It’s pretty simple, really – we’re there because it’s easy.
Easy is relative, of course, but Libya as a target for intervention has a lot going for it. A comically distinct leader with a history of deliberate regional destabilization and brutality, a wave of democracy sweeping across its North African neighbors, a defiant but outgunned domestic uprising, an eager coalition of international partners, a clear humanitarian disaster in the making, the unprecedented approval of the Arab League to take action against one of their own members, and the fact that whole business can be conducted via NATO’s 60-year-old military alliance using our allies’ airbases in the Mediterranean.
It’s just too easy.
We don’t even need to put troops on the ground, just fighter jets, gunships, cruise missiles, and drones.
We get to use up ordnance that was reaching its expiration date, give our pilots a little bit of combat practice, and generally make ourselves feel better about the Middle East and our role in it.
Jon Stewart explained this last night in terms of a ledger sheet and, grim as it may sound, there is an undeniable truth to the reality of the situation. The benefits of our actions must be weighed against their costs. It’s ugly, but it’s true.
Are we doing the right thing in Libya? I believe the answer to be yes.
Why then, are we not doing the right thing in places like Cote d’Ivoire, Bahrain or Syria?
Because it’s a whole lot more difficult in those places.
Syria and Bahrain are tangled messes that require a delicate negotiation of allies, potential allies, neighbors, repercussions, and regional instability that could severely impact our interests in the area.
Whereas Bahrain and Syria have close ties to other Middle East countries, Libya has steadily angered and alienated everyone else in the Arab-speaking world. (This is one of the main reasons he has given so much money to African regimes and the African Union - Qaddafi has spent billions on dictators across Africa in order to ensure their support for his various machinations. )
Right now Cote d’Ivoire is in the early stages of a civil war. How many of their neighboring countries are clamoring for our help to mitigate the thousands of fleeing refugees? What has the AU done to stop that conflict (or any other, for that matter)? Almost nothing – instead they rail against intervention. Gbagbo, the former president of Cote d’Ivoire, refuses to leave office despite having lost the election. Instead he is unleashing his military on the supporters of his opponent Outtara. Simultaneously he has vigorously supported Gaddafi and denounced any and all western intervention. (Interesting sidenote – in addition to his links to Gaddafi, Gbagbo has strong ties to some big name conservative Evangelical Christian movers and shakers in the US).
Furthermore, the scale of brutality in Bahrain and Syria hasn’t yet begun to approach what we’ve seen in Libya (though Syria should be watched closely – this Friday after evening prayers things will almost certainly get interesting). Getting NATO or Arab league approval for an action in Syria isn’t going to happen, and unilateral American intervention in the middle east went out with GWB.
In the case of Bahrain we have to weigh our actions within the context of our own involvement (the US 5th Fleet is docked in Bahrain) and the proximity of Iran, the entanglement of Saudi Arabia, and the fact that we’d be hard-pressed to achieve anything truly constructive by getting involved. It’s also not near Europe, and it’ll have to get a lot worse before Europeans would even think of getting involved. (And really, why would Europeans get involved? It doesn’t really impact them in the way that Libya does.)
So. American intervention in Libya. Easy.
Everywhere else. Messy and problematic.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Yemen, Egypt and this blog - three short updates.
Three quick updates to bring to your attention:
Yemen: Yesterday I briefly mentioned that President Saleh offered to step down by the end of the year and hand has authority over to a worthy successor, while expressing doubts as to his sincerity. As it turns out, he has withdrawn the offer, which leads me to suspect that he was never all that sincere to begin with.
***
Egypt: Egyptian presidential elections have been pushed back to 2012. Although this sounds ominous on the face of it, the reasons for postponement are quite encouraging – given the lively debate over the constitutional amendments, the military Council decided that the constitutional revisions themselves needed more time and needed more involvement by a wider spectrum of people (this was one of the primary complaints about the way in which the constitutional amendments were undertaken) they have brought in several additional voices to participate in further revisions. (Parliamentary elections will still be held this year)
An article on the issue can be found here, a Google translated version is here (though it is a bit garbled, the essential point are fairly clear).
Postponing the presidential election gives the fledgling reform movements more time to solidify their base and establish their platforms. In the meantime, some major divisions are coming to the surface in the Muslim brotherhood and among some of the more conservative religious elements. If incidents like this persist, the fundamentalists will rapidly lose their public support.
***
The third item relates to this blog - Last night I noticed that today marks two months since I started writing here. Overall I’d say it’s going pretty well – I’m averaging about a hundred visits a day, mostly from the US but also from all over the rest of the world. We’ll have to wait and see if my new Twitter account generates additional hits. Most importantly for me, it has forced me into the habit of writing on a daily basis, something that I’ve tried to do in the past but had serious problems with until now.
In the interests of ongoing improvement, I’d love to get your feedback on the blog – is there anything you’d like more of? Is there an area that I’m not covering fully? Do you have questions about my methodology or my sources? Let me know so that I can address those areas.
Yemen: Yesterday I briefly mentioned that President Saleh offered to step down by the end of the year and hand has authority over to a worthy successor, while expressing doubts as to his sincerity. As it turns out, he has withdrawn the offer, which leads me to suspect that he was never all that sincere to begin with.
***
Egypt: Egyptian presidential elections have been pushed back to 2012. Although this sounds ominous on the face of it, the reasons for postponement are quite encouraging – given the lively debate over the constitutional amendments, the military Council decided that the constitutional revisions themselves needed more time and needed more involvement by a wider spectrum of people (this was one of the primary complaints about the way in which the constitutional amendments were undertaken) they have brought in several additional voices to participate in further revisions. (Parliamentary elections will still be held this year)
An article on the issue can be found here, a Google translated version is here (though it is a bit garbled, the essential point are fairly clear).
Postponing the presidential election gives the fledgling reform movements more time to solidify their base and establish their platforms. In the meantime, some major divisions are coming to the surface in the Muslim brotherhood and among some of the more conservative religious elements. If incidents like this persist, the fundamentalists will rapidly lose their public support.
***
The third item relates to this blog - Last night I noticed that today marks two months since I started writing here. Overall I’d say it’s going pretty well – I’m averaging about a hundred visits a day, mostly from the US but also from all over the rest of the world. We’ll have to wait and see if my new Twitter account generates additional hits. Most importantly for me, it has forced me into the habit of writing on a daily basis, something that I’ve tried to do in the past but had serious problems with until now.
