disapproval dissipate in favor of the clear rays of Princetonian penitence; this humble petitioner would be so bold as to beg entrance into the hallowed Hall known as Jones. What remains is merely your exalted response.
Written in the second third of days within the second third of months within the ninth year after the first tenth of years within the fourth century following the first millennium:
Weakest of Servants of the South,
Abu La Ahad Khayr al-Din Nabil ibn Sirri ibn Khudayr al-Tikriti al-Orleans al-Jadidi al-Amriki
According to BBC, today the UN Security Council lifted most sanctions on Iraq. To understand why most Iraqis would greet this announcement with a mixture of repressed anger, resignation, and cynicism, one needs to review the history of UN sanctions on Iraq since 1991.
A few days after Iraq’s August 2, 1990 invasion of Kuwait, the Security Council passed UNSCR 661, a nearly complete economic embargo against the state of Iraq. The lifting of this embargo was contingent on Iraq’s withdrawal from Kuwait and a restoration of the status quo ante in Kuwait. Up to that point, many (perhaps most) Iraqis might accept the international community’s reaction, aside from those who agree with the Iraqi government (GOI) of the time’s position that such wide ranging sanctions against one state for invading and occupying another state’s territory was clearly not being enforced equally against all states in the region. For those who don’t get the reference, after Israel invaded and occupied territories claimed (or at least administered) by Egypt, Jordan, and Syria in 1967, UNSCR 242 enforced no sanctions whatsoever against that aggressor. This fairly obvious double standard that the Iraqi invasion confirmed is the major reason that the Bush administration pushed for the Madrid Peace Conference in the immediate wake of the Gulf War in the spring of 1991 (which amounted to nothing, as the bilateral Oslo track — also driven somewhat by regional pressure — came to define the next stage in the Israeli-Palestinian arena).
Once Iraq was ejected from Kuwait at the end of February 1991, and after the vicious civil uprisings of March 1991, the Security Council concluded that Iraq’s government remained a threat to regional stability and passed UNSCR 687 in April 191. The major components of this resolution were that it set up UNIKOM (UN Iraq Kuwait Observation Mission, intended to delineate the Iraqi-Kuwaiti border and maintain a peacekeeping observation mission until such time as the border delineation is complete and both parties recognize it) and UNSCOM (UN Special Commission on Munitions, intended to ensure that Iraq had destroyed all special munitions and weapons programs as per their armistice agreement to end the war).
687 called for Iraq to issue a report within 15 days declaring where all weapons and weapons programs were located. It also enshrined a sanctions committee which would ensure that Iraq could not restart all such weapons programs in the future. The committee, based at UN Headquarters in NYC, was empowered to prohibit trade in all items defined as dual use (civilian and military) and prevent their transport into Iraq. These sanctions were to be reviewed by the Security Council every 60 days.
UNSCR 687 sounded reasonable enough at the time, with a 15 day report to be followed by a 60 day review. Embargoed items were meant to be limited to military related items, and that limited embargo was scheduled for review after a couple of months. The international community — and Iraqi society — had no idea when this resolution was passed that it would define Iraq’s economic and societal stability for the next 20 years. How did that come to pass?
The way that 687 came to define Iraqi society says a lot about Anglo-American diplomacy in the 1990s, the uneven application of international law, and the capricious nature of what is usually referred to as “the international community” (which is often so dominated by the US and a few European partners that another moniker would make more sense). Most importantly, 687 stated that the sanctions regime could only be ended with a positive vote of the Security Council. In other words, the default was that the sanctions would continue indefinitely until such time as a majority of the council — and every single permanent member — agreed to lift them.
The first 60 day review was not all that contentious because GOI was not cooperating very persuasively with UNSCOM, and because their work was not done in any case. However, by the third, fourth, and fifth reviews a clear pattern had emerged, the broad outlines of which would continue for the better part of 12 more years. Even as most temporary security council members were ambivalent at best about continuing the sanctions, and even as China, the Soviet Union (Russia after 1993), and France were prepared to adjust or even lift the sanctions, the United States and the United Kingdom insisted on continuation of the sanctions regime until such time as UNSCOM’s work was complete. As scandals over UNSCOM financing, corruption, and espionage emerged in the years to follow, the US and UK continued to insist on the continuation of the sanctions until such time as the Government of Iraq no longer posed a threat to its neighbors.
