Wednesday, January 05, 2000
Cure for Post-election trauma
By Wally Dobelis
Some positive nlisotes to cure the post-election trauma
In this week of post-presidential election vote counts in the US, watching the film bites of the Arab young men darting out into streets to throw rocks at the Israeli young men, who have no rocks and therefore respond with gun fire, filled my mind with dismay. Can the world cope with this kind of conflict, and how much time will the new management team of the US will have for on-the-job-training to deal with it? The promise of peace that started in Oslo in 1993 and gradually eroded with the murder of Rabin in November 1995, and the unsuccessful Camp David negotioations of July 2000, has reached rock bottom with the new intifada of October 2000. It seems that the fragile flower of peace, tended and watched by millions, can be stomped out by any enemy of peace at will, with no effort. No one can step up with guns or planes in to attempt to bring it back. Kosovo was easy, in comparison.
For a while I was beginning to wonder whether the Arab thinking process parallels ours. What kind of fathers and mothers would let their sons go out with stones every morning to risk provoking other young men with guns to kill them, and for what gain? Imagine the conversation: "Mom, I’m going out, to throw rocks at Israeli soldiers." "Why, for God’s sake?" "Well, if they kill me, the world opinion will condemn the Jews." "Will that push the Jews out into the sea and give us an Arab Palestine?" "No, but the UN may censure Israel." "And then what?" " Well, maybe Iran or Iraq will drop atom bombs on Israel." "And then what?" "Then we will all die in a world war." "Well, then, goodbye, son, dress neatly and be careful." I really cannot buy this Leonidas’s mother’s dialogue. At least she sent him to Thermopylae to fight the Persians with equal weapons.
Here’s a is more likely conversation: "Son, I don’t want you to go." "If I don’t go, the Hezbollah (or Hamas, or Palestine Authority or whatever) leaders will brand me a coward." "And then what?" "They will punish us, we will be outcasts, seen as Israeli collaborators, and our lives will be under a threat." "Supposing none of you young people go?" "Nobody wants to be the first." "Supposing we mothers protest?" "Come on, Mom, this is the Middle East, not the US, Ireland, nor even Russia. In Saudi Arabia they still behead young women for dating the wrong guy." "Then, there’s no way for people like us to express our opinions." "Not when the Hezbollah (etc, etc) leaders want to keep their power, and keep the money flowing from Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and other Muslim nations - and that includes the compatriots in the US. Even Arafat cannot accept a rational peace offer without fear of being instantly deposed or liquidated. The best he can do is to offer cessation of hostilities in return for some land concessions in the Occupied Territories. He can whittle away at the Israeli control there without compromising his demands for Jerusalem." "Well, then, there is nothing we can do. Goodbye, son, dress neatly and be careful."
Is there really nothing the leaders of the Western world can do, except perform empty ritual gestures for public consumption, and "to keep the peace process alive?". Yes, the anti-peace saboteurs on both sides can break up any real peace efforts at will, whenever there is a threat of a real success. There is now an international technique for it. The peace effort in relatively democratic North Ireland, which has been going on more than twice as long as in Israel, has been sabotaged time and again by people who have a lot to lose - power, self-importance, also funds from America (in the case of the IRA) - if a coalition government is established. Look, women for peace, the most powerful segment of the population that can exert pressure for a compromise (Take another Greek example, Lysistrata), in Ireland are under a less severe threat of retaliation. Still, the peace efforts have collapsed time and again, either by explosives or by spoilers dressed neatly in 18th century garb marching in the wrong places to provoke retaliation.
Nevertheless, it will have to be the women who will have to make the peace in the horror spots of this Earth. If this looks like I’m proposing a woman president for the US, don’t take me too literally. A woman can be already elected president in the US, on merit. I’m talking about a whole world out there in which women have been kept out of power, to the point that even the little that they have gained, in a country like Afganistan, is being taken back.
Power for women and education, that is what the world needs before these nationalistic power and greed sicknesses that beset the world can be cured. These on-again off-again armed truces that we can forecast for Israel, Kosovo, Ireland, Sierra Leone and the other killing fields of Africa will last for decades (I’m serious), but the permanent peace-making solutions will not take place before education, particularly for women, breaks the power of the warlike male supremacy. The killing power of AIDS in Africa is forcing the women to take some control over their own destinies, and the social injustices in such male-dominated societies as Afganistan and Iran are forcing women to form underground organizations. It may take several more decades, but the progress of electronic communications has speeded the world up. The signs are there.