In the interests of ongoing improvement, I’d love to get your feedback on the blog – is there anything you’d like more of? Is there an area that I’m not covering fully? Do you have questions about my methodology or my sources? Let me know so that I can address those areas.
Saturday, March 26, 2011
A whole mess of updates from all over!
Friday is always a big day in the Middle East. Just about every single major protest or rally that has taken place from Morocco to Iran has reached its peak after Friday evening prayers. Yesterday was no exception, and today seems like a good day to sort out some of the events from the past few days and try and make sense of where things are in the Middle East.
The first point to mention is my recent entry into the world of Twitter. I’ve been following multiple Twitter feeds for quite some time (beginning back in 2009 with the Iranian post-election protests), but I’ve been leery of going any deeper into that chaotic yammering mass. My time at the nonprofit technology conference last week however convinced me that it was no longer something I could reasonably avoid.
My Twitter name is ixakRubicon, but if you’re not on Twitter you can also see my “tweets” on the right column feed of this blog. I’ll be mostly using the feed to share links and “re tweet” notable tweets from other people that I’m following. I promise, I won’t be using it to talk about my new haircut (which is spiffy), what I ate for breakfast (egg sandwich), or what the guy next to me on the train yesterday smelled like (urine).
If you are among the twitterati, please follow me. It gives my life purpose and meaning.
Now on to the things that matter:
***
***
Libya - rebels are making progress once more. Pro-Qadhafi forces have retreated from the besieged cities of Misrata and Ajdabiya. There have also been reports of tanks and armored trucks being abandoned by the pro-Qadhafi forces because of fuel and ammunition shortages (remember what I said the other day about supply chains?).
White House comments on America's involvement in the NFZ+ can be found here if you missed them, with a more extensive speech coming on Monday. Steve Negus has some relevant comments over at thearabist.net - "Consensus vs Clarity"
The United Arab Emirates have also made another interesting move with some ambiguous geopolitical ramifications. They have joined the African Union as officially recognized observers. This is notable for a few reasons, most immediately the contrast between their active participation in airstrikes on Libya and the denunciation of those attacks by the African Union. Their respective diferences over Libya, this certainly indicates a heightened degree of interest in Africa by the UAE, presumably for commercial reasons, but potentially for other reasons as well.
***
In Yemen, talks of a potential power transfer are under way, possibly over the next few days.
Frankly, this may be little more than a stalling tactic on the part of the current president - power would most likely be transferred into the hands of one of his supporters. Despite the fact that nothing really seems to be happening beyond talking, it’s still too early to write off the power transfer idea. The fact that the people of Yemen have been able to push Saleh this far means that they can probably push further.
***
On the topic of elections, Egypt’s Wafd party is showing its true colors, stating that they are opposed to any international election monitoring in the fall (Google translate version here). Reaction to the statement has yet to be seen on a wide scale, but initial reactions have been (predictably) outrage and anger by the youth who participated on the protest movement.
***
Some interesting power struggles going on in Gaza as well, as Hamas tries to rein in the violent actions of Islamic Jihad.
***
***
The situation in Syria keeps getting more and more serious (or should I say Syrias?). Protesters burnt down a Baath party headquarters today and the protests continue to escalate in response to the governments violent attempts to suppress them.
The US role in the operation has been downgraded, with NATO taking the leadership role and the majority of the sorties being flown by French and British planes as well as several miscellaneous European countries and Canada. Fighter planes from Qatar and the United Arab Emirates are also participating, though it should be pointed out that Qatar is one of the only countries in the ME that hasn’t had major protests (it is also the home of Al Jazeera), and the UAE may have committed planes in order to buy themselves some slack for their participation in the Bahrain crackdown. Nonethless, the participation in this campaign by Arab governments should not be taken lightly.
***
***
The United Arab Emirates have also made another interesting move with some ambiguous geopolitical ramifications. They have joined the African Union as officially recognized observers. This is notable for a few reasons, most immediately the contrast between their active participation in airstrikes on Libya and the denunciation of those attacks by the African Union. Their respective diferences over Libya, this certainly indicates a heightened degree of interest in Africa by the UAE, presumably for commercial reasons, but potentially for other reasons as well.
***
In Yemen, talks of a potential power transfer are under way, possibly over the next few days.
Frankly, this may be little more than a stalling tactic on the part of the current president - power would most likely be transferred into the hands of one of his supporters. Despite the fact that nothing really seems to be happening beyond talking, it’s still too early to write off the power transfer idea. The fact that the people of Yemen have been able to push Saleh this far means that they can probably push further.
***
On the topic of elections, Egypt’s Wafd party is showing its true colors, stating that they are opposed to any international election monitoring in the fall (Google translate version here). Reaction to the statement has yet to be seen on a wide scale, but initial reactions have been (predictably) outrage and anger by the youth who participated on the protest movement.
Another interesting event took place in Egypt as well. Two of the men responsible for the assassination of Anwar Sadat were released from jail a few days ago. This is part of a very complex power play by the military that I’m still trying to decode. I’ll try to keep you apprised of the situation as clarity comes.
***
Some interesting power struggles going on in Gaza as well, as Hamas tries to rein in the violent actions of Islamic Jihad.
***
In Jordan there have been some protests calling for a transition to a constitutional monarchy, but it remains to be seen whether or not they will gain traction. There have also been robust counter-protests - The King of Jordan still enjoys strong support from certain sections of the country, and some angry rhetoric has been flying back and forth over the issue. A heartfelt and melancholy account of a March24 protest can be found here: "The Quick Death Of Shabab March 24 And What It Means For Jordan" I HIGHLY reccommend it. The author really cuts to the heart of the issue in Jordan, and why reform of the type that we are seeing elsewhere may be a long time coming in Jordan.
***
The situation in Syria keeps getting more and more serious (or should I say Syrias?). Protesters burnt down a Baath party headquarters today and the protests continue to escalate in response to the governments violent attempts to suppress them.
An interesting consequence of the current situation in Syria is that Hezbollah has positioned itself very squarely on the side of Assad, a strategic decision that will probably come back to bite them in the ass later on. The Alawite sect of Islam that Assad and his core supporters belong to is viewed with some suspicion by many of the more conventional Sunni Arabs of Syria. The government’s close ties to the Shiites of Hezbollah and to the Iranian government have give the unhappy parts of the population ammunition for accusations of borderline heresy.
