THE AFGHANISTAN CONFLICT AND AUSTRALIA'S ROLE
Edited by Amin Saikal.
Melbourne University Press. 210pp.
Reviewed: 30 July 2011
CABLES FROM KABUL
The Inside Story of the West’s Afghanistan Campaign.
By Sherard Cowper-Coles.
Harper Press.312pp.
Reviewed: 5 August 2011
INFERNAL TRIANGLE
Conflict in Iraq, Afghanistan and The Levant – Eyewitness reports from the September 11 decade. By Paul McGeough.
Allen and Unwin. 338pp.
Reviewed: 5 August 2011
It was the burden of the prophetess Cassandra to see future doom, but her curse was that nobody would believe her warnings.
The bloody embrace of Western nations with Afghanistan is a situations in which everybody who knows what they are talking about realises that almost the entire Western engagement has been futile and even counter-productive.
The first of these books is a symposium of experts from a conference at the Centre for Islamic and Central Asian Studies at the Australian National University. All of them are area experts, several of them are Afghans, others are distinguished military strategists or social development activists.
Several contributors refer to the great needs for social development in Afghanistan - but none of these could convince me that the Western alliance could deliver such development in any way that would survive the imminent withdrawal of western military forces on the ground.
Most depressingly, the strategy experts (such as Prof Hugh White) question whether the missions, and particularly Australia's tag-along mission, were ever undertaken for good reasons. We all remain hostage to the hegemonistic fantasies of the neo-con Bush administration.
Sadly, it seems that our own democratic societies are part of the problem. Our leaders can be overthrown by media-driven perceptions that they are "weak", so they struggle to avoid the appearance of anything that can be described as "defeat". Military establishments and government advisers all try to avoid association with defeat, and so continue to pretend that "victory" is possible. It reminds me of stockbrokers and real estate agents constantly assuring investors that they will be OK "in the long run".
Cables from Kabul is a personal memoir of a classic kind. Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles is a classic kind of English establishment product, talented as well as privileged, who served as British Ambassador in Kabul and as the UK's Special Representative on Afghanistan during 2010.
His perspective is that the western alliance should have learned more from the accumulated history of failed imperial engagements with Afghanistan, particularly the experience of the British Empire a century or two ago. He is probably right. But making these points too often and too cheekily for Washington's taste eventaully caused embarassment in London, and thus put an end to his diplomatic career. We can be grateful for this - his memoir is a classic and fun to read, though the man himself might be difficult to get along with and shows a rather patronising attitude toward Australians (as well as Americans).
Infernal Triangle is a journalistic collection by distinguished war correpondent, Paul McGeough. The collected despatches cover not only Afghanistan but also Iraq and Palestine (thus the Triangle). He provides many useful perspectives - one being the interconnection between these different war zones. Another is that the chronological sequence of his reports shows his growing disillusion with the Western "project" to democratise Islam. Western indulgence of Israel's expansionism is the common factor linking it all together, because it defines the entire West as an enemy of Islam and, worse, as hypocritical.
It is sheer madness that our governments turn a willful blind eye to that obvious canker and obstacle to peace and development. Perhaps this is another artifact of our democractic subjection to determined propaganda. Let's never forget that Hitler came to power in Germany by democratic elections. In our era, the real saboteurs of global peace are not Islamists, and not Zionists, but madcap Christian fundamentalists who terrorise American electoral politics (and some ill-informed elements of the Australian electorate as well).
Read the reviews for a rant-free evaluation of these three worthwhile books.
Monday, August 15, 2011
This blog may become less polite..
Two things have indicated it is time for a change of direction in The Lost Colophon.
First, I've upgraded my personal book reviews site at Richard Thwaites' Book Reviews so that the full text of reviews is easier to find. The new pages present concise summaries and a dated list of links to all past reviews, which is easier to navigate than this public blog's format that hides everything in dated archives. Who ever browses by dates???
So there's no more need to post extensive texts of my published reviews here.
Second, there are certain constraints and conventions in writing reviews for an established print medium such as The Canberra Times, the newspaper of Australia's national capital. An a priori respect for the author, and an attempt to be fair to the written work, are reasonable premises from which to write a non-fiction review. A reviewer should avoid grandstanding and self-promotion, while providing readers with the best possible understanding of the qualities and limitations of the work under review.
But this virtuous commitment to balance leaves little room for the reviewer to share, with his own readers, the essence of the reading experience: how did this book affect me?
