reclaiming citizenship

The New Responsibility: citizen self-empowerment, taking responsibility for the little piece of turf I stand on. There is nothing novel in this idea. It's roots go back to the Revolutionary ideologues of the Enlightenment, those guys that brought us the French and American Revolutions (and later, the Russian, Spanish, and Chinese Revolutions. Even Canada had it's own scaled back version in 1837 - footnote 1). The term "citoyen", citizen was made a term of honor. As citizens, all should be considered equal (at least before the law). Liberty, Equality, Fraternity! Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité! Libertad, Igualdad, Fraternidad!

            In periods of systemic breakdown such as we are living through (note 2), the suggestion that we cultivate virtue in our own backyard is, in fact, all that one could reasonably be expected to do! "Conquering New Worlds" is the project of another age: been there, saw that, now suffering the hangover from.. Our time of transition makes different demands on us, offers different opportunities. One of the more surprising of these new opportunities: our real - physical, living - world has a near infinity of ecological niches and few of these have been really explored or understood in any detail. Think of how the microscope opened up a whole new universe to human comprehension - all without moving a step, without crossing a sea. The "new" world of microbial life was literally hidden under our noses all the time! We simply didn't have the means to perceive it (esse est percipi! - what is perceived, exists..) Today, we need a new mental microscope to perceive the opportunities - and challenges - of the new (post cheap fossil energy) world we are entering. I suspect my perceived need to develop such a mental tool, led to my reconsideration of the old right wing buzzword, "responsibility"..

            Taking responsibility for one's own piece of turf means different things to different individuals. The existentialist philosopher, J.P. Sartre held that life is a "project" that we are responsible for:


"L'Homme est absolument libre, il n'est rien d'autre que ce qu'il fait de sa vie, il est un projet. Sartre nomme ce dépassement d'une situation présente par un projet à venir, la transcendance."

from http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Paul_Sartre

Wo/man is absolutely free, s/he is nothing other than what s/he makes of life, s/he is a project. Sartre considered this capacity to move beyond one's current situation via a future directed project a form of transcendence. (my translation, emphasis added)

           One recalls here Nietzsche's idea of "self-overcoming", of aiming high to hit high..

            For me, given the state the world is in, taking responsibility means the creation of Cultural Refugia to save the best fruits of the last 6000 years of Patriarchal Culture: calculus, the Periodic Table, the scientific method, the idea(l) of citizenship, democracy, human rights, feminism, Enlightenment Universalism (note 3). All the good stuff we want to save from the barbarian hordes.. All the good stuff we payed such a heavy price to obtain!

            Taking responsibility for one's own piece of turf implies, for an occidental, (re-)empowerment of the citizen (note 4). The citizen must take back control of our democracies which we have stupidly turned over to corporate interests in return for the cornucopia of mass produced goodies they have delivered us. One definition of fascism reads:

fascism: control or seizure of the State by the corporate elite

            Democracy means rule of / by the People. If we take this definition literally we must admit that, as citizens of democracies, we have let ourselves be brainwashed by the corporate agenda which is to maximize profits. Hyperconsummerism maximizes profits. We let ourselves be brainwashed / manipulated by the advertising industry to maximize the profits of multinational corporations.

             Unfortunately, we find it more convenient to displace responsibility for our moral failures than to assume blame (and the responsibility that comes with it). The corporations "program" us to consume (regardless of the cost to the environment and future generations). But if we take the definition of democracy seriously, we, the citizens, are ultimately responsible for the results because, under democracy, the citizen is king..

              Today, if we are to save at least some of the furniture (my Cultural Refugia!), we - citizens - must reclaim our authority from the corporate usurpers and the craven politicians who serve them. Reclaiming responsibility means reclaiming authority for the word "authority" implies responsible use of power - responsibility. By assuming responsibility for the turf s/he stands on, the citizen also self-empowers, assumes the robe of authority..

              In practice, this leads to the odd situation where a left wing critique of society leads - "paradoxically" - to a right wing conclusion: accepting responsibility in our personal life, for our personal relations with the people around us, accepting responsibility for our little piece of turf. If things are going to change, I must become the local center of change from which all change ripples outwards. The Buck stops with me..

              In practice, this is not an easy message to accept! People on the Left or Center of the political spectrum - even those of the moderate Center Right - accept that some, at least of the evils of society are structural in nature: They transcend individual actions or volition. Evils such as racism existed before my birth: they form part of the structure of social reality I was born into. If leftists feel they are losing ground, as today, it becomes tempting to  throw in the towel with the cry that "the System is rigged!" and we are its victims.

             The reality, of course, is that over the long run, everybody is the victim of somebody else (!!!) This why I am viscerally opposed to mass "compensations" to victims of slavery, war.. (without, of course, denying that criminal liability - for causing an accident or selling an unsafe product - is a desirable and useful category). Carried to the extreme, where does apportioning blame end? Blacks are compensated for slavery and racism, First Nations are compensated for having their land stolen, Canadian citizens of Italian and Japanese origin are compensated for incarceration in determent camps during World War II. 

             But once again, the devil is in the details! One can make a case, given evidence from the US an Canadian governments, that citizens of Japanese origin did not constitute a security risk and, if anything, were ultra patriotic to their adopted nations. On the contrary, Italian Canadians of the WW II generation have admitted that determent camps for Italian immigrants and new citizens were warranted: Mussolini was sending his agents to Québec to foment separatist dissension along racial and religious lines (appealing to common "latin blood" and the Catholic faith). Montreal's Italian community of the1940s was a hotbed of political agitation, threats, boycotts, beatings and the odd bombing. So who, then, "deserves" compensation for WW II determent: the patriotic Japanese but not the fascist-infiltrated Italian community? Who decides the good apples from the bad..

