The London-based International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS) is one of the world’s leading security think-tanks with a high status in defence circles in western Europe and north America. Its two main annual publications, The Military Balance (an assessment of military capabilities and defence economics worldwide, published in February) and Strategic Survey (a review of global security, published in September) are studied and taken seriously by governments and opinion-formers. The IISS is very much a mainstream organisation, heavily engaged with the defence and security establishment. As such it carries considerable weight.

On 24 May 2004, only fourteen months after the start of the Iraq war, the IISS’s Strategic Survey 2003-04 caused some consternation among the Tony Blair government in arguing that: “…the substantially exposed US military deployment in Iraq represents al-Qaida with perhaps its most ‘iconic’ target outside US territory...Galvanised by Iraq, if compromised by Afghanistan, al-Qaida remains a viable and effective ‘network of networks’”.

This interpretation was not greatly different from analyses by more radical if less establishment sources, some of them presented in earlier columns in this series (see "Iraq in a wider war", 5 May 2004); but the prestige of the IISS meant that it carried greater weight.

This year’s document - Strategic Survey 2010: The Annual Review of World Affairs - is published only weeks before the Afghan war enters its tenth year, has once again caused flurries in government circles.  Its assessment of the state of the conflict in Afghanistan is blunt (see Richard Norton-Taylor, “Al-Qaida and Taliban threat is exaggerated, says security thinktank”, Guardian, 7 September 2010).

The IISS comments: “The Afghan campaign has involved not just mission creep but mission multiplication”; and that “..for western states to be pinned down militarily and psychologically in Afghanistan will not be in the service of their wider political and security interests".

At the core of its analysis is the view that: “It is not clear that it should be axiomatically obvious that an Afghanistan freed of an international combat presence in the south would be an automatic magnet for al-Qaeda’s concentrated reconstruction. Al-Qaeda leadership, such as it is, may be quite content to stay where it is, while Taliban leaders who remained in Afghanistan might think twice of the advantages to them of inviting al-Qaeda back after the experience of the last decade.”

To repeat, this kind of assessment is shared elsewhere by more radical analysts; the significance here is the status of IISS in and around the corridors of power. It does not advocate withdrawal of all military forces as the answer, but does point in the direction of a very considerable drawdown as part of substantial changes in overall policy.

The stalled path

Several recent columns in this series have presented the argument that a major rethink on the western security posture in Afghanistan is going to have to come, sooner or later (see "Afghanistan: the fatal error" [24 June 2010], and "The AfPak war via WikiLeaks" [29 July 2010]). Does the fact that the IISS is adding its influence to the call make such a rethink more likely? On its own, it may make little difference, but alongside two recent developments in Afghanistan it may be that a momentum is growing towards that point.

The first is the fact that Afghan government corruption and maladministration is plumbing new depths. Two current examples make the point:

* the forced retiral (effectively sacking) of the deputy attorney-general, Fazel Ahmad Faqiryar, with effect from 29 August 2010; this follows his attempt to prosecute senior members of the government, in one of the very few serious recent attempts to stem corruption

*the increasing evidence of illicit accumulation of wealth by figures very close to Afghan's presidemnt, Hamid Karzai (see Andrew Higgins, "Karazi's brother made nearly $1 million on Dubai deal funded by troubled Kabul bank", Washington Post, 8 September 2010).

Afghanistan is now listed as number 179 out of 180 countries for corruption by Transparency International (Somalia is at 180).

The second development is less obvious but may be even more serious. A key aspect of coalition policy in Afghanistan is to reintegrate Taliban paramilitaries by providing them with jobs and other incentives if they lay down their arms. In parallel with increased foreign forces and extensive military campaigns in the Taliban heartlands of Helmand and Kandahar provinces, reintegration is an essential part of Isaf’s work if it is to succeed.

What is becoming clear is that the policy is in serious trouble, with very few paramilitaries coming forward in March-August 2010 (see Rod Nordland, “Lacking Money and Leadership, Push for Taliban Defectors Stalls", New York Times, 6 September 2010). In the period from September 2006 to February 2010, the Afghan Peace and Reconciliation Commission reports that 9,000 Taliban offered to change sides. That may be something of an exaggeration, but in any event since April 2010 barely a hundred have switched. There has been generous funding for the programme, with around $100 million from the United States and $150 million from several other countries including Germany, Britain and Japan; but the majority of it is simply not being spent because of numerous problems in organising reintegration facilities and encouraging paramilitaries to take part.

When General Stanley McChrystal took military command in Afghanistan on 10 June 2009, he argued for a programme to “offer eligible insurgents reasonable incentives to stop fighting and return to normalcy”. The defence secretary Robert Gates argued similarly in congressional hearings; and reintegration remains a key part of the policy of McChrystal’s own replacement, General David Petraeus (see "Afghanistan: the impossible choice", 1 July 2010).

The next step

The blunt truth is that it is scarcely happening - and that this calls into question any notion that real progress in curbing Taliban influence is being made. The indications even from high-level United States military commanders in Afghanistan seem to confirm this (see Julian E Barnes & Matthew Rosenberg, "Petraeus Expects Sustained Violence", Wall Street Journal, 8 September 2010).

The core reality is that at heart, reintegration is not about patrolling, fighting, using drones, air-strikes or artillery. It is not really about direct military action of any sort. What it is about is conducting civil operations that, if they are proved to work, can actually be represented as at last making progress towards stability.

That such reintegration is not working is an important detail in itself. It is also revealing of Nato/Isaf's overall Afghan predicament, and reinforcement for the more general critical analysis produced by the International Institute of Strategic Studies. In public, there is no change in western policy. In private, the situation may be different. The implication of the latter would be that at some time before March 2011 clear signs of a radical reassessment of western military policy in Afghanistan will at last emerge. If that happens, then IISS will have played a small but significant role.

Sideboxes 'Read On' Sidebox: 

Department of peace studies, Bradford University

International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS)

Strategic Survey 2010: The Annual Review of World Affairs (IISS, September 2010)

Paul Rogers, Losing Control: Global Security in the 21st Century (Pluto Press, 3rd edition, 2010)

Ceri Oeppen & Angela Schlenkhoff eds., Beyond the ‘Wild Tribes’: Understanding Modern Afghanistan and Its Diaspora (C Hurst, 2010)

Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit (AREU)

Afghanistan Conflict Monitor

Antonio Giustozzi, Koran, Kalashnikov and Laptop: The Resurgence of the Neo-Taliban in Afghanistan (C Hurst, 2007)

 Long War Journal

Afghanistan Analysts Network

Pajhwok Afghan News

e-Ariana

Abdul Salam Zaeef, My Life with the Taliban (C Hurst, 2010)

Foreign Policy - The AfPak Channel

Sidebox: 

Paul Rogers is professor in the department of peace studies at Bradford University. He has been writing a weekly column on global security on openDemocracy since 26 September 2001, and writes an international-security monthly briefing for the Oxford Research Group

His books include Why We’re Losing the War on Terror (Polity, 2007), and Losing Control: Global Security in the 21st Century (Pluto Press, 3rd edition, 2010)

Related stories:  Afghanistan: an impossible choice Afghanistan: one conflict, three faces The resurgence of the neo-Taliban Washington vs Waziristan: the far enemy Pakistan and America: costs of militarism Afghanistan’s Vietnam portent Afghanistan: the fatal error Afghanistan: new strategy, old problem Pakistan vs India in Afghanistan: David Cameron's reason The AfPak war: failures of success Afghanistan, and the world’s resource war The AfPak war via WikiLeaks Country:  Afghanistan Topics:  Conflict International politics

A common perception is that the global recession has increased these numbers substantially, but as Duncan Green from Oxfam explained in his refreshingly-honest presentation (“I’m not an academic so I can make massive generalizations and I don’t care”), this may not be true.

“Overall, things aren’t so bad” was his conclusion from a twelve-country study of 2,500 poor households, at least in the sense that things haven’t gotten much worse for people already living on the margins. The figure that has been used by charities to engage with the public around the financial crisis - ‘100 million more people thrown into poverty’- was “just a back-of-the-envelope calculation,” but don’t let that stop you giving! And talking of giving, it seems as though remittances sent home by family members working abroad have held up pretty well.

The crisis has, however, created budget deficits that will inevitably reduce government expenditure in the next 12-24 months, and that will make chronic poverty worse, presumably in the UK too. It has also, as many conference presenters confirmed, tested people’s resilience to the limit and stretched frontline community groups to breaking point. But the more important questions concern how ‘regular’, ongoing chronic poverty can be reduced, since as Ravi Kanbur from Cornell University pointed out, crises of various kinds are a natural feature of all societies, even if we can’t predict exactly when they will hit or what form they will take. The trick is to get ahead of them and put in place measures like safety nets and ring-fenced government funds that can absorb shocks when they occur, and ensure that successful anti-poverty policies and programmes are not knocked off course. One way of financing such things, Kanbur suggested, would be to pre-approve additional lines of credit from the World Bank or some other international institution that countries could draw on very quickly in times of crisis.      

On the question of how to attack long-term, endemic poverty, there’s clearly a consensus emerging already in the conference, or maybe it was there before people arrived, this being a closely-knit academic and policy community. Whether it would be shared if the conference had been held in the USA or China is another matter. The conference has a very ‘Northern European’ feel, despite the presence of delegates from Asia, Africa and Latin America, and so far has given short shrift to the role of business and the market (not a single mention of “philanthrocapitalism” – hooray!). Central to this consensus is the role played by basic social protection (things like social safety-nets, cash transfers, family grants and the like), which almost seems like a new magic bullet, but it is clearly insufficient without what Andrew Shepherd of the Overseas Development Institute described as “transformative economic growth and progressive social change.” And in those respects, building people’s long-term assets is more important than increasing their short-term incomes, assets that include their bargaining capacities, community organizations, access to justice, health and education, as well as to land, livestock, savings and jobs.

Is this going to be enough? Will the right policies really make the difference? Many delegates seem to doubt it, asking recurring questions from the floor about power and politics and how foreign aid (and academic knowledge) engages with those processes. “The real problem”, said Stan Thekakara from Just Change in India this morning, “is that communities have lost the ability to control the factors that affect their lives,” partly, of course, because many of those factors now operate at the national and international levels with no democratic oversight or accountability. So, as Duncan Green posed to this afternoon’s panel of presenters, what are the politics of chronic poverty reduction? Answers on a postcard please to Duncan Green, Oxfam, John Smith House, Oxford. 

 

Mis en cause par un rapport de l'ONU relevant les crimes de guerre et crimes contre l'humanité commis au Congo entre 1993 et 2003, le Rwanda passe à l'offensive et menace de retirer ses militaires engagés sous le drapeau des Nations unies, soit 3500 hommes présents au Darfour et 256 au Soudan. « Si ce rapport outrancier et préjudiciable est publié, nous mettrons en œuvre un plan urgent de retrait de nos forces, déjà finalisé » a déclaré le porte parole de l'armée Jill Rutaremera.

Cette détermination est confirmée par le Ministre des Affaires étrangères Louise Mushikwabo qui nous a expliqué, par téléphone, les raisons de l'indignation des autorités. « Comment peut-on à la fois proférer des accusations aussi graves contre nos forces armées, affirmer qu'elles ont massacré des femmes et des enfants au Congo et leur confier un rôle de maintien de la paix au Soudan ? L'Onu, la communauté internationale doivent choisir..Nous ne pouvons permettre que l'on falsifie ainsi l'histoire, comme s'il y avait un agenda caché. »

Plusieurs points expliquent la colère que suscite la « cartographie » des massacres au Congo : « il faut être sérieux, dire toute la vérité…Comment négliger le fait que les camps de réfugiés, établis au Kivu au lendemain du génocide, étaient devenus une véritable poudrière pour toute la région ? Dans cet espèce de terrain vague, les combattants hutus s'étaient réarmés, sous les yeux de l'ONU (ndlr le Haut Commissariat des Nations unies pour les réfugiés avait autorité sur ces camps établis sur la frontière et non à la distance réglementaire) et avec la complicité de toutes ces ONG qui les assistaient. Bien avant d'entamer les opérations militaires, le Rwanda avait dénoncé, à plusieurs reprises, le danger que représentaient ces camps où les auteurs du génocide étaient mélangés aux civils, mais n'avait pas été entendu. Aujourd'hui, l'action du Rwanda est dénoncée par ces mêmes ONG dont le passé dans la région est loin d'être clair…Le rapport, en effet, est rédigé sur la base d'informations fournies par plus de 200 ONG, mais les auteurs du document ont négligé de demander l'avis des autorités rwandaises ! Rien n'a été vérifié, on ne nous a pas demandé de commenter le draft. Il s'agît pourtant d'un exercice élémentaire : demander l'avis de toutes les parties en présence… » Pour Mme Mushikwabo, ce rapport peut avoir des effets déstabilisateurs dans la région : « il est publié alors que nos efforts commencent enfin à porter des fruits, que nos relations s'améliorent avec nos voisins, en particulier avec le Congo. Nous n'allons pas laisser détruire tout ce travail de pacification… »La ministre estime que son pays fait l'objet d'une attaque en règle, relayée au plus haut niveau des Nations unies : « dès le mois d'août, avertie de l'existence de ce rapport, j'avais adressé une note verbale au secrétaire général de l'ONU. Or ma lettre a été rendue publique, le rapport a été publié à la suite d'une fuite qui s'est produite à Genève ou au secrétariat de l'ONU à New York. Comment a-t-on pu négliger les risques politiques de cette publication, ses effets déstabilisateurs ? Cela démontre une totale irresponsabilité. Si nous réagissons aussi fort, c'est parce que nous, nous avons des populations à protéger… » Les reproches que le Rwanda adresse à ce rapport se situent à plusieurs niveaux : « il est ridicule sur le fond, le timing de la fuite est suspect, il ignore le contexte dans lequel les faits se sont produits, l'avis des autorités rwandaises n'a pas été sollicité… »

La collision est donc frontale entre les autorités rwandaises qui s'efforcent aujourd'hui d'avoir de bonnes relations avec Kinshasa, de collaborer avec le Congo sur le plan militaire pour forcer le retour au Rwanda des derniers rebelles hutus en cavale, qui souhaiteraient que le passé soit occulté sinon oublié et les défenseurs des droits de l'homme qui estiment qu'il faut donner priorité à la justice. Un ex enquêteur de l'ONU sur les massacres au Congo, Reed Brody, qui travaille pour Human Rights Watch et s'est distingué par ses actions à l'encontre de l'ancien dictateur tchadien Hissene Habré, a estimé que le rapport de l'ONU devrait servir d'argument, de base de données pour amener les coupables devant la justice : « la question qui se pose est de savoir si la communauté internationale, notamment le Rwanda et les Etats-Unis, ont la volonté politique d'identifier les meurtriers et de les traduire en justice. » Pour celui que l'on appelle parfois le « chasseur de dictateurs » « si ces massacres à grande échelle ne sont pas punis, la région sera condamnée à vivre de nouvelles atrocités. »

Amnesty International s'est également attirée l'ire de Kigali, pour avoir critiqué les abus de la loi sur le génocide, assurant « qu'elle était utilisée pour limiter la liberté d'expression et réprimer l'opposition politique »

« Ce rapport d'Amnesty est publié par pur opportunisme » assure Mme Mushikwabo, « nous sommes nous mêmes en train de réviser cette loi sur le génocide. Afin de l'améliorer, le ministre de la justice, M. Kavugarama, a demandé l'avis d'Amnesty international, dont des experts sont venus au Rwanda. Amnesty travaille avec le gouvernement et en même temps le critique… »

A Kigali d'aucuns suggèrent que cette offensive critique se produit à la veille de l'arrivée du juge français Marc Trevidic, qui doit reprendre à zero l'enquête du juge Bruguière sur l'attentat contre l'avion présidentiel et aussi à la veille de l'investiture du président Kagame, qui aura lieu le 6 septembre en grande pompe et en présence de plusieurs chefs d'Etat africains…

Le calendrier pour le sommet à la Maison blanche [établi après le sommet du 2 septembre 2010] entre Obama, Netanyahou et Abbas a des prétentions absurdes et risibles. Le projet états-unien prévoyait que le Président Obama informerait le Premier Ministre Benjamin Netanyahou et Mahmoud Abbas, (ce dernier devant représenter l'Autorité Palestinienne), que le moment était arrivé de conclure une fois pour toutes un accord de paix. Les Etats-Unis voudraient que cet accord soit conclu dans le délai d'une année, et que ses clauses soient introduites progressivement au cours de la prochaine décennie.

Les problèmes à l'ordre du jour sont notamment les colonies juives illégales, le statut de Jérusalem-Est, le traitement des réfugiés palestiniens et les frontières définitives entre Israël et un Etat palestinien.

