http://www.faithfreedom.org/oped/PaoloBassi51003.htm
The Iranian Identity Crisis: Islam V. Persian Identity
Paolo Bassi
faithfreedom - 03.10.2005
Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution the West has presented, with
depressing consistency, a distorted image of Iran portraying it as a
seething mass of islamic fanaticism. Those unaware of Iran 's history
could be forgiven for believing that Iran knows nothing but Islam. The
reality is far more complex and hopeful. Publicly most Iranians accept
their Islamic identity, however, most are also aware of their
pre-Islamic Persian identity. The tension between these competing
identities has existed since the Arab-Islamic takeover of Iran in the
seventh century AD.
In 632 A.D., the founder of Islam, Mohammad, died but left his new
Islamic state in Arabia with a clear message to conquer, convert and
subdue all other faiths. The Muslim Arabs, armed with their new Islamic
faith, and hungry for land and wealth, unleashed a devastating war of
conquest and within 30 years they had conquered a huge empire stretching
from North Africa to N.W. India. The Arab conquerors imposed Islam so
successfully that the pre-Islamic history of the conquered peoples was
virtually erased from the historic consciousness. The Arabs did not seek
mere military conquest but also sought to conquer the culture and
identity of the defeated nations. Islam was to have no serious rivals.
The political nature of Islam demanded that a conquered people, such as
the Iranians, not only convert to Islam but also to regard its past
history as a time of darkness before the light of Islam came. In
attacking Iranian identity, one of the most infamous acts of the Arab
invaders was to burn Persian libraries with centuries of collected
books. The Islamic logic to justify this vandalism was that if Persian
knowledge agreed with the Koran, then these Persian books were
superfluous and if they contradicted the Koran, then they should be
destroyed. An unbeatable argument.
Islam required conquered people to scorn their own past and love their
Islamic Arab conquerors by striving to imitate them. More importantly,
the Koran is written in arabic and Islam's sacred places, Mecca and
Medina , are in Arabia . It was clear that the conquered and newly
converted had to accept the primacy of the arabic language, arabic
values and Arabia . After all, Mohammad was an arab and since Islam
regards him as the best example of a human, arab values cannot be
rejected, without implicitly rejecting Islam and Mohammad. Islam as an
imperial culture brought deeper and more profound psychological changes
to the cultures it conquered than European colonialism ever could.
Along with Islam's cultural demands, its political ambition was to
include all Muslims in an Islamic world without borders, in which the
only permissible political allegiance was to the world-wide Muslim
community and Allah. There was no place in such a world for a conquered
people's pre-islamic history or national identity.
After the arrival of Islam , Iran faced the most critical test in its
history. Would its ancient Zoroastrian culture survive or would Islam
and arab culture replace the unique Iranian identity. Alternatively,
could Iran somehow transform Islam into a palatable Iranian form? These
questions have characterized Iran since the Islamic takeover. It is
true, Islam has become the dominant cultural force, yet Iranian
identity, rooted in its Zoroastrian past, has never quite conceded
defeat. The tension remains to this day. For example "no ruz" or the
Persian new year (based on a Zoroastrian practice) is condemned by the
Islamic clerics as a pagan practice, yet is widely celebrated. In
addition, the achievements of the ancient Achaemenian period (whose
empire was conquered by Alexander the Great in the 4th Century B.C.) and
its classical civilization, have never left the Persian collective
psyche. The ruins of Persepolis are a constant reminder that there was
great Iranian past a thousand years before Islam as even born. Not even
the mullahs can deny evidence that is carved in rock.
During the Abbassid, Ferdowsi (b.935), perhaps Iran 's greatest amongst
many great poets, wrote the epic "Shahnameh" (story of kings) and
reclaimed the Persian past and language from arabic influence.
Ferdowsi's poetry openly proclaims the superiority of Persian culture
and laments the arab invasion. He accepts Islam itself as a fact of life
without directly criticizing its teachings. However, Ferdowsi has
nothing but contempt for the arabs themselves and cannot forgive them.
At times Ferdowsi's poetry even condemns the imposition of Islam itself.
It is paradoxical that Ferdowsi's tomb is still revered by Iranians
despite Iran being an Islamic theocracy.
Islam's relegation of the pre-islamic past of the non-arab peoples it
conquered, to an era of "darkness" was one of the major themes of the
Indian author, V.S. Naipaul's Nobel Prize winning books, "Among the
Believers' and "Beyond Belief". Naipaul proposes that conquered peoples,
such as the Iranians and Indonesians, had been separated by Islam from
their complete and true historical past, and removed again by European
colonialism and this disconnect has resulted in an inner anxiety and
crisis of identity. Take for example Islamist movements in Indonesia and
Phillippines, in which young Asian Muslims imitate Arabic appearance and
call for Israel 's destruction, yet they have no ethnic, cultural or
historic connection with arab Palestinians. Both Islamic and subsequent
western colonialism, according to Naipaul, have robbed the "conquered
peoples" from their true selves, such that there is an inner loss of
identity and a yearning to belong to some cause.