Meanwhile, good luck to all of us, and to our new corporate management team, whoever they may be, bought for three billion dollars. Be sure to get competent help, fast. Once this is over we will be together, regardless of how we felt and voted. That is all over, we are together again - although someone may start raising funds tomorrow, it’s only 3 years and 364 days till the next election.
*Wally Dobelis has been writing weekly columns for the past six years on local and national history and politics, on New York architecture, landmarking and preservation, on the 1960s of Reform Democrat struggles, on the old bookstores on 4th Avenue, on books, plays and movies as they affect his East Midtown New York readership.His venue is Town and Village, a weekly paid subscription newspaper (est 1947), named for Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village, with 10,000 devoted educated readers who hang on his every word (sometimes complaining about the longer ones).You can look him up in the Marquis Who's Who in the East and Contemporary Authors. Don't look for him on the Internet (except in the NYPL bio references), you're his first modest attempt to crack the national scene. NP?
Some positive nlisotes to cure the post-election trauma
In this week of post-presidential election vote counts in the US, watching the film bites of the Arab young men darting out into streets to throw rocks at the Israeli young men, who have no rocks and therefore respond with gun fire, filled my mind with dismay. Can the world cope with this kind of conflict, and how much time will the new management team of the US will have for on-the-job-training to deal with it? The promise of peace that started in Oslo in 1993 and gradually eroded with the murder of Rabin in November 1995, and the unsuccessful Camp David negotioations of July 2000, has reached rock bottom with the new intifada of October 2000. It seems that the fragile flower of peace, tended and watched by millions, can be stomped out by any enemy of peace at will, with no effort. No one can step up with guns or planes in to attempt to bring it back. Kosovo was easy, in comparison.
For a while I was beginning to wonder whether the Arab thinking process parallels ours. What kind of fathers and mothers would let their sons go out with stones every morning to risk provoking other young men with guns to kill them, and for what gain? Imagine the conversation: "Mom, I’m going out, to throw rocks at Israeli soldiers." "Why, for God’s sake?" "Well, if they kill me, the world opinion will condemn the Jews." "Will that push the Jews out into the sea and give us an Arab Palestine?" "No, but the UN may censure Israel." "And then what?" " Well, maybe Iran or Iraq will drop atom bombs on Israel." "And then what?" "Then we will all die in a world war." "Well, then, goodbye, son, dress neatly and be careful." I really cannot buy this Leonidas’s mother’s dialogue. At least she sent him to Thermopylae to fight the Persians with equal weapons.
Here’s a is more likely conversation: "Son, I don’t want you to go." "If I don’t go, the Hezbollah (or Hamas, or Palestine Authority or whatever) leaders will brand me a coward." "And then what?" "They will punish us, we will be outcasts, seen as Israeli collaborators, and our lives will be under a threat." "Supposing none of you young people go?" "Nobody wants to be the first." "Supposing we mothers protest?" "Come on, Mom, this is the Middle East, not the US, Ireland, nor even Russia. In Saudi Arabia they still behead young women for dating the wrong guy." "Then, there’s no way for people like us to express our opinions." "Not when the Hezbollah (etc, etc) leaders want to keep their power, and keep the money flowing from Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and other Muslim nations - and that includes the compatriots in the US. Even Arafat cannot accept a rational peace offer without fear of being instantly deposed or liquidated. The best he can do is to offer cessation of hostilities in return for some land concessions in the Occupied Territories. He can whittle away at the Israeli control there without compromising his demands for Jerusalem." "Well, then, there is nothing we can do. Goodbye, son, dress neatly and be careful."