Mais l'homme qui a accueilli Benjamin Netanyahou et Mahmoud Abbas n'était plus l'icône du changement qui avait soulevé l'enthousiasme dans le monde avec le discours au monde musulman qu'il avait prononcé au Caire [5 juin 2009] et qui avait chargé l'ex-sénateur états-unien George Mitchell de préparer le contexte pour qu'un accord juste puisse être conclu concernant les problèmes qui sont restés non-résolus pendant plus d'un demi-siècle.

Obama se trouve actuellement dans une conjoncture politique médiocre. L'économie stagne. Les élections de mi-mandat [novembre] laissent prévoir un possible bain de sang pour le parti démocrate, qui pourrait y perdre une, voire les deux Chambres au Congrès [Sénat et Chambre des représentants]. Or – et le lobby pro-israélien le sait bien – les démocrates ont soif de l'argent et des votes de la communauté juive. Lorsqu'il s'agit des intérêts israéliens, le Congrès états-unien obéit, sans sourciller, aux directives du lobby (AIPEC, entre autres). On peut donc interpréter le discours de la Secrétaire d'Etat Hillary Clinton, bourré de références flatteuses pour Netanyahou, comme étant un appel de fonds pour sa deuxième tentative lors de la future nomination du candidat présidentiel des démocrates.

Par le passé, il y avait encore l'idée de tenter mettre de la pression sur Netanyahou, comme il y a quatre mois, lorsque l'Administration avait critiqué une colonie juive illégale. Ou, encore, lorsque le vice-président Joe Biden avait exprimé à Tel-Aviv l'inquiétude du Général Petraeus qui craignait que l'obstination d'Israël [entre autres face à l'Iran] ne mette en danger la sécurité des intérêts états-uniens dans la région, mais il ne reste plus trace de ces timides tentatives.

Le lobby avait d'ailleurs riposté avec des menaces politiques. En juillet, Dana Milbanke du Washington Post décrivait avec une franchise inhabituelle la visite suivante de Netanyahou à Washington : « Un drapeau bleu et blanc israélien flottait depuis la Blair House [maison où résident les invités officiels du Président des États-Unis lors de leur séjour dans la capitale américaine]. De l'autre côté de l'avenue Pennsylvanie, le drapeau états-unien occupait sa place habituelle au-dessus de la Maison-Blanche. Mais pour saisir la véritable signification de la visite du Premier Ministre Benjamin Netanyahou au Président Obama, les fonctionnaires de la Maison-Blanche auraient dû plutôt hisser le drapeau blanc de la capitulation. »

En ce qui concerne le sommet de septembre, les Israéliens ont relevé avec complaisance qu'Obama a retiré sa demande à Israël de geler les colonies juives sur les terres palestiniennes. Il s'est contenté d'exhorter Israël à faire preuve de « retenue ». Nir Hefez, le porte-parole de Netanyahou, a expliqué à la radio de l'armée depuis New-York :« Le premier Ministre est satisfait, car sa principale exigence – que les négociations soient entamées sans préconditions – a été acceptée. » Netanyahou, qui a rejeté les demandes d'un gel des « colonies », a été cité comme déclarant à un journal : « Je comprends l'anglais – la « retenue » et le « gel » sont deux mots différents. » En ce qui concerne le statut de Jérusalem et le problème des réfugiés palestiniens, Netanyahou refuse catégoriquement de les discuter.

Pendant ce temps, quelques heures avant les poignées de mains, des colons juifs ont déclaré qu'ils allaient immédiatement commencer à travailler sur des constructions dans au moins 80 colonies, brisant ainsi le gel partiel imposé par le gouvernement, gel qui se termine le 26 septembre.

L'essence de la politique israélienne actuelle est un rejet fanatique de tout arrêt de la colonisation, de toute concession sérieuse concernant les frontières. Seul est envisagé un « Etat » palestinien morcelé, encaissé entre les routes et les murs d'Israël, dont l'eau est détournée et la communication entre les divers fragments de territoire palestinien est soumise à un contrôle israélien rigoureux et des harcèlements constants. Jérusalem-Est, la capitale proposée de l'Etat palestinien est constamment soumise à l'invasion de nouveaux projets de logements juifs.

La presse israélienne rapporte que Netanyahou doit encore développer une position de négociation. Son ministre des Affaires étrangères, Avigdor Lieberman, a refusé de participer au sommet et pense que Netanyahou aurait simplement dû dire à Obama que les constructions vont se poursuivre sans aucune restriction, après la fin du moratoire actuel qui prend fin le 26 septembre.

Abbas, pour sa part, n'est plus le Président de l'Autorité palestinienne et la vaste majorité des Palestiniens considère qu'il n'a aucun mandat démocratique. Ils ont voté pour le Hamas et considèrent Abbas comme un collaborateur qui ne survit que grâce à des fonds états-uniens, des conseillers de sécurité du Pentagone et du soutien israélien. Le Hamas a exprimé son opinion au sujet de la réunion au sommet en tuant quatre colons israéliens. Un demi-million de colons juifs illégaux ont été la conséquence la plus visible du « processus de paix. »

Du point de vue tactique, Netanyahou a de bonnes cartes à jouer. Il peut proclamer les espoirs de paix d'Israël tout en avertissant que la sécurité d'Israël est d'une importance capitale. Il peut faire la leçon a Obama sur les craintes fondamentales concernant l'existence d'Israël, tout en évoquant sans trop de réticences le fait qu'Israël peut rayer de la carte ses ennemis et est tout à fait disposé à le faire. L'arsenal nucléaire d'Israël plane comme un spectre sur les débats.

Le moratoire sur le gel des colonisations expire dans trois semaines. Netanyahou permettra alors aux colonies d'aller de l'avant, ce qui à son tour poussera Abbas à abandonner les pourparlers comme il avait menacé de le faire dans ce cas – un exercice programmé – comme le prédisait Jeffrey Blankfort le 31 août 2010. Israël va poursuivre sa poussée à droite et la dissidence subira de plus en plus de purges dans un contexte politique de plus en plus difficile. Le Plan Obama ira rejoindre toutes les autres ruines diplomatiques dans ce désert d'ossements blanchis qui est l'aspect le plus visible de tous les plans qui tentent de dépeindre la recherche d'une « solution juste » au Moyen-Orient.

Mais alors, pourquoi Obama fait-il cet effort ? Comme l'explique Blankfort : « Chaque président depuis Nixon s'est efforcé de mettre un terme à l'occupation israélienne pour des raisons stratégiques, et chacun d'entre eux s'est heurté au lobby pro-israélien et a fini par se montrer incapable de – ou réticent à – engager le capital politique nécessaire pour obliger Israël à respecter leur volonté. A chaque fois, le Congrès a pris parti pour Israël, et cela a été d'autant plus le cas pendant l'administration Obama. Les trois présidents qui ont défié Israël – Ford, Carter et Bush père – ont finalement dû faire machine arrière et ont été désavoués par les urnes. »

Etant donné ces précédents, pourquoi Obama a-t-il tout de même tenté la chose ? Blankfort suspecte qu'il y a eu des pressions de la part des alliés européens des Etats-Unis : « La perpétuation du conflit israélo-palestinien compromet leur sécurité et leur société beaucoup plus que celles des Etats-Unis, et il y a depuis longtemps des appels à l'Union européenne pour qu'elle mette en marche sa propre « initiative de paix ». Et elle le ferait probablement si les Etats-Unis se retiraient du terrain. Or, c'est la dernière chose que veulent Israël et le lobby, et c'est la raison pour laquelle il y a des éléments du lobby dans chaque administration. Actuellement ce sont Dennis Ross, Rahm Emanuel et autres, qui poussent Obama à s'impliquer, même s'ils savent que cela va échouer. »

Une des caractéristiques du « Bureau Ovale » tel qu'il a été remodelé par Obama est un tapis de très kitch portant des citations bien-pensantes sur son pourtour : celle de Franklin Roosevelt « La seule chose que nous ayons à craindre, c'est la peur elle-même » ; celle de Martin Luther King Jr : « L'arc moral de l'univers est long, mais il tend vers la justice » ; celle de Lincoln « Gouvernement du peuple, par le peuple, pour le peuple » et ainsi de suite. Lorsque les Palestiniens envisageront une de leurs rares visites, ils devraient rouler ce tapis, et en sortir un autre avec l'Etoile de David au milieu, et, sur le pourtour, l'inscription suivante : « Attention, les Palestiniens qui entrez ici, abandonnez tout espoir. » (Traduction A l'Encontre, écrit le 3 septembre 2010)

Post scriptum Obama et Martin Luther King

La semaine passée, en discutant du rassemblement de Glenn Beck [du Tea Party, le 28 août] à Washington DC, j'ai noté : « En 1993, King avait la même tactique qu'un autre homme qui se disait confiant que le système états-unien engendrerait de la justice à cause d'un tropisme moral individuellement vertueux à faire ce qui est juste – un peu comme Barack Obama en 2008. King avait tort alors, tout comme Obama a tort, deux générations plus tard. C'est une question de guerre de classes et non de trait de caractère individuel. » (Traduction A l'Encontre)

Alexander Cockburn est l'un des deux animateurs (avec Jeffrey S. Clair), du site Counterpunch. Il est l'auteur de nombreux ouvrages dont The Politics of Anti-Semitism, Ed. Counterpunch, (2003), avec des contributions de Edward Saïd, Michael Neumann et Ury Avnery

Valentina the Great (not)

In principle nothing is impossible in Russian politics. President Putin is perfectly capable of nominating possibly not his Labrador Connie, but certainly Valentina Ivanovna Matviyenko as guardian of the presidential chair. There are, however, no serious indications that Mrs Matviyenko has any more chance of such a career leap than anyone else from the Russian political beau monde. This is demonstrated by how The Independent article appeared and some of its features.

“She was spotted and promoted by none other than the former President and current PM, Vladimir Putin. It was he who gave her the big break: the transfer to St Petersburg. So if he is in two minds about returning to the Kremlin himself and hesitant to back Medvedev for a second term, Ms Matviyenko's might be the new face of Russia.” – Mary Dejevski, Independent

Firstly, its appearance. Many people in St Petersburg remember that on 1 September 2006 a hare started up in the Russian media about the so-called project «Valentina the Great»: Mrs Matviyenko was slated for president in 2008. This didn't come to pass, as we know, and there are no serious reasons for believing that there was any such project in the real world of the Kremlin, rather than just in the imagination of various not very influential individuals.

To the amusement of the Russian independent media, an article appeared in Britain’s The Independent on 6 September suggesting Valentina Matviyenko, Governor of St Petersburg, might be a candidate for Russian president in 2012. 

It is striking that this new information about Matviyenko has appeared exactly the same amount of time before the forthcoming presidential elections, as the rumour about «Valentina the Great» did before the 2006 elections. An unlikely coincidence, though I'm not about to start speculating who stands to benefit from it and why.

Norman Foster is not guilty

Now for the special features of the article, which appears to have been written by a less than competent journalist. The trivial factual mistakes, which are easy to check, lead me to think that the author of the article in The Independent is also wide of the mark on the larger questions, which are more difficult to check.

“Her detailed answers started with her support – or not – for the Norman Foster tower that the Russian gas giant, Gazprom, wants to build in her city. On balance, she seemed to support it, in the face of fierce ecological objections, but not in a dogmatic way that would prevent compromise with protest groups concerned about damage to St Petersburg's skyline.” – Mary Dejevski, Independent

The well known British architect Sir Norman Foster, for example, is named as the architect of the Gazprom Tower project, known as the Okhta Centre. Foster actually designed a scheme for the reconstruction of the landmark «New Holland» complex: this has absolutely nothing to do with the «gas-scraper», which is situated at the other end of the city. Foster didn't even submit a design to the competition. He was at one time on the panel of judges, though he subsequently resigned, which would have barred him from entering the competition.

The article contains serious mistakes in Matviyenko's biography. She was Deputy Prime Minister, not a Deputy Minister. The author of the article clearly doesn't understand Russian government hierarchy: Deputy Minister is such an insignificant post that it would be an impossible jumping-off point for becoming Governor of St Petersburg.

But, leaving the factual mistakes on one side, it is more interesting to consider the article's take on Valentina Matviyenko's strong points.

Margaret Thatcher has nothing to do with it

The author's starting point is that Valentina Ivanovna has changed her hairstyle, lost weight, and started running the city more spontaneously and, at the same time, more confidently. People in the West people are possibly used to the fact that the chief distinguishing feature of Russian management is enjoyment of good holidays, lots of sport, sunbathing, time spent travelling round their own country and the world (including on a motorbike, a fire-extinguishing plane and a Lada Kalina car). But none of this is sufficient to qualify as Putin's next heir. In our political world there are other not insignificant factors involved in climbing up the vertical of power.

According to the author of the article, one of Matviyenko's strong points as a possible presidential candidate is the similarity of her biography with Margaret Thatcher's. There is actually only one thing that these two delightful ladies have in common: they are both chemists by training. But Thatcher went to Oxford University, whereas Matviyenko studied at the Leningrad Institute of Chemistry and Pharmaceuticals (LICP).

In the twilight of the Soviet age I taught economics at this institute, so am not unfamiliar with it. It is, alas, very far from Oxford. LICP was one Leningrad's least prestigious and high-quality educational institutions with pretty mediocre students. In the USSR pharmaceuticals did not have the significance they have since acquired as big business.  So the students who went to the «Pill», as it was known in student slang, were the ones who had failed to get into the famous pre-revolutionary Technological Institute, which attracted the city's best professors.

Moreover, Thatcher in her time showed herself to be an independent politician, able to break the mould. Matviyenko has only been able to carve out a career because she has presented herself as the representative of the «boss», i.e. Putin. She has never shown any sign of original ideas as to how the country should be governed.

The Muscovites are NOT coming

The article correctly points out that Matviyenko is a Putin person. This is one of its few uncontroversial contentions. But there is not one person in the higher echelons of power in Russia who is NOT a Putin person (except one or two installed by Medvedev), so any of them would be just as entitled as Matviyenko to lay claim to the presidency.

There are few regional governors in Russia as loyal to Vladimir Putin as Valentina Matviyenko.

What is most amusing is the author's enthusiasm for Matviyenko's success in St Petersburg. She maintains that families are moving there from Moscow for the culture and quality of life. The Russian translation on www.inosmi.ru actually says that they are moving because living standards are better there, but even The Independent article didn't come up with such idiocies (the standard of life in St Petersburg is much lower).

„ Vast investment by the central government improved the city's dilapidated fabric in time for the 300th anniversary in 2003. But the bigger changes have happened since, with huge new housing and commercial building projects and, most conspicuously, a transformation of the public mood. For the first time in my more than 30 years of visiting, people on the streets of St Petersburg seem confident and content with themselves.” – Mary Dejevski, Independent

There are actually many more Petersburgers moving to Moscow than there are rich Muscovites buying second flats in St Petersburg. It was a problem in Soviet times and Matviyenko has naturally not been able to reverse this very obvious trend. To have any hope of job fulfillment or a career in today's Russia, a move to the capital nearer to big money and the centre of decision-making sooner or later becomes essential. Under Matviyenko two or three head offices of big Russian companies have moved from Moscow to St Petersburg, but the realities of decision-making are in Moscow and senior management cadres are concentrated right there.

The article assesses life in St Petersburg by looking at the prosperity and confidence shining from the faces of its inhabitants. There are contented-looking faces in other places in Russia too, with the possible exception of depressing centres of population like Pikalevo. Hardly surprising, as the flow of petrodollars has raised living standards. But this has absolutely nothing to do with Matviyenko. There have been no serious attempts to develop business in St Petersburg and Putin, when contemplating the problem of 2012, knows full well that Valentina Ivanovna is a good lobbyist, who creates the right conditions for attracting government funding to St Petersburg. She is absolutely not an outstanding administrator, whose city offers better chances for business development than other cities.

Corruption rules!

Meanwhile The Independent article doesn't consider the real problems. According to its author, Matviyenko has even become one of the few people in power in Russia who is waging active war on corruption. The real methods of battling corruption in St Petersburg are sometimes quite tragicomical. Some time ago, for instance, posters appeared in the streets calling on citizens to «report» incidences of corruption to the relevant bodies.

“She also seemed to be one of very few Russian politicians to be actively tackling corruption.” – Mary Dejevski, Independent

This is perhaps an indirect sign that the government of St Petersburg has not been able to come up with any more effective measures. But my personal opinion is that this advertising campaign has no connection whatsoever with the problem of corruption. It's much more likely to be a way of using up funding allocated for this purpose. Before this «anti-corruption» campaign there were posters all over the city promoting tolerance.  This was connected with an officially-funded «tolerance programme».