                 Pushed to its limits - women compensated for Patriarchy, for example - everybody would be compensating everybody else with no net gain or loss (except for the corps of money shufflers who, of course, would charge exorbitant fees - lawyers and their ilk..)

                 Victimization is a sordid human reality (and probably always will be). But a sense of victimization combined with powerlessness can create the toxic social environment we inhabit today. Researchers studying jihadist terrorists who were born in Western countries have noted that some of these people are acting from an intense sense of injustice at the evils inflicted on the Muslim world by the "Crusaders" of the arrogant West. We may choose to dismiss such indoctrination as mere "propaganda" but such an attitude misses the point! The brainwashed youth who joins ISIS may be doing so from noble motives: to avenge wrongs done to innocents (with whom they identify). It's hard to find sentiments more noble than that..

                 The common sentiment of powerlessness, of lack of control over our collective (or individual) destinies is, I suspect, a major breeding ground for the various forms of fanaticism and extremism we see around us, from  Global Warming deniers to European neonazis, American militias and jihadist martyr-terrorists.

                 How else can we counter these toxic byproducts of the sense of powerlessness, than through the (re-)empowerment of the Citizen, who is each one of us?

                 In order to regain any efficacy at all, the Left, in the coming increasingly turbulent decades, will have to address the question of individual responsibility and its relation to larger social goals. We have to face the question of the relation of the individual - his rights and duties - to his society. We will need to examine the nature of citizenship itself  in this dawning millennium.  

 internal blog links:

http://transparencycanada.blogspot.ca/2015/01/book-review-zealot-cautionary-tale-for.html

http://transparencycanada.blogspot.ca/2014/10/climate-change-is-threat-multiplier.html 

http://transparencycanada.blogspot.ca/2014/09/do-you-know-fanatic-are-you-fanatic.html 

http://transparencycanada.blogspot.ca/2015/02/book-review-dogs-are-eating-them-now.html

 notes:

1- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebellions_of_1837

2- among the challenges the world faces: climate change, overpopulation, breakdown of essential ecosystems and the natural services they provide, depletion of non-rewewable resources, failure to make a speedy transition to renewable resources and energy systems when we still had time, over-exploitation of renewable resources (thereby functionally converting renewable resources into non-renewable, depleting, ones), the rebirth (or renewed vigor) of racism and religious fanaticism..

 3- Enlightenment thinkers like the 18th century German philosopher Immanual Kant held that human nature is universally the same but expresses itself differently in different cultures and historical epochs. "All men are brothers." 

4- Citizen / citoyen: definition, from http://www.toupie.org/Dictionnaire/Citoyen.htm

"Etymologie : du latin civis, celui qui a droit de cité, citoyen.

Historiquement, un citoyen est un membre d’une cité-Etat grecque, disposant du droit de suffrage dans les assemblées publiques. Il participe aux décisions de la cité relatives aux lois, à la guerre, à la justice, à l'administration...

Pendant la Révolution française, le terme "citoyen" a été réutilisé par opposition au "sujet" (du roi). Il permet de désigner tout homme sans notion de hiérarchie, par opposition à la Noblesse. A noter que, durant cette période, les termes "citoyen" et "citoyenne" ont été utilisés pour remplacer "monsieur", "madame" et "mademoiselle"."

etymology: from Latin "civis", one who has right to the city, a citizen

Historically, a citizen was a member of a Greek city-state, possessing the right to vote in public assemblies. He - only males had full citizenship - participated in municipal decision making relative to lawmaking, war, justice and administration.

During the French Revolution, the term "citoyen" was re-employed in opposition to "sujet" (a "subject" of the king). "Citoyen" designated any man without reference to position in the social hierarchy.. During the revolutionary period the terms "citoyen" and "citoyenne" were used to replace the traditional modes of address: sir, madame, mademoiselle,.. 

How stupid can you get, I mean, really, how S-T-U-P-I-D..

       In a move of stunning self-serving venality, the *&%?@+%!$& Harper government cut funding to a volunteer based program to re-integrate sex offenders into the community. Although Harperites like to preen themselves on their hairy chested individualism, this program, assisted citizen volunteers to leave a positive mark on society. (I guess it was the social - as opposed to personal wealth - aspect that bugged the Harperites so much.) 

        The program, Circles of Support and Accountability, was recognized for its value around the world. Not only was it exceedingly effective in reducing sex offender recidivism, it actually saved lots of money: incarcerating criminals is expensive and then there are the economic losses and health costs resulting from trauma to the victims and their families.
  
         Instead of accepting the results of a study which concluded the innovative and successful program was highly effective, Harper choose to take the low - the very low - road and toot his little horn of "Law and Order", playing the populist trump card for all it's worth. Don't forget we've got an election coming up.

What craven "@¦¬¾%¤¤£¢¢!     

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/sex-crime-prevention-program-cut-by-ottawa-1.2979196

           Some days, folks, it is really, really hard not to detest..

Book Review: everything you wanted to know about mass extinction but were afraid to ask

Editor: Paul D Taylor: Extinctions in the History of Life. Cambridge University Press, 2004 / 2009. 175 pages, copious figures, extensive academic bibliographies for each chapter, excellent and concise glossary.
  
Abbreviations used in this article:

By: billion (1,000 million) years
Bya: billion years ago
CC: climate change
ME: mass extinction(s)
My: million years
Mya: million years ago

        

                                     inostrancevia, skull - Permian age

           The six chapters of Extinctions, each authored by a major researcher on mass extinctions (ME), are the fruit of a symposium convened by the Center for the Study of Evolution and the Origin of Life. The aim of both the symposium and the text "has been to make accessible - at undergraduate level - key findings and current  debates concerning extinctions in the history of life". Hence: everything you wanted to know about ME but were afraid to ask..