***
On the topic of Iran, an additional point to mention – the US government is considering dropping Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) from the list of international terrorist organizations, a move that could have a serious negative impact on the homegrown Iranian green movement. Excellent article describing the situation over at salon.com http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2011/03/26/iran_green_movement/index.html
***
***
On the topic of Iran, an additional point to mention – the US government is considering dropping Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) from the list of international terrorist organizations, a move that could have a serious negative impact on the homegrown Iranian green movement. Excellent article describing the situation over at salon.com http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2011/03/26/iran_green_movement/index.html
***
There is also some positive State Department news - they have developed a nifty piece of software called the “Panic Protester Button”, a phone app that can be activated if a protester is about to be arrested. If the “panic” button is pressed the phone immediately erases all saved contact information from the phone and sends an emergency alert to other activists. This useful little piece of software shows an encouraging degree of innovation and adaptability on the part of our own State Department, (though an independently developed third-party version probably has a better chance of widespread adoption in places where the US government is viewed with almost as much suspicion as the local government.
***
One last thing to mention: Sudan – Protests against Omar al-Bashir are still trying to take off. I’ll keep you posted on those.
***
Well, that’s all for now, thanks for tuning in, and don’t forget to follow me on Twitter!
***
One last thing to mention: Sudan – Protests against Omar al-Bashir are still trying to take off. I’ll keep you posted on those.
***
Well, that’s all for now, thanks for tuning in, and don’t forget to follow me on Twitter!
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Israel: winning battles, losing the war.
Spring is here!
As the old marching cadence goes, "what makes the grass grow? Blood. Blood. Blood."
Or, alternately, we can always hum few bars from Ween’s classic tune, "push the little daisies."
Or, alternately, we can always hum few bars from Ween’s classic tune, "push the little daisies."
Revolutions are ugly things. And revolutions happen because ugly things have been happening.
(Note, some of the links on this page will take you to videos and photographs of unpleasant things – consider yourself warned)
I'm sorry I haven't been updating every day, but with my limited time I often find myself having to choose between keeping up on things and writing about things. As good as it feels to update my blog daily, there is also a value to me keeping abreast of the things I am presuming to write about.
So...A speedy Middle East overview:
At this point there are four main hotspots: Libya, Yemen, Bahrain, Syria.
Algeria is still teetering on the brink, the events in Iraq are relatively indistinguishable from their state before the Arab Spring (I'm sorry to be so dismissive, but Iraq's problems are of a very different stripe than the rest of the Arab world).
Oman, Jordan, Morocco, and Saudi Arabia have all experienced protests, but not to the degree that their neighbors have.
Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Kuwait are all fairly quiet right now (one of the advantages of being small and rich).
Egypt and Tunisia are pushing towards a post-autocratic future as best they can with varying degrees of success.
Iran and Lebanon have their own sort of equilibrium – both of them are seething under the surface, but not in any sort of fashion that is easy to explain to an unfamiliar observer.
So I guess that's about where things stand right now.
Have I forgotten anything?
Oh. Yeah.
Israel and Palestine.
The Siamese twin arch-enemies. Let's begin there, shall we?
As the protests and revolutions have spread throughout the middle east, Israel has been somewhat left out, which is just as well for them, given the turmoil that their own political situation is undergoing – splits in the dominant political party, controversies over military appointees, and the recent rape conviction of former president Moshe Katsav.
The most visible effects of the Arab spring in Israel have come in the form of a recent surge in mortar and grad rocket attacks on Israeli towns near the gaza border, the horrific murder of the Foegel family in the west bank settlement of Itamar, a bomb going off in Jerusalem, and Israel's military and political reactions to all of those events.
The thing is, these events aren’t actually expressions of the Arab Spring - they are instead desperate actions by groups who stand to lose influence and power in the event of a real Palestinian unity movement. As I’ve stated before, these incidents are intended to goad Israel into a disproportionate response in order to generate support for the various militant Islamist organizations operating in Gaza. To say that they are the work of Hamas is not really accurate, but Hamas certainly stands to benefit from anything that draws attention away from themselves and catalyzes the public mood against Israel.
The degree to which Hamas fears a genuine Palestinian unity movement can be seen in the ferocity with which they lashed out against the rally in Gaza city last week – their power is slipping and they know it.
Anyway, a Palestinian unity movement would be disastrous for both Hamas and Fateh (And probably for the Israeli government as well). So instead we get what we have seen over the past few days: a resumption of aggressive actions against Israel, and unflinching retaliation on the part of the Israeli military. This actually creates an interesting opportunity for Israel's military industrial complex - the Iron Dome.
This is the next-generation of antimissile defense. Radar guided antimissile missile launcher that detects rockets and shoots them out of the sky with faster rockets.
Israel is hoping to market these to other militaries, and the situation presents them with the perfect opportunity to demonstrate the units as "field-tested". The IDF has stated that they will be moving one of the units into place over the next few days, so I guess that's something we can all look forward to watching.
Here’s The problem: with the implementation of the Iron Dome Israel may have a new weapon in their national defense arsenal, but the Palestinian people also have a new tool, the same one that has been used in Syria, Bahrain and Libya to powerful effect - the ubiquitous camera.
In the same way that the events of three days ago in the Syrian town of Daraa were being viewed around the world within a matter of minutes, and the way that the brutality of Libyan protesters shot to pieces by antiaircraft guns was immediately displayed for the world to see (I'm not going to give you a link - the pictures are horrific), the consequences of each and every one of Israel's actions will be looking out of computer monitors and smart phone screens across the Middle East and around the world.
When "Cast Lead" went into action in 2008, twitter did not exist, camera phones were still something of a novelty, and Facebook was still largely the domain of college students.
In 2009, when Neda, a young Iranian girl on her way to a piano lesson in Tehran was struck by a stray police bullet during the post-election protests she was dead in less than five minutes. As bystanders tried to help her, one stood and filmed. The video of her death was online before her body was cold.
Over the past three days more than a dozen Palestinians have died in Israeli strikes - at least four of them children. Many more will die in the days and weeks to come. Only some of them will have had any connection to the attacks on Israel, but all of their pictures will be posted on the internet.