Is there really nothing the leaders of the Western world can do, except perform empty ritual gestures for public consumption, and "to keep the peace process alive?". Yes, the anti-peace saboteurs on both sides can break up any real peace efforts at will, whenever there is a threat of a real success. There is now an international technique for it. The peace effort in relatively democratic North Ireland, which has been going on more than twice as long as in Israel, has been sabotaged time and again by people who have a lot to lose - power, self-importance, also funds from America (in the case of the IRA) - if a coalition government is established. Look, women for peace, the most powerful segment of the population that can exert pressure for a compromise (Take another Greek example, Lysistrata), in Ireland are under a less severe threat of retaliation. Still, the peace efforts have collapsed time and again, either by explosives or by spoilers dressed neatly in 18th century garb marching in the wrong places to provoke retaliation.
Nevertheless, it will have to be the women who will have to make the peace in the horror spots of this Earth. If this looks like I’m proposing a woman president for the US, don’t take me too literally. A woman can be already elected president in the US, on merit. I’m talking about a whole world out there in which women have been kept out of power, to the point that even the little that they have gained, in a country like Afganistan, is being taken back.
Power for women and education, that is what the world needs before these nationalistic power and greed sicknesses that beset the world can be cured. These on-again off-again armed truces that we can forecast for Israel, Kosovo, Ireland, Sierra Leone and the other killing fields of Africa will last for decades (I’m serious), but the permanent peace-making solutions will not take place before education, particularly for women, breaks the power of the warlike male supremacy. The killing power of AIDS in Africa is forcing the women to take some control over their own destinies, and the social injustices in such male-dominated societies as Afganistan and Iran are forcing women to form underground organizations. It may take several more decades, but the progress of electronic communications has speeded the world up. The signs are there.
Meanwhile, good luck to all of us, and to our new corporate management team, whoever they may be, bought for three billion dollars. Be sure to get competent help, fast. Once this is over we will be together, regardless of how we felt and voted. That is all over, we are together again - although someone may start raising funds tomorrow, it’s only 3 years and 364 days till the next election.
*Wally Dobelis has been writing weekly columns for the past six years on local and national history and politics, on New York architecture, landmarking and preservation, on the 1960s of Reform Democrat struggles, on the old bookstores on 4th Avenue, on books, plays and movies as they affect his East Midtown New York readership.His venue is Town and Village, a weekly paid subscription newspaper (est 1947), named for Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village, with 10,000 devoted educated readers who hang on his every word (sometimes complaining about the longer ones).You can look him up in the Marquis Who's Who in the East and Contemporary Authors. Don't look for him on the Internet (except in the NYPL bio references), you're his first modest attempt to crack the national scene. NP?
Tuesday, January 04, 2000
Lest we forget _ Afghan history
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
"ake my horse and God send you may you get to Jalalabad and safety" -
Mortally wounded Indian subadhar to Dr Bryson, sole survivor from the 1842 retreat
"When you’re wounded and left on the Afghan plains
And the women come out to cut up your remains,
Just roll on your rifle and blow out your brains
And go to your God like a soldier."
Rudyard Kipling
"The whole thing was unintelligible to me..."
Lord Auckland, Governor-General, on the catastrophe he had engineered
Afghanistan, a mountainous country of harsh people, cannot be conquered and held in a land war..It has humiliated its would-be rulers Britons and Russians more than once. Even the Taliban cannot subdue the Northern Alliance. Its cities are easily occupied, but the occupiers are locked in an perish, without an exit strategy. In snowy January 1842 Afghan soldiers slaughtered a contingent of 4,500 British and Indian troops and 12,000 civilians retreating from Kabul to friendly Jalalabad near the present Pakistan border, with one man left to tell the tale. That was the end of the First Afghan War, which started in 1839 with the British trying to protect Emir Dost Mohammad from Iranian and Russian conquest. But the Emir also wanted to recover former Afghan territory in Peshavar, a no-go for the Brits, who deposed Dost and installed a quisling, but had to restore him, before their demeaning retreat.