So, as of now, The Lost Colophon will record the personal aspects of the book-review task as I experience it, stepping through current non-fiction works of authors who are trying to say something that is worth taking seriously.
I'll be talking about all the books I review, and referring interested readers to the reviews themselves at Richard Thwaites' Book Reviews.
First, I've upgraded my personal book reviews site at Richard Thwaites' Book Reviews so that the full text of reviews is easier to find. The new pages present concise summaries and a dated list of links to all past reviews, which is easier to navigate than this public blog's format that hides everything in dated archives. Who ever browses by dates???
So there's no more need to post extensive texts of my published reviews here.
Second, there are certain constraints and conventions in writing reviews for an established print medium such as The Canberra Times, the newspaper of Australia's national capital. An a priori respect for the author, and an attempt to be fair to the written work, are reasonable premises from which to write a non-fiction review. A reviewer should avoid grandstanding and self-promotion, while providing readers with the best possible understanding of the qualities and limitations of the work under review.
But this virtuous commitment to balance leaves little room for the reviewer to share, with his own readers, the essence of the reading experience: how did this book affect me?
So, as of now, The Lost Colophon will record the personal aspects of the book-review task as I experience it, stepping through current non-fiction works of authors who are trying to say something that is worth taking seriously.
I'll be talking about all the books I review, and referring interested readers to the reviews themselves at Richard Thwaites' Book Reviews.
Monday, May 16, 2011
Is Victory worth the Price?
THE ILLUSION OF VICTORY:
The True Costs of War. By Ian Bickerton.
Melbourne University Press.241pp.
Reviewed 14 May 2011
Our era of unresolved conflicts, between state and non-state antagonists with ill-defined or unstated goals, seems ripe for a review of the idea of victory.
Ian Bickerton is a senior historian at the University of New South Wales who has specialized in the study of US foreign policy and of conflict in the Middle East. He takes a dim view of war in general, and in this book, he tackles the problem of war backwards - rather than questioning the causes, he questions the results. The book hangs on his proposition that, in war, victory is an illusion, and in our current era has lost all meaning.
It's a fine topic for a vigorous debate, but first you have to define “victory”. Bickerton doesn't offer a concise definition, but he refers to “strategic victory” as imparting the ability to impose peace and stability, including within the politics of the defeated nations. That sets the bar quite high. My Oxford Dictionary defines victory more simply, at two levels: “the position or state of having overcome an enemy or adversary in battle, combat or war”; then “supremacy or superiority achieved as the result of armed conflict”. Bickerton's case is that victory of the first kind (overcoming an enemy in combat) does not guarantee any lasting strategic supremacy, superiority, or even peace for the nominal victors.
His analytical method is systematic but blunt. He takes a series of wars that involved Europe and/or America, from the Napoleonic to the "War on Terror", and lists what the “winners” demanded as their terms of victory. He then checks the situation after twenty-five years. By his reckoning, almost never have the terms of victory turned out as the victors intended. In most cases, the “losers” have done at least as well as the winners. German and Japanese post-war industrial reconstruction are the classic examples.
On the other side of the ledger, he collates the vast human and material costs of war, which are as likely to have crippled generations of the winning side as of the losing side.
The horrors and costs of war have been recognized from the beginning of human history, but wars keep happening. So is the idea of Victory really worth attacking in this day and age, or is it something of a straw man? Expectations of victory not be fulfilled, but does that prove that no war should never be fought?
The historical method ignores the counter-factual - what would have happened if there were no response, and no threat of response, to the temptation for a strong or angry party to use aggressive force? Bickerton quotes Ambrose Bierce that “peace is a period of cheating between two periods of fighting”, but his best alternative to war is “consideration of more creative political approaches to resolving differences between states, and between states and non-state groups”.
The human propensity for war seems intransigent, but not entirely beyond moderation. Modern weaponry has vastly increased the rate of civilian casualties as "collateral damage" to combat - Bickerton says 90% of casualties in the Iraq conflict have been civilian. But the threat of mutually assured destruction, together with the greater accountability of governments to the governed, provides increasing restraint on the resort to warfare. On average, more democracy should mean less war.
So how is aggression is to be resisted or even discouraged? Bickerton quotes Sun Tzu on the tactic of “defeating the enemy's strategy” by offering to meet the enemy's objectives by peaceful, mainly economic, inducements. He does not quote another part of Sun Tzu's Art of War, that the greatest general is he who wins the war without having to fight a battle - by isolating, encircling, bribing and intimidating a weakened adversary.