There have been times when Iran has dared to remember its past. In 1926,
Reza Khan was crowned the first Pahlavi King of Iran and as part of his
reforms he made it clear that he regarded Islam as a foreign imposed
faith that should not determine Iran 's identity. As part of his attack
on Islam, Reza Khan connected his new Iran with the ancient Zoroastrian
past. The Farsi language was purged of arabic words, architecture began
to take inspiration from ancient Achaemenian styles and schoolbooks were
re-written to enhance an Iranian identity. Cities were renamed with
Persian names, parents were encouraged to give Persian, and not arabic,
names to their children. In 1935 Persia itself was renamed Iran , as it
was known in the days of Cyrus the Great. These reforms were of course
reversed after the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
It conclusion, it seems that Iranian history has swung back and forth
between its Arab imposed Islamic identity and its older Zoroastrian era
Persian culture. The latter simply refuses to die. Just as an individual
struggles with conflicting loyalties and identities until they are
reconciled, so do entire nations and cultures. As long as Iran 's
ancient identity is denied and denigrated, Iranian public life will be
dishonest and contradictory. According to Islam, all history before
Islam was an era of "darkness" and should be discarded. This is a
frightening Orwellian belief, that the world witnessed first hand with
the Taliban's destruction of the Bamiyan Buddha statues. If the Iran
past is to regain its rightful place, it must be prepared to attack this
identity-destroying aspect of Islam.
---
http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft0510/articles/hertzke.html
The Shame of Darfur
Allen D. Hertzke
Copyright (c) 2005 First Things 156 (October 2005): 16-22.
In April 2005, a striking celebration occurred in Washington to mark the
signing of a peace accord between rebel groups of southern Sudan and the
Islamist regime in Khartoum, ending Africa's longest and bloodiest civil
war. In a packed room in the Longworth House Office Building, Sudanese
exiles mingled with the American officials and religious leaders whose
efforts helped halt Sudan's two-decade genocidal war against its
non-Muslim population.
The event marked a triumph for both the Bush administration and the
faith-based human-rights movement that has burst on the American
foreign-policy scene in recent years. But the triumph was muted, for the
Sudanese government in Khartoum has now turned its attention from the
southern part of the country to the western, undertaking massive ethnic
cleansing in the region known as Darfur. And so far, neither America's
religious community nor its government has acted with the same vigor in
addressing the crisis.
Indeed, the administration's mixed signals, alternately condemning and
lauding the regime, have done little to rein in the Janjaweed marauders
who keep the Darfur people from leaving fetid camps to plant crops and
rebuild their shattered villages. And one reason the administration has
not acted more forcefully is that the potent Christian groups involved
in foreign affairs—those who anchored the religious coalition that
compelled results in southern Sudan with unity and toughness—have been
fragmented in their response to Darfur. This fact tarnishes the
achievement in the south, and the stain will fall most heavily on the
evangelical world. Born-again Christians in America, it will be said,
care more about the deaths of their fellow believers in the south than
about the deaths of Muslims in the west.
Given its special access to the White House and its grassroots muscle,
the evangelical community remains uniquely situated to mobilize against
what President Bush himself has described as "genocide in Darfur." As
one insider explained, "If evangelicals are not prioritizing it, then
the administration will not prioritize it." But the nation's
evangelicals should prioritize it. Even without sending American troops
to the region, forceful and moral options remain. The administration can
stop sending mixed messages, mount a determined effort to expand and
empower African Union forces, add U.S. logistical support, secure more
aid, and massively increase diplomatic and economic pressure.
And to make all this happen —to halt the rape and murder of Darfur— the
vital element is action from the American religious community.
Initially animated by concern for the persecution of Christians around
the world, American religious activism blossomed into a wider quest to
promote human rights through the machinery of American foreign policy.
From the mid-1990s on, this faith-based movement of unlikely allies—from
liberal Jewish groups to conservative evangelical churches—successfully
pressed a succession of congressional initiatives, pouring new energy
into a cause often trumped by economic and strategic calculations.
This activism was rooted in the tectonic shift of the world's Christian
population to the developing world, where it often exists in poverty,
violence, exploitation, and persecution. Through the expansion of global
communication and booming religious networks, American Christians,
especially evangelicals, filled a huge void in human-rights advocacy,
raising issues previously slighted by secular groups, the mainstream
press, and the foreign-policy establishment.
Nowhere was this more evident than in the campaign to end the civil war
in southern Sudan. In a certain way, it was natural for American
Christians to identify with the African people of Sudan, where
Christianity traces its roots from the first centuries of the early
Church. The northern part of the country, which contains the capital of
Khartoum, is home to an Arabic-speaking Muslim population. The south and
the Nuba mountains are populated by various African peoples, mostly a
mix of Christians and traditional animist practitioners. The western
province of Darfur represents another tradition, that of African tribes
who adhere to the distinctive Sufi version of Islam.
The country has seen more than its share of bloody conflicts, but the
worst in recent years arose from Islamist militancy, brought to Sudan by
students in the Muslim Brotherhood in the 1950s. Represented by the
National Islamic Front, the movement was never popular with the majority
of Sudanese Muslims, but it gained influence through tight organization,
intimidation, and violence. Despotic but vulnerable regimes found it
convenient to accede to militant demands for the implementation of
strict shari'a as a way to buy support.
