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Communitarian Letter #23
In this issue: Question Let Them Wear Scarves The Lessons of Basra The Limits of Internationalism Who’s the Most Paranoid? Communitarian Candidates Upcoming Events Worth a Read Endorsements
Question In many nations there is a growing number of illegal immigrants and a rising feeling of resentment towards immigrants in general. What should be done about these illegal immigrants? What are their basic rights, or the rights of their children, born in their new homeland? Should illegal immigrants be shipped out? Made citizens, after new strengthening of the borders, acculturation classes and citizenship tests? What are your thoughts? We welcome your feedback. Please send your responses to comnet@gwu.edu.
Let Them Wear Scarves Can you explain to me why thoughtful people, including several renowned public intellectuals, oppose the right of women to choose to wear headscarves -- on campuses out of all places? The same people, commentators, editors, and other talking heads who strongly hold that a woman has a right to do with her body whatever she pleases -- third trimester abortions, abortions without notifying her husband, piercing everything that sticks out and a lot that does not -- but not to cover her hair with a piece of cloth. Yes, yes I know (I have been paying dues as a sociologist for 50 years) that a headscarf is not simply a piece of cloth any more than a flag is, or for that matter a yarmulke. It is a religious symbol, alright. However, do women have the right only to choose secular symbols? Are there still people on the liberal left who believe that religion is passé, is history, a sign of narrow-mindedness and bigotry? Actually, religion is rising all over the world, with a few exceptions in northwest Europe, in part because secular humanism does not answer many of the profound spiritual questions religion addresses, such as why we were born to die, and what are our uncontested duties and obligations. But even if religion is a relic, since when are free people banned from worshiping outmoded idols? Headscarves are said to be the insignia of the enemy, somewhat like the headgear of gangs (whether these should be banned, as they are in some cities, is a question for another day). Even if this was true, banning the symbolic expressions of a normative position will do nothing to undermine it and will merely alienate its followers. Indeed, it would grant them a strong cause. Most importantly, religion in general and Islam in particular is not the enemy. Attempts to demonize all Muslims, as Bernard Lewis, Sam Huntington and their followers have famously done, are wrong headed. The majority of Muslims, I have shown elsewhere [here and here, for example], are opposed to terrorism, violence, and coercion. Labeling them all as fanatical people bent towards violence is to greatly enlarge the ranks of our adversaries and to push to the other side of the dividing schism many who are our natural allies if we seek peace (although not if we demand that everyone adopt the French and American model of separation of state and religion, a model not embraced by most democracies). Headscarves are a test: a test of Western tolerance for legitimate differences among cultures and societies and within them. True, when wearing them is forced on women, as is the case in Iran and Saudi Arabia, they should be opposed like other such coercive dictates. However, at issue recently has been the lifting of the Turkish government's ban on students wearing these scarves at Turkish universities, the French ban on Muslim women wearing the scarves in public schools, and the German ban on the scarves in some government buildings. Here some say that wearing these religious symbols reflects peer pressure or pressure from traditional parents. Well, if we banned people from wearing that which their peers or families promoted, they would run around naked. It is not the role of the state to counter peer and family pressure, as long as it remains nonviolent and the door is not closed on other social forces promoting their views. Others argue that the headscarf is not so much a religious but a political symbol, as Anne Applebaum does in Washington Post -- this only makes my point stronger. Since when do we ban people in a democracy from displaying symbols that communicate their political viewpoints -- whether these are, say, pro-gay rights ribbons, or the peace signs of those who oppose nuclear weapons? As for the concern that one thing will lead to another, that soon women may be forced to wear the headscarf where now they are merely encouraged to do so, here is the place to draw the line in the sand and fight such an imposition. But to ban voluntary scarf-wearing out of the fear that one day it may lead to forced scarf-wearing is like saying that you cannot have dinner because one day you may be force-fed like some goose. Let them wear headscarves, yarmulkes, and crosses, too.