This is an interesting polemic that deserves to provoke debate.
Read the full review
Richard Thwaites has reported on wars and politics, and participated in policy wars, but has so far avoided personal engagement in mortal combat.
The True Costs of War. By Ian Bickerton.
Melbourne University Press.241pp.
Reviewed 14 May 2011
Our era of unresolved conflicts, between state and non-state antagonists with ill-defined or unstated goals, seems ripe for a review of the idea of victory.
Ian Bickerton is a senior historian at the University of New South Wales who has specialized in the study of US foreign policy and of conflict in the Middle East. He takes a dim view of war in general, and in this book, he tackles the problem of war backwards - rather than questioning the causes, he questions the results. The book hangs on his proposition that, in war, victory is an illusion, and in our current era has lost all meaning.
It's a fine topic for a vigorous debate, but first you have to define “victory”. Bickerton doesn't offer a concise definition, but he refers to “strategic victory” as imparting the ability to impose peace and stability, including within the politics of the defeated nations. That sets the bar quite high. My Oxford Dictionary defines victory more simply, at two levels: “the position or state of having overcome an enemy or adversary in battle, combat or war”; then “supremacy or superiority achieved as the result of armed conflict”. Bickerton's case is that victory of the first kind (overcoming an enemy in combat) does not guarantee any lasting strategic supremacy, superiority, or even peace for the nominal victors.
His analytical method is systematic but blunt. He takes a series of wars that involved Europe and/or America, from the Napoleonic to the "War on Terror", and lists what the “winners” demanded as their terms of victory. He then checks the situation after twenty-five years. By his reckoning, almost never have the terms of victory turned out as the victors intended. In most cases, the “losers” have done at least as well as the winners. German and Japanese post-war industrial reconstruction are the classic examples.
On the other side of the ledger, he collates the vast human and material costs of war, which are as likely to have crippled generations of the winning side as of the losing side.
The horrors and costs of war have been recognized from the beginning of human history, but wars keep happening. So is the idea of Victory really worth attacking in this day and age, or is it something of a straw man? Expectations of victory not be fulfilled, but does that prove that no war should never be fought?
The historical method ignores the counter-factual - what would have happened if there were no response, and no threat of response, to the temptation for a strong or angry party to use aggressive force? Bickerton quotes Ambrose Bierce that “peace is a period of cheating between two periods of fighting”, but his best alternative to war is “consideration of more creative political approaches to resolving differences between states, and between states and non-state groups”.
The human propensity for war seems intransigent, but not entirely beyond moderation. Modern weaponry has vastly increased the rate of civilian casualties as "collateral damage" to combat - Bickerton says 90% of casualties in the Iraq conflict have been civilian. But the threat of mutually assured destruction, together with the greater accountability of governments to the governed, provides increasing restraint on the resort to warfare. On average, more democracy should mean less war.
So how is aggression is to be resisted or even discouraged? Bickerton quotes Sun Tzu on the tactic of “defeating the enemy's strategy” by offering to meet the enemy's objectives by peaceful, mainly economic, inducements. He does not quote another part of Sun Tzu's Art of War, that the greatest general is he who wins the war without having to fight a battle - by isolating, encircling, bribing and intimidating a weakened adversary.
This is an interesting polemic that deserves to provoke debate.
Read the full review
Richard Thwaites has reported on wars and politics, and participated in policy wars, but has so far avoided personal engagement in mortal combat.
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
How the West saw Gandhi
GANDHI IN THE WEST:
The Mahatma and the Rise of Radical Protest.
By Sean Scalmer. Cambridge University Press.248pp
People all over the world keep putting their lives on the line for political protest. But when public communication in our Western democracies seems dominated by news-cycle political stunts and media demagogcracy, has radical protest lost its moral and political force?
Sean Scalmer casts a historian's eye over Western protest movements of the 20th Century, from when the techniques of Mahatma Gandhi first attracted Western attention, up to a high point of Western political protest movements, against the Vietnam War.
Scalmer reviews how Western societies responded to Gandhi's words, actions and image, and how those responses influenced political action in Western democracies.
His primary sources are the words of the activists, officials, journalists and commentators whose various impressions of Gandhi, or “Gandhism”, fed into the making of Western public and political opinion.