            Extinctions is a wonderful book, rather well written (or edited) and intellectually stimulating to no end - for dinosaur geeks and budding paleontologists.. 
However, it could be a valuable text for some other classes of readers:

- Anti-Climate Change (CC) activists who want to assure themselves of a really scientific base for their argumentation. In the mind of many earth scientists, CC is the major driver of biological evolution on earth.

- Green Energy advocates wishing to present the risks posed by CC as arguments in favor of non-carbon based energy sources: solar, wind, tidal, geothermal..

- Anyone interested in "environmental issues" such as species conservation and habitat preservation. Knowing more about extinction mechanisms contributes to the development of better programs for preserving biodiversity.

- General - but informed - readers of ecology and earth science. Readers should be minimally "informed" as Extinctions targets an undergraduate (college / university) audience. You might find the text a tad difficult if you think that "Paleozoic" refers to the antics of Sarah Palin.


          As a kid, I was a dinosaur geek and could rattle off a bunch of species names and their descriptions. But I was puzzled by their disappearance. What would cause these great beasts to go extinct? Not obvious, that one..

                          inostrancevia (Permian age) - what, exactly, would it take
                              to kill these boogers off..

          As a kid, I was a dinosaur geek (still am) and could rattle off a bunch of species names and their descriptions. But I was puzzled by their disappearance. What would cause these great beasts to go extinct? Not obvious, that one..

          No one, back then - the 1960s - had a clue it seemed. One theory even claimed that the herbivores dies of constipation - from changes in vegetation - and the carnivores followed them into oblivion, a domino effect.. Dinos died of constipation, OK..

          I also learned about other mass extinctions, equally puzzling. In the Great Dying of the Late Permian, 250 Mya, most of the species capable of leaving fossils, on land and sea, went extinct. Why? No one knew..

          Today, extinction researchers can piece together the Big Picture of Evolution and ME patterns from the accumulated wealth of several centuries of classification of fossils. New scientific and statistical methodologies permit deeper understanding of the dynamics of extinction and recovery. Thanks to stable isotope partition measures, a deeper understanding of ancient climatic conditions and extinction / recovery mechanisms is emerging. And the Big Pic is truly fascinating!

           Earth scientist are more like detectives than physicists.  Like forensic investigators they work backward from evidence - sometimes disturbed - left at a "crime scene" (ME as depicted in the fossil record) to establish the events, the actors and their interactions. Who did what to whom, when and how.. Unlike the physicist, earth scientists cannot simply translate a hypothesis into an experiment and test it in the lab. Evolution's time scale is in My and its scope, the entire earth!

            Earth scientists - paleontologists, geologists, paleoclimatologists, paleo-ecologists,.. - work mostly with the clues Mother Nature has left behind. Like the forensic investigator, the earth scientist relies more on inference than experimentation (as physicists or chemists would do). Each branch of science eventually ends up developing its own particular style or blend of scientific methodology.

             Mass extinction (ME): a geologically"short" period of time during which the earth's biota is severely depleted. Species numbers - biodiversity - drop as extinction rates rise above normal or "background extinction rates".

             ME are, most realistically, a constructive factor in evolution, "removing incumbents and allowing other groups.. to prosper and diversify". In the long run this led to diversification and evolutionary "progress" (? bigger brains?). Although the anthropocentrism is obvious, we humans have "benefited" from increasing brain to body weight ratio among the "higher" vertebrates. This "cephalisation" appears to have been stimulated by past ME. We literally owe our human consciousness and intelligence to ME. If we believe that our consciousness and intelligence are gifts then we have ME to thank in large part.

            Contrary to popular opinion, ME are not responsible for the majority of species extinctions. ME occur at intervals of tens of missions of years. Probably more than 95% of species extinctions are simple background extinction events. The average life expectancy for mammalian species is about 1 million year - much, much, shorter than the average lapse of time between ME.

           ME are complex, multicausal events (the detective at the crime scene again! Who did what to whom, when and how..) Plants and animals tend to respond differently to ME. Genetic lines - clades - of plants generally include a broad range of morphologies: weeds, creepers, vines, little and big shrubs; little, medium sized and big trees... Thus, if ME selectively eliminates trees and shrubs, the clade will survive as weeds. Overtime, some of the weeds will re-evolve into new shrub and tree species. Thus plant clades tend to be more resilient than animal clades, although extinction levels at the lowest -species - level of classification may, in fact, be comparable between plants and animals.

             One hypothesis I initially rejected but now lean toward: ME are not really "abnormal" events at all, rather they represent the random coming together of severa; factors (no one of which would be lethal) into a Perfect Storm - or sucker punch. Thus the accepted view that the dinos were killed off by an asteroid strike (Alvarez 1980). is today seen as an oversimplification. True, the strike was a big one and, chemically speaking, occurred in a bad type of rock (carbonates, sulfur). But evidence increasingly suggests that the earth has experienced numerous large bolide strikes without ME. One ME researcher, Tony Hallam, has labelled the asteroid strike as the "coup-de-grâce" which finished off an ailing Gaian ecosystem already fragilized by CC.

             Among the potential causes of ME:

- volcanism (ejection of CC-producing gases like sulfur oxides, carbon dioxide and methane)

 - bolide impacts. Only one ME, the K/T extinction that killed the dinos, has been rigorously linked to massive impactors.

- sea level rise or fall

- ocean anoxia ("dead zones" lacking oxygen)

- CC: global warming or cooling

- changing continental configuration which modifies important atmospheric and oceanic currents which, in turn, regulate climate. In addition, large continental masses experience greater climatic extremes in central regions than smaller continental masses.

         Thanks to technical advances, all of these may now be detected and, to some degree, be quantified in the fossil record.