In the wake of the Iranian revolution, such demands intensified, leading
the Khartoum government to promulgate a radical series of shari'a laws
in 1983. Non-Muslims in the south rebelled, coalescing in several
groups, the most prominent being the Sudan People's Liberation Movement
(SPLM). Hopes for settlement were raised in 1989 when a newly elected
government was scheduled to grant greater autonomy to the south. Those
hopes were dashed when General Umar al-Bashir seized power in a coup,
forging an alliance with the National Islamic Front to unite the country
under the Islamist banner.
Though the world hardly noticed, this regime joined Iran and later
Afghanistan as the only countries to rule by the Islamist vision. As
Arab human-rights activist Hamouda Fathelrahman Bella notes, this coup
"brought a regime unparalleled in modern Sudanese history," a harsh and
"reactionary religious state in a multireligious, multiracial, and
multilingual country." Public floggings and amputations came to
Khartoum's stadium; women's freedom was severely curtailed; independent
sectors of society were crushed; and thousands of people suspected of
insufficient loyalty were detained, many tortured or executed.
The regime's attempt to Islamicize an unwilling people was especially
brutal. Viewing the southerners as infidels, the regime issued a fatwa
in 1993 declaring a jihad against non-Muslims and justifying mass
killing or enslavement as means of bringing the region into the dar
al-Islam (the "realm of Islam"). As Bella reports, the fatwa also
classified Muslims who doubted the "Islamic justification of jihad" as
hypocrites and apostates, which later rationalized the regime's
onslaught in Darfur.
By employing scorched-earth policies that manufactured famine and then
denying United Nations relief access, the regime decimated the southern
population. Over its twenty-year span, the conflict claimed perhaps two
million African lives—more fatalities than the conflicts in Angola,
Liberia, Sierra Leone, Somalia, and Rwanda put together—and displaced
some four million people. Beyond targeting animists and Muslims in the
south who resisted its fundamentalism, the regime literally attempted to
wipe out Christianity. For a long while this genocidal dimension was
scarcely noted by the press, but it was picked up in western religious
circles, especially among Christian solidarity activists who mounted a
campaign like the anti-apartheid struggle, complete with grassroots
mobilization, protests, arrests, divestment pressure, and legislative
sanctions.
That such a domestic movement could shape the destiny of a people far
from home illustrates the remarkable clout of aroused religious
constituencies and suggests their potential impact on Darfur. The plight
of the southern Sudanese would have remained in the backwater of
American concern had not the faith-based movement and its allies picked
up the cause. Consider the case of John Eibner, an American leader of
the Swiss-based Christian Solidarity International. Invited in 1992 by
the New Sudan Council of Churches to investigate atrocities and slave
raids in the region, he began redemption efforts in 1995. Raising money
in the West and operating through local contacts, Eibner traveled
frequently to Sudan, enduring harsh war-zone conditions. He redeemed
thousands of Sudanese slaves, and evocative photographs of these
transactions circulated widely. Charles Jacobs, head of the American
Anti-Slavery Group, says that Eibner makes him think of the Jewish
legend of a few "undiscovered holy men who hold up the world."
Jacobs, who is Jewish, came to the movement out of outrage that other
human-rights organizations were ignoring slavery in North Africa. By
sponsoring ex-slaves to tell their stories, Jacobs helped personalize
the Sudan cause, providing the pictures and creating new activists. The
slave issue also drew the African-American community into coalition with
conservative evangelicals. Black preachers with huge congregations and
broadcast ministries, such as T.D. Jakes and Chuck Singleton, mobilized
their followers and prodded others, such as the NAACP and the
Congressional Black Caucus, to join the cause.
While the slave issue acted as a magnet for African-Americans, the
specter of genocide resonated in Jewish circles. Spurred by reports from
Sudan, the Holocaust Memorial Museum issued an unprecedented "genocide
warning" for Sudan early in 2001. Jerry Fowler, director of the
Committee of Conscience for the Museum, followed up by developing a
powerful exhibition of the atrocities committed by the regime. This
meshed with other initiatives, such as the distribution by the Union of
American Hebrew Congregations of a message about Sudan to synagogues
throughout America for use in Passover Seders. When President Bush met
with Jewish leaders in April 2001, he was admonished to do something
about Sudan's crimes against humanity. A month later, before the
American Jewish Committee, he chose to address Sudan in a hard-hitting
speech, in which he accused Sudan of "crimes so monstrous that the
American conscience had to assert itself."
But evangelical Christians remained the central grassroots force in the
movement. Catholic and Anglican bishops from Sudan found their most
attentive audiences through evangelical church networks. And because the
UN relief program often failed to deliver aid to areas of greatest need,
Christian groups such as Samaritan's Purse moved with considerable
daring to meet the challenge, violating Sudanese airspace and avoiding
military patrols to bring tangible help to suffering people in southern
Sudan and the Nuba mountains. For a growing number of evangelical
activists, traveling into war-torn areas of Sudan became a crucial sign
of discipleship. They witnessed attacks, viewed scorched villages and
mutilated bodies, and dodged enemy fire as they delivered relief
supplies in unsecured areas. Their example prompted Congress to
appropriate more money for American relief to be delivered outside of
Khartoum's control. In turn, President Bush's relief team worked to
ensure that more aid was actually delivered to people in the war zone.
From the late 1990s onward such evangelical luminaries as Franklin
Graham of Samaritan's Purse, Charles Colson of Prison Fellowship, and
Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention wrote and spoke often
about the crisis in Sudan. The Southern Baptist Convention
overwhelmingly passed a resolution condemning the regime in Khartoum for
its genocide and calling for direct aid to the victims. Christianity
Today and World magazines featured frequent Sudanese stories.