Until Gandhi's assasination in 1948, Western attitudes generally reflected whether people supported, or resisted, Indian independence from the British Empire. He was also admired and imitated by Western pacifists, numerous 1920-1939 but much fewer once faced with the aggression of the Axis powers.
Later Western movements that owed technical credits to Gandhi's modes of protest were the nuclear disarmament campaigns, beginning in UK in the late 1940s, the US Civil Rights movements in the 1950s and 60s, and finally the protests against Vietnam War.
Gandhism (a term Ganhi himself rejected) had both a moral component (setting out how and why the individual should act in particular situations) and also a pragmatic component, setting out how people could act together to achieve political objectives.
Gandhi's blend of Jain, Hindu, Christian, Sufi and other moral systems earned him a certain mystic authority to mobilize mass protest action in India, and attracted a useful subculture of Western devotees. But the personal side of Gandhi's moral philosophy ultimately was too eccentric for him to be accepted, by Indian elites or by average Westerners, as a political leader for all Indians.
It was the pragmatic effectiveness of his protest techniques that most influenced Western emulators. Gandhi coined the phrase satyagraha from the Sanskrit terms for truth (satyam) and for firmness (agraha). He and his followers believed that mass non-violent resistance against oppression would morally convert the oppressors.
Although this occurred, at some level and with some oppressors, more hard-headed analysts attribute Gandhi's political successes to publicity.
The public sympathy generated by images of demonstrators being treated violently can mobilize support for political change. But its effect depends on the ruling powers being accountable, at least to some degree, to that converted public. And other significant factors may have to be close to a tipping point for the moral sympathy factor to tip that balance.
Scalmer traces how successive Western protest movements gradually watered down the Gandhian moral element of satyagraha, reducing it to lip-service, then to a pragmatic political method, until eventually American protest movements dropped all reference to Gandhi and claimed that passive resistance methods were their own invention.
By the end of the 1960s, Rev. Martin Luther King's non-violent protest movement, based on Gandhian as well as Christian values, had been replaced in the public eye by the conflict-model Black Power movement, and by the middle-class anti-establishment stunt politics of the psychedelic era.
The media, then and now, give publicity more readily in return for the gratification of retailing conflict, not resolution. Scalmer's survey, in the end, is about us in the West, not about Gandhi. Scalmer writes clearly and concisely, and offers insights that are well worth the read.
Read the full review
Richard Thwaites passively resists taking part in organized protest movements.
The Mahatma and the Rise of Radical Protest.
By Sean Scalmer. Cambridge University Press.248pp
People all over the world keep putting their lives on the line for political protest. But when public communication in our Western democracies seems dominated by news-cycle political stunts and media demagogcracy, has radical protest lost its moral and political force?
Sean Scalmer casts a historian's eye over Western protest movements of the 20th Century, from when the techniques of Mahatma Gandhi first attracted Western attention, up to a high point of Western political protest movements, against the Vietnam War.
Scalmer reviews how Western societies responded to Gandhi's words, actions and image, and how those responses influenced political action in Western democracies.
His primary sources are the words of the activists, officials, journalists and commentators whose various impressions of Gandhi, or “Gandhism”, fed into the making of Western public and political opinion.
Until Gandhi's assasination in 1948, Western attitudes generally reflected whether people supported, or resisted, Indian independence from the British Empire. He was also admired and imitated by Western pacifists, numerous 1920-1939 but much fewer once faced with the aggression of the Axis powers.
Later Western movements that owed technical credits to Gandhi's modes of protest were the nuclear disarmament campaigns, beginning in UK in the late 1940s, the US Civil Rights movements in the 1950s and 60s, and finally the protests against Vietnam War.
Gandhism (a term Ganhi himself rejected) had both a moral component (setting out how and why the individual should act in particular situations) and also a pragmatic component, setting out how people could act together to achieve political objectives.
Gandhi's blend of Jain, Hindu, Christian, Sufi and other moral systems earned him a certain mystic authority to mobilize mass protest action in India, and attracted a useful subculture of Western devotees. But the personal side of Gandhi's moral philosophy ultimately was too eccentric for him to be accepted, by Indian elites or by average Westerners, as a political leader for all Indians.
It was the pragmatic effectiveness of his protest techniques that most influenced Western emulators. Gandhi coined the phrase satyagraha from the Sanskrit terms for truth (satyam) and for firmness (agraha). He and his followers believed that mass non-violent resistance against oppression would morally convert the oppressors.
