It’s always easy to criticize. Let me offer a bit of praise. Last Sunday’s Times article on Faisal Shahzad was a massive improvement — from the perspective of implied narratives — over the previous week’s article on the influence of Awlaki, which I criticized. Mainly, it’s better because it focuses on the personal travails of Shahzad and their intersection with larger forces, which to me gives a more complete — if less scary — account of why he did what he did. (I can only assume the editors read this blog and responded accordingly!)
Author: Eamon
Fighting child sex trafficking in Tanzania
Note: I just saw that this article I wrote, reported from Dar es Salaam in January, had been published here on Global Post this last weekend.
DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania — Say “child trafficking,” and you’re likely to conjure up images of organized crime and international smuggling rings.
But sexual exploitation of children is often the result of more ordinary pressures: poverty, disease and social disintegration.
In Tanzania, where trafficking of poor girls from rural to urban areas is a serious problem, these are the complex social issues that anti-child trafficking workers are trying to disentangle.
Desperation and families broken by AIDS are often more dangerous enemies than gangsters, says one of the most prominent groups trying to end child exploitation in the country, the Kiota Women Health and Development Organization (Kiwohede).
“The rings of the pimps are not coordinated in this country,” said Justa Mwaituka, Kiwohede’s executive director. That means individual trafficking rackets are relatively easy to break up. The underlying causes, however, appear harder to root out.
Consider Fatuma’s story. A slight Tanzanian girl who looks much younger than her 16 years, Fatuma sat on a battered wooden chair wearing a T-shirt and skirt in a Kiwohede office in Dar es Salaam this January. Through an interpreter, she told her tale. Continue reading
Another note on Awlaki
I have to admit, part of the reason I spent a few hours today coming up with my earlier post is that the Times’ account of Anwar al-Awlaki is one of the most frightening GWOT stories to date. The idea that there is this guy out there who fully understands American culture, and may have been at a sort of double agent for Al Qaeda for years, all the time fulfilling the role of reasonable, patriotic Muslim, is very disturbing.
That’s if you believe he’s helping to steer a huge conspiracy that’s responsible for the attempted attacks in the last few months. I don’t buy that. I think he — and his supposed disciples — are symptoms of other factors and forces (as I describe). But the other explanation is less complicated, and possesses that strange magnetism of dread. Interestingly, I think the cause of the crazies benefits from our GWOT-narrative interpretation of events — it gives them power.
Also, just to clarify: I think violence that these so-called mujahideen (strugglers) promote is awful, stupid and reprehensible. I hope my enumeration of things that people are angry about is not misread as an apology for the likes of Shahzad or Stack.
Finally, can you spot the Arabic errors in the Times article? First, there’s the persistent issue of why “Allah” is not translated to “God,” as makes sense. Then there’s the part that uses kuffar as a singular word when it’s actually plural. “Never, ever trust a kuffar,” Awlaki supposedly once said, meaning “unbeliever.” It’s more likely he said, “never, ever trust a kafir,” which is the singular form. A tiny thing, but one you’d think the Times would see, and makes you wonder about their language depth.
“It’s different when they’re Muslims”: the GWOT narrative is still alive
In many ways, the Sunday New York Times‘ long article on Anwar al-Awlaki — the American Muslim cleric who they say inspired the Fort Hood shooter, the underpants bomber and Faisal Shahzad — is excellent journalism. It tells the complicated story of a man who was once considered a model, moderate Muslim after 9/11, decamped to Yemen as GWOT amped up, and is now said to be abetting Al Qaeda. The story is thorough and nuanced, and the breadth of sources is impressive.
But there’s something that concerns me about the whole premise of our collective inquiry into what drove Shahzad to try to bomb Times Square, and it’s encapsulated in this front-page story. There is an assumption that the driving force behind Shahzad and others’ turn to violence is powerful and poisonous rhetoric. This ignores the many other factors — many of them material, not ideological — that likely contribute to radicalization. We thus miss the full explanation for why so many angry men are attracted to the idea of waging random violence on Americans.
The Times story focuses on Awlaki as a man with a power of persuasion rooted in his total comfort with American culture (he was born in New Mexico) and his “beautiful tongue,” as one person described it. I have not watched the man’s sermons, but it seems probable this is an accurate assessment.
The interesting thing, though, is that law enforcement — and to some degree the newspaper — draw the conclusion that Awlaki’s charm and power as a speaker make him exceptionally dangerous, and a prime cause of individuals’ radicalization. His sermons alone are said to have the power to “brainwash.” The article suggests that there is a break — sometimes fuzzy, but very real — between Awlaki’s “benign” early sermons and his (malignant, I guess) later material.
The analysis of Awlaki’s character and influence is flawed for two reasons. One, it implicitly describes two versions of Islam in a special way that Western commentators reserve only for that religion. Two, it mostly ignores all the material and social pressures that are creating terrorists, and thus deceptively and erroneously elevates Awlaki’s power. Let me treat these two main flaws in turn. Continue reading
Arizona, I… I don’t even know what to say.