Anxiety has recently been expressed in the media about the meteoric rise and successful career of Matviyenko's son in St Petersburg. I am no specialist on this subject and shall refrain from speculation, but it is interesting that the author of the article in The Independent appears not even to have heard this story, although it is the kind of information that a professional journalist should be gathering.

This is not an exhaustive list of the oddities of this article. But the conclusion reached by the independent newspaper The Independent independently of many important facts could be regarded as extremely dubious.

Sideboxes 'Read On' Sidebox: 

Valentina Matviyenko: Meet Russia's Thatcher, the chemist who could end up in the Kremlim, by Mary Dejevsky in St Petersburg, Independent, Sept. 6, 2010

Valentina Matvienko’s Second Term: From Ambitious Projects to Threats of Removal, by Daniil Tsygankov, St. Petersburg-Moscow, Russian Analytical Digest, (Research Centre for East European Studies at the University of Bremen, and the Center for Security Studies at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich and the Institute of History at the University of Basel

Gender not an issue for most influential woman in Russia, Helsinki Sanomat, Finland, By Jussi Konttinen, June 4th, 2008

Sidebox: 

Valentina I. Matvienko was born in Ukraine in 1949. She graduated from the Leningrad Institute of Chemistry and Pharmaceutics in 1972, and the Social Sciences Academy of the CPSU Central Committee, in 1985.

Mrs. Matvienko pursued her active career in the Komsomol organization for young communists from 1972 on, first as a Chief of the Department in the Petrogradsky District Komsomol Committee, and later as the First Secretary of the Leningrad Regional Komsomol Committee.

In 1989, Mrs. Matvienko was elected to the Soviet Parliament, where she subsequently chaired the Soviet Supreme Council Committee for Women, Families, Maternity and Childhood.

Mrs. Matvienko entered her diplomatic service in 1991, and pursued a career in foreign service until 1998. In 1991-94, she was the Ambassador of the Soviet Union and later the Ambassador of Russia to the Republic of Malta, later served as the Ambassador of the Russian Federation in Greece in 1997-98.

In the following years (1998-2003), Valentina Matvienko worked as a Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation for Social Policy.

On October 5, 2003, Valentina Matvienko was elected Governor of St.Petersburg.

Married. Has a son.

Related stories:  St. Petersburg’s ‘gas-scraper’ saga: culture turns political Protect Yuntolovo! Money v nature in St Petersburg Russia: raid on Memorial HQ The Poet and the Tsar Country:  Russia City:  St. Petersburg Topics:  Democracy and government

The SNP minority government under Alex Salmond has finally accepted political arithmetic and retreated on its promise to hold an independence referendum before the May 2011 Scottish Parliament elections.

Now Daniel Hannan, Tory MEP and freethinker has announced a new campaign – called the EU Referendum Campaign  – campaigning for a vote on ‘In’ or ‘Out’ of the European Union. It is not clear whether this is just a campaign calling for a vote in principle or, as is more likely, a vote for pulling out the European Union altogether. At the same time there is to be an AV referendum on the same day as devolved elections – something the Electoral Commission has already made a previous ruling against – on a policy no one supports, as well as a future Welsh devolution referendum.

Daniel Hannan speaking in the European Parliament

As Peter Hoskin put it on ‘Spectator Coffee House’, ‘referenda are now hardwired into the political mainstream’. This is both right and wrong. Hoskin is right something is shifting, but let's remember the ‘political mainstream’ has only held one UK-wide referendum in its history: on the renegotiated terms of Common Market entry n 1975 – two years after Ted Heath took the UK into Europe with no plebiscite.

Yet, something is moving. One change is that the voodoo world of parliamentary sovereignty and Westminsterism is slowly and unceremoniously coming to an end. Thatcher and Blair took these notions to levels of caricature and parody: late Westminsterism era hyper-activity and centralism intervening at a micro-level across practically every aspect of society.<!--break-->

Thatcher and Blair directly weakened parliamentary sovereignty, Westminster and the integrity of the British state, leading to unintended consequences which we will only begin to understand long after they have left the stage. The late New Labour era of numerous political scandals – from ‘cash for honours’ to the squashing of the Serious Fraud Office investigation into BAE Systems culture of corporate kickbacks, to the shock of a political nomenklatura caught in the expenses scandal – has yet to be fully felt and understood.

There was an equivalent of a popular uprising and revulsion against the Orwellian scale of this. And one dimension of change here was that the slow weakening of the mantra of parliamentary sovereignty was exposed for the time warp mysticism it is, and as a result the popular belief in a politics of popular sovereignty came centre-stage.

The consequences and tensions of this should be underlined. The British political classes are still gripped by the fanaticism of Westminsterism and parliamentary sovereignty, but in its leading, enlightened sections – such as the Cameroon Conservatives – know they are on thin ice. The voters have long abandoned the Hogwartsland magical world of faith in Westminsterism and parliamentary sovereignty. Instead, across the UK there is a powerful, implicit sense of popular sovereignty; that power lies and comes directly from the popular will not parliamentary mumbo-jumbo.

Then we come to the AV referendum. This can now be seen as classic Cameron-Clegg ‘modernisation’ – looking both ways at the same time. Part appealing for renewal with the allure of future democratisation. Part consolidating the old system with change that is not too fundamental or far-reaching but harks back to when British chaps used to know how best to govern the world; the promise then to India or Egypt was always democracy and ‘civilisation’ at some distant point on the horizon; Britain’s political class still haven’t lost their imperial impulse (even excluding wars)!

The Salmond Referendum Shuffle

Then there is the Scottish situation. The SNP’s entire raison d’etre is about statehood and independence, and tactically advancing this through an independence referendum.

The Nationalists have long known that they don’t have the votes to win a majority in the Parliament. Wendy Alexander, briefly Scottish Labour leader nearly gave an opening with her ‘bring it on’ moment.

This has suited the SNP who lack a majority in the Parliament and know they lack a majority in the country; instead they had hoped once they lost a vote in Parliament to claim the high democratic ground against their unionist opponents.

It was never that simple. Independence is not that high an issue with voters. SNP supporters will say neither was devolution pre-Parliament. The difference is that devolution under Thatcher and Major became increasingly interconnected with ‘bread and butter’ economic and social issues; independence has so far failed to do this. The coming public spending savaging – estimated at 5.9% cuts of £1.7 billion in 2011-12 – will be potentially aided by the ‘Calman cuts’  – which would produce Scots public spending cuts comparable to a Polish post-Communist ‘shock therapy’ – may change this.

This leads into difficult terrain. The SNP are now talking of making independence a rallying cry at next May’s elections. And the party has plans for a multi-option referendum on independence and ‘devolution max’ on one side and the limited change of ‘devolution lite’ (Calman) on the other. That seems too simple and complicated at the same time. When Scotland has its independence vote, it has to be a simple Yes/No vote on one question, which would stand up to international scrutiny and produce an unambiguous result.

There are controversies such as whether it is in the power of the Scottish Parliament to even hold a vote. Matt Qvotrup, a respected constitutional expert, has made the case that the First Minister could call a referendum vote through a Scottish Statutory Instrument (SSI) of the Parliament, but this would be even more controversial and seen as undemocratic, bad politics.

Peter Jones, no friend of the SNP, has argued that ‘the national conversation’, ministerial advocacy of independence for the last few years, and detailed civil servant work on the area, has changed Scottish politics. He writes:

For the best part of four years, independence has been moved from a fringe topic of interest only to the committed to a more central place. 

He then makes the over-statement on independence that ‘Scots have been forced to think about it much more deeply than they have done before’ and ‘the unionist parties have been compelled to come up with an alternative strategy’. By this he means Calman; but I think Calman is a response and tactical manoeuvre in reaction to the SNP, not ‘an alternative strategy’ for a reformed union – and one that may spectacularly backfire on them.

Joan McAlpine responding in the next day’s ‘Scotsman’ disagreed with Jones from a pro-independence position, and quoted a senior Nationalist politician saying that "unionists who welcomed the move saw it as evidence that the SNP had at last become ‘house-trained’ and were working within parameters set by the Establishment".

She makes the case that the SNP shift from a ‘referendum to deferendum’ is one which could backfire in the party; and also combine with concerns in the SNP about a party which seems to be content in office to be seen to be ‘governing well’ and ‘managerial’.

Meanwhile, the Nationalist administration still invokes opprobrium in its opponents. Jeremy Paxman introducing Alex Salmond on ‘Newsnight UK’ talks about the dropping of independence as the end of ‘shaking off the English jackboot’, a language of scorn and dismissal, while Iain Gray, Scottish Labour leader, allows at every opportunity his utter contempt for the SNP and Salmond to show through. Gray’s opinion poll ratings are on the floor – with 9% of Scots supporting him as their choice for First Minister next year (the same level of support for Tory Annabel Goldie) versus 31% for Salmond – but Gray may find himself in office next year.

The SNP matters because of their ultimate goal of Scottish statehood and independence. The first Alex Salmond SNP administration has been a decent and relatively popular one, but it has not been a transformative one. It has set out to not make enemies, particularly in institutional Scotland, and has not attempted a governing or movement strategy of change. The first would see the SNP in office create a number of alliances – for example with the labour and trade union movement, while also picking a number of challenges – with the extended quango state to take one example. And the second, would see thought and effort going into an ecology of self-government agencies and bodies. Instead, the SNP is left isolated, trying via a ‘safety first’ approach to win people over to radical change by reassurance.

The shift of the SNP from the politics of the possible 'neverendum' – the unionist nightmare of one referendum vote followed by another until a pro-independence majority emerged – has been replaced by the politics of the never-referendum – where an independence vote does not happen in the immediate future. That’s how it looks at the moment, although things could change after the election and the cuts begin.

The SNP have proven they have the competence to govern, but they need a radical imagination and zeal if they are to change Scotland and achieve independence. That ultimately is about more than the tactics of whether you bring an independence bill to the Scottish Parliament in expectation of defeat. On the other hand, the unionist parties and institutional establishment of Scotland have not come to terms with the depths of the multi-faceted crisis of Britain: of its politics, democracy, state and economy. This goes to the heart of what Britain is and what the union is for.

The old Westminster British political order is broken and unfixable. British public opinion has moved dramatically beyond its arcane assumptions and conventions. Radicals in all parties and none realise the extent of the crisis; that’s why Daniel Hannan’s campaign for a EU referendum is so timely and the sort of thing which could catch the spark of popular disconnection. The current stalemate in Scottish politics is not an enduring ceasefire, but merely one more skirmish in the long revolution and campaign for self-government.

Topics:  Democracy and government

A great deal of noise is currently being generated about development issues, piggy-backing on the 10th anniversary of the Millennium Declaration and targeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) Summit in mid-September, which will be attended by Nick Clegg. Special interest groups of all kinds are taking this opportunity to push their message.

The MDGs have been used for the past decade as a tool for guiding and measuring development progress. Not only has progress been found wanting: the MDGs themselves are wanting. They represent the wrong view of change; they are being routinely misused in a way which confuses the ends with the means; they are highly unrealistic; and they are set at a global level, when development happens much more locally. Because of these flaws, they act as perverse incentives, even obstructing the development process they are supposed to galvanise. The problem is not just the MDGs, but the ill-adapted development discourse that they represent.

This prevailing development discourse tends to pull analysis, policy and action away from the political, institutional and societal towards the technical. This is partly because technical issues are simpler and less contentious. But it is also because the idea of ‘development’ – which is after all an intellectual and political construct – has become hugely confused. The mix of different ideas about human progress is dynamic, constantly being added to, and there are limits to the amount that can be added to a construct of this nature before it breaks down under its own weight.

The development construct is now cracking under the weight of issues such as governance, human rights, gender, livelihoods, poverty eradication, poverty reduction, exclusion, international trade, human security, conflict-sensitivity, peacebuilding, climate adaptation, fragility, statebuilding, etc. (And this is before geo-political issues like anti-terrorism and access to rare earth minerals are added to increase complexity still further.) Because the development discourse accommodates them poorly, these complex ideas of human progress become distorted and mixed up together incoherently. A combination of politics and institutional constraints has turned this into an oversimplified development paradigm, as represented by the MDGs, which are a poor map with which to navigate, much less catalyse, the processes that constitute human progress.

This matters enormously, because of the vast scale of human underdevelopment, and especially in so-called ‘fragile’ contexts, which are most resistant to progressive change and which are or risk being affected by violent conflict. It is therefore tremendously important to review and update our understanding of the way human progress happens. Politically, now is the right time to do this, because a growing public scepticism at a time of economic belt-tightening is raising well-founded questions about the impact of development aid, and these need convincing answers if public support is not to leach away. Meanwhile, other changes taking place in the world make this process overdue: the global power dynamic is shifting; there are a growing number of incomplete peace processes with the challenges they bring; development itself produces additional stresses in fragile contexts; and meanwhile climate change is generating another layer of stresses, to which people will have to adapt.

We suggest three broad areas for action around the need to a) reframe the development discourse; b) create a new narrative to replace the MDGs; and c) make development institutions more fit for their purpose.

Reframing the development discourse

There is no lack of creative thinking in the development sector. Plenty of ideas are being proposed and tested, and the sector is constantly alive with discussions about better ways to work. The problem is that for institutional reasons such ideas tend to be pushed to the margins. We need to harness these ideas and discussions better in order to improve our understanding of human progress, and enable more appropriate policies and actions to be developed and put into practice. This means we need a sustained, open and honest discussion about human progress and the role of development institutions.

Many people working in development are sceptical about the prevailing development paradigm, but self-censor their views and ideas because the room for change seems limited. Such people need to be encouraged and empowered to be more forthcoming. There are numerous opportunities for this at every level, in the development of policies, strategies, and international agreements.

These processes include the High Level Summit in September 2010, the High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Seoul in 2011; the International Network on Conflict and Fragility managed by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD); and the International Dialogue on Peacebuilding and Statebuilding. Meanwhile the EU is in the process of reconfiguring its external relations architecture. The new External Action Service will play a role in the EU’s overseas development assistance, and discussions about this should be informed by new thinking about human progress rather than simply adopting the paradigms on which the EC has based its overseas development in the past. Meanwhile, new development policies and strategies are constantly being prepared in developing and donor countries, in partnerships between them, and in multilateral organisations. All such processes provide opportunities for a fresh look at what constitutes development, and how it happens.

Seizing such opportunities for constructive conversations will depend on leadership, and on the way questions are framed. Leadership combines risk-taking and inspiration, as well as an ability to navigate politically. Good leadership will be needed to create space for a more honest conversation about development; and this will entail reframing the questions to enable and encourage a deeper and more wide-ranging conversation. The fundamental question to be asked is, ‘What do developed societies look like, how do they become like that, and how can such changes be catalysed?’

At the MDG Summit in September, the main question being asked is ‘How can we achieve the MDGs by 2015?’ It would be impossible to change this now. But the Summit can nevertheless be used as an opportunity to begin changing the nature of the debate, for example, by establishing a process to identify what will replace the MDGs in 2015. The terms of reference for this process can be framed in a way which allows the conversation to question the MDGs themselves, rather than simply why they will not have been met.

If this is matched at other levels of planning and review – in the development of new donor strategies for example, and in the political debate in ‘fragile’ countries themselves – the nature of the discourse will start to change, and an informal dialogue will be created which will contribute to a much richer narrative about human progress. The discussion needs to incorporate a mixture of perspectives from rich and poorer countries, different political cultures, established and emerging powers, governmental and non-governmental backgrounds, big business and small business, different civil society groupings, diverse geographic and cultural perspectives, different gender and age groups, the media, and academics from different disciplines such as economics, history, anthropology, and the arts.

The media and politicians have a particularly important role to play, as it is they who ultimately set the terms of the public discourse within which aid and development institutions are guided and held accountable. They can help move the public debate away from the traditionally binary discussion about the pros and cons of aid, if they are willing to examine the complexity and nuances of the issue, what works and what does not work, and find new ways of conveying these to the general public.

Ultimately, if the terms of the development discourse are to be renewed as we believe necessary, it will be because the many people working within the sector who know that the current paradigm is inadequate, take the initiative within their sphere of influence to alter the nature of the debate, and together create a kind of movement for change.

A sense of purpose

As part of the changing discourse, we need to create a new narrative of development – of human progress – and a new global framework to replace the MDGs when they expire in 2015. This will tell the story of how human societies have developed, are developing and can develop further in the future. To avoid repeating the problems associated with the MDGs, it is important that this narrative achieves a better balance between political expediency and analytical rigour. The first step must be to create an analytically rigorous model. Once this is established, it can be used as the basis for a more political framework, but there should be no confusion between the two. This new framework can then be used by governments, NGOs, intergovernmental bodies and others, in line with the OECD’s exhortation to take the context as the starting point, to inspire local, national, regional and where appropriate, global goals and measures of progress.