          One of the "constants" that has consistently emerged over the last few decades is the important role that CC plays in ME. Some form of CC is found in most ME even if, as stated earlier, it is "only" part of a Perfect Storm that kills massively.

           We need to pay heed! Today humankind is massively injecting gases into the atmosphere that, when massively injected into the atmosphere in the past (volcanism), are highly correlated with ME. Are we playing Russian Roulette with the air we breathe and the seas which feed us? The fossil evidence appears affirmative.

           And so, what to do? (addressed to the reader..)

           To repeat myself, this is a really great book for dino geeks and those with strong interests in the earth sciences, intellectual or practical. It summarizes, for an undergrad university readership, what is known today about ME and their impact on biological evolution.

            Extinctions raises interesting philosophical questions for those so inclined. There is, for example, the question of the significance of human "control over" nature as we (potentially) enter a new geo-biological age, the Anthropocene (footnote 1). In contemplating the fossil record of ME, I conclude that any possible viable human regulation of natural processes would be founded, not on domination or "power over" nature, but on balance and equilibrium, on justice and wisdom - a rather tall order, given the state of the world today! 

            In reality, human have "benefited" from past changes, both "normal background" extinctions and the dramatic large scale transformations we call ME. Without these changes we would simply not exist! Today, however, we find ourselves in the curious position of provoking changes which  - if past records (fossils) are reliable - will inevitably led either to the extinction of our species or, at the least, to the destruction of our "advanced" technical civilization. Ultimately one is led to a reflection on the very nature of human nature itself: given what we are doing to our planet, are we collectively MAD?

notes:

1- Anthropocene: to the traditional 5 bio-geological "eras" - the Archean, Proterozoic, Paleozoic, Mesozoic and Cenozoic - some contemporary thinkers have suggested that we are living the transition to a sixth era, one in which (human) consciousness becomes a major factor in biological evolution. James Lovelock, creator of the Gaia Hypothesis (the earth as a living "macro-organism"), refers to this new epoch as the Awakening of Gaia in which Nature becomes fully conscious in wo/man. One could cite the French theologian Teilhard de Chardin as an intuitive precursor, who saw a "planetary consciousness" emerging as the unfolding of God's Plan. More recently the French philosopher / sociologist, Edgar Morin, has written of consciousness now becoming an active player in the evolutionary process. For Morin, this has become possible because of the recent rapid evolution of science and technology and the power they confer to manipulate genes, mind, matter and energy on increasingly larger and more integrated scales.
  
The bio-geological eras of earth

Archean, 4.5 Bya to 2.5 Bya: appearance of life, early primitive microbes

Proterozoic, 2.5 Bya to 550 Mya: appearance of stable continental masses, more advanced microbes (eurkaryotes)

Paleozoic, 550 Mya to 250 Mya: appearance of "modern" - multicellular, oxygen breathing - animals and plants

Mesozoic, 250 Mya to 65 Mya: age of dinosaurs, first appearance of mammals and birds

Cenozoic, 65 Mya to 18th century CE: age of mammals and birds, appearance of humans

Anthropocene, 18th century to ??
          

When is a Non-Profit organisation not?

           The message from the Harper government has been quite clear. They promised transparent government but what we got are information flows that accord with the Conservatives' probusiness bias. Thus if climate scientists produce results which do not accord with the desire of the petrochemical industry to maximize profits, they find themselves defunded or forced to go through a humiliating censorship before being allowed to speak to the press.

http://transparencycanada.blogspot.ca/2012/04/decline-and-fall-of-canadian-science.html 

 

             Scientists working in the environmental sciences have been particularly hurt. The Experimental Lakes project in Ontario was a federally funded program that studied the long term effects of atmospheric pollution (which Harper's friends, the Oil Patch, produce in large quantities). Harper cut funding to the world renowned long term study of freshwater ecosystems. Private interests had to bail out the project and provide it with long term funding. But why, for a totally petty saving, axe a world class long term study? Their work was recognized of great value around the world. Finding a sponsor probably was not all that hard: it's the principle - and the pettiness of the Harper crew - that galls and irks.. 

The following link gives links to previous related blog articles.

http://transparencycanada.blogspot.ca/2013/03/experimental-lakes-areas-curious-episode.html

The following link is a comment by two earth scientists on the resolution of the Experimental Lakes project funding cut:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/experimental-lakes-area-is-saved-but-its-a-bittersweet-victory-for-science/article17753956/ 

  
               The saga continues. Recently Dying with Dignity a group advocating for the right to die with medical assistance (euthanasia, if you wish..) lost its charitable status, presumably because it advocates for causes that Harper's political base doesn't like. Fundamentalist Christians in particular probably don't take to kindly to this one. 

               The up front, publically presented, rationale as usual is budget cutting to reduce taxes and government bureaucracy. (The do so want to help the harried taxpayer, don't they?) The Harper government has the right to revue the tax exempt status of nonprofit organisations in the light of a law which it passed. The (stated) goal is prevent "excessive" policy advocacy on the part of pressure groups, using nonprofit organisations as "fronts". On paper it sounds nice. In practice, that's one cool potential tool for imposing censorship, if there ever was one! (Especially if you are willing to bend or ignore your own rules to control the information flow..)

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/dying-with-dignity-loses-charitable-status-after-political-activity-probe-1.2919706

                  As always, the devil lies in the details. A nagging question. Why are not organisations which support causes favorable to the Harper (neo)Conservative government not as stringently audited as organisations who support causes not so favored by the Harperites?

http://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2015/01/23/why-havent-any-harper-friendly-charities-been-scrutinized-keenan.html

Book Review: The dogs are eating them now - Canada at war

Graeme Smith: The dogs are eating them now. Alfred A Knopf Canada, 2013; 283 pages, index, photos, maps. Weak points: no references, chapter notes or bibliography.