Of course, Israel has cell phones with cameras as well, but pictures of a missile that didn't hit anything doesn't really have the same impact as shaky handheld footage of family members pulling their children out of the rubble of their parents’ houses.
Israel is making some very bad strategic decisions right now.
Israel is making some very bad strategic decisions right now.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Self-immolation: Performing Protest with Fire -- Part 2: Viewing and Reviewing
Introduction: the Jan. 2011 regime change in Tunisia can be traced back to a single trigger event - On Dec 17th a young man named Mohamed Bouazizi was publicly abused and humiliated by the police for selling vegetables without a permit. Frustrated at the obstacles to simply making a living and the denial of basic human dignity he publicly set himself on fire. The jarring intensity of the act caught the attention of the Tunisian public, who strongly identified with the young man’s plight. Several more incidents of self immolation followed in Tunisia, as well as in Algeria and Egypt, and majorly contributed to the burst of protests and revolutions across North African and the Middle East. Self immolation as performed political protest has been a high profile practice since the early 1960’s, but until now has been largely unreported in the Arab world.
Last year in Toronto I delivered a paper on self immolation. Given that Bouazizi’s self-immolation was the catalyst for such unprecedented events in the middle east I wanted to cannibalize some of last year’s paper to shed a little light on this practice. This is part two of a three-part blog. Part one can be found here
Remembering the performance
Each victim of suicide gives his act a personal stamp which expresses his temperament, the special conditions in which he is involved, and which, consequently, cannot be explained by the social and general causes of the phenomenon.
What follows the performance of self immolation? No act takes place in a vacuum, and once performed, such an act cannot be undone. But the act does not simply end with the death of the actor; even the hottest fire leaves a residue. There is the body, of course which must be removed and disposed of. As mentioned before, if the act is interrupted the self-immolator is likely to suffer for days before dying, and often times this grants additional time for the promulgation of the self-immolator’s message. Most survivors the initial fire shown no remorse or regret for their actions, insisting that they would repeat the act despite the pain it caused them. Jan Palnic, a Czechoslovakian who survived for almost a week before succumbing to his injuries, did not regret his own actions, but discouraged other Czechoslovakian's from following suit, on the grounds that only one person needed to suffer as horribly as he had.
Because of the ideologically charged nature of the act, self-immolators almost always leave a written record of why they undertook such an extreme action. Tich Quang Duc left an explicitly worded note explaining and justifying his actions. He also left behind a nearly mythic relic: his heart. After his self immolation, his charred body was taken away for cremation, but according to all accounts, the cremation failed to consume his heart. Instead the organ survived the fire, was placed in a crystal goblet and retained by the monastery as a relic of the event and as a symbol of Tich Quang Duc’s standing as a Bodhisattva, an enlightened being who has deferred his own transcendence for the sake of others. The automobile that dropped him off at the intersection on the morning of June 11 is also preserved in his memory, with a copy of Malcolm Brown’s iconic photo affixed to the dashboard. In the picture, the car itself can be seen parked behind the burning monk moments before his death. Indexically, the car and the photo reference each other and they both reference Tich Quong Duc’s self immolation.
Similar (though somewhat subordinate) reverence is shown towards all of the other Vietnamese monks who self immolated, whether in response to the Diem regime, the conflict between North and South Vietnam, or the American involvement. Memorials are maintained by their monasteries and by the Vietnamese government. Additionally, the Vietnamese government and Tich Quang Duc’s monastery also memorialize the Americans who self immolated in solidarity with the monks and the Vietnamese people. Their actions are accepted at face value, and deemed worthy of gratitude and appreciation by the Vietnamese people.
This remembrance of the dead self immolators is far from common, however. In Europe there are a few memorials to the Czechoslovakian self immolators, who are also revered as national heroes. Similarly, in Poland a monument has been erected in honor of Polish self immolator Ryszard Siwiec. In America and most other locations there are no national monuments. Any commemoration that is done is done by private citizens, usually family or friends. Given the absence of public monuments in the US, the primary way in which self immolation is remembered or referenced is through its depiction in various media.
Another elaborate instance of creative semiotic indexicality is found in the 2001 movie "Waking Life", a well-received independent art film. The movie is a meditation on awareness, death and dreaming that is presented in a distinctive format known as “rotoscoping” – a technique where a layer of animation is laid overtop of the original footage of the actors, adding a dreamlike quality to the film. Towards the end of the movie the central character is listening to a man with a gas can talk about the nature of self destruction, chaos and tragedy. The man concludes his monologue by sitting cross-legged on the ground and dousing himself with the contents of the gas can. His final words are, “I feel that the time has come to project my own inadequacies and dissatisfactions into the sociopolitical and scientific schemes. Let my own lack of voice be heard.” At that point he sets himself on fire and the animated flames engulf him as he sits silently. After a brief period, his flaming body collapses to one side, and the movie continues on to the next scene.
These few examples are hardly indicative of a clear trend. Replaying and referencing self immolation in media or through media is seldom practiced, but it is even less common in a real-life setting. To view the act on a screen is to be separated by a degree of mediation, facilitated by the willing suspension of disbelief, while the actions of the self immolator are much stronger when experienced directly - more compelling recreations of the performance do exist..
Last year in Toronto I delivered a paper on self immolation. Given that Bouazizi’s self-immolation was the catalyst for such unprecedented events in the middle east I wanted to cannibalize some of last year’s paper to shed a little light on this practice. This is part two of a three-part blog. Part one can be found here
Remembering the performance
Each victim of suicide gives his act a personal stamp which expresses his temperament, the special conditions in which he is involved, and which, consequently, cannot be explained by the social and general causes of the phenomenon.
-Emile Durkheim
What follows the performance of self immolation? No act takes place in a vacuum, and once performed, such an act cannot be undone. But the act does not simply end with the death of the actor; even the hottest fire leaves a residue. There is the body, of course which must be removed and disposed of. As mentioned before, if the act is interrupted the self-immolator is likely to suffer for days before dying, and often times this grants additional time for the promulgation of the self-immolator’s message. Most survivors the initial fire shown no remorse or regret for their actions, insisting that they would repeat the act despite the pain it caused them. Jan Palnic, a Czechoslovakian who survived for almost a week before succumbing to his injuries, did not regret his own actions, but discouraged other Czechoslovakian's from following suit, on the grounds that only one person needed to suffer as horribly as he had.