Although this occurred, at some level and with some oppressors, more hard-headed analysts attribute Gandhi's political successes to publicity.
The public sympathy generated by images of demonstrators being treated violently can mobilize support for political change. But its effect depends on the ruling powers being accountable, at least to some degree, to that converted public. And other significant factors may have to be close to a tipping point for the moral sympathy factor to tip that balance.
Scalmer traces how successive Western protest movements gradually watered down the Gandhian moral element of satyagraha, reducing it to lip-service, then to a pragmatic political method, until eventually American protest movements dropped all reference to Gandhi and claimed that passive resistance methods were their own invention.
By the end of the 1960s, Rev. Martin Luther King's non-violent protest movement, based on Gandhian as well as Christian values, had been replaced in the public eye by the conflict-model Black Power movement, and by the middle-class anti-establishment stunt politics of the psychedelic era.
The media, then and now, give publicity more readily in return for the gratification of retailing conflict, not resolution. Scalmer's survey, in the end, is about us in the West, not about Gandhi. Scalmer writes clearly and concisely, and offers insights that are well worth the read.
Read the full review
Richard Thwaites passively resists taking part in organized protest movements.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
How Free can Free Speech be?
SPEECH MATTERS
Getting Free Speech Right.
By Katharine Gelber.
University of Queensland Press.215pp.
It's easy to agree on the principal of Free Speech - until people start saying what they really think. Most will agree there have to be some limits to Free Speech, but few can agree upon where those limits should lie, or how they should be applied.
Katharine Gelber has been pursuing Free Speech, and its evil twin, Hate Speech, through the academic world of political science for well over a decade. Now an Associate Professor at the University of Queensland, she offers this survey of the complex status of freedom of speech in Australia. She points to flaws and inconsistencies in the way governments impose limits on various freedoms that Australians generally think they possess. She also identifies a wide disparity of opinions among Australians as to where Free Speech can, or should, be overridden by other political, social, cultural or moral values.
The book title proposes that we can “get it right”. I turned to the final chapter on How to Get It Right. Sadly, after so much study and explication, the author can only exhort us to try harder with “a more robust commitment to this fundamental freedom” that needs liberating from the strictures that our complacent political culture has allowed to impinge upon it.
Prof Gelber notes that the right to freedom of speech in Australia has been limited in various ways by federal, state and local governments. But the right itself has never been confirmed or defined by our High Court, nor does it appear in our Constitution. By contrast, the United States First Amendment to its Constitution expressly forbids any level of government from making any law that will curb freedom of speech, and successive US Supreme Courts have not only upheld this general right against government limitations, but have extended its ambit to cover many non-speech and non-political forms of expression.
Australia's record is not all bad. Gelber devotes a whole chapter to the repeated refusals of Australian parliaments to make it an offence to insult the Australian flag, despite the calls of nationalists to restrict that particular form of political expression. She also commends the ACT Government for its unique legislation to prevent corporations employing SLAPP writs (“Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation”) to stifle public protest against their commercial activities.
Gelber's case is that Australian political culture has been too ready to accept creeping erosion of the right to free speech in over-reaction to political exigencies. She gives particular attention to the many infringements upon personal liberties, including freedoms of expression, rushed through Australian parliaments in the name of the War on Terror, and never moderated since then. For example, it remains illegal for an academic to collect, for research purposes, any publication that might inspire a mentally impaired person to consider committing an act of terrorism.
Gelber's research indicates that Australians support free speech in principle, but rarely give it priority over other values such as security and social cohesion. Perhaps this is because few Australians have ever experienced the absence of free public expression, and we have sufficient trust in our democratic institutions to believe that if something becomes intolerable, we can change it.
The Free Speech issue is one aspect of the broader contradiction between two democratic values - freedom and equality. Gelber defines "Hate Speech" and vilification as being attacks by the empowered against the “weak and marginalized” in society. At one point she equates vilification with violence. Doesn't this view contradict general free speech principles?
A civilized society will protect the weak against the strong, and institutionalized values should discourage abuse of power through "speech" as much as any other form of abuse. But the record on vilification laws and the politicised notion of “Hate Speech” seems to show that legal avenues of redress are of most value to the most organized, not to the genuinely weakest targets of abusive speech. Without careful calibration and adjudication, anti-vilification laws can themselves be abused to the same effect as SLAPP writs.