In our recent report, we suggested a model or framework for this new narrative, based on a vision of a world in which people can resolve their differences without violence, while continuing to make equitable social and economic progress, and without lessening the opportunities for their neighbours or future generations to do the same. This vision would be both enabled and recognisable by five core factors: equal access to justice, political voice, security, economic opportunity and well-being. These would in their turn be underpinned by a self-reinforcing set of values and institutions. We suggest how societies have in the past made the transition towards this vision, giving clues as to how others may do so, and how such processes can be catalysed and helped.

We make no claim to have found the best definition of development, only to have asked some of the important questions and made a contribution to the debate. We expect and welcome comment and criticism, in recognition of the fact that not enough is yet understood about how development happens. More debate is what is needed and there must be room for diverse, even contradictory perspectives. Indeed, the narrative would benefit from ideas drawn from a combination of disciplines, including history, economics, business sectors, political science, sociology and anthropology. But it is important to create a common framework within which different perspectives can be compared, and used to inspire progress and hold development actors accountable for their actions and progress. This common framework should have certain minimum characteristics, e.g. it should:

• Be vision-based, i.e. contain a comprehensive idea of what developed societies look like.
• Describe how societies have transformed and can transform – i.e., make progress towards the vision.
• Explain the role of values and institutions in the process of change and in the vision itself.
• Be analytically sound.
• Be true to the idea of enabling change as contained in the UN Millennium Declaration: i.e. ‘promote and create global and national environments conducive to development and to the eradication of poverty’. This is in recognition that development is a mainly endogenous process of change happening at multiple inter-related levels within society, requiring leadership and effective relationships and negotiation; and one that can be influenced, but not wrought, by external forces and an external enabling environment.
• Acknowledge the fundamental importance of subsidiarity, i.e. that decisions and actions are taken at the lowest appropriate level, within a framework which is set at the highest appropriate level; i.e. be expected to take context as the starting point.
• Make clear the difference between the vision, and the means or strategies needed to get there. This means, for example, disentangling humanitarian from development outcomes and processes – i.e. make clear the difference between humanitarian outcomes such as providing basic services to people in fragile contexts, and true development milestones that are the markers of progress towards the vision.
• Recognise the complexities and nuanced nature of development, and find ways to communicate these publicly as simply as possible.

This new framework needs to be substantially completed by 2014, in time to replace the MDGs.

Making institutions fit for their purpose

Fitness for purpose is a dynamic concept: the fitness of the institution must evolve as and when its purpose evolves. Our understanding of the complexity of human progress is continually improving, leading to suggestions for new, different approaches and ways of working. But the institutions of development and aid have failed to keep up: they contain a great deal of inertia. One can almost talk of the global development institution (in the singular), so conformist and orthodox have donors, multilateral organisations, NGOs and recipient governments become. This means that when new ideas do filter through the aid and development system, as ‘fragile states’ and peacebuilding/statebuilding have done in the past few years, the response tends to be “What can our existing institutions do with this idea?”, rather than the more appropriate “What institutions do we need, to work on the basis of this new knowledge, or to meet this new challenge?”

The question before us should be: What kinds of institutions are needed in order to catalyse key processes such as state- and nation-building, opening access to political and economic opportunity, the impersonalisation of the political economy, sustained economic growth, democratisation, the establishment of the rule of law, and the evolution of a culture which encourages initiative? The tricky thing about this kind of work is that development institutions have to work within the political economy which they are keen to see transformed, and therefore to borrow a metaphor from woodwork, they have to “work with the grain, to change the grain” – a very tall order which above all requires analytical and political expertise.

To meet this challenge, the international community and individual states, along with civil society, need to review the institutions available to them and renew them. We do not underestimate the difficulty of doing this, but it is critical to a more successful international development endeavour. The key elements these institutions need to address between them are as follows:

• Establish a clear purpose for which these institutions are held transparently accountable. Broadly, there is a choice to be made here: the institutions can either provide a kind of welfare assistance in support of economic and social sector programmes, or they can aim to support development based on a more complex vision of human progress such as we have explored in this paper. These two options are very different in nature and thus require very different institutions for effective delivery. If the latter option is chosen, it should be coherent with the improved development narrative called for. Institutions need to know their limits and focus on nudging, stimulating and incentivising changes, within a strategic, big picture view of transformation.
• Ensure that they are organised, resourced and staffed in line with the agreed purpose, and that internal reward and accountability systems are designed accordingly, e.g. to encourage and reward creativity. This is likely to mean that they adopt the concept of subsidiarity themselves, with more decisions being taken closer to the ground and for some institutions, less reliance on “missions” from headquarters. It will mean forming new kinds of relationships with governments, civil society and others, and will require staff with the right kind of skills for such roles – people who can work with the grain to change the grain. This kind of work is not only labour-intensive, it is expert labour-intensive. It requires an institutional culture which is transparent and self-critical, and invites criticism from elsewhere.
• Be able to work with the grain to change the grain. This means working in new ways, for example to engage politically and on complex societal issues including exclusion, trust, culture and nation-building; to understand the operation of complex processes; to understand the operation of complex and competing incentives on people’s decisions and behaviour; to strengthen values and institutions (“the rules of the game”) in line with the long-term vision and promote leadership, improved relationships and opportunities for the negotiation of changed roles. And it needs to be able to harness the transforming progressive potential of the growing middle class in poor countries.
• Work at multiple levels:
  • Internationally – on issues such as international trade and investment, and international criminality (e.g. narcotics and money laundering);
  • In donor countries, to reach a new honest compact with rich country taxpayers based on the improved development narrative, and within a coherent foreign policy in which tensions between overseas development goals and other aspects of the national interest are resolved; and
  • In fragile contexts where the transformation needed for people to make genuine progress can be supported and stimulated.
• Look beyond “aid”, and especially at other international institutions whose actions have an impact on the enabling global environment, such as trade, and the regulation of international businesses operating in fragile environments.
• Devise strategies that are analytically sound, and are rooted in an analysis of the political economy. This entails figuring out how incentives can be rebalanced to promote change, and is likely to imply a more subtle and sharper use of aid conditionality as well as more donor funding through nongovernmental vehicles. While external agencies may lack leverage on the big political issues in fragile contexts, they can use their limited powers to incentivise small changes with big potential impacts.
• Take a long-term perspective, maintaining a balance between predictability and flexibility: predictability, so that partners and others can plan accordingly; flexibility, to be able to react and respond as the situation changes and understanding improves, in line with a concept of conflict-sensitivity.

We recognise the enormity of the challenge we have proposed. But we make this challenge as realists not idealists. In a rapidly changing world, the development institutions – whose fundamental mandate is to help shape the changes – must continue to evolve, or they risk becoming irrelevant.

 

This article is based on the recent International Alert report by the same authors: Working with the grain to change the grain: moving beyond the Millennium Development Goals, September 2010. (www.international-alert.org) 

Topics:  Civil society Democracy and government International politics

Pakistan is in the eye of many storms. It lies at the heart of the United States’s almost decade-long “war on terror”, with an ever-ambiguous position (in Washington’s view) as an unreliable and perhaps even renegade ally. It is a society riven by enormous social inequalities and deep political, religious and ethnic divisions. It is frequently hit by acts of pitiless violence, from the targeting by religious extremists of members of rival faiths to “drone attacks” by US forces which kill innocent civilians.

Now, it is now battered by catastrophic floods which have destroyed the livelihoods of millions of the country’s people, threatening even greater humanitarian disasters to come. The United Nations reported on 7 September 2010 that as many as 10 million people have been living entirely without shelter for six weeks. And even in sport there is no release, for players in the national cricket team are charged with taking money in return for aiding a betting-scam by altering their on-field behaviour.

This mix of political crisis, natural tragedy and everyday corruption is itself an indication of how intractable Pakistan’s problems are. What is also clear is that the most serious of these problems go to the very top, and relate to the nature of the state and its institutions (not least its powerful Inter-Services Intelligence [ISI] agency). If there is a way forward for Pakistan, a path beyond violence and extremism, it surely lies in addressing how these institutions operate - in particular, how the years of war in Afghanistan and its spillover effects in Pakistan have entrenched militarism and strengthened those forces in Pakistan most beyond democratic control.

The real policy

The role of Inter-Services Intelligence was highlighted once more with the disclosure by the WikiLeaks project on 25 July 2010 of a vast trove of classified United States military documents on its operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The approximately 90,000 pages of Afghan War Diary, 2004-2010 are the latest evidence from a series of reports that the ISI has given ongoing support to Islamist militant networks operating in Pakistan and across the border in Afghanistan.

The WikiLeaks “revelations” provoked a great outpouring of publicity, which in great part is owed to the nature of the project and the way it cooperated with established newspapers (such as the New York Times and Der Spiegel) to maximise impact. So it is important to stress that where the ISI is concerned the documents offer nothing new. US military intelligence has known for several decades that Pakistan’s state sponsors Islamist networks (see Paul Rogers, "The Afghan war via WikiLeaks", 29 July 2010).

There are many examples to confirm this in existing official records. For example, two declassified reports of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) in Washington - dated two weeks after 9/11, and released in September 2003 - observe that Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida network was “able to expand under the safe sanctuary extended by Taliban following Pakistan directives” and funded by the ISI.

In addition, confidential Nato reports and US intelligence assessments circulated to White House officials in 2008 confirm consistent ISI support for Taliban insurgents. They indicate that Pakistan’s current chief-of-staff, General Ashfaq Kayani - who served as head of the ISI from 2004-07 - presided over Taliban training-camps in Pakistan’s western province of Balochistan and provided militants with over 2,000 rocket-propelled grenades and 400,000 rounds of ammunition. In the same year, US intelligence intercepted Kayani’s description of the senior insurgent leader Maulavi Jalaluddin Haqqani as a “strategic asset” in the insurgency around Kabul and eastern Afghanistan.

Britain, another key ally of both Pakistan and the United States, has also long been aware of this involvement. A leaked report in 2006 by the ministry of defence-run think-tank, the Defence Academy, spelled out the ISI’s “dual role in combating terrorism” while simultaneously “supporting the Taliban [and] supporting terrorism and extremism”.

A practice of successive British governments has been to overlook such evidence while trumpeting Pakistan’s brilliance at fighting the “war on terror”. In late June 2010, the new foreign secretary William Hague praised General Kayani’s efforts to combat extremism, emphasising the significance of Britain’s long-term strategic and economic relationship with Pakistan. This made the new prime minister David Cameron’s condemnation of Pakistan’s “export of terror” all the more was unexpected and wounding to Islamabad - especially as it was uttered during a visit to India.

The logic of war

The WikiLeaks documents may not have provided anything really new, but they did present Washington with a problem in that they again exposed the mismatch between its public support for Pakistan and its awareness of Pakistan’s extensive links with the Taliban. However, the United States’s official response - beyond condemning WikiLeaks for putting the lives of some of the people named in the documents at risk - showed no sign of acknowledging this contradiction.

The US vice-president Joe Biden insisted that the leaks predate the Barack Obama administration’s policy. He and other spokespeople argued that any ISI support for the Taliban is a rogue operation by isolated “elements” in the organisation.

This stance is consistent with Washington’s longer-term rhetorical, military and political support of Pakistan. The chairman of the US joint chiefs-of-staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, has argued that General Kayani was committed to purging the ISI in order to end its support for militant networks. He and other officials persuaded the US Congress in October 2009 to commit to an unconditional five-year package of $6 billion in military and economic assistance to Pakistan.

Such positions are contradicted by US officials interviewed (under cover of anonymity) by the New York Times who confirmed that the portrayal of the ISI’s “collaboration with the Afghan insurgency was broadly consistent with other classified intelligence.” The documents, the paper concluded, show that the ISI has “acted as both ally and enemy”, appeasing certain American demands for cooperation while exerting influence in Afghanistan.

The inconsistency between the documentary record and the assertions of figures such as Biden and Mullen could not be clearer. This itself raises two serious questions about the nature of the regional and indeed global war being waged by the United States and its allies. 

The first is whether Washington and London’s unconditional military support for Pakistan has served to fuel the 90% increase in violence in Afghanistan over the past year. Indeed, Ola Tunander of Oslo’s Peace Research Institute even argues in a confidential report to Norway’s foreign-affairs ministry that the US strategy in Afghanistan is deliberately to “support both sides” in order to “calibrate the level of violence”.

The result of the Taliban advance over 2009-10 - anticipated by senior Nato official Thomas Brouns’s warning in Military Review (summer 2009) of “the possibility of strategic defeat” - has now led Obama’s team to reconsider an option suggested under the George W Bush administration: a power-sharing arrangement with the Taliban, in part to create enough stability to enable a trans-Afghanistan gas pipeline to go ahead.

The second question is about the relation between Washington’s regional war aims and the wider geopolitical objectives of its “war on terror”. Ola Tunander sees its broader agenda as being to mobilise other governments to support US global policy, thus legitimising the effort to sustain a US-dominated unipolar order. The logic of this approach is that the US seeks to perpetuate global warfare not merely to target local insurgents or anti-American regimes but effectively to stall the emergence of an “economic-political multipolar power-structure”, which would give states and regions such as China and Europe a more significant world standing.

The need for change

The hardest effect of the policies of Pakistan’s state and its foreign allies falls on the people of the region - millions of Pakistanis and Afghans living in poverty, under intense pressures of insecurity, and now (in the case of Pakistan) suffering enormous hardship and danger from weeks of unprecedented flooding. The inability or unwillingness of their political masters to deliver proper aid and support to desperate people both encourages further support for insurgents and creates space for militants and their networks to extend their influence: by (for example) establishing free madrasas, setting up relief-camps, and providing medicine and even generators.

There is no easy way to untangle the contradictions and hypocrisies in which the actions of Pakistan and its allies are enmeshed. But the process could begin if the United States and Britain were to make military and economic aid to Pakistan conditional on Islamabad ceasing support to Islamist insurgent networks, which would undercut these networks’ principal source of financial and logistical support; reduce Nato forces in order to reverse the direct correlation between the Afghan surge and the escalation of insurgent violence; and divert aid from military to humanitarian, development and infrastructure projects in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Such serious joint action would signal to the ISI that the game has changed.

As long as Pakistan’s security mandarins believe that Nato is dependent on them to win the war in Afghanistan, they will feel free to expand their regional strategic influence by military means. And as long as western backers of Pakistan continue to fuel violence through a military-dominated strategy underpinned by cold geopolitical calculations, they will aid Taliban recruitment efforts and prolong conflict indefinitely. The storms that assail Pakistan will only be relieved if the interests of Pakistani citizens are put at the centre of policy.

Sideboxes 'Read On' Sidebox: 

Institute for Policy Research & Development

Pakistan Security Research Unit

Foreign Policy - AfPak channel

Ian Talbot, Pakistan: A Modern History (C Hurst, 2005)

Pakistan Policy Blog

Long War Journal

Pakistan Conflict Monitor

Story of Pakistan

Ayesha Siddiqa, Military Inc: Inside Pakistan's Military Economy (Pluto Press, 2007)

Shaun Gregory, Pakistan: Securing the Insecure State (Routledge, 2008)

Sidebox: 

Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed is executive director of the Institute for Policy Research & Development in London. He is the author of A User’s Guide to the Crisis of Civilization, And How to Save It (Pluto Press, 2010)

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Later this month, world leaders will gather in New York to discuss the progress made towards achieving the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). With just over five years remaining before the 2015 global deadline, the UN has doubled its efforts to engage governments and civil society activists in order to address the remaining challenges ahead of the upcoming MDG Summit. 

Last month, the Iraqi government and the United Nations Assistance Mission to Iraq (UNAMI) released a joint report outlining Iraq’s progress towards achieving the MDGs and highlighting significant shortfalls. The report claims that although major gains have been made in reducing hunger, child mortality and promoting gender equality, Iraq has been slow in meeting other targets, including increasing participation in primary education and tackling unemployment. 

While Iraq is on track to achieve gender parity in education, primary school enrolment is only 77% compared to 92% in neighbouring Turkey. Youth unemployment is now double the national average of 15% and an assessment of its health targets has yielded mixed results. Measles vaccination coverage has jumped from 70% in 2007 to over 90% in 2009 and malaria has been almost completely eliminated, with no indigenous cases reported in 2009 compared to over 39,000 cases in 1995. But while infant mortality continues to fall, it is still among the highest in the region.

The report is particular brief on MDG-8, which calls for the need to develop global partnerships in development by easing market access in trade, tackling debt relief and sharing new technologies. It only cites improvements in access to telecommunications technology and fails to address the need for a concerted international effort to address development in Iraq.