Because of the ideologically charged nature of the act, self-immolators almost always leave a written record of why they undertook such an extreme action. Tich Quang Duc left an explicitly worded note explaining and justifying his actions. He also left behind a nearly mythic relic: his heart. After his self immolation, his charred body was taken away for cremation, but according to all accounts, the cremation failed to consume his heart. Instead the organ survived the fire, was placed in a crystal goblet and retained by the monastery as a relic of the event and as a symbol of Tich Quang Duc’s standing as a Bodhisattva, an enlightened being who has deferred his own transcendence for the sake of others. The automobile that dropped him off at the intersection on the morning of June 11 is also preserved in his memory, with a copy of Malcolm Brown’s iconic photo affixed to the dashboard. In the picture, the car itself can be seen parked behind the burning monk moments before his death. Indexically, the car and the photo reference each other and they both reference Tich Quong Duc’s self immolation.
Similar (though somewhat subordinate) reverence is shown towards all of the other Vietnamese monks who self immolated, whether in response to the Diem regime, the conflict between North and South Vietnam, or the American involvement. Memorials are maintained by their monasteries and by the Vietnamese government. Additionally, the Vietnamese government and Tich Quang Duc’s monastery also memorialize the Americans who self immolated in solidarity with the monks and the Vietnamese people. Their actions are accepted at face value, and deemed worthy of gratitude and appreciation by the Vietnamese people.
This remembrance of the dead self immolators is far from common, however. In Europe there are a few memorials to the Czechoslovakian self immolators, who are also revered as national heroes. Similarly, in Poland a monument has been erected in honor of Polish self immolator Ryszard Siwiec. In America and most other locations there are no national monuments. Any commemoration that is done is done by private citizens, usually family or friends. Given the absence of public monuments in the US, the primary way in which self immolation is remembered or referenced is through its depiction in various media.
Replaying and referencing the performance
One of the few good things about modern times: If you die horribly on television, you will not have died in vain. You will have entertained us.
-Kurt Vonnegut
Most American news agencies avoid showing overly graphic footage of human death on US television, particularly violent human death. As such, self immolation is not exactly fodder for the evening news, although mention of its occurrence will usually appear in print media. During the run-up to the US occupation of Iraq, three people committed suicide or self immolation in protest. Their actions received slight mention, but very little attention in the national news at the time.
Until the advent of the Internet, the only readily available footage of self immolation available in the US was found on “Faces of Death”, a notorious video compilation of archival and historical films of actual humans dying in a multitude of ways. This panoply of horrific and gruesome footage featured a few films of self immolation devoid of ideological context amidst dozens of other examples of human death. The internet has changed this. Now, In addition to an abundance of articles and online discussions on the issue, the Internet provides a wealth of video footage as well. A search for “self immolation” on youtube.com returns hundreds of videos and picture slideshows of actual self immolations, including two films of Tich Quang Duc's self immolation, and other immolations from Sri Lanka, Canada, Korea, and Eastern Europe. Some of the videos are from films shot almost 40 years ago, and some of them are only a few months old, shot on cheap digital video devices or even cell phones. With the trend towards the ubiquity of security cameras and handheld video cameras integrated into cell phones, the likelihood is that video examples of self immolation will become much more common in the future.
The memory of Tich Quang Duc was most famously referenced in 1992, when the antiestablishment hard rock/funk/rap band known as Rage Against the Machine used Brown's photo of Tich Quong Duc as the cover of their debut album. The album, a self titled politically charged anti-colonialist rant from beginning to end went platinum in a little over a year, and continued to sell at high volume for several years to follow. The cover was the stark black-and-white image of Tich Quang Duc on fire, marked only with the typewritten eponymous band name/album title. The power of Brown’s iconic photograph is inarguable - Robert Kennedy referred to the image as “the most powerful image of the decade.” Communications scholar Michelle Murray did a visual analysis of this photograph and reached many of the conclusions that I have already mentioned
Most American news agencies avoid showing overly graphic footage of human death on US television, particularly violent human death. As such, self immolation is not exactly fodder for the evening news, although mention of its occurrence will usually appear in print media. During the run-up to the US occupation of Iraq, three people committed suicide or self immolation in protest. Their actions received slight mention, but very little attention in the national news at the time.
Until the advent of the Internet, the only readily available footage of self immolation available in the US was found on “Faces of Death”, a notorious video compilation of archival and historical films of actual humans dying in a multitude of ways. This panoply of horrific and gruesome footage featured a few films of self immolation devoid of ideological context amidst dozens of other examples of human death. The internet has changed this. Now, In addition to an abundance of articles and online discussions on the issue, the Internet provides a wealth of video footage as well. A search for “self immolation” on youtube.com returns hundreds of videos and picture slideshows of actual self immolations, including two films of Tich Quang Duc's self immolation, and other immolations from Sri Lanka, Canada, Korea, and Eastern Europe. Some of the videos are from films shot almost 40 years ago, and some of them are only a few months old, shot on cheap digital video devices or even cell phones. With the trend towards the ubiquity of security cameras and handheld video cameras integrated into cell phones, the likelihood is that video examples of self immolation will become much more common in the future.
The memory of Tich Quang Duc was most famously referenced in 1992, when the antiestablishment hard rock/funk/rap band known as Rage Against the Machine used Brown's photo of Tich Quong Duc as the cover of their debut album. The album, a self titled politically charged anti-colonialist rant from beginning to end went platinum in a little over a year, and continued to sell at high volume for several years to follow. The cover was the stark black-and-white image of Tich Quang Duc on fire, marked only with the typewritten eponymous band name/album title. The power of Brown’s iconic photograph is inarguable - Robert Kennedy referred to the image as “the most powerful image of the decade.” Communications scholar Michelle Murray did a visual analysis of this photograph and reached many of the conclusions that I have already mentioned
Another elaborate instance of creative semiotic indexicality is found in the 2001 movie "Waking Life", a well-received independent art film. The movie is a meditation on awareness, death and dreaming that is presented in a distinctive format known as “rotoscoping” – a technique where a layer of animation is laid overtop of the original footage of the actors, adding a dreamlike quality to the film. Towards the end of the movie the central character is listening to a man with a gas can talk about the nature of self destruction, chaos and tragedy. The man concludes his monologue by sitting cross-legged on the ground and dousing himself with the contents of the gas can. His final words are, “I feel that the time has come to project my own inadequacies and dissatisfactions into the sociopolitical and scientific schemes. Let my own lack of voice be heard.” At that point he sets himself on fire and the animated flames engulf him as he sits silently. After a brief period, his flaming body collapses to one side, and the movie continues on to the next scene.