From August 1991 to July 1992, I lived in the Palestine Meridian Hotel in downtown Baghdad, serving as a relief worker with Catholic Relief Services (CRS) trying to deliver food and medicines to needy segments of Iraq’s population impacted by the sanctions. Although that experience should be the subject of another extended blog post, what’s relevant here is the financing, corruption, and espionage issues that arose with both UNIKOM and UNSCOM in the early 1990s.
First of all, Iraq was obliged to pay for both institutions. Secondly, each international staff member of these two UN agencies was provided with a per diem in dollars — pegged to the official exchange rate of the Iraqi Dinar. At the time, the Iraqi Dinar was officially worth about $3, even though on the streets one could (with some risk) get some 200-800 Iraqi Dinars for a dollar, depending on which month we’re talking about (if my memory serves correctly). So, in order to ensure that such international staff could get sufficient per diem to live in Iraq at the official exchange rate (since trading money at the real rate was a capital offense for Iraqis, and illegal for internationals), UN staff members received some $300 per day as per diem. This money was received in cash, in dollars, at the Canal Hotel, which had been taken over as the UN headquarters in Iraq. Since it was a protected economy, it only cost about $10/day to get by in Baghdad, at least for me (I was feeling flush with my $35 per diem, also paid in dollars cash, and which paid off my Columbia MIA student loan debt off within a year).
There were several hundred of these UN staff members, including UNIKOM security guards and UNSCOM weapons inspectors, as well as UNICEF and UNHCR professionals. These staff members, some of whom were good friends of mine at the time, would routinely take cash trips to Kuwait to deposit their $10,000/month per diem winnings in an international bank branch. This went on full steam until GOI cracked down on the abuse it implied through its own petty harassment of UN staff in the summer of 1992, reducing the numbers by at least half. Friends of mine periodically talked about what they’d do with all that money, and it usually included buying real estate or financing further education.
The corruption inherent in this system was never a problem for the international community, since according to 687 it was part of the sanctions regime and would thus ultimately be covered by the state of Iraq. Word gradually got out that UN staff members were making a mint off Iraq’s oil receipts, but Iraqis never complained openly because such criticism was far too dangerous for the regime to allow. While such complaints that were aired never made it into the Western consciousness, I am fairly confident that few Iraqis mourned when the Canal Hotel in which we used to throw fantastic parties in 1991-92 was hit by a massive truck bomb in August 2003 (or the Hamra Hotel, where many staff members lived, also bombed at some point after the 2003 invasion). I’m also convinced that the corruption which came to define the 2003-04 Coalition Provisional Authority under Ambassador Paul Bremer really got its start in 1991.
Corruption was not the only issue, however. It quickly grew clear to all involved that UNSCOM was a Washington directed outfit. UNSCOM officials tended to be retired military officials from NATO powers, with a noticeable over-representation of Americans and British. These were nice enough guys on the whole, but also overpaid and carrying out a mission that went well beyond ensuring Iraq’s disarmament. It was clear that they were literally getting their orders from DC rather than NYC, and GOI very quickly concluded that UNSCOM itself was a national security threat. Some of the characters who led this outfit — notably David Kay, Rolf Ekeus, Richard Butler — were clearly out to ensure that the process would continue as long as possible, that Iraq would never be certified WMD free, and that their writ would be as broadly interpreted as possible.
As the months dragged into years, the Iraqi public grew ever more used to their own new normal, even as societal indicators plunged and social cohesion slowly unraveled. None of this ever really made the news in the West, and when it did media commentators tended to discount the news as exaggerations. I distinctly remember reading New York Times articles from the early 1990s and growing quite exasperated at their power to shape and misrepresent reality (much harder to accomplish in today’s internet world). I personally think, as do many Iraqis, that the seeds for the unmitigated disaster of the post-2003 Iraq was laid by the sanctions regime of the 1990s.
How did sanctions ostensibly aimed at military use items come to destroy an entire society? Through an exceedingly liberal interpretation of “dual use,” that’s how. The sanctions committee that 687 authorized quickly turned into a mysterious and mendacious collection of faceless American diplomats in NYC demanding that no goods with even remote possibilities of “dual use” capacity would be allowed into Iraq. This came to include lead pencils, famously.