Evangelical musicians produced benefit albums and concerts with Sudanese
themes. A testament to the power of evangelical networks was a 2002
national survey of evangelical elites that found some 70 percent had
absorbed a great deal of information about Sudan, with 40 percent
contributing to an organization working there. Members of Congress
reported striking interest in Sudan among their constituents.
One center of mobilization on southern Sudan was Midland, Texas,
hometown of George W. and Laura Bush. Spearheading the effort there was
Deborah Fikes, leader of the Midland Ministerial Alliance. An ardent
evangelical, she worked with her husband to create an organization to
support the ministry of sister churches in Sudan. As friends of the
president, Fikes and her associates understood their special leverage,
which they exercised judiciously. When Bush officials offered
conciliatory messages about Sudan's cooperation in the war on terror
after the attacks of September 11, the alliance sent a strong letter to
the president. Stating that they would have to "stand with our brothers
and sisters in Sudan, however God leads us," the group conveyed to White
House officials that, at some point, the president's Midland friends
might be compelled to take actions that could embarrass him.
Through billions of dollars of international investment, Sudan's oil
reserves, most located in the south, began generating revenue in the
late 1990s. This enabled Khartoum to buy advanced weaponry and led to
ethnic cleansing in areas surrounding oil fields. Faced with the
prospect that oil was "fueling genocide," activists mounted a divestment
campaign against oil companies doing business in Sudan, particularly the
Canadian oil company Talisman. Letters to fund managers went out from
the movement's amalgam of Christian solidarity groups, Jewish leaders,
and black pastors. The campaign was devastating as it "ran the tables"
on major fund managers from Canada and the United States, resulting in a
plummeting of Talisman value.
Activists also learned that China National Petroleum Company planned to
raise some $10 billion from Wall Street, much of it for oil investment
in Sudan. Articles blossomed in evangelical publications and advocacy
outlets about the threat of this massive infusion of capital, letters
went out to large investors, and sympathetic political leaders weighed
in with charges that this stock offering would be "blood money" for
Sudan's attempt to eradicate a people. The Chinese company raised only
$3 billion of its $10 billion goal, a "$7 billion haircut" that sent
shock waves through the investment community and must have sobered the
Khartoum regime.
Simultaneously other activists pressed for congressional legislation.
Michael Horowitz, an ex-Reagan official and catalyst for
anti-persecution legislation, took from the statute books the apartheid
bill Congress passed to deal with South Africa and got it inserted in
House legislation on religious persecution. Though that provision was
stricken from the final legislation, it represented the first iteration
of what later became the Sudan Peace Act, sponsored by Senator Sam
Brownback and Congressmen Frank Wolf and Chris Smith.
The House version of the Sudan Peace Act, passed in the summer of 2001,
suggested the boldness of the interfaith movement. Based on the idea
that the way to get Khartoum's attention was to curtail its oil
revenues, the bill would have denied access to U.S. capital markets for
companies doing business in Sudan. This caused apoplexy in the
investment community and suggested the extent to which religious
conservatives were willing to break with the business wing of the
Republican party. Though the outright ban seemed to go too far, the
coalition did secure compromise language that provided $300 million in
aid for southern Sudan and authorized the president to deny oil revenue
to the regime if it failed to negotiate for peace in a timely manner.
The passage of the Sudan Peace Act represented a major triumph of the
movement, producing a Hollywood-like bill-signing ceremony in the
Roosevelt Room at the White House on October 21, 2002. Though scantily
reported by the press, word of the signing went forth from the religious
presses and advocacy e-mail, buoying confidence for the inevitable
battles to come.
Following the bill signing, activists continued to pounce whenever they
felt that administration officials were soft-peddling Khartoum's
human-rights record. The relentless pressure brought by the Sudan
coalition on the Bush Administration and Khartoum eventually produced a
stunning result: the peace treaty granting power-sharing with the
rebels, autonomy for the south, and a new constitution. This remarkable
achievement by "idealistic" religionists effectively checked the
regime's goal of spreading its radical version of Islam deeper into
Africa, which better served America's national security than the
hands-off approach backed by the nation's foreign-policy realists.
Unfortunately, the very triumph in the south sparked the rebellion in
the west. Thus the crisis of Darfur provides vivid evidence of the
assertion of Muslim scholar Bassam Tibi that, whenever militant
Islamists cannot achieve their goals or govern effectively, they always
spread disorder. The Africans in Darfur, though Muslim, had long chafed
under the neglect or discrimination by the Arab-dominated government in
Khartoum, and they competed with nomadic Arabs of the region for land
and water. As Sufis, they were also viewed as apostates by the National
Islamic Front, and because they resisted its extreme interpretation of
shari'a, they represented a threat to the regime.
This common resistance tied together the conflicts in southern Sudan and
Darfur. When the southern peace process showed signs of providing the
south with real autonomy by the spring of 2003, Darfur's rebels seized
the opportunity to achieve a similar result and attacked garrisons of
the government. Khartoum responded by pursuing yet another genocidal
policy.