This book will be a worthy addition to political science reading lists, but should also find a readership among those who are interested in how we manage our ideals through our institutions of government.
Richard Thwaites values his democratic right to vilify the powerful on an almost daily basis.
Read the full review
Getting Free Speech Right.
By Katharine Gelber.
University of Queensland Press.215pp.
It's easy to agree on the principal of Free Speech - until people start saying what they really think. Most will agree there have to be some limits to Free Speech, but few can agree upon where those limits should lie, or how they should be applied.
Katharine Gelber has been pursuing Free Speech, and its evil twin, Hate Speech, through the academic world of political science for well over a decade. Now an Associate Professor at the University of Queensland, she offers this survey of the complex status of freedom of speech in Australia. She points to flaws and inconsistencies in the way governments impose limits on various freedoms that Australians generally think they possess. She also identifies a wide disparity of opinions among Australians as to where Free Speech can, or should, be overridden by other political, social, cultural or moral values.
The book title proposes that we can “get it right”. I turned to the final chapter on How to Get It Right. Sadly, after so much study and explication, the author can only exhort us to try harder with “a more robust commitment to this fundamental freedom” that needs liberating from the strictures that our complacent political culture has allowed to impinge upon it.
Prof Gelber notes that the right to freedom of speech in Australia has been limited in various ways by federal, state and local governments. But the right itself has never been confirmed or defined by our High Court, nor does it appear in our Constitution. By contrast, the United States First Amendment to its Constitution expressly forbids any level of government from making any law that will curb freedom of speech, and successive US Supreme Courts have not only upheld this general right against government limitations, but have extended its ambit to cover many non-speech and non-political forms of expression.
Australia's record is not all bad. Gelber devotes a whole chapter to the repeated refusals of Australian parliaments to make it an offence to insult the Australian flag, despite the calls of nationalists to restrict that particular form of political expression. She also commends the ACT Government for its unique legislation to prevent corporations employing SLAPP writs (“Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation”) to stifle public protest against their commercial activities.
Gelber's case is that Australian political culture has been too ready to accept creeping erosion of the right to free speech in over-reaction to political exigencies. She gives particular attention to the many infringements upon personal liberties, including freedoms of expression, rushed through Australian parliaments in the name of the War on Terror, and never moderated since then. For example, it remains illegal for an academic to collect, for research purposes, any publication that might inspire a mentally impaired person to consider committing an act of terrorism.
Gelber's research indicates that Australians support free speech in principle, but rarely give it priority over other values such as security and social cohesion. Perhaps this is because few Australians have ever experienced the absence of free public expression, and we have sufficient trust in our democratic institutions to believe that if something becomes intolerable, we can change it.
The Free Speech issue is one aspect of the broader contradiction between two democratic values - freedom and equality. Gelber defines "Hate Speech" and vilification as being attacks by the empowered against the “weak and marginalized” in society. At one point she equates vilification with violence. Doesn't this view contradict general free speech principles?
A civilized society will protect the weak against the strong, and institutionalized values should discourage abuse of power through "speech" as much as any other form of abuse. But the record on vilification laws and the politicised notion of “Hate Speech” seems to show that legal avenues of redress are of most value to the most organized, not to the genuinely weakest targets of abusive speech. Without careful calibration and adjudication, anti-vilification laws can themselves be abused to the same effect as SLAPP writs.
This book will be a worthy addition to political science reading lists, but should also find a readership among those who are interested in how we manage our ideals through our institutions of government.
Richard Thwaites values his democratic right to vilify the powerful on an almost daily basis.
Read the full review
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Can we really Tolerate Pluralism?
The Quest for Meaning: Developing a Philosophy of Pluralism.
By Tariq Ramadan.
Allen Lane.212pp.
Reviewed: 5 April 2011
Multiculturalism has always had its critics. Elected leaders of Germany and the UK have recently denounced it, and across most of Europe its social benefit is under review.
Tariq Ramadan is a prominent voice in the European debate about multiculturalism, at least at the philosophical level. Of Egyptian background but Swiss nationality and education, he is Professor of Contemporary Islamic Studies at Oxford
In The Quest for Meaning he sets aside the economic, social and political dimensions of the multicultural debate to focus on how systems of belief shape personal and group identities, and then how such identities divide people who are sharing the same space.
