Common home

Muslim scholars are joining Pope Francis suggesting that climate change is caused by humans and threatening Earth.

"The views of the scholars – some of the strongest yet expressed on climate from within the Muslim community – are contained in a draft declaration on climate change to be launched officially at a major Islamic symposium in Istanbul in mid-August," reports Kieran Cooke for Climate News Network. "The draft declaration has been compiled by the Islamic Foundation for Ecology and Environmental Sciences, a UK-based charity focused on environmental protection and the management of natural resources. The declaration mirrors many of the themes contained in a recent encyclical issued by Pope Francis, the head of the Catholic Church."

Criticism is directed at the world's most advanced economies as well as oil-producing countries like Saudi Arabia.  The declaration includes quotes from the Koran, such as 16:65:  "And Allah has sent down water from the cloud and therewith given life to the earth after its death; most surely there is a sign in this for a people who would listen."

Regardless of faith, all people share a common home and should have an interest in protecting and caring for the Earth. There is no escaping climate change. "The urgent challenge to protect our common home includes a concern to bring the whole human family together to seek a sustainable and integral development, for we know that things can change,” the pope writes in his encyclical. “Humanity still has the ability to work together in building our common home.”

The pope mixes a scolding with eloquent respect for the Earth's land and waters: "The earth, our home, is beginning to look more and more like an immense pile of filth. In many parts of the planet, the elderly lament that once beautiful landscapes are now covered with rubbish. Industrial waste and chemical products utilized in cities and agricultural areas can lead to bioaccumulation in the organisms of the local population, even when levels of toxins in those places are low. Frequently no measures are taken until after people’s health has been irreversibly affected."

Researchers are studying climate change and producing models to forecast impacts. Models for the United States are specific and the National Climate Assessment offers projects for each region of the country.

Challenges for a underdeveloped nation like Afghanistan include a lack of baseline data, lack of meteorological stations in most parts, low literacy rates and a lack of trained personnel, explains Ghulam Mohd Malikyar in "The Impacts of Climate Change for Afghanistan."  Key hazards for the country include droughts, abrupt heavy rainfall, flooding doing to fast thaws in snow and ice, rising temperatures, heavy winds, severe storms and desertification, he writes, adding that all this disrupts agriculture. Other challenges include a "Lack of linkage with regional and international climate change networks" and "Low levels of awareness of the current and potential impacts of climate change" as well as "Limited analytical capability."

The country is working to promote awareness of future variability and potential for extreme events, as well as the need for sustainable development.

These trends along with the unnerving signs of climate change - volatile temperatures that destroy crops, dust storms, drought, water shortages, and even unusual snow - run throughout Allure of Deceit and Fear of Beauty. The villagers of Laashekoh do not have the benefit of weather reports, and must take each day as it comes, and the land means everything to Parsaa, the protagonist of Allure of Deceit. From Allure:

....Paul declined. He had to visit other village and expected snowfall.
"Surely not yet," Parsaa said. "The air is not that cold."
Paul smiled. "You will see over the next day... temperatures will plunge before tomorrow evening."

As noted the prologue notes in Fear: "We live in a land where extremes reign." Climate change is a security and economic issue, no longer easy to shove to the back of our minds. Modern literature increasingly reflects these concerns.

Photo of small village nestled in the mountains of southern Afghanistan, courtesy of Mark Ray, USACE, and Wikimedia Commons.

Intervention

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair questions the role of religion in politics, specifically Islam, and laments the lack of western support for military intervention against Islamic extremism.

The speech is less than convincing because of at least three contradictions that make foreign policy in the Middle East so challenging. 

First, he asserts the Middle East "remains of central importance" and "cannot be relegated to the second order." The first reason is global dependence on energy and a fourth is, "It is in the Middle East that the future of Islam will be decided. By this I mean the future of its relationship with politics." Saudi Arabia has the second largest reserves of oil in the world, the largest in the Middle East, and the country is governed by monarchy, enshrining inequality, funding extremist schools and exporting extremist theology to other Muslin nations: "For the last 40/50 years, there has been a steady stream of funding, proselytising, organising and promulgating coming out of the Middle East, pushing views of religion that are narrow minded and  dangerous. Unfortunately we seem blind to the enormous global impact such teaching has had and is having."

Even so, the United States and Britain continue to export arms to Saudi Arabia, despite grave human rights concerns and little assurance that those weapons won't land in the hands of extremists and be used against any sent to intervene. Education and trade cannot flourish without adequate security, true enough, but can leaders like Blair assure taxpayers in the west that such weapons won't be turned against political opponents, citizens or peacekeepers?

The US provides more military than economic aid to Afghanistan, Israel, Iraq and Egypt.


Second, in regard to the stream of funding and proselytizing coming out of the Middle East, made possible with oil profits, Blair mentions a time period - "40/50 years."  The influence from such extremist education was not overnight. Changing hearts and attitudes does not come fast. Fortunately or unfortunately, education and trade and cultural exchanges as simple as conversations can have more lasting positive influence on societies than unnecessary military intervention.