Along similar lines, UNAMI signed a Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF) with the Iraqi government in May this year, outlining a coordinated strategy for the delivery of UN assistance over the next five years to ensure that Iraq meets its obligations toward the MDGs. While the plan prioritises the need to strengthen governance and economic growth through anti-corruption and public sector modernisation programmes, it crucially avoids addressing the effect of external forces that continue to hamper development in Iraq.

The importance of Iraq’s reintegration into the international community cannot be overstated. Following a decade of isolation and many more years of recklessness by a dictatorial regime, Iraqis find themselves unable to rebuild their country without the expertise of the international community, for two main reasons: Firstly, the brain drain that resulted from the exodus of thousands of professionals forced into political exile during Saddam’s reign, and the subsequent deterioration of the basic infrastructure following the sanctions, means that Iraq needs foreign investment to successfully rebuild the country.

Secondly, and more crucially, Iraq’s political and economic problems are still very much a function of a power balancing game orchestrated by foreign actors. The six months of wrangling between Iraq’s competing political blocs since the parliamentary elections in March, may seem at first glance, to be entirely the fault of bickering Iraqi political elites, but it is in fact symptomatic of the effect of Iraq’s neighbours on party political agendas that have strayed from the national interest.  

The effect on negotiations to form the next government was bizarrely illustrated shortly after the final election results were announced, when nearly all the major political figures (interestingly, with the exception of the prime minister) frantically made whistle-stop tours of the region, in a bid to pitch their visions of the new government to potential backers.  It saw some of the most unlikely bedfellows come together, with the Iranian-backed Supreme Council making an unprecedented visit to Riyadh to meet King Abdullah, while Ayad Allawi’s secular list sat down with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Tehran. This gave the impression that Iraq’s politicians were more concerned with the blessings of foreign governments than their own electorate, which did not go down too well with the Iraqi public.

Contrary to what some politicians and policymakers have suggested, rather than stepping in to mediate between Iraq’s deadlocked political blocs, the UN Security Council can play a constructive role by both curbing the external influence of foreign interests on Iraq, and strengthening the country’s sovereignty from within.

The five permanent members of the Security Council, along with other influential member states, can use their diplomatic leverage to pressure Iraq’s neighbours into halting the flow of cash to Iraqi political parties, and instead to focus on combating the flow of terrorists and arms across their borders.

Also, by helping to strengthen Iraq internally, Iraq can resist the pressures of foreign actors. Seven and a half years after the fall of Saddam’s regime, Iraq remains under Chapter VII of the UN Charter – a status reserved for pariah states that pose a threat to international peace and security.  This has restricted Iraq’s efforts to equip the army to protect its borders and to import certain chemicals and other goods, despite the fact that it has ratified several peace conventions

Chapter VII has also maintained Iraq’s burden of debt, which continues to stunt Iraq’s economic recovery. 5% of total oil revenues go to Kuwait in compensation for Iraq’s invasion two decades ago. Iraq has already paid $30 billion and it still owes over $22 billion. These funds could go a long way towards achieving Iraq’s MDG targets by investing in its war-torn infrastructure and raising living standards.

Iraq has border disputes with Iran over the Shatt Al-Arab waterway, and potential revenue is being lost due to unresolved issues surrounding the ownership of shared oil fields with its neighbours. And as Turkey continues to restrict the flow of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, Iraq is on the verge of a water crisis that could once and for all shatter any hope of rehabilitating its agricultural sector.

All of these problems require international solutions. Many around the world have criticised President Obama’s Iraq policy, arguing that it amounts to an irresponsible withdrawal at a critical time for Iraq. But what is more worrying is the view that success in Iraq is solely the responsibility of America. Iraq’s commitment to achieving the MDGs can form the rationale for a concerted multilateral diplomatic effort by the UN Security Council to tackle many unresolved problems that obstruct the potential for sustainable development and stability.

During his address to the nation marking the end of combat operations in Iraq, Obama said that the US had “paid a huge price to put the future of Iraq in the hands of its people”. While Iraq is no longer under the control of a brutal dictator, more needs to be done by the international community before Iraq’s destiny is firmly in the hands Iraqis.

Country:  Iraq

Technology attracts polarised reactions. At one end, techno-optimists will welcome anything that enables new actions or creates new choices. The process by which technologies are developed and disseminated is a path, perhaps the path, by which humankind improves its lot. This view is mostly expressed pragmatically and materialistically: technology is about doing and making things better. (Behind this, though, is an act of faith that doing and making things better is how our species and societies progress.) At the other end, Luddites and conservatives often mistrust or reject technology on principle. They regret the loss of the old ways and they don’t want to make choices or adapt.

Whilst many Luddites are just ignorant and dogmatic, we can’t deny that technology changes us too, and should pause to think and decide about the spiritual and social consequences of technical progress. It’s a challenge the technology cheerleaders, who want us to embrace our new personalities as we might embrace a new gadget, simply don’t understand.

Recently, then, I caught up with a fascinating radio essay by Robert Schurz, a writer, sociologist and practising psychotherapist based in Germany. The subject was online dating. Surveys suggest that in the 20-50 years age bracket, one third of all contacts leading to a relationship are first made online. Many people now spend more time in intimate conversation online than face to face. We are reaching, he concludes, a turning-point in the history of morals: it might be described sociologically as the dissolution of family; psychologically, as an incapacity for long-term relationships; it might also be the final triumph of individualism.

Humans have always had trouble meeting members of the opposite sex. In primitive societies, if incest was prohibited, one needed to go beyond the family unit. Hordes of youths might storm the next village in search of females, hacking the other males to death, or being themselves hacked to death. Online dating, on the other hand, requires no external social event, has few geographical or time constraints, and with sophisticated search offering fast and refined identification of suitable parties, is an incredibly efficient way of getting in touch with people. Our transition from one state to the other is the social history of family and pairing.

A metaphysical notion of the soul-mate is found in Plato’s myth of the perfect, spherical single-sexed double being, which for presuming against the gods was divided into two parts that then wished only to be reunited with their ‘other half’; a union of physical intertwining consummated in a languorous dual death. To relieve them from this fate, Zeus moved the sexual parts from the rear, where they had been in the back-to-back spherical form, to the front, so making heterosexual satisfaction and reproduction possible.

In practice, family standing, wealth, or political circumstances often determined partner choice, which was then concluded by contract. Many early societies permitted polygamy, a simple way of fixing mistakes without awkward separations.

The question of the ‘right’ partner reappeared in early Christian societies. By the fourth century the Church had started to undermine the power of the family and patriarchs by grounding marriage on the love and consent of the couple. But this is not a free choice, since each party is destined to love the person whom God has picked out for this purpose. Since love reflects the divine order, which in the early middle ages also governed the material world, there could be no contradiction between the two.

Bourgeois society undercut the Christian model in two key ways: first, with the idea of the equality of all people and secondly, through secularisation. Marriage from disinterested love requires people to be in principle equal. This increases the number of potential partners vastly, whilst secularisation denies divine predestination and paves the way for civil marriage. The bourgeois acknowledges both instant romantic attachment and complex worldly calculation as permissible foundations of a relationship – the interplay of the two is a constant theme in the literature of the 18th and 19th centuries.

But love at first sight, unguided by providence, can lead to error and tragedy. Love may not spring eternal. This tension between inclination and reason is resolved by the institution of divorce – “till law us do part” – though it took until the twentieth century for the taboo on divorce finally to go. Relationships are now a matter of trial and error. If they don’t work, we can have another go. We see ourselves differently too: singletons on a journey of repeated searching, finding, and leaving.

So what is new about the internet?

Not so long ago we met people in social environments – the pub, club, office, or disco. Locality remained important, as it had been earlier when families would gather at specific seasons and places so that potential partners could be introduced. Just twenty years ago, the only parallel with the internet today was the lonely hearts column in the newspaper. It was widely disseminated, easily accessible, context-free, and, critically, stated a party’s desire for a relationship. The only constraints were limited data and slow search.

The computer age has changed all that. Every candidate is visible, in unsparing detail, to every other. If this is the main criterion, the chances of finding the right person now look immeasurably higher, and the risks of making a mistake vanishingly low. Where once we might have met some hundreds of potential partners during our life, now we can meet millions.

In dating as in countless other areas, the internet has enabled the systematic exercise of rationally determined choice from a vast population of alternatives. The right partner is the one who possesses the optimal combination of physical and psychological characteristics. Our other half will perfectly fit into the jigsaw of our life.

To describe our ideal partner, we first need to know ourselves – wants, preferences, experiences, characters. So on the one hand, the search becomes more difficult as our requirements become more individualised, but on the other, we can now satisfy some very peculiar requests (“Cannibal seeks partner for lunch,” perhaps).

An odd thing about search is that we must first know what we’re looking for. Defining a search means defining what we want and ultimately ourselves. But what if we can’t do that, if we don’t know what we want? As Picasso famously said, “I don’t seek; I find.” Conscious search narrows the perspective, excludes possibilities. If I prefer blondes, I may miss out on a wonderful brunette.

So why are we driven to specify what we want? Well, studies of consumer behaviour show that given only a few alternatives we find it easier to choose and tend to be happier with the choice. It takes a lot of mental effort to choose between many similar items. When the outcome is important, we add to that the fear of ‘acting sub-optimally’, of getting it wrong.

This stress fuels the ever-increasing size and complexity of dating databases and search systems: the promise is to eliminate the risk of error. In practice, though, the opposite happens. Relationships formed online do not on average last long. “Marry in haste, repent at leisure” no longer applies, since behind every choice lie millions of viable alternatives. If it doesn’t work out, I refine my search, buff up my profile, and try again.

Partnerships themselves have changed too. When we are always ‘available’ it is hard to see where loyalty – perhaps a social response to limited choices – fits in. Where there is always a better alternative, there’s little incentive to stay together. Societies that value stability encourage family loyalty. Is online dating, forming and churning relationships, making our societies more volatile? Many factors contribute to rising divorce rates, but we shouldn’t dismiss the tendency to frame relationships as consumer goods.

Not only do we behave like consumers in seeking a partner, but we present ourselves as goods too. “I’m back on the market, checking my market value, making myself look good.” Whilst this is by no means new (“left on the shelf”), it is now all-pervasive. Moreover, in a market, choices and selection criteria have to be accepted without question. Their social or political content, as for example discussed in Peyvand Khorsandi’s recent oD article, are simply irrelevant.

Consumer choice leads to consumer disappointment. Nobody lives up to the advertising. In specifying the man or woman of our dreams, what kind of image do we call up? The more we expect, the deeper our disappointment. And as we define our desired partner in ever greater detail, the less we worry about accommodating our own behaviour to someone else’s wishes. Virtues such as loyalty, faithfulness, and adaptation, which arose as social forms to meet particular social needs, are still valued today, but it’s hard to base a critique of modernity on social virtues that are contingent or relative. More concretely, however, psychotherapists report significant recent rises in the incidence of depression, anxiety, and stress associated with finding a partner. These problems are almost certainly connected with the new ways this is happening and are unlikely to go away by themselves.

The computer age has accelerated the commoditisation of our lives. Everything is measured, calculated, and sorted. The online search for a partner is wholly rational and systematic, notwithstanding it still promises to deliver the love of one’s life – a claim it can never live up to. In the end, this is the paradox of online dating: the continually refined search and self-presentation leave the ideal soul-mate as unattainable as ever. Plus ça change, perhaps, or have we changed more than we think?

Sideboxes Related stories:  Racial exclusion in the world of online dating Topics:  Culture

Measurements of ‘global’ poverty are fairly meaningless since they disguise enormous variations between different countries, and no-one seems able to agree on what poverty means or how it should be measured – not exactly the ideal basis for a conversation about lessons learned. Poverty can go down while inequality and insecurity go up, and incomes can rise even though people’s wider sense of wellbeing is falling.

Stiglitz opened the proceedings with a few statistics and then rambled on for far too long. China, for example, had 673 million people living on incomes below US$1.25 a day in 1990 and ‘only’ 208 million in 2005, a dramatic fall in poverty, especially in percentage terms. By contrast, Sub-Saharan Africa saw an increase from 298 million to 388 million over the same period, though because of population growth the percentage of people living in extreme poverty fell from 57 per cent to 51 per cent – not exactly the African economic renaissance we’ve been hearing about from some pundits lately but evidence that progress is being made.

When it gets to explaining these trends and patterns the picture is even muddier, but both speakers were clear that the huge international machinery behind the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) has been fairly unimportant – a sobering conclusion for the UN General Assembly when it meets to review them in two weeks time. In explaining the poor performance Stiglitz laid a lot of stress on the deterioration of global finances, the malign influence of the so-called “Washington Consensus,” and a failure to invest in effective civil society and governance. Not much new there so what’s the bottom line? “Trickle-down economics don’t work.” “We should encourage new innovations like micro-credit, more efficient cooking stoves, social forestry, cash transfers and Oral Rehydration Therapy” – all interesting stuff but difficult to see how they add up in terms of State-building or the reform of global governance. I’d give the professor a B+ but hey, he won the Nobel Prize for economics, not me.

David Hulme’s presentation was spunkier though a little strange (neither speaker framed the spectrum of experiences of poverty-reduction over the last ten years to help participants make sense of all the different papers that are going to be delivered). Hulme’s thesis is that the gap between promises and delivery in foreign aid has been increasing over the last five years, with too much of a focus on planning, strategizing and management and not enough on changing the norms and values that underpin real progress, including the crucial issue of who sits in the driving seat. The MDG process was “the best political deal” that could have been struck ten years ago, but has been way too technocratic, top-down and dominated by interests in the North. The real problem is that “we” (meaning the majority of people in both rich and poor countries) “don’t care enough to make extreme poverty morally unacceptable in an increasingly-affluent world.”

This is undoubtedly true, but as two members of the audience pointed out in question-time, focusing our efforts on changing norms may not be the right conclusion – first, because it’s so difficult and second, because there’s a clearer and easier route to improvement: forget the MDGs and the proliferating industry of consultants and advisers that surrounds them, and focus on what’s happening in countries that are trying, and in many cases succeeding, in reducing poverty, which after all, is a deeply political process. Let’s see if the rest of the conference follows up this intriguing line of logic.  

Sideboxes Related stories:  Moving beyond the Millennium Development Goals: A more honest conversation?

It has become popular to talk about climate change policy in terms of energy security. Rather than saying we need more renewables, efficient building and public transport to meet climate change targets we now say that we need them to achieve energy security.

This trend is likely to continue. In November the British Government will introduce the Energy Security and Green Economy Bill. Eager to influence and improve the Act, development NGOs with climate campaigns and environmental organisations will have to talk about what they want in terms of energy security. If we want to be part of the debate we will have to stop calling for cuts in emissions to protect the world's most vulnerable people. We will have to start saying we must get more energy from renewables to increase energy security.
This might appear no different. Just another way of talking about the same thing. Both could involve investing in renewables, reducing the amount of fossil fuels we burn, building efficient buildings.

But when we talk about security we mean a world of peace and stability. For us security means peace-building. It means resolving conflicts, not military intervention. It means producing our own energy rather than fighting wars to secure oil and gas from other countries. We waved our ‘no war for oil’ placards in the run up to the Iraq war. For us security means addressing the root causes of instability. We mean changing the things that make the world unstable and prone to conflict: climate change, competition over resources, the gap between rich and poor. When we talk to people about energy security we imagine that they share this vision.

But we forget that there are other ways of looking at security. And our vision of security is not the dominant one. The approach that most western governments have to security is the exact opposite. Stability is achieved through the vigorous use of force. ‘Rogue nations’ are contained by military intervention. Insurgents and rebels are contained by special forces. Access to secure supplies of energy is achieved through war. The aim is to keep a lid on instability. Not to question why that instability exists or to do anything about it. The prime example of this approach to security is the ‘War on Terror’.

Perhaps we mistakenly think when we talk to people about energy security they buy into our definition of security. Let's not be naive. There is a reason they didn't listen when we talked about preventing drought, floods and disappearing islands. There is a reason they didn't listen when we talked about a just deal in Copenhagen, indigenous land rights and living within our environmental means. It’s because all of these things are inconsistent with their approach to security. In a world with a safe climate, economic justice and fair access to natural resources, their approach to security would be irrelevant.

When nowadays we talk about what we want in terms of energy security what we are actually saying is this: our vision for a renewably powered country is consistent with your vision for containing instability using violence. Our vision for energy efficient homes is consistent with your vision for military intervention. Let’s increase energy security by using renewables, but let’s also secure new energy reserves using force. Crucially we say our vision for energy security does not challenge your approach to global security. Our vision for energy security does not require you to do anything about the actually causes of instability and violence.