In 1879 Dost’s successors’ dallying with the Russians provoked another British invasion, resulting in the occupiers being massacred in Kabul, and the Second Afghan War, involving suicide warriors, ghazis. The occupation failed; the only salvation for the invaders was to install a popularly accepted Emir, Dost’s grandson Abdur Rahman, and withdraw. His pro-British. son Habibollah Khan was assassinated by nationalists in 1919 and grandson Amanollah Khan secured autonomy from the British Empire. The country remained friendly with the USSR through changes into secular dictatorships after 1973. Attempts to establish a friendship with the US led to the Soviet invasion and murder of the last Marxist dictator Hafizullah Amin in 1979. President Babrak Karmel accepted the USSR occupancy, but partisans, trained with US help, continued attacking Soviet army (it lost 15,000 men) until a UN-backed peace led to the withdrawal of the Red Army in 1988 and declaration of a neutral state. The victorious guerillas had been trained in Pakistani military camps, financed by the CIA and the rich Saudi engineer and mullah Osama bin Ladin, The latter is a prophet of a branch of the Jesuit-like (in the original sense) Wahhabi sect, an austere branch of Sunni Muslim faith. He accepts murder and suicide in the interests of preservation of the Islamic faith and Muslim church state, and had declared two fatvas ("judgment," commonly accepted as a holy war) against the Americans as desecrators of the holy land of Mecca. His Wahhabi branch became the enemy of Saudi Arabia, where it originated, because the sheikdom had grown less observant, to the point of giving bases to the US forces in the gulf war, as well as of the secular Moslems, such as Libyans, Egypians and Syrians (the latter had actually killed off 20,000 of their reactionary Islamists). Some of these alliances have changed.
After the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, the various religious, secular and national factions of guerillas refused to accept the next, "puppet" Najbullah regime and continued striving for the leadership in Kabul, fighting each other. Najbullah resigned in 1992, and Burhanuddin Rabbani became President. Two million Afghans had been killed in the fighting, and six million had fled to Pakistan and Iran, both sometime enemy countries. Fearing Iranian and now Russia’s influence, Pakistan had empowered the Pushtos allied in the Taliban led by the Mullah Muhammad Omar to overthrow Rabbani, and they succeeded
These are not homogeneous people, Of the 22 million inhabitants, the Pushtos or Parthans, basic supporters of the Taliban, constitute 38 percent, the opposing Tajiks, Uzbeks and nomadic Turkmens of the North form another 40 percent, the Mongolic Hazara are 19 percent. Of the Shiite Iranians there are about 1 million. Texas-size Afghanistan has border disputes with the slightly larger Pakistan, because Afghan-populated North-West Province (Peshawar) was voted into Afghanistan during the partition of British India in 1947 by giving the inhabitants only two choices, to be in India or Pakistan. When Pakistan’s eastern part became independent Bangladesh in 1972, there were also calls for an independent Pushtunistan.
History’s crossroads, Afghanistan was conquered by Darius the Great of Persia 2,500 years ago, then by Alexander the Great ("Bactria"), then became a Buddhist empire. Muslim Arabs came starting 1300 years ago., then Genghis Khan (1220) and Tamerlane 150 years later. His descendant Babur (1483-1530) out of Kabul established the mighty Moghul Empire and ruled the Indian subcontinent The rulers of Kabul changed frequently; the off-and-on Dost Muhammad dynasty lasted until a republic was proclaimed in 1973. Last king, Mohammad Daud Khan, 86, lives in Rome, and has agreed to lead a prospective coalition government to replace the militant Omar.
Romance about Afghanistan and the ferocious Pushtos or Parthans abounds. The famous Khyber Pass, a 28-mile long narrow road with 34 tunnels and 92 bridges connecting Peshawar and Kabul has been the entranceway for the various conquerors entering India from the North. It has been fateful for the British conquerors. Dust off your Rudyard Kipling, as I did.
"ake my horse and God send you may you get to Jalalabad and safety" -
Mortally wounded Indian subadhar to Dr Bryson, sole survivor from the 1842 retreat
"When you’re wounded and left on the Afghan plains
And the women come out to cut up your remains,
Just roll on your rifle and blow out your brains
And go to your God like a soldier."
Rudyard Kipling
"The whole thing was unintelligible to me..."
Lord Auckland, Governor-General, on the catastrophe he had engineered
Afghanistan, a mountainous country of harsh people, cannot be conquered and held in a land war..It has humiliated its would-be rulers Britons and Russians more than once. Even the Taliban cannot subdue the Northern Alliance. Its cities are easily occupied, but the occupiers are locked in an perish, without an exit strategy. In snowy January 1842 Afghan soldiers slaughtered a contingent of 4,500 British and Indian troops and 12,000 civilians retreating from Kabul to friendly Jalalabad near the present Pakistan border, with one man left to tell the tale. That was the end of the First Afghan War, which started in 1839 with the British trying to protect Emir Dost Mohammad from Iranian and Russian conquest. But the Emir also wanted to recover former Afghan territory in Peshavar, a no-go for the Brits, who deposed Dost and installed a quisling, but had to restore him, before their demeaning retreat.