Ramadan is steeped in the philosophical traditions of both West and East, and has structured this book with a deliberate formality based on balance and counterpoint. Chapters often address a duality like Faith and Reason, Emotion and Spirituality, or Tradition and Modernity. He writes in scriptural rhythms that can become hypnotic. The prose does not so much offer linear arguments as erect a structure of symmetrical chapters and sub-chapters like the compound vaulting of a fine Persian dome.
Ramadan summarises his own book as “a strange mixture of analytic thought, Cartesianism, strict rationalism and flights of mysticism”. He ponders whether his work is that of “an Eastern mind or a Western intellect”.
It was certainly a challenge to the Western intellect of this reviewer, who is normally happy to leave the flights of mysticism to any beings, human or otherwise, who might exist on some other plane. Ramadan is essentially rational, offering many aphorisms such as “Dogmatism is to thought what narcissism is to self-image”.
The first problem is embodied in his title. He equates “meaning” to a clear sense of causality, purpose and direction in a linear cosmic history, and of our place in it. Then he assumes that the quest for this “meaning” is universal to each individual, including rationalists. But those of us who are content to leave imponderable questions unanswered may still find Ramadan’s explorations worth chewing over.
For Ramadan, as a Muslim European philosopher, the real problem is how universal reason can reconcile different faiths that each claim the unique truth. His answer is to call for a deep-rooted pluralism that involves not just “tolerance” of others’ beliefs, but a conscious embrace of the ultimate equality of faith-based belief systems.
This is a tall order that has drawn enmity from conservatives and radicals on all sides. Fundamentalists of all faiths resent his suggestion that they do not hold a monopoly on truth, nor have God exclusively on their own side. Social radicals and skeptics complain that he is too tolerant of hocus-pocus and does not prioritise social change in conservative faith-based societies.
Ramadan was famously denied a US visa to take up a religious post teaching Theology at the (Catholic) Notre Dame University Cairo United States policy and intervention in the Middle East . That would be enough to draw the fire of the Neocons and other powerful lobbies.
Ramadan asserts that all members of a society will benefit from greater inclusiveness of a genuine, deep pluralism. One might question how this ideal can take root in societies based upon competitiveness and distrust.
Richard Thwaites is part of a pluralistic family embracing several faiths, philosophies, and none of the above.
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Opening the Files on MI6 - a bit
MI6.
The History of the Secret Intelligence Service 1909-1949.
By Keith Jeffery.
Bloomsbury Inc.810pp.
Reviewed 12 February 2011
Secret agents have fascinated us since story-telling began. We get excited about the moral ambiguities of Wikileaks and of political propaganda. Practices that are crimes in civil life may be praised as heroic in the competition between nations.
Demand for transparency in domestic politics goes along with acceptance of secret intelligence work in “defence” of common national interests. The paradox is that we are asked to trust in the effectiveness, and appropriateness, of actions undertaken in our names, that employ secrecy and deception, and that are publicly deniable by sponsoring governments.
So an authorized history of a secret organization like MI6 might seem to challenge the professional ethics of a historian, whose access to the archives depends on his agreement not to reveal (potentially juicy) bits of what he has seen. How much is to be believed when you don't know what remains concealed?
Keith Jeffery, a Professor of British History, was given privileged access to the archives of Britain's secret intelligence services - an Aladdin's Cave with filing cabinets.
Jeffery's meticulous 800 pages will help aficionados to sort fact from fiction in the spy memoir genre. He draws on hundreds of published works, as well as the files of MI6, to add anecdote and character sketch to what could have been a rather dry review of this romanticised subject.
In 1909, “tradecraft” was initially of the Sherlock Holmes variety, at best. Off to meet a potential recruit in disguise, Cumming had himself fitted up with a wig and false moustache at a Soho theatrical costume shop, and for good measure had his new appearance photographed so it could be replicated by the next costumier.
Effort and budget were boosted successively by British fears of Imperial Germany, international Communism, the Axis Powers, then Soviet Communism. The organization grew from one man in 1909 to a multi-layered network of thousands of agents and informers across the globe by 1949, when the veil is drawn.
Recruitment carried unavoidable risks. The kind of individuals who would undertake deception and betrayal must include some charlatans and some willing to double-cross - from top-drawer old boy network traitors like Kim Philby down to local informers turning under threat, torture, or for a better financial offer. The many stories of double-cross included here are just a small sample of an alarming rate of attrition among agents.