Originally posted on the Huffington Post at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/amitai-etzioni/let-them-wear-scarves_b_96083.html
The Lessons of Basra The Bush Administration’s refusal to recognize that Iraq is not one nation but is instead a tribal society has now gotten US troops fighting for one Shia group in its efforts to marginalize another Shia group. The US is now taking casualties and squandering billions warring not foreign fighters, Al Qaeda, insurgents, or even the Sunni minority (which supported Sadam)—but with Shias against Shias. That is, the US is now being dragged ever deeper into the killing fields of a civil war, taking sides, fighting to help one camp to settle a score with another faction on the same side! The Bush Administration claims that all it does is to impose the rule of the central, national government, based on a Shia majority, headed by Prime Minister Maliki—against some local rebels. In actuality, it has become clear that Maliki fears that his faction will loose power in the forthcoming local elections and hence is using the US troops to try to weaken his intra-Shia opposition, headed by Muqtada al-Sadr. In effect, Americans are now dying in Iraq to prevent democracy from having its way, fearing that the “wrong” people will get elected. (Muqtada al-Sadr has connections to Iran, but the same is true of Maliki). Above all, the time is overdue for the US to recognize that Iraq is not a normal nation. It was not composed by some national liberation movement that unified the tribes in the area in a joint effort to free themselves from a colonial power. On the contrary, Iraq was concocted by foreign powers, especially the British, in the 1920s, by throwing together some Kurdish, Sunni, and Shia groups which had precious little in common. The US should now let each of these groups run its own turf, and then encourage them to work together in a very loose federation that leaves local matters—including security—to each group. This is already the case in Kurdish parts of the country and increasingly in many of the other areas in which only one ethnic group dominates. The few remaining mixed areas would need some international protections, as the Serbs, for instance, are granted in Kosovo. One of the most often heard comments is that politics does not work in Iraq and that a political solution is needed. All this is true enough, but one reason politics does not work is that the US keeps choosing sides and now is trying to promote by use of force one group over the other. Equally important, inter-tribal politics –essential for Iraq—works differently then electoral politics. Muqtada al-Sadr has not been elected by his Shia followers, but he speaks for them. Sunnis are ruled in part by Sheiks. Such Mullahs and tribal chiefs have their own way of doing business. It is futile, the last five years have shown, to try to insist they do politics our way. The US will be able to quickly and greatly reduce its footprint in Iraq if it lets the Shia, Sunnis, and Kurds take responsibly for their local affairs and lets them duke out their inter-faction fights with each other, on their own.
Originally posted on the Huffington Post, at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/amitai-etzioni/the-lessons-of-basra_b_95630.html
The Limits of Internationalism In reaction to the busted unilateralism of the Bush Administration, internationalism is again in vogue. Watch out, lest you get what you are praying for. For a reminder of what the United Nations, the premier international body, is often like, see its recent treatment of hate speech. The UN Human Rights Council just condemned in no uncertain terms a movie made by Dutch right-winger, Geert Wilders, in which he malignes Islam. The Dutch Government did all it could to prevent the release of the film. No Dutch or—any other—TV would broadcast it. (Which, by the way, raises some serious free speech issues). Finally it was posted on a UK-based website liveleak.com. In reaction, the UN Human Rights Council issued a resolution deploring the use of the media to “incite acts of violence, xenophobia or related intolerance and discrimination towards Islam” or other religions. Meanwhile, the Hamas-run television station, Al Aksa, continues its uninterrupted broadcasts to the people of Gaza. This network’s programming frequently extols suicide bombers and rocket launching teams, promotes a virulent brand of anti-Semitism, and regularly calls for the destruction of the state of Israel. Even children’s programs on this network promote hatred of Jewish people. These include repeating that Jews use the blood of others for celebrating their rituals and that they are the ones who blew up the World Trade Center. Note that unlike the Dutch film, made by one individual and his staff, here reference is to the organized effort by a whole movement and the government of Gaza, to programs that are regularly beamed to many hundred thousands of children and teenagers. But still, the Human Rights Council does not find anything here of concern. Now let me first to say that the Palestinian people have much to be troubled by, and that the situation in Gaza in ghastly. However, none of these concerns—which should be addressed post haste—will be served if Hamas continues to demand to destruction of Israel, and teach its youngsters and followers to blindly hate Jews. I myself pointed to the rising importance of the United Nations as a major force in determining that which the international community considers legitimate. The UN did play an important role in sorting out when an invasion of a country (like Kuwait) is legitimate, and when it is not (like Saddam’s Iraq). Its social services agencies often help people across the world.
However, if the UN is to become an ever more important part of a new global architecture, it must become more incensed about acts of violence and less about free speech (which is often offensive) and above all, much more even-handed. Hate mongering of Jews is no better than that of Muslims.
Originally posted on the Huffington Post, at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/amitai-etzioni/the-limits-of-internation_b_95104.html
Who’s the Most Paranoid? Community building requires people trust one and other and their institutions. Hence there is much interest in a set of recent polls published in the Boston Review measured the impressions people held voter fraud in the United States. When asked “It is illegal for a person to claim to be another person, who is registered, and cast that person’s vote. How often do you think this occurs?” 9% of those who identified very liberal answered “very often,” while 17% of those who identified at very conservative answered “very often.” Additionally, when asked how often they believed that people voted more than once in a single election and how often non-U.S. citizens vote in U.S. elections, 8% of those who identified very liberal answered “very often,” while a startling 26% of those who identified at very conservative answered “very often.” Who’s the most paranoid?
Original poll published in the March/April 2008 Boston Review.