The calculated savagery of Khartoum's campaign has been stunning. As
Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times reported in February, a document
seized by the African Union from a Janjaweed official outlined in
chilling detail official government policy. Demanding "execution of all
directives from the president of the Republic," it called upon
commanders to "change the demography of Darfur and make it devoid of
African tribes." Dated August 2004, the document encouraged "killing,
burning villages and farms, terrorizing people, confiscating property
from members of African tribes and forcing them from Darfur."
Terribly effective, this strategy resulted in near-total ethnic
cleansing in the areas in which it occurred, leaving over two and a half
million people bereft of sustenance and vulnerable to continuing
attacks, with the lives of even more at risk. The only reason violence
has abated recently, as noted by Andrew Natsios, head of the U.S. Agency
for International Development, is that "there are not many villages left
to burn down and destroy."
The systematic nature of this campaign has been confirmed by eyewitness
accounts. Brian Seidle, a former U.S. Marine captain working with the
African Union, documented the onslaught from September 2004 until
February 2005. Before an attack, the authorities would shut down
cell-phone systems to prevent villages from warning each other. Next,
aircraft would fly reconnaissance as helicopter gunships fired
anti-personnel rockets. Then would come the proxy militias, the
Janjaweed, killing, raping, burning, poisoning wells, and looting. As
Seidle said in his testimony to Congress, "Every day we saw villages of
up to 20,000 inhabitants burned to the ground with nothing left but ash
frames. . . . We witnessed scores of dead bodies providing evidence of
torture—arms bound, ears cut off, eyes plucked, males castrated and left
to bleed to death, children beaten to a pulp, people locked in their
huts before being burned alive, and apparent executions."
The actual number of the dead is impossible to calculate because so many
of the internally displaced people forage the countryside or huddle in
remote camps inside Sudan, where they die of disease, exposure, and
malnutrition. Some estimates put the rising death toll as high as four
hundred thousand as of the summer of 2005. Lack of security has kept
farmers from returning to their fields, and that, combined with wider
disruptions of the war and drought, contributes to an ongoing food
crisis. Meanwhile, Janjaweed militias continue marauding and obstructing
relief efforts. To terrorize people in the squatters' camps and remind
them they do not belong in Darfur, the Janjaweed employ systematic rape,
preying on women when they venture out to forage for food or firewood.
Though the government of Sudan disavows involvement in atrocities, it
has taken no action against the militias. Musa Hilal, one of the most
ruthless Janjaweed commanders, parades himself regularly in Khartoum.
The initial international response to these "crimes against humanity"
was anemic, and later action dilatory. From the beginning of the crisis
onward, the United Nations failed at critical junctures to act against
the regime, while the Chinese poured in oil investment, the Russians
provided weapons, the European countries expanded trade, the Arab League
offered solidarity, and African nations even helped elect Sudan to the
UN Human Rights Commission.
Though belatedly, the United States has done the most to respond to the
catastrophe, providing the lion's share of humanitarian aid, securing
corridors, declaring the atrocities genocidal, and pressing (though
mostly unsuccessfully) for tough UN action against the regime. But the
Bush Administration has also lauded Sudan's cooperation in the war on
terror and allowed the CIA to fly Sudan's intelligence chief, Salah
Abdallah Gosh, an architect of the Darfur atrocity, to Washington for
consultation. Concerned that further sanctions on Sudan might upset the
southern peace process, it also got the House to scotch tough "Darfur
accountability" legislation passed by the Senate in April. To date the
administration has not mounted a broad strategy to protect civilians and
enable them to reconstruct their villages.
This record led observers such as Nicholas Kristof to charge the Bush
administration with doing "shamefully little" to end the Darfur crisis.
Though perhaps unfair, this judgment reflects the fact that a fragmented
religious response has failed to push the administration.
To be sure, some religious activism has taken up the cause of Darfur. A
left-right "Sudan Campaign," led by Keith Roderick of Christian
Solidarity International and with support from such activists as Nina
Shea of Freedom House and Faith McDonnell of the Institute for Religion
and Democracy, staged a 2004 summer of civil disobedience and arrests at
the Sudanese embassy. It continues to mount a divestment effort against
Sudan's oil industry. The Catholic bishops' conference has remonstrated
with political leaders for action and appealed to parishes for relief
support. Jewish groups anchor the "Save Darfur" organization, and black
churches, which came only slowly to the campaign for the south, are
beginning to generate serious grassroots activity for Darfur.
Evangelical leaders have also taken a number of independent initiatives.
Richard Cizik of the National Association of Evangelicals orchestrated a
hard-hitting letter to the Bush Administration in the spring of 2004 and
joined this July with Jewish leaders for a prayer vigil on Darfur.
Richard Land has personally pressed administration officials, while
Charles Colson referred to Darfur in one of his Breakpoint radio
commentaries. Leaders of such organizations as World Vision provide
expertise on conditions in refugee camps and tough policy
recommendations.
But these initiatives remain disparate, uncoordinated, and often
unsustained. And some voices that championed southern Sudan have not
spoken of Darfur with the same urgency. As one insider reported, during
a high-level religious coalition meeting in Washington last year,
activists were setting their human-rights agenda for the coming months
and "nobody assigned Darfur, nobody put it on the agenda."