          An admirable piece of reporting which stimulated a lot of mixed feeling: always a good sign! - shows the author is challenging old paradigms of thinking.. Anyone interested in West / Muslim geopolitics, Canadian foreign policy or Third World "development" ought to put it on their reading list.

         Dogs is good reading and NOT. Smith writes rather well for a journalist (who, after all, are time pressed people). His message, though, is disconcerting for those who still believe in "traditional Western values", particularly those political values originating in the Enlightenment: reason, rights and representative government.

         Dogs tells the story of Canada at war in Afghanistan following the World Trade Center, New York city, attack of September 11, 2001. Smith was sent to cover the war for the  Toronto Globe and Mail. Apparently, he fell in love with the country and its people for he has left journalism to work for the NGO, International Crisis Group in Kabul.

         Dogs is a rather disturbing book for several reasons. The author's style is transparent, he is rather bright and very curious (a real news ferret - especially dirty news ferret). He appears to be a straight-up dude who tells it like he sees it. The fact that he has chosen to work for the reconstruction of  Afghanistan - despite the personal risks - indicates he is writing from the right place: he cares for Afghanistan's people. (One may disagree with his analyses but at least he is writing from the right place.. which is the essential condition for truth.)

        The central "theme" I take away from Dogs is the incredible - unconscious and unconscionable - hubris of the West. I use this term in both senses: 1- narcissistic arrogance and 2- "transgressive" (knowing no bounds or limits). Stunningly, these attitudes underlie so much of what we did in Afghanistan - so much of what the West does everywhere in the world! - even when we imagined ourselves to be acting selflessly and doing good for Afghans.

        The war started off so good and then began to rapidly unravel after initial victories against the Taliban. What happened? Analyses - post mortems - are difficult: human societies are complex with many "variables" interacting simultaneously. Post mortems will always finger "the" reasons a mission failed but perhaps a better question to ask is "how do we learn to avoid disaster in the first place or, at least, learn to read the signs of impending disaster so we can change our course of action before it is too late?"

        I'm not sure if I did discover much of an answer to that question in Dogs (except, perhaps, in the reconfirmation that Western hubris has once again blinded us to signs which, if we were wiser or humbler, could have warned of future difficulties). But I knew that anyway, I knew we are hubristic; Afghanistan's just worse than I imagined..

        By June 2006, the Afghan Taliban, who had sheltered the terrorist movement Al Queda, appeared to be on the run. Al Queda was held responsible for the 9-11 atrocities against the US and now Al Queda had been successfully expelled from Afghanistan. Likewise, it's Taliban host had been ousted and dispersed into the hinterlands of Afghanistan and Pakistan. A suitably pro-Occident government had been set up in Kabul. Foreign "reconstruction" money poured in. Roads were paved or built. Girls, whose education was forbidden by the fundamentalist Taliban, now went to new schools which were being built at an incredible pace. Or so it seemed, following the self-laudatory Western press. The schools for girls were especially touted in Canada since Canadian contractors built many of them. Only later did we learn that corruption and unpredicted funding cutoffs ruined many worthwhile projects (schools, hydraulic works..) Some were simply shoddily built. Failed development projects, falling apart, unused or abandoned, dot the landscape. In some cases, compensations were woefully, insultingly, inadequate. One farmer Smith interviewed had his multigenerational family farm confiscated to build a road needed for economic development in the region. The farmer accepted the need for the road but not what he was payed: a lump sum settlement of $350 for a farm which produced $2500 annually and had been in the family for many generations! The following link provides access to four articles on failed Canadian aid projects in Afghanistan which appeared in the Globe and Mail, July 14 to 25, 2012.

http://rogerannis.com/canadas-failed-aid-in-afghanistan/ 

         Less than two years later, by March of 2008, things were going amazingly badly. The "insurgents" - the Taliban and "sympathizers" - were recapturing lost territory. Corruption seemed worse than ever. Suicide bombers were sowing havoc with a new wave of attacks, often against supposedly secure or "hardened" targets. One can cite multiple brazen jailbreaks at the Kandahar city prison, liberating many suspected Taliban along with common criminals. Some degree of inside assistance to the insurgents - even within the civilian population of the neighborhood of the jail - must be assumed. "Foreigners" were so unpopular that, prior to one jailbreak, Taliban fighters actually went brazenly door to door warning people in the prison's neighborhood to be out of town when the shooting started. And none of those people bothered informing the authorities of the impending jailbreak! Meanwhile, the drug trade in opium and heroin boomed as never before, fed by lots of loose foreign money and a nascent local consumer culture (electronics, SUVs, gated communities.. for the emergent Western-style bourgeoisie).

          In conclusion, Smith lists four general errors or misconceptions committed by NATO forces:

1- Afghanistan is a tribal society. The war against terrorism, on Afghan soil, tended to degenerate and dissipate into tribal feuding, actually exacerbating traditional cleavages and feuds. "Those connected to the rich foreigners showered patronage on their own clans, while the excluded groups jealously fought for their share." (page 202)

2- Airstrikes feeds insurgency. "Technology" is the magic bullet, we think. The Vietnam Conflict had a 50 : 1 kill ratio due to the technological superiority of Western forces. In Afghanistan and Iraq, the kill ratio was over 100 : 1. Such lethal asymmetry makes war palatable for Western publics. Just enough allied dead to strike patriotic chords but not enough to impel bloodthirsty mobs to set up guillotines on the White House lawn for a regime change. But, as we have learned elsewhere, "there is no free lunch, kid!" There are hidden costs (externalities) of high tech war. Most obvious is "collateral damage", civilians killed in error, either in targeted drone hits or in more conventional bombing and strafing runs. Worse, Afghanistan is an "honor culture": familial honor is sacred, dishonor requires revenge. "Afghans saw the international forces as cowardly when they called fire power from the sky. When civilians died, whole families felt a need for revenge" (page 204)