These few examples are hardly indicative of a clear trend. Replaying and referencing self immolation in media or through media is seldom practiced, but it is even less common in a real-life setting. To view the act on a screen is to be separated by a degree of mediation, facilitated by the willing suspension of disbelief, while the actions of the self immolator are much stronger when experienced directly - more compelling recreations of the performance do exist..
Reenacting the performance
The first notable reenactment took place a few years after Tich Quang Duc’s original performance. In 1967 the 17-year-old son of an American embassy worker in Vietnam doused himself with gasoline and set himself on fire, imitating the performances of self immolation that seemed to be everywhere at the time. The rapid response of passersby saved his life, and during his convalescence he was asked about his reasons for such extreme behavior. His response was simply, "I wanted to know how it felt." This seems to be part of a larger trend in American media, the intentional or inadvertent separation of the act of self immolation from its accompanying ideology.
On January 23, 2001, the 10th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests in Beijing, several self immolations took place in Tiananmen Square. Contradictory government reports placed the number of self immolators between five and seven, and fatalities at either one or two. A week after the incident, heavily edited footage of two of the immolation incidents was released by the government, along with interviews with two bandaged individuals who were described as survivors of the incident. One of the victims, according to government news reports, was a 12-year-old girl who had been pushed into the act by her mother. All of the survivors vigorously blamed and denounced Falun Gong, the religious organization to which they had allegedly previously belonged. All of the persons who had performed the act were described as victims of manipulation, brainwashing, and antigovernment propaganda. The subsequent public shock over the event, was tremendous, and led to a dramatic shift of public sympathy away from the Falun Gong.
The Falun Gong themselves denied all responsibility for the immolation, and protested that such acts were theologically forbidden by their religion. They also challenged the veracity of the publicly broadcasted footage of the immolations, and called for investigation. Danny Schecter, a CNN reporter who had been present at the first of the January 23 self-immolations also took issue with the broadcast footage. He and a CNN cameraman observed the very beginning of the event, but they were quickly detained by the police, relieved of their movie footage from the event, and escorted from the scene. Subsequent investigation raised doubts as to the actual identity of the person's described by the Chinese government, as well as the legitimacy of their connections to the Falun gong. Even the official video itself, when closely examined reveals inconsistencies, most notably the disconcerting sight of a man in a government trench coat viciously clubbing one of the immolators in the face as she burns. Most of the official Chinese government claims regarding the nature of the event were discredited in the award-winning documentary "False Fire", but the Chinese government insists that their official account is an accurate one. Additionally, the Chinese government continues to insist that self immolation is selfish, dangerous, synonymous with terrorism, and the result of manipulation of the naïve by the unscrupulous cult members of the Falun Gong. This is similar to a narrative that was used by Indian media opposing a wave of self-immolations by low-caste Dalits protesting academic and employment discrimination in 1990 and 1991. The acts were dismissed or denigrated in a number of editorials:
“The unfortunate students suffered from a variety of psychological disorders ranging from alienation from their parents to acute depression and sense of insecurity caused by social and economic environs”
“…a general sense of fear manipulated among impressionable minds by extraneous forces which could have led to the suicide bids."
“…the extreme cynical step of encouraging self-immolation of gullible students as a weapon of political coercion,”
These denunciations are not intended to discourage the actions of the self-immolators themselves, but rather reduce the impact and perception of these performances by broader portions of the Indian and Chinese community. Because self-immolation itself is so difficult to prevent, the strategy of threatened institutions is to control the discourse over the issue while simultaneously disparaging its practice as barbaric and inhumane. Obviously, the response to performances of self immolation are likely to vary from country to country, regional variants has led to counteracting strategies by the groups that are being protested against. This may be through actions in the press, or it may take a more direct form of physical measures on the part of the government.
After the first instance of self immolation in 1963, the Vietnamese police adopted a simpler strategy; simply club anyone trying to photograph a self immolation event. In South Korea, due to a spate of self-immolations in the past, the police have been specially trained to handle the situation/spectacle, and are quite successful at anticipating and preventing successful self immolations. In response, however, more recent South Korean self-immolators have revised their performance style accordingly. In order to prevent an unwarranted police interruption of a self immolation, the recent trend among self immolators in Korea is now to perform the act in a highly visible but inaccessible location like a tower of a bridge span, and throw one's burning self off of the staging location.
Recently, during a self immolation in protest of the Chinese occupation of Tibet a Chinese police officer took dramatic measures, and fatally shot the self immolating protester before the burning body was extinguished. The Chinese government claims that the police officer acted in this fashion because there was no other way for him to prevent the spread of fire except through severe self injury. This may be indicative of a new strategy on the part of the Chinese government. If the Chinese government can establish a narrative that defines self-immolation as a public danger to others, they will be able to act against it with extreme prejudice and force. Concurrent with this approach, there have also been reports of Chinese police beating undesirable political activists severely, setting their unconscious bodies on fire, and then attributing their deaths to self-immolation.
The most recent trend in self immolation is a heretofore unknown unobserved co-implementation of self immolation and suicide bombing by the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka. Previously, it was generally accepted, that cultures and movements that used self immolation as a form of protest did so as an alternative to the use of violence towards their opponents, and that organizations and movements willing to utilize the suicide bombing is a tactic would have little or no use or need for self immolation with the two practices acting as opposite poles on a spectrum of violent fiery self-inflicted death. This new trend contradicts the conventional wisdom on self immolation, and is too novel to be fully addressed yet. This is significant because the Tamil tigers were the group to actively deploy suicide bombers against civilian targets. It is not clear from my research whether this-self immolation is a tactic utilized by more moderate elements within the Tamil independence movement, or if its utility has just recently been seized upon by the same ideological organizers responsible for the extremist actions of the Tamil Tigers.
The recent incidents of self immolation in Tunisia, Algeria, and Egypt have brought the practice to the forefront of the world’s attention, particularly due to their location in the Islamic world. In part three of this piece I will address this new phenomenon of Muslim self-immolation…stay tuned.