In 1995 two key relatives of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein defected to Jordan, Hussein Kamal al-Majid and Saddam Kamal al-Majid. Before rather naively returning to Baghdad to their deaths via tribal rough justice, these two were extensively debriefed over several weeks by Jordanian and American officials in Amman. Years later it emerged that the brothers confirmed that the Iraqi WMD program had been completely dismantled in the first two years or so after UNSCOM had entered Iraq. This was never revealed by US intelligence in the buildup to the 2003 invasion, and this should have been the date (1995) beyond which sanctions could no longer be justified — at least not in the all-encompassing form in place at the time.
Meanwhile, by the mid-1990s the sanctions regime had grown so vicious that a credible UNICEF report estimated that 550,000 “excess deaths” had occurred in the half decade or so since the sanctions had been imposed. When asked about this report, US Secretary of State Madeline Albright famously responded that she thought the price in fatalities was “worth it.” While that comment never attracted a great deal of attention in the US, no one in Iraq has forgotten it. At about that time, the Oil for Food Program (OFP) was started to respond to criticisms that the sanctions regime was leading to widespread starvation (which wasn’t ever really the case) and deprivation (which was). This program grew into a wholly corrupted mechanism for the Iraqi state to recover at least partial sovereignty over the use of their own oil assets.
After the Anglo-American invasion of March 2003, Iraqis might have been forgiven for thinking that the sanctions regime would be quickly lifted. Although most of the important sanctions were lifted by August 2003, several outstanding issues prevented quick and complete lifting.
The first issue sprung from outstanding Kuwaiti claims arising from the 1990-91 Iraqi invasion and occupation of their country. There were still missing persons, museum assets, and other issues that had never been satisfactorily resolved from the Kuwaiti perspective. In addition, Iraq had been paying some percentage of oil export receipts to Kuwait as compensation, and the Kuwaitis had no interest in ending this revenue stream. From an Iraqi perspective, Kuwaiti territory had now been used to launch an invasion of Iraq, so this compensation should be reversed. However, this perspective never reached a wide hearing in the international community (as defined above), and was never pressed by any of the fragile Iraqi governments that followed that invasion.
A second issue concerned compensation to Western “guestages” and others who suffered from that same 1990 invasion. While from an Iraqi perspective it seems somewhat surreal to be paying compensation to citizens of the countries that had imposed such hardship on them, such compensation had to be sorted out before the sanctions could be completely lifted. It now seems as though this issue is reaching resolution, as the current Iraqi government has agreed to pay compensation (in the millions of dollars) to those who were prevented from leaving Iraq in the fall of 1990, and others.
This has been only a gross summary of the issue. For further reading, I might suggest works by Sarah Graham-Brown, Scott Ritter, and several others.
Here’s the article link & text:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12004115
15 December 2010
It was all smiles at the UN as 19-year-old sanctions on Iraq are liftedThe vote is intended as a recognition of the political progress made in Iraq.
One resolution ends sanctions that were imposed to stop Iraq building nuclear, chemical or biological weapons.
The fear that Saddam Hussein was developing weapons of mass destruction was the main reason cited for the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Sanctions were first imposed on Baghdad in 1991 after Iraq invaded Kuwait, though some relating to trade, investment and conventional weapons have been lifted since 2003.
In a statement, the Security Council said it “recognises that the situation now existing in Iraq is significantly different from that which existed at the time of the adoption of resolution 661” in 1990.
The council also voted to return control of Iraq’s oil and natural gas revenue to the government on 30 June and to end all remaining activities of the oil-for-food programme, which helped ordinary Iraqis cope with sanctions.
US Vice President Joe Biden, chairing the high-level meeting, noted that the number of violent attacks in Iraq had fallen and he said the people there had “flatly rejected the grim future offered by extremists”.
“Iraq is on the cusp of something remarkable – a stable, self-reliant nation,” he said.
But UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon said Iraq must make efforts to agree a border with Kuwait and to agree on a dispute over war reparations if all sanctions were to be ended.
Baghdad still pays 5% of revenues from its oil sales into a fund which pays reparations to Kuwait.
Iraq’s Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said normalisation of relations with Kuwait would be a priority for the new Iraqi government.
“I can say that the session today is the beginning of the end,” Mr Zebari told Associated Press before the meeting.
“Today Iraq will be liberated from all sanctions caused by wars and misdeeds of the former regime,” he said.