3- Opium is a cottage industry. Dissatisfied with his access to sources, Smith tried an experiment. He sent a trusted confidant to interview Taliban and insurgent sympathizers, always asking the same set of 20 questions. 80% of the interviewees admitted to growing opium (for the cash, since they were poor and the war wasn't helping..) 50% claimed to be be victims of opium eradication programs. Interestingly, the insurgents claimed that, if they could make money other than by growing poppy, they would prefer to do so. They recognized the social and moral issues involved in opium cultivation: criminality, addiction, production of a crop which injures others.. The first question which comes to my mind here: why, 70 years after World War II, are countries like Afghanistan still "economically depressed and technologically backward"? Have we spent our money badly, on arms rather than on small scale, participatory, sustainable development? On investment in large scale cash crop monocultures to the exclusion - even detriment - of social infrastructure like schools, hospitals, old age pensions, family planning / birth control / abortion, female education, child support (for education)..? It's obvious we've done something wrong! "As a man sows, so shall he reap" - Jesus (but also the Buddha and other world Teachers)

Here is the link to Taliban interviews conducted for the Globe and Mail by Graeme Smith and colleagues:

http://v1.theglobeandmail.com/talkingtothetaliban/ 

4- Perhaps most surprisingly, the Taliban are nationalistic - or patriotic - reactionaries who want to expel the morally, spiritually corrupting influence of the West. They do not appear to be "international terrorists", they just want foreigners out of their country. (Other groups, of course, can and do, promote international jihadism which raises the question: are we fighting the right war in Afghanistan? It was supposed to be about fighting international terrorism..) 

         Will we learn from our past mistakes? In Iraq and Afghanistan many of the errors of Vietnam appear to be repeated. Can democracy be imposed by war on a society with little or no democratic tradition? So far, one must admit, the results aren't too promising.. 

Book Review: Zealot - a cautionary tale for our times?

Reza Aslan: Zealot, the life and times of Jesus of Nazareth (Random House, New York, 2013), 272 pages, index, bibliography, copious and excellent chapter notes, chronology, map of the Holy Land, diagram of the temple of Jerusalem.

Biblical quotes, unless noted otherwise, are from the New King James Version, Thomas Nelson, 1992, Nashville, TN

              Professor Aslan is a biblical scholar of secular persuasion (and a bit irritatingly cheeky about it at times - one of the few weak points of the book). In Zealot, he searches for the "Christ of the humanists" below centuries of theological accretion and "elaboration" of the original Christmas story.

           On a purely novelistic level Zealot is a quite good read. It recounts the partisan struggle of the "Israeli National Resistance Movement(s)" against the occupying Roman army and Rome's local allies: the priests of the Jerusalem temple, the hellenized bourgeoisie engaged in the profitable "Mediterraneanized" trade (the Romans' version of globalization). The Pax Romana - the Roman Peace - was a feeble pre-echo of Pax Americana, scaled down to shoebox size to fit into the then known world.

 

                                   The dying Gaul, Roman statue, 1st century ce

            The poorer Palestinians of Christ's time deeply resented the Roman occupation and many messianic leaders rose to stir the population against the occupiers. Groups like the Zealots and the "daggermen" (sicarii) carried out targeted assassinations and random acts of violence against "collaborators". Compared to modern suicide bombers, the rebels' technology was barely adequate to the job yet sufficed to raise Roman ire and fear. In 56 ce, about 25 years after Christ's execution by crucifixion, daggermen murdered the high priest of the Jerusalem temple, the sacred heart of Israel. No one who served the foreign master felt safe any longer..

            Jesus of Nazareth was born poor. Prof Aslan argues he was probably illiterate and from a numerous family (those numerous references to "brothers and sisters", some named, which have troubled Virgin Birth theology for centuries). ( See footnote 1). Aslan speculates that Jesus and his brothers were employed by the rich landowners of the larger towns of his region (Galilee). There, he learned to detest the foreign master and their servile collaborators. At some point he realized he had a divine mission to cleanse the land of foreign rule and institute God's Kingdom on earth as promised in the the prophetic teachings.

"He who sacrifices to any god, except the Lord only, he shall be utterly destroyed." Exodus 22:20

 

                          the ancient temple of Jerusalem, sacred heart of Israel

The question of biblical miracles. While some rationalists might disagree, Prof Aslan wisely sidesteps the issue of the "reality" of biblical miracles. Miracles were simply part of the world view of the age. 

Augur: (Latin) A diviner who predicts the outcomes of human activities from natural "signs": storms, behavior of birds, "meteorological" phenomena like meteors, comets, solar or lunar eclipses. These priest-diviners were employed by all ancient civilizations as far as I can tell: Rome, Greece, Egypt, China, new world civilizations..

"Sign": precursor events believed to reveal future events in a symbolic manner. Physical causality, as we understand the term in modern physics, was not - strictly speaking - involved except, perhaps, in a secondary, derivative sense: as the means by which a symbolic connection between two events manifested itself. (For the ancients, it was often the perceived symbolic connection which was more important than the actual physical processes that manifested the connection. See, for example, psychologist Carl Jung's notion of synchronicity.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronicity 

           Court astrologers in ancient Egypt, Rome, Greece, China, India.. constructed birth charts of royal children to discern their destiny. The biography of the Buddha gives a striking example of the practice and the importance attached to it. Animal sacrifices with divinatory analysis of the liver - hepatoscopy - were conducted prior to Roman military maneuvers. 