The first notable reenactment took place a few years after Tich Quang Duc’s original performance. In 1967 the 17-year-old son of an American embassy worker in Vietnam doused himself with gasoline and set himself on fire, imitating the performances of self immolation that seemed to be everywhere at the time. The rapid response of passersby saved his life, and during his convalescence he was asked about his reasons for such extreme behavior. His response was simply, "I wanted to know how it felt." This seems to be part of a larger trend in American media, the intentional or inadvertent separation of the act of self immolation from its accompanying ideology.
On January 23, 2001, the 10th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests in Beijing, several self immolations took place in Tiananmen Square. Contradictory government reports placed the number of self immolators between five and seven, and fatalities at either one or two. A week after the incident, heavily edited footage of two of the immolation incidents was released by the government, along with interviews with two bandaged individuals who were described as survivors of the incident. One of the victims, according to government news reports, was a 12-year-old girl who had been pushed into the act by her mother. All of the survivors vigorously blamed and denounced Falun Gong, the religious organization to which they had allegedly previously belonged. All of the persons who had performed the act were described as victims of manipulation, brainwashing, and antigovernment propaganda. The subsequent public shock over the event, was tremendous, and led to a dramatic shift of public sympathy away from the Falun Gong.
The Falun Gong themselves denied all responsibility for the immolation, and protested that such acts were theologically forbidden by their religion. They also challenged the veracity of the publicly broadcasted footage of the immolations, and called for investigation. Danny Schecter, a CNN reporter who had been present at the first of the January 23 self-immolations also took issue with the broadcast footage. He and a CNN cameraman observed the very beginning of the event, but they were quickly detained by the police, relieved of their movie footage from the event, and escorted from the scene. Subsequent investigation raised doubts as to the actual identity of the person's described by the Chinese government, as well as the legitimacy of their connections to the Falun gong. Even the official video itself, when closely examined reveals inconsistencies, most notably the disconcerting sight of a man in a government trench coat viciously clubbing one of the immolators in the face as she burns. Most of the official Chinese government claims regarding the nature of the event were discredited in the award-winning documentary "False Fire", but the Chinese government insists that their official account is an accurate one. Additionally, the Chinese government continues to insist that self immolation is selfish, dangerous, synonymous with terrorism, and the result of manipulation of the naïve by the unscrupulous cult members of the Falun Gong. This is similar to a narrative that was used by Indian media opposing a wave of self-immolations by low-caste Dalits protesting academic and employment discrimination in 1990 and 1991. The acts were dismissed or denigrated in a number of editorials:
“The unfortunate students suffered from a variety of psychological disorders ranging from alienation from their parents to acute depression and sense of insecurity caused by social and economic environs”
“…a general sense of fear manipulated among impressionable minds by extraneous forces which could have led to the suicide bids."
“…the extreme cynical step of encouraging self-immolation of gullible students as a weapon of political coercion,”
These denunciations are not intended to discourage the actions of the self-immolators themselves, but rather reduce the impact and perception of these performances by broader portions of the Indian and Chinese community. Because self-immolation itself is so difficult to prevent, the strategy of threatened institutions is to control the discourse over the issue while simultaneously disparaging its practice as barbaric and inhumane. Obviously, the response to performances of self immolation are likely to vary from country to country, regional variants has led to counteracting strategies by the groups that are being protested against. This may be through actions in the press, or it may take a more direct form of physical measures on the part of the government.
After the first instance of self immolation in 1963, the Vietnamese police adopted a simpler strategy; simply club anyone trying to photograph a self immolation event. In South Korea, due to a spate of self-immolations in the past, the police have been specially trained to handle the situation/spectacle, and are quite successful at anticipating and preventing successful self immolations. In response, however, more recent South Korean self-immolators have revised their performance style accordingly. In order to prevent an unwarranted police interruption of a self immolation, the recent trend among self immolators in Korea is now to perform the act in a highly visible but inaccessible location like a tower of a bridge span, and throw one's burning self off of the staging location.
Recently, during a self immolation in protest of the Chinese occupation of Tibet a Chinese police officer took dramatic measures, and fatally shot the self immolating protester before the burning body was extinguished. The Chinese government claims that the police officer acted in this fashion because there was no other way for him to prevent the spread of fire except through severe self injury. This may be indicative of a new strategy on the part of the Chinese government. If the Chinese government can establish a narrative that defines self-immolation as a public danger to others, they will be able to act against it with extreme prejudice and force. Concurrent with this approach, there have also been reports of Chinese police beating undesirable political activists severely, setting their unconscious bodies on fire, and then attributing their deaths to self-immolation.
The most recent trend in self immolation is a heretofore unknown unobserved co-implementation of self immolation and suicide bombing by the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka. Previously, it was generally accepted, that cultures and movements that used self immolation as a form of protest did so as an alternative to the use of violence towards their opponents, and that organizations and movements willing to utilize the suicide bombing is a tactic would have little or no use or need for self immolation with the two practices acting as opposite poles on a spectrum of violent fiery self-inflicted death. This new trend contradicts the conventional wisdom on self immolation, and is too novel to be fully addressed yet. This is significant because the Tamil tigers were the group to actively deploy suicide bombers against civilian targets. It is not clear from my research whether this-self immolation is a tactic utilized by more moderate elements within the Tamil independence movement, or if its utility has just recently been seized upon by the same ideological organizers responsible for the extremist actions of the Tamil Tigers.
The recent incidents of self immolation in Tunisia, Algeria, and Egypt have brought the practice to the forefront of the world’s attention, particularly due to their location in the Islamic world. In part three of this piece I will address this new phenomenon of Muslim self-immolation…stay tuned.
Sunday, March 20, 2011
What's the current situation in Libya right now?
This is an old post - click here for the most recent update on Libya.
You should also be checking http://www.libyafeb17.com/
The specificities of the coalition campaign are probably well beyond the knowledge of anybody except for those military and intelligence personnel directly involved (and presumably some key government officials as well). Suffice it to say dozens of tanks and armored vehicles have been destroyed on the ground, and the vast majority of Qaddafi’s anti-air capacities have been eliminated. US Air Force C-130s are now broadcasting to the Libyan people, and the No-Fly zone is now in effect from Tripoli to Benghazi.
It is worthwhile to point out that this is not simply a "no-fly zone". The wording of the UN resolution was to protect the safety of Libyan civilians, and although many members of the Arab League are balking at the scope of activity, what we're seeing is a full implementation that will probably come as close to implementation of ground forces without the actual implementation itself.