Without thinking we’ve given our support to an approach to dealing with the world’s problems that goes completely against our values. The situation is likely to get worse in the run up to the Energy Security and Green Economy Bill. In being forced to frame our demands for better climate policy in terms of energy security, our efforts to improve the Bill will unwittingly add force to a broader programme that is completely at odds with what we believe.

So what should we do? We must be explicit about why we want good domestic climate and energy policy. Let’s say that it is needed to achieve peace and stability. Let’s say that climate change and competition for dwindling energy reserves are both causes of instability and violence. We should make it clear that there the other causes of instability and violence - like nuclear proliferation and inequality - need to be dealt with too. Finally let’s be very clear that our vision for renewables and good domestic climate policy is totally inconsistent with the dominant approach to security.

City:  United Kingdom Topics:  Civil society

« Nous avons amené la torture, les bombes à fragmentation, l'uranium appauvri, d'innombrables assassinats commis au hasard, la misère, la dégradation et la mort au peuple irakien, et on appelle ça apporter la liberté et la démocratie au Proche-Orient. » Harold Pinter (Prix Nobel de littérature)

Irak ! Afghanistan ! Pakistan ! Ghaza ! Nous commençons à nous habituer à l'horreur des bilans macabres de dizaines de personnes journellement fauchées avec tout au plus une attention de quelques secondes, le temps de passer dans les médias européens et occidentaux à des informations évaluées selon d'autres critères. Un policier est mort, un bébé se noie ! C'est le branle-bas de combat des médias qui en rajoutent. D'un côté, des morts par dizaines des blessés, des vies brisées, de l'autre des unités. Sans tomber dans la concurrence victimaire, qu'on le veuille ou non, c'est la même humanité en Irak, en France, aux Etats-Unis ! Les grandes messes médiatiques, plus que jamais aux ordres, nous annoncent qu'Obama a décrété que la guerre est finie en Irak.

Avant justement de parler de la fin de la guerre selon les Etats-Unis. Qu'il nous soit permis de revenir sur le début de la guerre en faisant le bilan de la première croisade du XXIe siècle. Tout commence pour l'Irak, avec les 8 ans de guerre contre l'Iran, aidé en cela par les monarchies du Golfe et le camp occidental qui voulait conjurer le péril vert de la Révolution iranienne. Fin des années 80, la guerre alimentée par l'Occident termine par un non-lieu qui a rendu exsangue l'Irak. D'autant que la chute des prix du pétrole fut importante du fait que les pays du Golfe pratiquaient un dumping qui contournait les quotas. Ce qui exaspérait Saddam Hussein à qui le Koweït réclamait les prêts versés pour alimenter la guerre avec l'Iran. Résultat des courses, Saddam Hussein envisage d'envahir le Koweït pour récupérer sa 19e province [que la Grande- Bretagne avait détaché, suite à l'éclatement de l'Empire ottoman, au début du XXe siècle]. Il demande la « permission » aux Etats-Unis lors d'une entrevue le 25 juillet 1990 avec l'ambassadrice April Glaspie. Ils lui font savoir à mots à peine couverts que les USA ne se considéreraient comme nullement impliqués si l'Irak lançait une opération contre le Koweït. C'est ce qu'on appelle un « feu vert ». Une petite semaine après l'entretien, le 1er août 1990, Saddam pénètre au Koweït.

Tragique erreur ! C'est la faute inespérée qui a permis aux Etats-Unis, dont les réserves de pétrole étaient sur le déclin, de trouver le motif de s'installer durablement dans le Golfe persique. Plusieurs bases américaines sont installées dans tous les pays du Golfe. On dit d'ailleurs que pour savoir où sont implantées les bases américaines, il faut suivre les pipes. Le président des Etats-Unis, George Bush, prend prétexte pour mettre la coalition contre Saddam Hussein mis au ban du monde « civilisé ». Malgré son offre de se retirer, James Baker eut des mots très durs envers Tarik Aziz. Promesse tenue, le 17 janvier 1991, ce fut « Desert storm » la première guerre du Golfe. 400 morts du côté de la coalition, qui comprenait, il faut le rappeler, aussi plusieurs pays arabes.. Plusieurs milliers de morts du côté irakien, mais le régime a été laissé en place..

Par la suite, il y a eu 12 ans d'embargo pour la recherche d'armes de destruction massive et le fameux Plan « Pétrole contre nourriture » qui a affamé des centaines de milliers d'Irakiens et causé la mort de 500.000 enfants irakiens. Pour Madeleine Albright, secrétaire d'Etat de la période Clinton, « ce n'est pas cher payé si c'est le prix à payer pour faire partir Saddam ». L'avènement du born again George Walker Bush donna un coup d'accélérateur à la démolition systématique de l'Irak. Ce fut la deuxième guerre du Golfe, opération Iraqi Freedom, qui a débuté le 20 mars 2003. Prenant prétexte des ADM, jamais trouvés, des liens non prouvés avec Al Qaîda, les néoconservateurs comptaient faire coup double par le prétexte de la démocratie aéroportée et le Mepi (le Grand Moyen-Orient) : s'emparer des réserves pétrolières évaluées à 110 milliards de barils [Liens entre les néoconservateurs au pouvoir à Washington et des entreprises d'exploitation pétrolière, notamment le Groupe Carlyle, Enron, Halliburton Energy Services et Unocal et désarmer le Moyen-Orient pour permettre à Israël d'être la seule puissance en face de 300 millions d'Arabes avec éventuellement le règlement du sort des populations palestiniennes réduites à vivre sur un bantoustan sur les 18% de la Palestine originelle.

Après leur victoire sur un tas de ruines , les troupes de la coalition ont cherché à « pacifier l'Irak ». Néanmoins, la majorité des villes se trouvent dans une situation difficile : pillages, affrontements, règlements de comptes... Selon J.Stieglitz, le coût global de la guerre en Irak serait de 3000 milliards de dollars. Il y eut le scandale de la prison d'Abou Ghraib avec toute l'horreur attachée à la perversion d'un côté et aux souffrances de l'autre. En janvier 2007, en pleine fête de l'Aïd el Adha, Saddam Hussein a fait preuve d'un rare courage lors de sa pendaison. En octobre 2006, la revue médicale The Lancet estimait le nombre de décès irakiens imputables à la guerre à 655.000.

Pour la seule deuxième guerre du Golfe , l'Institut Opinion Research Business a estimé à plus de 1.000.000 le nombre de victimes irakiennes entre mars 2003 et août 2007. La guerre a provoqué l'exode d'au moins deux millions d'Irakiens. Ceci sans parler des dégâts occasionnés par le programme « pétrole contre nourriture » : plus de 500.000 enfants seraient morts de maladie et de malnutrition. Les dommages aux infrastructures civiles sont immenses : les services de santé sont pillés. Il y a eu une détérioration des canalisations d'eau et la dégradation des bassins hydrographiques du Tigre, de l'Euphrate. Il y a de plus, augmentation de l'insécurité générale (pillages, incendies et prises d'otage), suite à la désorganisation totale des différents services publics tels que les forces de l'ordre. De nombreux centres historiques ont été détruits par les bombardements américains, les combats et les pillages. Le Musée national d'Irak a été pillé. (1)

Les Américains quittent l'Irak : le solde de tout compte

En novembre 2008, les gouvernements irakien et américain ont signé un pacte bilatéral incluant le Status of Forces Agreement (Sofa) qui fixe à la fin 2011 le terme de la présence militaire des États-Unis. Les Américains avec la satisfaction du devoir bien fait, notamment par une mainmise sur les ressources pétrolières par multinationales américaines interposées, rentrent au pays. Dans son discours du 31 août 2010 décrétant « terminée l'opération Liberté irakienne », Barack Obama a précisé : « Notre engagement pour le futur de l'Irak, lui, ne prend pas fin » et il a ajouté que « les Etats-Unis seraient toujours présents en tant qu'ami et partenaire ». En clair, c'est toujours une armée d'occupation qui veille au grain avec comme priorité, sécuriser les puits de pétrole. Peu importe si, par leur faute, les Irakiens s'étripent à qui mieux mieux.

Obama a rappelé une promesse qu'il avait faite en tant que candidat. Un discours où il ne dit pas un mot de la souffrance des Irakiens, des décombres que les Etats-Unis laissent au contraire dans la lignée de Bush, il persiste et signe : « Les Américains qui ont servi en Irak ont accompli la mission qui leur avait été confiée. Ils ont infligé la défaite à un régime qui terrorisait son peuple. Avec les Irakiens et les partenaires de la coalition, ils ont fait d'immenses sacrifices. Nos troupes ont combattu pâté de maisons après pâté de maisons pour aider les Irakiens à avoir une chance d'avenir meilleur. Nous avons persévéré car nous partageons avec le peuple irakien une croyance : celle qu'un nouveau début peut sortir des ruines de la guerre dans ce berceau de la civilisation. Il est désormais temps de tourner la page . »

Du côté des néoconservateurs, c'est l'allégresse, Obama continue « l'oeuvre » de Bush. Doug Ireland écrit : Dans son discours sur la fin des missions de combat en Irak, Obama a bel et bien confirmé l'importance du pouvoir impérial armé. Les néoconservateurs applaudissent. Selon l'important ténor des néoconservateurs John Podhoretz, chef éditorialiste au New York Post, le discours présidentiel a incarné « un défi nationaliste au monde » quand Obama a dit que l'événement devait faire passer au monde « le message que les États-Unis ont l'intention de maintenir et renforcer [leur] leadership dans ce jeune siècle ». Encore « plus frappant », écrivait Podhoretz dans sa chronique titrée Barack le néo-con, « est le fait qu'Obama a présenté l'engagement américain en Irak comme un exemple de ce que l'Amérique peut faire quand elle le veut » car le président a affirmé que « cette étape doit servir à rappeler aux Américains que nous avons à déterminer l'avenir ». (2)

Pour Podhoretz, Obama « ressemblait à Bush » quand il a semblé bénir la guerre en Irak en déclarant qu'avec elle l'Amérique avait « assumé ses responsabilités ». Même son de cloche chez William Kristol, rédacteur en chef de la bible des néoconservateurs, le Weekly Standard, qui a écrit que le discours d'Obama était « louable », particulièrement quand le président a proclamé sur un ton guerrier que « nos soldats sont l'acier dans le navire de l'État...Ils nous donnent confiance dans la justesse de notre chemin, et qu'au-delà de la nuit qui précède l'aube, des jours meilleurs sont devant nous ». Une « déclaration pas mauvaise sur l'importance et la nécessité d'un pouvoir fort », conclut Kristol. Autrement dit, Obama a bel et bien confirmé l'importance du pouvoir impérial armé. C'est dire si la gauche a été très déçue par le discours présidentiel.(2) Le bilan

Nous donnons à Théophraste R. du journal LeGrandsoir le soin de nous décrire d'une façon simple et percutante l'histoire de l'invasion de l'Irak. « C'est l'histoire de sauvageons qui débarquent dans votre maison, cassent tout (sauf les objets d'art qu'ils volent pour décorer leur repaire), violent, tuent, circonviennent des membres de votre famille, fabriquent des collabos qu'ils arment pour les remplacer. Puis, les vandales quittent le champ de ruines en avertissant que le commerce des fruits de votre jardin est régi par des contrats qu'ils vous ont fait signer, le couteau sous la gorge, et dont le respect sera assuré par des nervis payés par eux. Ainsi, après bientôt 8 ans d'occupation, de pillages, de massacres à grande échelle, d'exécutions sommaires, de tortures, l'Irak détruit (où se déchaînent les sanglantes haines religieuses revigorées) est livré à un gouvernement élu sous la botte et dont l'allégeance aux intérêts états-uniens continuera à être contrôlée par 50.000 soldats résiduels US et des cohortes de mercenaires motivés par l'argent et par la garantie de l'impunité pour des exactions qui les conduiraient à la potence ou à la prison à vie dans les pays d'où ils viennent (...) » (3)

En fait, les Etats-Unis laissent un pays livré au chaos et il n'est pas interdit de prédire une partition de l'Irak en trois régions. Seuls les Etats-Unis avaient la capacité d'influencer les principales forces politiques en Irak, que ce soient les formations kurdes, chiites ou sunnites, afin d'éviter l'éclatement du pays. Une perspective toujours bien réelle. Pour preuve, le gouvernement du Kurdistan irakien est en train de signer des accords avec des compagnies étrangères pour l'exploitation du pétrole et du gaz. Et ce, contre la volonté de Baghdad.

Alain Gresh écrit à propos du chaos actuel : « (...) Cette guerre d'agression, non provoquée, déclenchée sous le faux prétexte de chercher des armes de destruction massive, est d'abord une violation des principes des Nations unies qui, le 14 décembre 1974 à travers leur assemblée générale, adoptaient un texte définissant l'agression. Au-delà de cette dimension juridique et des querelles qu'elle peut susciter, le bilan de la guerre américaine, menée sans l'aval des Nations unies, est accablant : destruction du pays, de ses structures étatiques et administratives. Il n'existe plus d'Etat irakien qui fonctionne. Sept ans après la guerre, l'électricité arrive à peine quelques heures par jour, la production pétrolière stagne, l'administration ne fonctionne pas, les écoles et les universités sont à l'abandon, etc. » (4)

« Reconstruire une structure unifiée et efficace nécessitera sans doute des décennies. Le confessionnalisme, encouragé dès les premiers jours par l'occupant, a été institué dans toutes les fonctions, et la répartition des postes se fait désormais en fonction de l'appartenance communautaire ou nationale. Les principales forces politiques sont « chiites », « sunnites » ou « kurdes ». Et demeurent une série de bombes à retardement, comme la délimitation des « frontières incertaines du Kurdistan ». (4)

« Le bilan humain est terrible. Si on connaît précisément les pertes américaines (environ 4400 tués), celles des Irakiens ont fait l'objet d'évaluations très diverses : on ne recense pas un mort "arabe" comme on recense un mort "occidental" ; seul ce dernier a un visage. (...) Et la question que personne ne posera : qui sera jugé pour ce crime ? Comment s'étonner que nombre de pays ne suivent pas le Tribunal pénal international quand il inculpe le président soudanais Omar Al-Bachir, ou des criminels de tel ou tel petit pays africain, alors que MM.George W.Bush, Dick Cheney et Donald Rumsfeld continuent tranquillement à couler des jours heureux en donnant des conférences sur le monde libre, la démocratie et le marché pour quelques dizaines de milliers de dollars la prestation ? » (4)

« Obama n'a pas eu un seul mot pour les civils irakiens, au moins 650.000 et peut-être même plus d'un million morts à cause de la guerre. Il n'a pas eu une pensée pour les plus de quatre millions d'Irakiens chassés de chez eux par la guerre et qui croupissent dans la misère dans des pays voisins, sans papiers, sans pouvoir travailler, et sans pouvoir retourner dans leurs maisons détruites ou par peur des violences sectaires des intégristes. Obama a passé sous silence les souffrances de ces victimes d'une guerre illégale contre un pays qui ne nous a rien fait de mal. Au lieu de quoi, le président a souligné qu'il fallait "tourner la page" sur cette guerre. Parce qu'il n'ose pas regarder ce qui est écrit sur cette page ! » (4)

Même Tony Blair occupé à parcourir la planète, avec ses multiples casquettes d'émissaire onusien, de consultant grassement rémunéré, écrit dans ses mémoires : « Je ne peux pas regretter. » Si c'était à refaire, Tony Blair n'hésiterait pas une seconde.

« L'invasion de l'Irak, écrit Harold Pinter prix Nobel de Littérature, était un acte de banditisme, un acte de terrorisme d'État flagrant, la preuve d'un mépris absolu pour le droit international. Combien de personnes faut-il tuer avant de mériter d'être décrit comme un massacreur et un criminel de guerre ? Cent mille ? » La question est à poser au Tribunal pénal international.

Chems Eddine CHITOUR enseigne à l'Ecole Polytechnique d'Alger enp-edu.dz

1. Chems Eddine Chitour

2. Doug Ireland : Obama enchante les faucons néo-cons

3. Théophraste R. : Tuez-vous, mais ne vous faites pas mal ! Legrandsoir.info 2.09.2010

4. Alain Gresh : Guerre d'Irak, le crime, Le Monde diplomatique, 2 Septembre 2010

Le mardi, 7 septembre s'est tenue une première rencontre des personnes en provenance du Québec qui ont confirmé leur participation au Forum mondial Éducation (FME) qui aura lieu en Palestine à la fin du mois d'octobre. Cette rencontre a permis de confirmer que ce sera probablement la plus importante délégation québécoise à se rendre en Palestine, soit environ une quarantaine de personnes. Mais il reste encore une semaine pour bénéficier des réservations conclues par le comité québécois d'appui au FME et les confirmations de participation seront acceptées jusqu'à la limite de l'obligation du paiement des billets d'avion. Pour prendre contact avec le comité d'appui, on peut écrire à quebec@wef-palestine.org ou en téléphonant au 514-583-4803.