 

                                          divinity Mithras sacrificing a bull

           Healings in Christ's world could be interpreted as exorcisms of evil spirits. Thus we read in Luke 9: 38 -43:

"Suddenly a man from the multitude cried out, saying 'Teacher, I implore you, look on my son, for he is my only child. And behold, a spirit seizes him and he suddenly cries out; it convulses him so that he foams at the mouth; and it departs from him with great difficulty, bruising him..' Then Jesus answered and said:..'Bring your son here." And as he was still coming, the demon threw him down and convulsed him. Then Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit, healed the child and gave him back to his father. And they were all amazed by the majesty of God."

             The point here is that such beliefs were part of the ancients' picture of "reality", just as our modern beliefs (or disbeliefs) are part of our modern "reality". I guess reality just ain't what it used to be..

               There is a corollary to the above observation: to project our beliefs back onto the ancients' world and judge their behavior by our belief systems is a wee bit anachronistic (not to say unfair!) If you lived in ancient Palestine would you be "smart" enough to diagnose the child as epileptic? And even if you managed to dream up some modern notions of "central nervous system lesions" as causes of epileptic seizures, what treatment could you possibly offer to that boy and his father? Prof Aslan wisely accepts the biblical stories as offering indices of how Jesus and his mission were understood by those followers who lived after his death and recorded his life.

             Since I have an above average interest in comparative religion and - to a lesser degree - biblical times, Prof Aslan's book held no major surprises of historical fact or scholarly interpretation. I suspect, though, that many who have not reflected on the Christmas story since their childhood Sunday School will find much to surprise, even shock, them in Zealot. I especially appreciated Aslan's copious and most excellent chapter notes which present the alternative - even opposed - views of other scholars. Of course, much of the history of those poorly documented times will always remain subjective and interpretive (unless, of course, someone invents a practical time machine so we can see for ourselves..) In the final analysis, the final judgement must be the credibility the reader accords to the author. Aslan's Christ is, at least, plausible.

              Resistance to foreign military occupation in biblical Palestine  resembles the movements of resistance to empire seen in our own equally troubled times. The term temporal resonance popped into my mind several times during my reading, suggesting an inner "resonance" between our age and that of ancient Palestine and Rome. It is if the two epochs - despite the evident differences - somehow "marched to the same drummer". Perhaps, they share a common socio-political or spiritual dynamic, a "common constellation of forces" acting to produce similar - or analogous - events.

              In this "parallel history" reading, modern America becomes Nova Roma, once again dominating the Holy Land. Today's Arabs could replace the biblical Hebrews as a colonized nation. The Islamic State (or ISIS) and other jihadist sects could be seen as modern Zealots and "daggermen" (sicarii):

"Zeal implied a strict adherence to the Torah and the Law, a refusal to serve any foreign master.. and an uncompromising devotion to the sovereignty of God.. Many Jews in 1st century Palestine strove to live a life of zeal.. But there were some who.. were willing to resort to extreme acts of violence if necessary, not just against the Romans and the uncircumcised masses, but against their fellow Jews, those who dare to submit to Rome. They were called Zealots." (Zealot, page 40)

              Interestingly, we note that the majority of the victims of modern Zealots, the jihadists, are fellow Muslims just as most of victims of the Zealots and daggermen where fellow Jews.

               Like modern jihadists, the Zealots (and followers of messianic rebels in general) can be see as Utopians. The Kingdom of God on earth will be a true paradise. Oppressors will be punished in the name of God. This message rings clearly from the prophetic books of the Old Testament:

"You shall not afflict any widow or fatherless child.. If you afflict them in any way and they cry at all to Me, I will surely hear their cry [God is speaking directly]; and My wrath will become hot, and I will kill you with the sword; your wives shall be widows, and children fatherless." Exodus 22: 22- 24

               In concluding my reading of Zealot, I read the Epistle of James, recommended by Aslan as a particularly pure representation of the teaching of the early christian community of Jerusalem. James is generally accepted as a brother of Jesus. James assumed leadership of the community after his brother's crucifixion in 30 - 33 ce by the Roman occupation troops. Christ was duly crucified by the Romans as a rebel; worse, he was a self-proclaimed messiah.

              Christ's execution brought no peace though. The three decades following the crucifixion witnessed numerous messianic contenders - ancient competing jihadist sects, one could say - who tested the mettle of the occupying Romans. (The parallel - "temporal resonance" - with today is obvious: competing Jihadist sects carrying out terrorist campaigns against the West, whom they consider as a humiliating occupier.) 

              Revolt succeeded revolt: 36, 44, 46, 57 ce. Murder succeeded murder, in retaliative echoes. The high priest  of the temple of Jerusalem was murdered in 56 by a daggerman assassin. James, the brother of Jesus, was murdered in 62 ce because he was a troublemaker. Then, from 66 - 70 ce, the Great Revolt. The Romans, roused finally to action, retaliated - as was their wont - massively and barbarously (note 2). The temple of Jerusalem, sacred heart of ancient Israel, was razed - "not a stone shall remaining standing atop a stone" as the New Testament (retrospectively) "prophesies". The Zealots were liquidated: their last stand, the siege of the fortress of Masada where the defenders, rather than capitulate, committed suicide. Jews today still revere those Zealots who "fell for religious freedom".

                          ruins of the ancient fortress of Masada, Israel

              The ancient state of Israel was effectively wiped off the map by the Roman retaliation. Thus began the Great Diaspora of the Jews over the world. The modern state of Israel was only re-established after World War II, nearly 1,900 years later. (Another "temporal resonance": Israel and the great temple of Jerusalem did not exist for 1900 years, now they do - once again..)

                So what does this story tell us? Different readers will draw different inferences, of course. But one possible set of lessons or interpretations relates to empire and the hubris it breeds, about the human spirit and resistance. The story reminds us, too, that we have not evolved much - not morally anyway - over the past 20 centuries..