A couple of weeks ago, if you remember, I wrote an ode to Arizona’s desert loveliness.
Has the state now betrayed me?
Last Friday, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed into being one of the most reactionary, racist laws in recent memory in Arizona. I won’t rehash the details of the “Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act.” Suffice it to say that its illogic is mind-boggling, and the hate and cynicism that fueled its passage astonishing. Continue reading
Remedy for your Tuesdayitis
This gospel dancehall tune by Isaac Blackman has made the beginning of my week a breeze. (It’s also the first time I’ve tried blogging from my phone.)
Some believe in Jesus, some believe in Allah…
Update: on the morning of 5/2 I woke to news of a terrifying attempted attack on Times Square. Whatever aesthetic criticisms I have of the place, I love the people who enjoy it and I’m disgusted and a little scared by the attempt. I thought of deleting this post out of respect, but instead I’m choosing to keep it – while adding this important paragraph.
The Egyptians left us the pyramids. The Romans, well… Rome.
Every time I go to Times Square (which is pretty darn infrequently), I think: This is what our civilization will leave for the ages.
To say I don’t feel particularly proud would be an understatement. Other civilizations worshiped gods and stuff. We worship … buying.
Here’s a sight from last night that I thought was especially salient in illustrating the rather pitiful combination of things our country sometimes stands for: a long chain of NYPD cars with flashing lights (show of force) parked beneath a preposterous array of energy-guzzling advertisements. Brute strength and consumption. Brilliant.
Had me thinking that maybe DJ Quik should’ve written our national anthem: “Some believe in Jesus, some believe in Allah, but riders like me believe in making dollars.”
Alsarah: music for the Sudanese elections
I just got tipped off to this rock-the-vote song and video by New York-based Sudanese artist Alsarah. The Sudanese elections are definitely a complicated issue. But whether, like Mia Farrow, you think that the elections are bad for the Sudanese people, or on the other hand if you think they are an important opportunity for Sudan to change from within, the excitement about the possibilities of the democratic process are palpable in this great clip featuring Oddisee.
Also, check out that link to Alsarah’s MySpace page — she’s an up-and-coming singer with a great sound whom I would be highlighting here even if she wasn’t a friend of a friend. She combines old Sudanese melodies with a contemporary, often Hip Hop feel in a way that’s part Fairouz, part Hashim Mirghani and part K’naan. Have a listen.
Hat Tip ST.
Sonora Spring
Last week, I had the privilege to spend a couple of days in Tucson, Arizona, on family business. It made me realize how much I miss the West and the great outdoors. It also gave me an excuse to use WordPress.com’s new (and a little late in the game, to be honest) slide show feature. Following are some hiking pictures from a “desert” that is in bloom after getting big winter rains. First time I ever saw miners’ lettuce outside of Northern California. I hiked to raging waterfalls, saw poppies blooming under cacti, and went from 85 degree sunshine to snow in a 25 minute drive up a sky island. And, I also spotted a troop of snookum bears!
Is that it? No rants about the politics of urban development in Southern Arizona? Or a discussion of the way that Mamdani’s theories about how colonizers turned ethnicities into hardened political entities — by designating them tribes — might be relevant to the Hopi-Navajo land dispute?
Not right now. This post is a little off-topic for the LGD. But life is life, and we all do as we can.* Enjoy the slide show.
*I realize this is a largely meaningless sentence. Sorry. 🙂
Mao and the Facebook Panopticon
Photo by Clemson on Flikr. Click for attribution.
I read this passage in a biography of Mao Zedong (yes, I am making my way through all the major historical figures) and started having nightmares about Facebook. This is from the early 1940s, when Mao was consolidating his base for war against the Nationalists. According to Mao: The Untold Story, the Party chairman interrogated vast swaths of his young recruits in order to instill in them feelings of submission and control, and to foster an atmosphere of deep mistrust, as friends informed on each other.
“One supreme accomplishment of the terror campaign was to squeeze out every drop of information about any link whatever with the Nationalists. Mao introduced a ‘Social Relationship’ form: ‘Tell everyone to write down every single social relationship of any kind [my emphasis].’ At the end of the campaign, the regime compiled a dossier on every Party member. The result was that Mao knew every channel the Nationalists might use to infiltrate in the forthcoming showdown. Indeed, during the civil war, while the Nationalists were penetrated like sieves, they had virtually zero success infiltrating the Communists. Mao had forged a machine that was virtually watertight.”
That blew my mind a little. Facebook could do for free what took Mao huge expense and organized brutality. It’s a Stasi/KGB/mukhabarat/CIA dream come true.
As this blog’s sidebars should prove, I love social media. But at its worst, can it be a voluntary Panopticon? Maybe the point is irrelevant in a mostly functioning democracy (actually, I don’t think it is), but certainly this historical perspective on state surveillance is relevant to all the arguments boosting social media in, ahem, more controlled atmospheres.
One thing’s for sure: no more pictures of any substance on Facebook for me.
Eamon Kircher-Allen 