L'importance de la délégation est aussi une question de composition sociale. En effet, si on retrouve plusieurs enseignantes et enseignants, qui proviennent notamment de différents ordres d'enseignement, commissions scolaires, collégial et universitaires, mais on y retrouve aussi des personnes en provenance de différents milieux d'éducation populaire et sociaux et des milieux de solidarité avec la Palestine.

Un important défi politique

Rappelons que le FME est un forum sectoriel du Forum social mondial qui porte sur les questions d'éducation en lien avec l'ensemble des enjeux sociaux. Il s'est parfois tenu en parallèle aux forums sociaux mondiaux mais il s'est aussi tenu de manière continue depuis le début du cycle des forums sociaux. Dans un contexte politique marqué à la fois par l'intensification de la mobilisation contre le blocus de Gaza mais aussi par une nouvelle amorce de négociations sous la houlette américaine, cette fois-ci, en se tenant en Palestine, le forum social en éducation constitue un important défi politique.

En effet, il vise à réunir celles et ceux qui luttent pour la paix et la justice sociale à travers le monde et plus particulièrement en Palestine. Il sera, de ce point de vue, un véritable rendez-vous internationaliste du mouvement altermondialiste en solidarité avec la lutte du peuple palestinien. Le Forum offrira un espace pour des débats autour du rôle de l'éducation en vue de « rendre un nouveau monde possible » mais il concrétisera certainement cet espace en l'amenant à s'élever contre les pratiques oppressives d'occupation et de colonisation israéliennes envers le peuple palestinien.

Artistes en action pour l'éducation en Palestine

Mais un aspect essentiel qui marque l'importance de la délégation est le souci d'élargir la participation à des personnes qui ont moins de moyens financiers pour y participer. L'effet d'entraînement du groupe vise à offrir plus de moyens financiers pour soutenir l'élargissement de la participation. Ainsi, tout le groupe est actuellement en campagne pour recueillir les appuis financiers de proches et d'organismes sociaux en appui à la délégation et au FME 2010. Dans ce contexte, une soirée bénéfice
Artistes en action pour l'éducation en Palestine - aura lieu le vendredi 24 septembre prochain à 20h30, au Cabaret Mile-End à Montréal (5240 avenue du Parc - près de Fairmount).

Les billets sont en vente au bureau d'Alternatives (3720, avenue Du Parc, Montréal, QC H2X 2J1, (514) 982-6606). On peut aussi en obtenir par la poste. Pour prendre connaissance des artistes qui s'y produiront, on peut télécharger le document ci-joint.

The EU is not a state and will never be one, but nor is it just a multilateral organisation or a trading bloc. It is itself, sui generis. It has huge economic weight its political decision-makers often find hard to deploy. At its best the EU - and the EU’s External Action Service (EAS) on the EU’s behalf - can be:

▪  More focused, bold and cohesive than the UN or the OSCE;

▪  Broader ranging in geography and issues than NATO;

▪  Admittedly slower, less targeted and with lower impact than a major state ;

▪  But also less selfish, flighty and fickle than most states (including its own members).

At the same time, no other major global actor has such a central and durable interest in building a world system based on the rule of law. For big and medium powers, interest comes first and commitment to the rule of law is contingent upon that, while, by definition, small powers are not global actors. The UN is global and law-committed but it is a forum rather than an actor; as a world body, it is no more than the sum of its heterogeneous states (and sometimes less). Its agencies depend for their continued operations on relations with states whose attitude to international law ranges from conditional via negligent to contemptuous.

The EU is a global actor in which the commitment to international law is hard-wired through the pooling of sovereignty that membership entails. This pooling makes sense in its own terms given the general benefits of EU membership. But it makes most sense in a world in which state sovereignty is more effectively constrained by international law than today.

For the EAS these considerations add up to prioritising an approach based on the long-term.  It means specialising in playing the long game. As the EU’s external face, the EAS will have a broader range of capabilities than most of its member states and more underlying policy durability than any of them.

Thus, an EU service dedicated to conflict prevention, security and stability must be able to interpret and operationalise each of these terms in a long-range perspective. When crises arise as they must, crisis response has to be focused on actions within that long-lasting framework, avoiding the temptation of simply chasing after events.

This is the ambition behind the service Cathy Ashton, Europe's first High Representative for Foreign Affairs, is setting up. What does she need to do in order to achieve it? Pretty obviously, she needs to get the set-up right and she needs some early successes.

As to the set-up, the central question is whether to try to mainstream peace and security issues or to set up a separate section. Cathy Ashton has clearly gone for mainstreaming. That’s to be commended for avoiding the risk of marginalizing the issues and the long-term approach. But there is a problem: long-term approaches to peace and security do not mainstream themselves across a service, especially one whose initial recruitment is inevitably and rightly of people who are well-established in their careers. So there are a couple of things to do – or get done – as the service approaches cruising speed late this or early next year.

First, Cathy Ashton needs to find an institutional home for a core team that acts as a centre of excellence on conflict prevention, security and stability within the service. If she doesn’t do that at the outset, long-term conflict approaches will be sidelined by the press of events and the dominance of crisis-response among her staff, on her agenda, in politics, among her international counterparts, in the air she breathes. To ensure the banner her service carries is not mere fluttering decoration she will set up some sort of special section eventually. Better sooner than later, I reckon.

Second, there’s the staff. To make sure that a viable conflict prevention strategy colours everything the service does, it has to be embedded in professional formation – in recruitment, career path, incentives and succession. Absorbing and operationalising it need to be among the criteria for reward and promotion. And it needs to be started now because it will be much harder to do it as an after-thought.

What success might look like

How would success look – that is, how will we know that the EAS is fulfilling the mission? What are reasonable criteria or expectations?

Thinking about the initial timeframe to mid-2013 when Cathy Ashton will present a major interim report, I would suggest two indicators:

1. What you might call a “good” crisis – i.e., a response to immediate events that shows the EAS and the High Rep herself bring something new to the table of international politics. Responding to a humanitarian disaster, whether natural or caused by war, with not just emergency relief but a long recovery and reconstruction plan would fit the bill.

2. Matching promise to delivery on, let’s say, two big issues. The EU is good at mouthing off, but the implementation is often deficient. The member states can usually agree to cover their differences with careful wording, but that paper over their cracks splits when the action gets started. If Cathy Ashton can conquer the internal divisions enough to produce consistency between the word and the deed -  that will be some achievement indeed.

So what would be appropriate issues on which to seek this consistency? I might say trade, not least because Cathy Ashton has considerable competence in that area, having been EC Trade Commissioner. However, trade remains a Commission area (or “competence”) so freedom of action here is limited for the EAS. I might also say relations in the EU’s neighbourhood would be a fruitful area of engagement, but these have also been removed from the EAS’s purview and put under the Enlargement DG (which, by the way, gives a confusing and even misleading message to, for example, the governments and people of the South Caucasus). I might also say the Middle East because an EU policy that implemented EU law in relation to Israel and Palestine is an outcome devoutly to be desired – but I think it’s also too high a bar by which to measure the EAS’s effectiveness because the role of the US is always the most important external consideration.

But there are plenty of other areas and issues where the EU needs to raise its game. Pick two from the following long-term security-related themes and regional issues:

▪                Climate change: Ref Copenhagen, the existing negotiating mechanism is bust. The EAS should not focus on designing a new one but rather on the complex diplomacy of constructing a coalition for a progressive response to climate change that includes mitigation, greening the economy and support for adaptation to face the impact of climate change, especially in developing countries. NEEDED: technical expertise, long view, diplomacy, financial ingenuity, huge sums of money.

▪                Relations with China: Now the second biggest economy in the world, un-ignorable on most major issues including climate change and trade, and increasingly a likely partner in building durable international trading relations and structures, as long as its concerns are not sidelined. NEEDED: long pragmatic view, deep understanding of China, tough diplomacy, capacity to link up diverse policy areas.

▪                Relations with Russia: Also un-ignorable, though those of its actions that are most important for the EU take place in a somewhat narrower framework of issues and regions than China’s. This is more than a question of energy security, which seems to be the filter through which many EU policy makers see the relationship with Russia, and also more than an issue of human rights, which is how many others seem to see it. The key question and challenge is how to construct a security partnership in the huge swathe of territory from southeastern Europe, through the southern Caucasus, the northern rim of the Middle East and Central Asia. NEEDED: deep multi-regional historical knowledge, long-term approach, solid diplomacy, tough-minded prioritisation.  

▪                Africa policy: Africa’s national and regional political institutions continue to be weaker than they need to be even if in many aspects they are getting stronger than they were. Powerful outsiders can therefore pick off what they want in Africa without helping on issues such as trade fairness, investment incentives, infrastructure and governance. The EU knows how to deliver development aid projects but, like other donors and outsiders, has little idea about how to support the development process in Africa. Putting that right is ambitious, and therefore slow, and also essential so it should start now. NEEDED: bold vision, clarity on objectives, coalition building, shedloads of money.

▪                The EU’s energy economy: The IEA estimates that meeting world energy needs and restricting carbon emissions requires investment in all forms of energy infrastructure amounting to $36.5 trillion by 2030 – i.e., about $1.8 trillion a year on average. In the long-run, that huge investment will generate profits, but mobilising it in the first place is the big issue. Unless the international energy market goes green of itself at an unfeasibly high speed, this is a deeply political issue. Inaction will lead to crises mounting year by year but inaction is the default mode for individual states. Which makes this an ideal topic on which the EAS should develop solid specialised expertise. NEEDED: capacity to combine knowledge from different fields, credibility so as to generate a shared view of the future, policy innovation, capacity to inspire joint action.

▪                International development: There is a quiet but important role waiting to be carried out. The large number of countries where the EU has a presence, in the form of a Union Delegation that the EAS will be running, means that the EAS is best placed to take this role. The task is to provide coordination and a degree of leadership to EU government donors in developing countries. It is always difficult to carry out the notional commitments to coherence between donor governments unless someone takes the lead. In a few cases, this comes down to a trusted individual from one donor agency taking the lead. In most cases it comes down to nobody doing anything very much - because whatever they talk about when they have their donor liaison meetings, they have to report back and get contradictory sets of advice and instruction from their capitals. Done carefully, the EAS could take the lead. NEEDED: a clear lead and a delegated attention to detail.

It’s a big agenda and this is not the full list of issues on which the world sorely needs a new, thoughtful and firm global actor. But if not the EAS, who? If not now, when?

 

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Country:  EU

Maybe it is the desire to sell books that makes Stephen Hawking claim the death of God and the death of Philosophy. (If you're in the UK, you can listen Hawking make this claim here.) M-theory, a variant of string theory, offers many possibe values for the cosmological constants and therefore many possible shapes of universes. So when you come to ask yourself the question, "Why am I here?", here is the answer: "you are in the universe which, by the setting of its cosmological constants, makes you, the perceiver possible. If things were much different – and they could be – you would not be here to ask that question."

This is a beautiful and intricate answer to the question. My favourite telling of it is in an article by philosopher Derek Parfitt. But I also think that the answer fails to answer the question in several important ways - it is an argument that fails ignoratio elenchi, as scholastics might have said: a valid conclusion that fails to address the problem it purports to solve.

There are broadly two big issues left out of Hawking's vision for the answer: first, there is no room in it for the self, for consciousness, for being. So in asking "Why am I here?", it conveniently forgets to answer anything about what selfhood might be. And second, most people asking that question are asking it as a prelude to another question, "What should I do?". And Hawking has no room in his M-theory for a world of "ought".

The two lacunae are closely related. The project for a life can only come out of a sense of empowered being, and that is what opens the possibility of a meaningful answer to "ought" questions. Our being and a sense of what we should do today arise from the possibility of self-production of the aspects of reality that are created out of meanings. I highly recommend the Raymond Tallis / Roger Scruton discussion of this point in this week's Standpoint, where Tallis writes:

A true humanist isn't somebody who naturalises humanity and argues that we can be explained entirely in biological terms. We are profoundly mysterious and we've hardly started thinking about ourselves in a post-religious way. As a humanist, I share something which is central to religion: a feeling for the sacredness and profound mystery of human life.

 

Sideboxes Related stories:  Can a machine change your mind? Brains are the means of access to communities of mind Brains and minds: science in the clear Topics:  Culture Science

Of course, Manchester is no stranger to discussions about poverty. As one of the cradles of Britain’s industrial revolution, the city has witnessed both innovation and exploitation in roughly equal measure, and has always attracted those seeking to understand the links between economic development and public policy. In the 1840s, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels met regularly at the same window seat in Chetham’s Library to discuss economics, and to exchange ideas about the “Communist Manifesto” that they published together in 1848. Engels had been sent to Manchester to work for the textile firm of “Ermen and Engels” in which his father was a shareholder, on the grounds that his son would reconsider his radical leanings after working in a ‘proper’ job for a time (some things never change!). Instead, the widespread use of child labor and other practices in Manchester’s factories led Engels to produce “The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844.”

A hundred years later, the “Manchester Schools” of labor economics (led by Arthur Lewis) and anthropology (under Max Gluckman) had a tremendous influence on the nascent discipline of development studies after 1945, which has been a specialty of the University of Manchester ever since, eventually spawning the “Chronic Poverty Research Center” and the “Brooks World Poverty Institute” (BWPI) which are organizing this week’s conference. In full disclosure, I am an Honorary Visiting Fellow at BWPI, but my experience of Manchester is more personal than that, having been raised in Burnage (now an area of unlikely urban chic), and then in Beswick and Bradford, one of the city’s poorest neighborhoods, when my father was rector of the Church of the Resurrection there in the 1970s. Somewhat ironically, much of that area, including the notorious “Fort Beswick” sink estate, was demolished in the 1990s to make way for the City of Manchester Stadium, now the home of the world’s richest football club (who play in blue by the way, not red). But while Manchester City may no longer be poor, poverty still exists in Manchester, though in different places, and, perhaps, with different causes and solutions.

In investigating these evolving patterns of global poverty, it’s unlikely that this week’s conference will produce anything as memorable as Marx or Engels, but with an all-star cast it should generate some useful insights. I hope you’ll tune in tomorrow and join the conversation, when I’ll be blogging around the opening session’s speeches by Nobel prize-winner and critic of all things neo-liberal, Joe Stiglitz, Margaret Kakande from Uganda’s Ministry of Finance (one of the most successful countries in reducing poverty in Africa), and David Hulme, BWPI’s incomparable director.   

Sideboxes 'Read On' Sidebox: 

Other blogs from the Manchester conference

 

 

 

http://chronicpoverty.wordpress.com/

http://www.oxfamblogs.org/fp2p/

 

There are very serious questions raised by Wikileaks' release of the Afghanistan papers. The greatest is whether Wikileaks' treatment of the information has endangered individuals in Afghanistan. If it has, and if Julian Assange, the peripatetic face of Wikileaks has been irresponsible with this sort of information, he needs to be brought to task for it. Zittrain is, as usual, cool and reasonable on what questions the leak raises.

But none of the questions around Wikileaks' treatment of the information, it seems to me, is much illuminated by the question – in itself also possibly important – of Assange's treatment of any women.

Is there a slur campaign? Who knows. But even if one was not started to discredit the man, there is certainly a rather odd bandwagon of slurring. Why, for example, does Techcrunch think it needs to comment on the matter. TechCrunch is a successful technology blog. It keeps me up-to-date with what's interesitng in the (mostly) Silicon Valley world of software start-ups. It has a refreshingly young gonzo style that makes me all nostalgic for the Internet bubble of the turn of the century.

The insinuating piece about Assaange, however, was not about technology and had no art to it at all. It relates sexual mores - the accusations are certainly reprehensible if true - to a judgement about Wikileak's handling of the Afghan material. The central argument seems to be that:

... delicate diplomancy and skirting the choppy waters of international issues which involve thousands of lives – like releasing highly sensitive government information about the Iraq war – is not the kind of thing you want someone who is careless about their personal life to take charge of.

When TechCrunch reports stories about the mores of one of their poster boys, Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, there is plenty of giggling, but no implication that the software suffers from his dating habits.

So why the link here? And what possessed an influential Technology blog to wade in like that? When they report on software, they know that it's about what the code does, and only peripherally about who does it. Without knowing whether what Assange has done as Wikileaks is good or not, I think it needs answering in terms of its influence on political and military events, and not with reference to what he may or may not have done as a casual sex partner.