               The story of Jesus the Zealot also speaks to deeper values and aspirations. What is the good life? What is the good society? In the limit: what is the meaning or purpose of our life, if any?  Like our modern globalized, free market economy, the Roman Empire was both a time of increasing generalized wealth and a spreading gulf beween the rich and poor. It is of this gulf that the Epistle of James - Jesus' brother and leader of the Jerusalem church - speaks most eloquently.

             Responding to an early intra-sect dispute over the relative value of "faith" versus "good acts" which split the Jerusalem church from the churches following Saint Paul, James stresses the necessity of good actions in the community:

"What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food and one of you says to them, 'Depart in peace, be warmed and filled', but you do not give the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead."  Epistle of James 2: 14 - 17

               Likewise, more than any other writer, except perhaps the Jesus speaking to us in the Gospels, James excoriates the rich for their inequity in their dealings with their fellow Jews. In words which pre-echo Karl Marx:

"Come now, you rich, weep and howl for your miseries that are coming upon you!

.. Indeed the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out; and the cries of the reapers have reached the ears of the Lord of Hosts. You have lived on the earth in pleasure and luxury; you have fattened your hearts as in a day of slaughter. You have condemned, you have murdered the just, he does not resist you.

Therefore be patient, brethren, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, waiting patiently for it until it receives the early and the latter rain. You also be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand" James 5: 1 - 8

               I finished this excellent book feeling I had been through some kind of a time warp.

   

 

                                     contemporary Sicarii - "daggermen" 

Update: comparison of the inequity of opportunity and access to resources (physical, cultural, spiritual..) in the ancient Middle East and the modern global economy. The spreading gap between the rich and the poor. Our world indeed reflects the economic, political and social conditions of Christ's world, but on a much larger scale. One percent of the world's population now controls 50% of it's wealth, a much greater imbalance than existed under the Roman Empire!

http://www.oxfam.org/en/pressroom/pressreleases/2015-01-19/richest-1-will-own-more-all-rest-2016 

            What did Jesus have to say? Matthew 9:24

"And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God."

            Bizarrely and ironically, many conservative "christians" in North America consider wealth - and the power over others it naturally confers - as a "sign of election", a token that God has predestined them for heaven. Their wealth is, so to speak, a foretaste of eternal future happiness in the next world. What a pathetically transparent self-serving dogma serving as a rationalization for social injustice (which biblical prophecy also often excoriates..) LOLOLOL!

            Mathew, chapter 5, the famous "Sermon on the Mount", presumably contains the core teachings of Christ (highlighted by red print in my King James bible):

"Blessed are the peace makers, for they shall be called sons of God.

Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven."

            "Jesus" - or the school who spoke in his name - were both proposing a utopian social scheme (The Kingdom of God on Earth) and "prophesying" what such a world could look like (if we had the wisdom to chose to go that way).

           Today, one may argue over whether Jesus was a true "universalist" or not. Was he out to start a new universal world religion? Various New Testament texts don't support this view: "Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophet. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill" (Matt 5:17) Likewise, many modern scholars reject the end of the gospel of Mark, 16: 9 - 20, as a late addition to the original text. However, this "late addition" marks a charge to "go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature" (Mark 16: 15) In effect, we may say that the "Jesus sect" was rejected by most Jews: Zealots, after all, did provoke the Roman reprisals which destroyed the temple and the ancient Israel state! In reaction to rejection, some followers of the "Jesus sect" turned to proselytizing the pagans (most notably Saint Paul and his controversial "mission to the Gentiles").

          A "universalist mission" cannot, however, be easily thrust aside even if we do conclude that Jesus was addressing fellow Jews only. The prophetic - Old  Testament - tradition that Jesus refers to does, in fact, present an idealized Israel that shall be a beacon for all nations, a standard of righteousness and justice for all wo/men.             

         On a larger, ecosystemic level of analysis, our unsustainable economies - based on non-renewable (hence depleting) resources - are plundering, polluting and destroying the natural world which sustains all life on earth, including humanity. We are making the ideal of God's Kingdom on Earth even harder to realize. We are headed in the wrong direction, totally..

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/sep/29/earth-lost-50-wildlife-in-40-years-wwf

         Here is a "Zealot" re-interpretation of early Christian (or proto-Christian) history just found on the Internet. It dates from 10 years before the publication of Prof Aslan's Zealot!

http://www.eclectica.org/v7n3/rogers.html 

          

notes:

1- Other scholars disagree and cite texts in which Christ is depicted teaching in synagogs and reading sacred scrolls. They also take the term "rabbi", applied to Christ by interlocutors literally, implying that he had religious instruction.

2- I suppose one could draw a parallel with the attack on the World Trade Center in New York, September 11, 2001. 3000 people died in the original attack. The following war against Iraq killed - conservatively - 300,000, yet Iraq had absolutely nothing to do with the 9-11 atrocity in New York City! Romans, old or new, don't change their ways so easily..

       I would like to wish all our readers a wonderful New Year 2015. I also want to thank you for taking the time to read our poor lines - much appreciated! I just looked at our stats and, even though I took a month off, I was surprised (amazed actually) to find that we still managed over 650 pageview during the last 30 days. Nudge, nudge: we could probably do a better job if you let us have feedback about what we get right and what we don't..

       Update: we have some interesting things to post this month! Firstly, a review of Reza Aslan's life and times of Christ, Zealot (2013), a book whose themes have been thrown into stark relief with the recent massacre in Paris at the office of the caricature magazine, Charlie Hebdo.

        We are also planning to do a review of Canadian journalist Graeme Smith's The dogs are eating them now (2013), a first hand report and analysis of Canada's war in Afghanistan. This war followed the Sep 11, 2001 terrorist attact on the World Trade Center in New York city. Now is the time for an objective overview and a progress report. Did we get our money's worth? I've heard Smith speak, this should be a good one..