Communitarian Candidates In a recent article in Newswek, Anna Quindlen referred to communitarian qualities as beneficial for presidential candidates, who must forge human connections and demonstrate concern for the citizenry.
We’d like to note that both presidential candidates in the Democratic race have shown themselves to be communitarians. Hillary’s communitarian leanings have been long known. They are especially well spelled out in her book It Takes A Village. She also delivered the keynote address at the 1996 meeting of the Communitarian Network, met frequently with communitarian thinkers. Barack Obama’s book, The Audacity of Hope, lays out his communitarian leanings in clear and strong terms. He writes:
Upcoming Events
"Borders, Identity, and the Search for Security" Event Description: Ambassador Samuel Lewis is a diplomat who has served as U.S. Ambassador to Israel during the Carter and the Reagan administrations, and as director of the State Department's policy planning staff during the first year of the Clinton administration. During his last overseas assignment as Ambassador to Israel, Lewis was a prominent actor in Arab-Israeli relations, participating in the 1978 Camp David Conference with President Carter and in subsequent negotiations which produced the historic peace treaty between Israel and Egypt. Since leaving the Foreign Service in 1985 Lewis has been closely affiliated with many think tanks and non-profit organizations in the fields of foreign policy, Arab-Israeli relations, and conflict resolution. Aaron David Miller is a Public Policy Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center and author of The Much Too Promised Land: America's Elusive Search for Arab-Israeli Peace. For the previous two decades, he served at the Department of State as an adviser to six Secretaries of State, where he helped formulate U.S. policy on the Middle East and the Arab-Israel peace process, most recently as the Senior Adviser for Arab-Israeli Negotiations. He also served as the Deputy Special Middle East Coordinator for Arab-Israeli negotiations, Senior Member of the State Department's Policy Planning Staff, in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research and in the Office of the Historian. (The event will be moderated by Amitai Etzioni, author of Security First: For a Muscular, Moral Foreign Policy.)
Faculty Authors Signing Reception Thursday, April 17, 2008 10:00 a.m. – 12:00 noon The Gelman Library, Room 207 Featured Authors: Amitai Etzioni, Joseph Pelton, and Jerrold Post The Gelman Library holds Faculty Authors Signing Receptions throughout the academic year in recognition of new books by faculty members of The George Washington University. Students, faculty, staff, and the public are invited to attend the receptions and enjoy opportunities to hear faculty members discuss their research and their books’ scholarly contribution within their area of study.
Worth a Read “Religion and Social Order” was published in the April/May issue of Policy Review and can be found here.
The May 2008 issue of the American Behavioral Scientist will be dedicated entirely to a discussion of the foreign policy thesis laid out in Security First: For a Muscular, Moral Foreign Policy. Leading scholars whose essays are included are Lisa Baglione, Michael Cox, Catharin Dalphino, Jean Bethke Elshtain, Sherman Jackson, Lynn Kouk, Vincent Mahler, Glyn Morgan, John Mueller, Joseph Nye, Adam Quinn, Peter Sanchez, Piki Ish Shalom, Stephen Schwartz, and James Steinberg. Amitai Etzioni responds.
In his new book, Democracy Without Borders, Mark Plattner, founding editor of the Journal of Democracy, counters those who are pressing for increasingly stronger international bodies – those who are, in effect, pushing for organizations that have supranational powers. Plattner makes a point that we have made in the past: namely, that in their current state, international bodies like the United Nations are undemocratic, with no elected officials and no public to be directly accountable to. If made stronger, bodies like the UN would have the power to override the democratically-arrived at decisions of certain nation-states. This has serious ramifications for the future of democracy and self-rule. While we are in favor of a global community, what kind of political institutions this global community will have, and at what point they should be able to trump a democratic state’s society remains to be discussed.
Free Speech and Human Dignity, a book by Professor Steven J. Heyman of the Chicago-Kent College of Law, has just been published by the Yale University Press. This book develops a general theory of the First Amendment that seeks to overcome the conflict between free speech and human dignity. Heyman then uses the theory to illuminate a wide range of contemporary disputes, from flag burning and antiabortion demonstrations to pornography and hate speech.
Endorsements The Responsive Communitarian Platform can be found here. We invite all people who agree to endorse it here. Recent endorsements have come from: Saad AhmadWashington, DC
F. J. Fields Brooklyn, NY Dr. John WhittakerScituate, MA The Diversity Within Unity Platform is here. We invite all people who agree to endorse it by sending an email to comnet@gwu.edu with the subject “endorse DWU.” Recent endorsements have come from: Masaya KobayashiChiba University, Japan
We welcome your thoughts, feedback, and communitarian news. Send them to comnet@gwu.edu.
Edited by Radhika Bhat
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