In 1879 Dost’s successors’ dallying with the Russians provoked another British invasion, resulting in the occupiers being massacred in Kabul, and the Second Afghan War, involving suicide warriors, ghazis. The occupation failed; the only salvation for the invaders was to install a popularly accepted Emir, Dost’s grandson Abdur Rahman, and withdraw. His pro-British. son Habibollah Khan was assassinated by nationalists in 1919 and grandson Amanollah Khan secured autonomy from the British Empire. The country remained friendly with the USSR through changes into secular dictatorships after 1973. Attempts to establish a friendship with the US led to the Soviet invasion and murder of the last Marxist dictator Hafizullah Amin in 1979. President Babrak Karmel accepted the USSR occupancy, but partisans, trained with US help, continued attacking Soviet army (it lost 15,000 men) until a UN-backed peace led to the withdrawal of the Red Army in 1988 and declaration of a neutral state. The victorious guerillas had been trained in Pakistani military camps, financed by the CIA and the rich Saudi engineer and mullah Osama bin Ladin, The latter is a prophet of a branch of the Jesuit-like (in the original sense) Wahhabi sect, an austere branch of Sunni Muslim faith. He accepts murder and suicide in the interests of preservation of the Islamic faith and Muslim church state, and had declared two fatvas ("judgment," commonly accepted as a holy war) against the Americans as desecrators of the holy land of Mecca. His Wahhabi branch became the enemy of Saudi Arabia, where it originated, because the sheikdom had grown less observant, to the point of giving bases to the US forces in the gulf war, as well as of the secular Moslems, such as Libyans, Egypians and Syrians (the latter had actually killed off 20,000 of their reactionary Islamists). Some of these alliances have changed.
After the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, the various religious, secular and national factions of guerillas refused to accept the next, "puppet" Najbullah regime and continued striving for the leadership in Kabul, fighting each other. Najbullah resigned in 1992, and Burhanuddin Rabbani became President. Two million Afghans had been killed in the fighting, and six million had fled to Pakistan and Iran, both sometime enemy countries. Fearing Iranian and now Russia’s influence, Pakistan had empowered the Pushtos allied in the Taliban led by the Mullah Muhammad Omar to overthrow Rabbani, and they succeeded
These are not homogeneous people, Of the 22 million inhabitants, the Pushtos or Parthans, basic supporters of the Taliban, constitute 38 percent, the opposing Tajiks, Uzbeks and nomadic Turkmens of the North form another 40 percent, the Mongolic Hazara are 19 percent. Of the Shiite Iranians there are about 1 million. Texas-size Afghanistan has border disputes with the slightly larger Pakistan, because Afghan-populated North-West Province (Peshawar) was voted into Afghanistan during the partition of British India in 1947 by giving the inhabitants only two choices, to be in India or Pakistan. When Pakistan’s eastern part became independent Bangladesh in 1972, there were also calls for an independent Pushtunistan.
History’s crossroads, Afghanistan was conquered by Darius the Great of Persia 2,500 years ago, then by Alexander the Great ("Bactria"), then became a Buddhist empire. Muslim Arabs came starting 1300 years ago., then Genghis Khan (1220) and Tamerlane 150 years later. His descendant Babur (1483-1530) out of Kabul established the mighty Moghul Empire and ruled the Indian subcontinent The rulers of Kabul changed frequently; the off-and-on Dost Muhammad dynasty lasted until a republic was proclaimed in 1973. Last king, Mohammad Daud Khan, 86, lives in Rome, and has agreed to lead a prospective coalition government to replace the militant Omar.
Romance about Afghanistan and the ferocious Pushtos or Parthans abounds. The famous Khyber Pass, a 28-mile long narrow road with 34 tunnels and 92 bridges connecting Peshawar and Kabul has been the entranceway for the various conquerors entering India from the North. It has been fateful for the British conquerors. Dust off your Rudyard Kipling, as I did.