Ironically, the lack of unified vigor on Darfur may derive from the very
process that secured the peace deal in the south. American Christians
made a heavy emotional and tangible investment in the south. Because the
southern peace process occurred just as the onslaught spread in Darfur,
some religious leaders have been loath to protest against the regime out
of concern for upsetting the pact between the government of Sudan and
southern forces—and Khartoum cunningly stretched out the process while
consolidating gains in the west.
Insiders also admit that there are tensions between long-standing
religious advocates for southern Sudan and Darfur's activist newcomers.
There is suspicion that some criticism of the Bush administration on
Darfur is disingenuous, coming as it does from the likes of the National
Council of Churches and the very leftist owners of Ben and Jerry's Ice
Cream—and that if Bush acted militarily, he would be condemned for
over-action just as he is now for under-action.
Then there is the poignant fact that attention to Darfur might divert
resources desperately needed to shore up the peace in the south. Roger
Winter, who directed all U.S. relief for the region and now serves as
State Department Special Representative on Sudan, points to the
inherently fungible nature of international money for Sudan. To a
certain extent aid used for Darfur relief is not available for southern
reconstruction and vice versa—a problem exacerbated as other countries
renege on their pledges to both regions.
Another reason religious leaders have given for not challenging Sudan
more fervently is the view that the best hope for Darfur is peace in the
south—because that will lead to a transformation of the regime. New
constitutional provisions, which went into effect on July 9, call for
Sudan to be a "multi-racial, multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, and,
multi-religious society" in which "freedom of religion, belief and
worship shall be guaranteed" and no one "coerced to embrace any faith or
religion." For a radical Islamist government to make such concessions
suggests, to some, the ascendancy of progressive new forces that should
be welcomed.
This is the view of the Midland group, which hosted the Sudanese
ambassador and his wife this past spring. Critics see this as a
"troubling relationship," a manipulation of naive Christians by a
skilled and charming diplomat. Aware of this criticism and acknowledging
the potential value of other strategies, Fikes argues that nurturing
this relationship enables them to exercise distinct leverage with the
government and to hold it accountable for keeping religious freedom
guarantees.
A related argument, advanced by Michael Horowitz, is that too much
pressure on the Sudanese government during this delicate transition
period may be counterproductive. There are "good guys" in Khartoum whom
we should not undermine, and if "you are not going to have regime
change," then "morally satisfying" gestures of condemnation do nothing.
Moreover, in sensitive negotiations you do not say to your interlocutors
"we'll put you in front of war-crimes tribunals." A related assessment
is that Khartoum may not fully control elements of the military in
Darfur, who are furious about the peace in the south. The recent death
of SPLM leader John Garang, who was to have become vice president of a
new unity government, makes the situation even more complex and
delicate.
Horowitz also argues that the context is different with Darfur. American
religious groups had leverage with Christian rebels in the south in a
way they do not with Sufi rebels in the west. A letter from the Midland
Ministerial Alliance to John Garang—cautioning him against making
unrealistic demands—was crucial in ensuring that rebels took the
remarkable deal offered by Khartoum. Because American Christians have no
influence on the other side in Darfur, the argument goes, massive
unilateral action against Khartoum may only embolden the rebels to step
up attacks that provide the government with excuses for retaliation.
This sense that options are limited on Darfur has led some in the
religious coalition to devote their energies to other issues they deem
ripe for religious impact, particularly North Korea and sex trafficking.
Other activists, however, see the potential for maintaining pressure on
Khartoum to halt its atrocities in Darfur. Arguing that pressing on
Darfur is "more likely to facilitate the peace process than inhibit it,"
Richard Land characterizes the regime as "a gangster cabal masquerading
as a government" that respects only "force and the spine to use it."
Similarly, John Eibner sees the north-south deal as merely a tactical
suspension of Khartoum's ambition to Islamize and Arabize Sudan. Thus a
policy without threats, such as an oil or arms embargo, is unlikely to
halt the genocide. About fears of upsetting the southern peace, "one
cannot do a trade-off between genocide in Darfur and peace in southern
Sudan." Roger Winter agrees, arguing that demanding accountability for
those most responsible for the Darfur atrocities serves the cause of
moderates in Khartoum. Similarly, there is no reason why the United
States cannot simultaneously shore up the southern peace and pursue a
tough policy on Darfur. As to the supposed inability of Khartoum
authorities to rein in the Janjaweed, Eibner has heard the same argument
about slaving in the south. Yet, as he notes, slave raids stopped
abruptly when the government of Sudan became serious about peace
negotiations.
These different assessments keep the religious community from presenting
a unified front on Darfur, but they also encourage administrative
inertia. "Timid people" at the State Department, Richard Land insists,
"get vapors" at the "first mention of force." The only counterweight to
"business as usual at Foggy Bottom," he contends, is constituency
pressure. This assessment is confirmed by Samantha Power in her book on
responses to genocides, A Problem from Hell. Explaining why America did
not act against the Rwanda genocide, Clinton national security advisor
Anthony Lake explained that "the phones weren't ringing on Rwanda."
Evangelical leaders bear a special responsibility to get the phones
ringing on Darfur, because of their capacity to reach millions and their
unique access to the president. Some in the mainstream press charge that
because victims in Darfur are Muslims and not Christians, evangelicals
have not responded with the same vigor. For certain sectarian groups,
such as Voice of the Martyrs, there is probably some truth to this.