Another occupational hazard was over-confidence on the part of those who enjoyed the risk-taking aspects of operations. One internal critic of MI6's early World War II sabotage operations in Europe compared it to “arranging an attack on a Panzer Division by an actor mounted on a donkey”.
There were repeated takeover attempts by the Defence Forces establishment. MI6 also faced frequent pressure from the Foreign Office to curtail activities that could embarrass the local diplomats .
The history reminds how difficult relations were between Britain and the USA over this period. Bringing down the British Empire was an open objective of many Irish Americans (notably Ambassador Joseph P Kennedy, and several US journalists who actively spied for Germany), of many German Americans, and others who saw Imperial Britain as an economic competitor.
Keith Jeffery avoids too many obvious references to James Bond. Commander Ian Fleming appears as the author of disinformation published to cover the bungled murder of a traitorous agent.
Bond was most likely modelled on a suave Paris-based MI6 agent with a legendary taste for fast cars and faster women, but a name more evocative of tweeds than of tuxedos.
“The name's Dunderdale … Biffy Dunderdale”.
Read the whole review
Richard Thwaites' father was an ASIO officer 1950-1971, but his own experience of the field consists solely of being kept in the dark .
The History of the Secret Intelligence Service 1909-1949.
By Keith Jeffery.
Bloomsbury Inc.810pp.
Reviewed 12 February 2011
Secret agents have fascinated us since story-telling began. We get excited about the moral ambiguities of Wikileaks and of political propaganda. Practices that are crimes in civil life may be praised as heroic in the competition between nations.
Demand for transparency in domestic politics goes along with acceptance of secret intelligence work in “defence” of common national interests. The paradox is that we are asked to trust in the effectiveness, and appropriateness, of actions undertaken in our names, that employ secrecy and deception, and that are publicly deniable by sponsoring governments.
So an authorized history of a secret organization like MI6 might seem to challenge the professional ethics of a historian, whose access to the archives depends on his agreement not to reveal (potentially juicy) bits of what he has seen. How much is to be believed when you don't know what remains concealed?
Keith Jeffery, a Professor of British History, was given privileged access to the archives of Britain's secret intelligence services - an Aladdin's Cave with filing cabinets.
Jeffery's meticulous 800 pages will help aficionados to sort fact from fiction in the spy memoir genre. He draws on hundreds of published works, as well as the files of MI6, to add anecdote and character sketch to what could have been a rather dry review of this romanticised subject.
In 1909, “tradecraft” was initially of the Sherlock Holmes variety, at best. Off to meet a potential recruit in disguise, Cumming had himself fitted up with a wig and false moustache at a Soho theatrical costume shop, and for good measure had his new appearance photographed so it could be replicated by the next costumier.
Effort and budget were boosted successively by British fears of Imperial Germany, international Communism, the Axis Powers, then Soviet Communism. The organization grew from one man in 1909 to a multi-layered network of thousands of agents and informers across the globe by 1949, when the veil is drawn.
Recruitment carried unavoidable risks. The kind of individuals who would undertake deception and betrayal must include some charlatans and some willing to double-cross - from top-drawer old boy network traitors like Kim Philby down to local informers turning under threat, torture, or for a better financial offer. The many stories of double-cross included here are just a small sample of an alarming rate of attrition among agents.
Another occupational hazard was over-confidence on the part of those who enjoyed the risk-taking aspects of operations. One internal critic of MI6's early World War II sabotage operations in Europe compared it to “arranging an attack on a Panzer Division by an actor mounted on a donkey”.
There were repeated takeover attempts by the Defence Forces establishment. MI6 also faced frequent pressure from the Foreign Office to curtail activities that could embarrass the local diplomats .
The history reminds how difficult relations were between Britain and the USA over this period. Bringing down the British Empire was an open objective of many Irish Americans (notably Ambassador Joseph P Kennedy, and several US journalists who actively spied for Germany), of many German Americans, and others who saw Imperial Britain as an economic competitor.
Keith Jeffery avoids too many obvious references to James Bond. Commander Ian Fleming appears as the author of disinformation published to cover the bungled murder of a traitorous agent.
Bond was most likely modelled on a suave Paris-based MI6 agent with a legendary taste for fast cars and faster women, but a name more evocative of tweeds than of tuxedos.
“The name's Dunderdale … Biffy Dunderdale”.
Read the whole review
Richard Thwaites' father was an ASIO officer 1950-1971, but his own experience of the field consists solely of being kept in the dark .
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