Country:  Sweden Topics:  Internet

In the dawn of 31 May 2010 Israeli soldiers rappelled down onto the deck of a former Istanbul passenger ferry called the Mavi Marmara, one of a small international flotilla aiming to penetrate the Israeli naval blockade of the Gaza strip. The flotilla had sailed from Turkey in the full glare of international publicity, leaving the Israelis with plenty of time to come up with an appropriate and measured response. Nine passengers died from Israeli gunshot wounds (8 Turks and one Turkish-American), while 24 were injured (one American), some severely. The flotilla of six vessels carried about 700 protesters from 38 countries. Ten Israeli commandos suffered relatively minor injuries.

The Israelis were stung by the instant and almost universal condemnation of their actions. Many of the governments objecting to Israel’s disproportionate use of force also called on it to immediately open Gaza’s border crossings. The Gaza flotilla incident, as it is known, has continued to be viewed in relation to Israel’s harsh restrictions on trade with the Gaza Strip, which have been somewhat watered down since then. Without the outcry generated by this incident, Gaza would be even more of a hell on earth than it is today.

Mass demonstrations in Ankara and Istanbul expressed solidarity with killed or wounded Turks and others. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan described Israel’s actions as a “bloody massacre” deserving “every kind of curse.” He said, “This insolent, irresponsible, reckless, and unfair attack by the Israeli government which trampled on every kind of human value must be punished by all means.” Turkey, a long-standing member of NATO with US nuclear weapons on its soil, demanded an immediate meeting of the UN Security Council (UNSC), of which it is currently a member.

Turkey insisted on both an unconditional apology and an independent international investigation. Until recently Turkey and Israel enjoyed an exceptionally close diplomatic, military, and economic relationship. Because Turkey had been a critically important Middle Eastern powerbase for both Israel and the United States since their ejection from Iran in 1979, its protestations could not be overlooked. Moreover, an enduring rapprochement between Turkey and Iran would seriously undermine Western strategy in the Middle East.

Prime Minister Erdogan has thrown down the gauntlet to President Obama in words resonating throughout developing and Muslim worlds: “He can keep America embroiled in endless overseas conflicts and as the enabler of an illegal occupation, or become an historic peacemaker. Choosing to confront Israel and withdraw U.S. combat troops from Afghanistan might mean giving up a second term as president, but if he is willing to risk other people's lives in war he should surely be willing to risk his own political career for peace."

Even before Israeli troops boarded Turkish boats in international waters, arguably in breach of maritime law, Israel had used electronic means to impose a total blackout on communications with the outside world. The Israelis took command of the vessels and their occupants, who were incarcerated for several days without any opportunity to share their stories with international media when public interest was at its height. All their recording devices, cameras and so forth,were confiscated and have not seen the light of day since then – except for footage which, when taken out of context, appeared to support the Israeli point of view. The bodies of those who had been shot dead were eventually returned to Turkey, but only after they had been thoroughly washed, minimising the probability that any subsequent forensic examination will produce useful results. It has also been claimed that the vessels impounded by Israel for a considerable period of time, especially the Mavi Marmara, may have been tampered with to contaminate evidence.

While Israel was denying access to the many eyewitnesses to what had happened, the Israeli media machine embarked on a campaign of damage control. In essence the official Israeli story has not changed since then: unsuspecting, professional and well-armed Israeli commandos acting under cover of semi-darkness were unexpectedly set upon by a bunch of Islamic “thugs” and “terrorists” wielding an array of blunt instruments. In pure self-defence they had no option other than to kill nine and to wound many more, some apparently at close range, some from behind, and some with multiple shots. When Israel finally released the protesters to placate Turkey, Western media displayed little interest in their stories.

In the meantime an Israeli Arab woman MP who travelled with the Mavi Marmara and spoke out about her experiences has been demonized as a “terrorist” in a nationwide hate campaign, and has been threatened with death and the loss of her parliamentary seat. Even in the Knesset she has to be accompanied by a team of bodyguards.

Although Turkey insisted that it would be satisfied with nothing less than a prompt, impartial, credible and transparent investigation conforming to international standards, Israel would have absolutely nothing to do with this idea, which was in the meantime taken up by the UN Security Council.

The UN Secretary General then entered centre-stage by proposing to establish an international enquiry panel to be chaired by New Zealand’s former Prime Minister Geoffrey Palmer, now head of New Zealand’s Law Commission. Although Palmer is a big fish in the small pond of New Zealand - Palmer has taught at the Chicago Law School, the alma mater of President Obama - why did the UN Secretary General pull his name out of the hat, rather than that of someone with a higher international profile? New Zealand pundits have pointed the finger at former Prime Minister Helen Clark, now at the high end of the UN system, hob-nobbing almost daily with the Secretary General. Two very different publications have claimed that Palmer’s name was selected by the UN Secretary General from a short list submitted by Israel. Intriguingly, an Israeli newspaper recently claimed that the chair and vice chair of the UN panel were both known to be ‘even-handed’ towards Israel. This is Israeli code for ‘sympathetic to Israel’.

What is clear is that Geoffrey Palmer, widely perceived in New Zealand as a distinguished lawyer of integrity and acumen, has agreed to perform what may at first sight have appeared to be a standard legal task, albeit at a very high level and in a complex environment, of impartially reviewing conflicting evidence and arriving at just recommendations or findings. But he could be forgiven for feeling a little like the creatures of Animal Farm, who find that the pigs have written a new slogan on the wall each morning when they go to the barn.

After Palmer had agreed to be identified as chair of the UN panel, it became clear that the UN Secretary General was still haggling with Israel, Turkey, and the US over the membership, terms of reference, and mandate of the panel. No official record was kept of promises made in these conversations, as the Israelis, and perhaps others, were to discover, to their cost. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon does not emerge from all of this as a knight in shining armour. His announcement of the Gaza enquiry coincided with the publication of a damning condemnation of his management by outgoing Under-Secretary-General Inga-Britt Ahlenius. As head of the Office of Internal Oversight, Ahlenius was mandated by member states to audit the performance of the UN in terms of all the values which the UN pretends to embody – probity, honesty, consistency and so on. One quotation from her 51-page treatise will suffice: "It will take time to see the harm caused by the weak secretary-general because the process of decay and weakening of the Organisation and the Secretariat is a stealthy process".

From the outset Ban defined the goal of the enquiry in extraordinarily vague political terms, expressing the hope that it would make a “positive contribution to the broader peace process and more specifically to improving relations between Turkey and Israel”.

Some time after he appointed Palmer to chair the enquiry, Ban announced that the panel’s vice chairman would be outgoing Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, who, according to a reputable Israeli publication, is considered to be both pro-Israel and pro-United States. Although Aribe’s popularity in his own country is matched only by his unpopularity in neighbouring states, his administration has been beset by a series of damaging corruption and human rights abuse scandals. Israeli publications welcomed his appointment, but his controversial profile does not equip him well to function in what Palmer has called a “semi-judicial” capacity.

Even more damaging is the fact that the panel’s rules of procedure apparently require the chair and vice chair to reach consensus on any statement or report to go out under the name of the panel. Should Palmer be tempted into a display of judicial independence, he can be check-mated by Aribe. When challenged about Aribe at a press conference, Ban Ki-moon waffled on unconvincingly about how well they knew each other and how Aribe enjoyed his personal confidence.

Ban and Israel then became parties to a major diplomatic spat over the question of whether the panel would be empowered to question as witnesses Israeli soldiers who had boarded the Mavi Marmara (the Turks have indicated that their submission to the panel will include testimony from surviving passengers. They are not opposed to them being called before the panel, should it wish to do so.) Not one of the Israeli enquiries into the incident has heard testimony from Mavi Marmara survivors. The Israelis stated categorically that they would walk away from the enquiry if the panel insisted on hearing Israeli soldiers. This unresolved issue still hangs over the enquiry like a Damocles sword.

In this regard the following verbatim comment from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s spokesman is telling: “Before Israel gave the green light to its participation in the panel we had discreet negotiations in order to ensure that this commission would not harm the vital interests of Israel.” Although the UNSC had insisted on the need for the enquiry to be “transparent”, Ban categorically refused to make public its mandate, saying that it was “confidential”. In the meantime, the US has increasingly been suggesting that the enquiry should not look into the past, but should look to the future.

Most importantly, relations between the US and Turkey are becoming increasingly strained. The US has just declined to participate in major military war games in Turkey, at least in part because Israel was not invited. There was apparently a “free and frank” exchange of views between Obama and Erdogan on the sidelines of a G-20 meeting in Canada in late June. Obama is under immense pressure from right wing Republicans who are up in arms at the fact that this long-standing US ally – a model of quiescence for decades – now has the effrontery to challenge US hegemony in its own region. With an anxious eye to the November mid-term elections in the US, Obama encouraged Turkey to reconsider the implications of the position it is adopting on the Palmer enquiry, including its request for Israeli soldiers to be heard.

Geoffrey Palmer’s enquiry is caught between the shifting and colliding tectonic plates of the US, Israel, and Turkey. If his “semi-judicial” panel is prevented, for any reason, from hearing testimony from Israeli soldiers in addition to testimony from protesters, and from requiring Israel to hand over material evidence such as confiscated videos and films, politics will surely triumph over justice.

The Secretary General’s panel has so far received a report reflecting the findings of Turkey’s government-appointed enquiry into the flotilla incident. According to Turkey’s Foreign Ministry, the panel is to examine documents from Turkey and Israel, and will deliver its first progress report in mid-September. It is important to avoid confusing the UN Secretary-General’s enquiry with yet another UN enquiry currently being conducted in the name of the UN Human Rights Council. The members of this panel have already travelled to the Middle East to interview eye witnesses and to gather evidence on the spot. All involved states have supported the work of this panel, with the exception of Israel, which has refused to recognise it.

Present indications suggest that the Palmer panel may have confined its work to reviewing reports from Israel and Turkey, thus side-stepping any independent gathering of evidence or hearing of testimony from eyewitnesses. However, because the UN Secretary General’s panel is not scheduled to submit its final report until early 2011, it is still possible that the panel may yet address this thorny question. 

Country:  Turkey Topics:  International politics

Vladimir Putin’s interview with Kommersant was indeed a milestone, but not in the sense that people are writing about today. When I read it attentively, I realized that this was not for my field of knowledge: it’s a question for a psychoanalyst, rather than a political analyst.

The first thing that stands out is that Putin is tired.

The interview was given by a person in a state of permanent and severe stress.

Putin’s stress is caused by loneliness. His loneliness comes from mistrust and the alienation connected with it.

He is genuinely astonished that everyone is worried by those questions. He is angry that no one asks him about things that seem important to him personally (and in many ways are in fact important) – about the Northern Sea Route, the gigantic tentacles of gas pipelines, the GLONASS satellite system, new destroyers, archaeological digs, and everything else that is discussed so conscientiously and in such detail on state television. So he decided to answer all the other questions in one fell swoop.

"Listen, all our opponents are for a law-governed state. What is a law-governed state? It is compliance with existing legislation. What does existing legislation say about marches? You need to obtain the authorization of the local organs of government. Did you get it? Go and demonstrate. If not -- you do not have the right. If you go out without having the right, you will get it on the noggin with a club. That's all there is to it!" Vladimir Putin in the interview published by Kommersant daily

He finds it difficult to conceal his irritation. The interview was on the lines of “Everything you wanted to know about the opposition in Russia, but were afraid to ask”. There was talk of the dissenters, Khodorkovsky and Shevchuk – literally all the “political bogeymen”.

He was eager to dot all the i’s, but the end result was rather more like three dots at the end of a sentence... He hasn’t heard of Shevchuk, doesn’t know about Khodorkovsky, and the dissenters should invite the television cameras along. Which cameras – from CNN or the BBC? Perhaps Konstantin Ernst is prepared to show interviews with them? If that were the case, they would all be gone from Mayakovsky Square to the Ostankino TV tower in a flash, and OMON would have to clear the road for them.

Most surprisingly, I believe the Prime Minister spoke honestly and himself believed what he was saying. The intelligence officer has learned to believe in his own legend; it has become his second life. This is the mind’s normal defensive reaction against stress.

The stress is intensified by a growing misunderstanding. As Putin genuinely believes what he says, he doesn’t understand why people are so angry, when they have on the whole really begun to live better over the last ten years of abundant oil. Everyone, not just oligarchs and the police. In his heart of hearts, he is offended by the ingratitude.

Vladimir Putin on opposition:

“But here the objective is actually different! Not to obey existing legislation, and say that we want a law-governed state for some other people, but not for ourselves -- we are allowed to do what we want, and we will provoke you so that you give it to us on the noggin with a club. And pouring red paint on yourself, you say that the anti-people's government is behaving improperly and suppressing human rights. If the goal is provocation, you can always achieve success. But if the goal is to inform the public, the world and the Russian public, it makes no sense to provoke the government and break the laws.” Interview with Kommersant daily.

People are always afraid of something they don’t understand. Putin today doesn’t understand what’s going on in the Russian intelligentsia, but is afraid to admit this to himself.

I think he’s genuinely scared – not of the opposition as such (it doesn’t bother him at all), but by the fact that he can’t understand these people’s reasons for acting as they do. He tries simple explanations – acts of provocation, personal ambitions, personal interest – anything but the real explanation: protest against violence. So he feels that for him it’s important to send the opposition a signal – I’m not scared of you.

This is a classic situation: suppressed fear in turn gives rise to unmotivated aggression. Putin looks threatening, and puts everyone down – cultural figures who raise issues, human rights advocates who hold rallies and Americans waiting in ambush. The message for all is very clear – the authorities won’t step down, if you give them a finger they’ll eat your hand. The whole interview was written for the sake of this paragraph. It is obvious that from now on Putin’s slogan will be: “No retreat!”

This requires some thinking over. Putin has finally turned “bronze”. He is no longer a person, but a profile from an anniversary Soviet ruble. The interview clearly indicated that the line of Putin’s connection with reality is “one-track”. It is no coincidence that the stumbling block in the dialogue with Kolesnikov was the question about mistakes.

However, this doesn’t mean specific political mistakes: it is Putin’s personal business whether to admit them or not. Especially as his opponents have not always been manifestly in the right. What we have here is the cultivation of an infallibility complex. Putin is losing the ability to admit mistakes in principle. This is dangerous. It’s the point where politics end and clinical psychology begins.

 

Vladimir Putin has never shown much tolerance for dissent. Russia Today, pro Kremlin news channel reports on his interview with the Kommersant daily

An inability to see one’s own mistakes, admit them and correct them, sooner or later leads to inadequacy. That is, the person begins to interpret reality to justify the infallibility of the policy chosen. There is a gap between what is actually going on, and what Putin sees and feels. And the wider the gap, the more difficult things will be for Putin, because his incomprehension will grow. As incomprehension grows, fear grows, and as fear grows, decisiveness grows. It’s a vicious circle. How many times has this happened in history, including Russian history?  

The interview was supposed to demonstrate strength, and to a certain extent it was successful. Putin ended up looking like a bronze statue of himself. But in reality, this statue stands on the shifting sands of the doubts, torments and disappointments of a very lonely person.

Sideboxes 'Read On' Sidebox: 

Interview with Vladimir Putin. By Andrei Kolesnikov, Kommersant daily, Moscow, 30.08.2010 (in Russian)

First Person. An Astonishingly Frank Self-Portrait by Russia's President Vladimir Putin.
With Nataliya Gevorkyan, Natalya Timakova and Andrei Kolesnikov.Translated by Catherine A. Fitzpatrick.Illustrated. 207 pp. New York: PublicAffairs.

Kremlin Rising: Vladimir Putin's Russia and the End of Revolution, Peter Baker and Susan Glaser, Scribner; First Edition edition (May 31, 2005), 464 pages

Putin's Russia (Revised Edition) [Paperback], Lilia Shevtsova (Author), Antonina W. Bouis (Translator), Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; Rev Exp edition (January 2005), 457 pages

Sidebox: 

An inability to see one’s own mistakes, admit them and correct them, sooner or later leads to inadequacy. That is, the person begins to interpret reality to justify the infallibility of the policy chosen. There is a gap between what is actually going on, and what Putin sees and feels. And the wider the gap, the more difficult things will be for Putin, because his incomprehension will grow. As incomprehension grows, fear grows, and as fear grows, decisiveness grows. It’s a vicious circle. How many times has this happened in history, including Russian history?  

Vladimir Pastukhov

Related stories:  Putin in a ring of fire Vladimir Putin, "Soviet man" who missed class Vladimir Putin forever Putin: mentality of a street fighter 'Sovereign democracy', Russian-style Country:  Russia Topics:  Democracy and government