Mailings from the organization continue to refer to the "jihad on the
Christians of Southern Sudan," suggesting the difficulty of shifting
attention to a Muslim population under siege.
A better explanation is the decentralized and entrepreneurial nature of
the evangelical world, which makes coordination hard. Still, the
uncoordinated effort on Darfur contrasts dramatically with what caught
the attention of Congress and the administration on southern Sudan. And
when appeals result in perfunctory responses, evangelicals have not
demanded more.
Another influence is the recrudescence of the culture war. Gay marriage
and the related issue of judicial appointments exploded onto the agenda,
diverting attention from Darfur. Indeed, one prominent born-again leader
admitted to me that "the timing" was not convenient for a full press on
the international front. A related factor pertains to pietistic habits
of the evangelical mind, as identified by Mark Noll, that result in an
episodic and reactive public engagement. Certain prominent evangelical
figures, such as Gary Bauer and James Dobson, who put their formidable
networks in service of the cause in southern Sudan, are now largely
silent on Darfur.
The challenge for the religious community and the U.S. government is to
respond in a way commensurate with the crisis. To be sure, the situation
in Darfur is complex and one cannot gainsay the possibility of
unintended consequences. That said, the contours of possible American
action to ameliorate the crisis are clear: We must provide more relief
to save lives, get forces on the ground to provide security, and elevate
the diplomatic stakes against Khartoum's depredations. All are within
reach if the United States makes Darfur a command focus. The religious
community has the capacity, and therefore the obligation, to help make
that happen.
Most immediately we should address the humanitarian crisis. The UN World
Food Program estimates that up to 3.5 million people face famine in
Darfur this fall, yet donations have fallen far short of needs.
Starvation is also occurring in parts of the south, because the
international community has failed to deliver the assistance previously
committed. Religious leaders, Eibner suggests, "should be urging the
entire international community without delay" to get needed money for
both regions. Churches can also support the work by designating special
Sunday collections, as the U.S. Catholic Conference did last year.
Especially effective might be a public effort by the evangelical elite
to mobilize their formidable networks to avert famine throughout Sudan.
There is a massive need to rebuild the southern region's infrastructure
and civil society. Though some organizations have moved in to do this,
Eibner observes that the response has been paltry so far. Indeed, he
notes not only the physical devastation of the region, but the spiritual
hunger of people who wish to build institutions of a Christian culture
but lack minimal tools. A strengthened southern society would be a
leavening bulwark against renewed militant Islamist advances and provide
hope for the protection of human rights. The president can play a
pivotal role here, personally summoning the nation's charitable impulse
on behalf of the victims in Sudan and averting painful tradeoffs between
Darfur and the south by providing more robust aid and pressing other
countries to ante up.
With respect to security, one argument for our inability to influence
events in Darfur is that everyone—including the government in
Khartoum—knows that America, while in Iraq, will not put another
"Christian army" in the heart of another Muslim country, even for
humanitarian intervention. But a consensus is emerging on what will
provide a modicum of security: a dramatically expanded African Union
force with U.S. logistical support and a mandate sufficient to deter
attacks on civilians.
Up to now, deployment of African Union forces has been agonizingly slow,
and there are no plans for expansion to the levels needed. From a force
level of three thousand, the African Union contingent is slated to
expand to some seven thousand this fall, but shortage of funds may
prevent that. The International Crisis Group estimates a need of twelve
to fifteen thousand troops.
In addition to more boots on the ground, the crisis group calls for an
expanded mandate that allows African Union forces to take offensive
measures against threats to civilians and humanitarian
operations—together with enforcement of a ban on military flights and
dramatically enhanced U.S. and NATO logistical support. These
recommendations were echoed by a congressional work group looking at UN
reform, co-chaired by Newt Gingrich and George Mitchell. As evidence of
the effectiveness of even small numbers of African Union forces, Brian
Steidle offered a dramatic example in testimony before Congress. After a
devastating attack on a town of twenty thousand, a Sudanese general
confided that his goal was "to continue clearing the route all the way
to Khartoum." Remarkably, the union placed thirty-five soldiers in the
next town, which was enough to deter government forces from attacking
it. The union then deployed seventy soldiers in the previous town, which
enabled some three thousand people to return to rebuild.
Achieving an adequate force level would require the president to bring
huge diplomatic pressure on the African Union and our NATO allies, along
with exercising leadership to obtain sufficient funding. But the
president can do more. He can elevate the stakes for Khartoum by using
the bully pulpit, inviting Darfur representatives to the White House and
spelling out the steps his administration will take to end the tragedy.
He can seriously upgrade the position of Roger Winter, a longstanding
advocate for Sudan's vulnerable, by providing him the high-level White
House access enjoyed by John Danforth, the previous special envoy, and
ensuring full administration backing of his initiatives. The president
can put together an international coalition of conscience to block arms
and threaten Sudan's oil industry unless it provides lasting security
guarantees to the Darfur people. He can ensure all agencies of the U.S.
government send clear, tough messages to Khartoum —and one way to do
that is by backing legislation for accountability in Darfur.
The religious community must do its part by keeping the tragedy foremost
on the political agenda, as it did for the southern war. Though the Bush
Administration did not always follow the specific wishes of activists on
southern Sudan, it placed a priority on peace because the issue had
politically mobilized a critical mass of the American Christian
community. A kind of stewardship obligation, especially for
evangelicals, involves doing the same on Darfur. Fulfilling that
obligation can transform a potential stain of neglect into another
human-rights triumph for people of faith.