Many of the military officials involved have expressed minimal optimism regarding their expectations for this undertaking, emphasizing repeatedly that they will not be removing Qaddafi from power, they will simply be destroying as much as possible of his capacity to inflict harm on civilians.
Some of them have said that the result may simply be a stalemate on the ground, but don't believe that for a minute. These guys know exactly what's going on. Qaddafi's goose is cooked, but the actual work of removing him will be left to the Libyan people themselves.
Here's the thing, as I've been saying for the past week, the rebels are not as badly off as most people are assuming.
Qaddafi's forces have been hemorrhaging troops continuously for weeks. Entire battalions have defected, and are under the command of generals who were formerly loyal to Qaddafi. The discouraging events of the past week are not evidence of the Revolution's failure; they are the realities of war - specifically the realities of urban tank combat in North Africa. Patton said, "war is hell", but we in America haven’t had the opportunity to see the effects of large-scale ground combat since the first Gulf War (and war may be too strong of a word used to describe that conflict – it implies that there are actually two sides fighting).
Regardless, Qaddafi's field commanders (possibly one or two of his sons, probably with some direction from Qaddafi himself) committed to a campaign of speed and brutal force. It's sort of the equivalent of pulling your goalie in the last five minutes of a hockey or soccer game and putting an extra offensive player on the field in hopes of driving deep into the opponent’s territory and evening the score. Unsurprisingly, it's a very risky strategy. It has put his armor dangerously far from their supply lines, which are exposed and spread out over hundreds of kilometers. Tanks need a tremendous amount of fuel, and without infantry support they are susceptible to specific types of close range attacks. In urban environments, a handful of men with Molotov cocktails can cripple a tank if they are acting with little or no regard for their own safety or survival
Although it will take months, or even years to finally ascertain the correct sequence of events, my suspicion is that when Qaddafi's armor was moving into Benghazi they were entering a trap. Former Libyan soldiers (some say as many as 8000) were being held in reserve near Benghazi under the leadership of Libyan generals loyal to the uprising. The tanks that reached the city were rolling into the teeth of a resolute and ready resistance.
The French and American air strikes that took place yesterday and today were devastating, and they certainly saved civilian lives, but I suspect that even without them the Libyan resistance would have been successful in its defense of the city.
The real advantage of the airstrikes is their emotional effects. Pro-Qaddafi soldiers who yesterday or the day before were convinced of Qaddafi’s inevitable success are now more likely to abandon Brother Leader and his dwindling forces. That, I feel, will be where the ultimate success of the coalition efforts is seen. Not in the planes and tanks that they destroy, but in the message that they send to the remaining Qaddafi loyalists – It's over.
As I said before, the final victory will belong to the Libyan people – they are the ones who will ultimately remove Qaddafi from power.
You should also be checking http://www.libyafeb17.com/
The specificities of the coalition campaign are probably well beyond the knowledge of anybody except for those military and intelligence personnel directly involved (and presumably some key government officials as well). Suffice it to say dozens of tanks and armored vehicles have been destroyed on the ground, and the vast majority of Qaddafi’s anti-air capacities have been eliminated. US Air Force C-130s are now broadcasting to the Libyan people, and the No-Fly zone is now in effect from Tripoli to Benghazi.
It is worthwhile to point out that this is not simply a "no-fly zone". The wording of the UN resolution was to protect the safety of Libyan civilians, and although many members of the Arab League are balking at the scope of activity, what we're seeing is a full implementation that will probably come as close to implementation of ground forces without the actual implementation itself.
Many of the military officials involved have expressed minimal optimism regarding their expectations for this undertaking, emphasizing repeatedly that they will not be removing Qaddafi from power, they will simply be destroying as much as possible of his capacity to inflict harm on civilians.
Some of them have said that the result may simply be a stalemate on the ground, but don't believe that for a minute. These guys know exactly what's going on. Qaddafi's goose is cooked, but the actual work of removing him will be left to the Libyan people themselves.
Here's the thing, as I've been saying for the past week, the rebels are not as badly off as most people are assuming.
Qaddafi's forces have been hemorrhaging troops continuously for weeks. Entire battalions have defected, and are under the command of generals who were formerly loyal to Qaddafi. The discouraging events of the past week are not evidence of the Revolution's failure; they are the realities of war - specifically the realities of urban tank combat in North Africa. Patton said, "war is hell", but we in America haven’t had the opportunity to see the effects of large-scale ground combat since the first Gulf War (and war may be too strong of a word used to describe that conflict – it implies that there are actually two sides fighting).
Regardless, Qaddafi's field commanders (possibly one or two of his sons, probably with some direction from Qaddafi himself) committed to a campaign of speed and brutal force. It's sort of the equivalent of pulling your goalie in the last five minutes of a hockey or soccer game and putting an extra offensive player on the field in hopes of driving deep into the opponent’s territory and evening the score. Unsurprisingly, it's a very risky strategy. It has put his armor dangerously far from their supply lines, which are exposed and spread out over hundreds of kilometers. Tanks need a tremendous amount of fuel, and without infantry support they are susceptible to specific types of close range attacks. In urban environments, a handful of men with Molotov cocktails can cripple a tank if they are acting with little or no regard for their own safety or survival
Although it will take months, or even years to finally ascertain the correct sequence of events, my suspicion is that when Qaddafi's armor was moving into Benghazi they were entering a trap. Former Libyan soldiers (some say as many as 8000) were being held in reserve near Benghazi under the leadership of Libyan generals loyal to the uprising. The tanks that reached the city were rolling into the teeth of a resolute and ready resistance.
The French and American air strikes that took place yesterday and today were devastating, and they certainly saved civilian lives, but I suspect that even without them the Libyan resistance would have been successful in its defense of the city.
The real advantage of the airstrikes is their emotional effects. Pro-Qaddafi soldiers who yesterday or the day before were convinced of Qaddafi’s inevitable success are now more likely to abandon Brother Leader and his dwindling forces. That, I feel, will be where the ultimate success of the coalition efforts is seen. Not in the planes and tanks that they destroy, but in the message that they send to the remaining Qaddafi loyalists – It's over.
As I said before, the final victory will belong to the Libyan people – they are the ones who will ultimately remove Qaddafi from power.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)