Allen D. Hertzke, professor of political science and director of
religious studies at the University of Oklahoma, is author of Freeing
God's Children: The Unlikely Alliance for Global Human Rights, from
which portions of this article were adapted.
---
http://www.welt.de/data/2005/10/10/786885.html
Verurteilung wegen Beleidigung der Türkei
Armenisch-türkischer Publizist Hrant Dink bekommt wegen volkskritischen
Artikels Bewährungsstrafe
von Boris Kalnoky
die Welt - 10.10.2005
Istanbul - Wegen Beleidigung der Türkei ist ein armenisch-türkischer
Journalist zu einer sechsmonatigen Bewährungsstrafe verurteilt worden.
Hrant Dink hatte im Februar 2004 in seiner Wochenzeitung "Agos" etwas
verquer geschrieben, die Armenier sollten sich "dem neuen Blut des
unabhängigen Armeniens zuwenden". Nur so könnten sie sich von der "Last
der Diaspora befreien". In dem Beitrag ging es um das kollektive
Gedächtnis der Massaker an den Armeniern von 1915-17 (in der Türkei darf
man diesbezüglich nicht von Genozid sprechen oder schreiben), und in
einer anderen, etwas merkwürdigen Formulierung schrieb Dink, die
Armenier sollten den "verdorbenen Teil ihres türkischen Blutes"
symbolisch zurückweisen. Nach Angaben von Dinks Kollegen wurden die
Zitate aus dem Zusammenhang gerissen und falsch interpretiert. In der
Türkei steht die Beleidigung der nationalen Identität unter Strafe.
Wenige Tage nach der Aufnahme von Beitrittsverhandlungen zwischen der EU
und der Türkei hat der Schuldspruch auch deshalb eine besondere
Bedeutung, weil Dink auf der Grundlage von Gesetzen verurteilt wurde,
die nach Ansicht der EU abgeschafft werden müssen.
Die Intellektuellen und Publizisten der Türkei täten indes gut daran,
die Regierung einmal um eine erschöpfende und rechtlich bindende
Definition dessen zu bitten, was sie unter "türkischer Identität"
versteht. Das wäre einerseits sicher kurzweilige Lektüre, und
andererseits auch Schutz vor dem langen Arm des Gesetzes. Denn obwohl
niemand so ganz genau weiß, was diese türkische Identität denn sein
soll, macht man sich strafbar, wenn man sie "beleidigt". (Vielleicht
bräuchte man auch eine Definition dessen, was unter "Beleidigung" zu
verstehen ist). Daß das Gericht mit seinem Urteil zugleich die
neuerdings so gern beschworene "europäische Identität" der Türkei
beleidigte, zu deren zentralen Werten immer noch die Meinungsfreiheit
gehört, fiel vermutlich keinem der urteilsfreudigen Polit-Juristen auf.
Aus europäischer Sicht, und auch aus der Sicht türkischer
Reformpolitiker, ist jedenfalls die Sorge berechtigt, daß konservative
Kreise innerhalb des Justizapparates mit spektakulär widersinnigen
Verfahren gegen prominente Intellektuelle versuchen, die europäischen
Träume der Türkei zu sabotieren.
Im Dezember steht ein Prozeß gegen den Schriftsteller Orhan Pamuk an,
der sich gegen ganz ähnliche Vorwürfe verteidigen muß. Pamuk bekommt
dieses Jahr den Friedenspreis des Deutschen Buchhandels. Er hat zwar
nicht das verbotene Wort "Genozid" gebraucht, aber doch öffentlich
gesagt, in der Türkei seien 30 000 Kurden und eine Million Armenier
umgebracht worden. Letztere Zahl ist nach Meinung vieler Historiker
etwas hoch gegriffen. Aber auch wenn es "nur" beispielsweise 800 000
Tote waren, wird dadurch das Ausmaß der Tragödie nicht geringer, und das
muß frei von Angst vor staatlicher Gewalt gesagt werden dürfen.
Die juristische Hetzkampagne gegen "untürkische" Intellektuelle ist um
so bedauerlicher, als der Trend eigentlich in Richtung Liberalisierung
geht. Kürzlich wurde nach langem Widerstand der Justizbehörden - die in
den genannten Fällen stets eine Rolle zu spielen pflegen - eine
Konferenz unabhängiger Historiker zur Armenierfrage in Istanbul
abgehalten.
Seither liest man in Kolumnen und Kommentaren türkischer Blätter
bemerkenswerte Meinungen und Analysen. Enver Pasha und die Jungtürken,
die damals das ottomanische Reich regierten, werden da beispielsweise
als vom Volk abgehobene Abenteurertypen geschildert, Fremde eigentlich,
Türken vom Balkan, deren verantwortungslose Politik nicht nur die
Armenier, sondern auch die Türken und letztlich das ganze Land ins
Verderben stürzte.
Das könnte eine Vorstufe für die Entwicklung einer neuen Standard-These
in der Türkei sein: Wir waren es nicht, Enver Pascha ist es gewesen.
Artikel erschienen am Mo, 10. Oktober 2005.
--
Med venlig hilsen
GB