The nonmilitary interventions do take time - along the line of about 40 or 50 years.

Third, Blair urges modernization and democracy early in the speech: "Democracy cannot function except as a way of thinking as well as voting. You put your view; you may lose; you try to win next time; or you win but you accept that you may lose next time." And yet he criticizes the ideology emanating from the Muslim Brotherhood, which originated in Egypt, formed a political party shortly after the Arab spring protests that ousted Hosni Mubarak - a dictator long supported and funded by the west - and won the the nation's first democratic election. Yes, bad governance followed, but much came at the behest of a democratic election. Blair points to "a Titanic struggle going on within the region between those who want the region to embrace the modern world – politically, socially and economically – and those who instead want to create a politics of religious difference and exclusivity.... This is what makes intervention so fraught but non-intervention equally so."


Democracy and modernization do not go hand in hand, and votes throughout the Middle East would show that many indeed would oppose Mr. Blair's definitions of modernization. 

Mr. Blair is right on several points: Many people in Muslim countries, including the devout, oppose the desperate, bullying extremism. Chaos in one place spreads instability and extremism throughout the region. Also, as he says, "We have to stop treating each country on the basis of whatever seems to make for the easiest life for us at any one time."

He maintains that "the world of politics is uncomfortable talking abut religion" and that some say the problem is more political than religious. He adds that the terminology is inadequate, which an lead to misinterpretation, "so that you can appear to elide those who support the Islamist ideology with all Muslims." He claims to be fascinated by analysts' efforts to view the issues in the Middle East as "disparate rather than united by common elements," not really about Islam, not really about religion.

In one part of the speech, Blair suggests the problem is not Islam, but religion that fails to tolerate other beliefs with no social harm: "There is a wish to eliminate the obvious common factor in a way that is almost wilful." He notes that a strict Islamist agenda may not advocate for violence, but the "overall ideology is one which inevitably creates the soil in which such extremism can take root" and a few sentences later, he concludes that the days for such extreme interpretations of Christianity have been eradicated from politics.


Blair suggests that many "look at the issue of intervention or not and seem baffled." Yet those who take the time to examine more than just recent history, combined with the role of their own countries in the region and the fast, frightening pace of globalization, are less baffled.  More baffling is whether it's possible to engage in political conversation about religion and resolve anything of substance among citizens of different faiths. Should multiple and competing religions intervene in politics and how so? 

Blair concludes: "Engagement does not always mean military involvement. Commitment does not mean going it alone. But it does mean stirring ourselves. It does mean seeing the struggle for what it is. It does mean taking a side and sticking with it."


It's uncertain if the the citizens of the west could agree on a "side" and Blair's speech is not clear on exactly what that side should be, although he does offer recommendations on conflict in Egypt, Syria, Tunisia, Libya, Yemen, Iran, and the Middle East peace process - much of which is more of the same methods of intervention.

Blair probably would not agree, but consistent foreign policies coming from the west, cutting off aid, trade, support when recipients violate agreements or human rights, could be helpful. Otherwise, we return full circle to what he earlier claims to oppose: "treating each country on the basis of whatever seems to make for the easiest life for us at any one time."

Photo of Jordanian with MI-19 40 mm grenade launcher during Exercise Bright Star 2009, a bilateral weapons exchange in Egypt, courtesy of US Marine Corps and Wikimedia Commons.  Data on foreign aid from USAID. 

Under construction

A Tweet from one of the great teachers in my past, Bob Reich: "Laws not backed by sufficient enforcement resources are aspirations, not laws. Cutbacks at OSHA, SEC are repeals."

Restoring rule of law is an uphill climb after a reduction in enforcement. A breakdown in enforcement in one area spreads to other areas, as government employees and citizens cut corners and rationalize wrongdoing. Inconsistencies build, and citizens quickly lose faith in the system. Restoring the rule of law and citizen trust is more time consuming than destroying these systems.

And so it is with the Constitution of Afghanistan. 


Article Seven maintains, "The state shall prevent all kinds of terrorist activities, cultivation and smuggling of narcotics." Article Seventeen suggests the country "shall adopt necessary measures to foster education all levels, develop religious teachings, regulate and improve the conditions of mosques, religious schools as well as religious centers." Article Twenty-Two forbids "any kind of discrimination" and "The citizens of Afghanistan, men and woman [sic], have equal rights and duties before this law."

Article Twenty-Three:: "Life is the gift of God.... No one shall be deprived of this except by legal provision."  Twenty-Four: "Liberty is the natural right of human beings. This right has no limits unless affecting others [sic] freedoms as well as the public interest, which shall be regulated by law."

Article Twenty-Five maintains that "Innocence is the original state," that the accused are innocent until proven guilty by an authoritative court."

Torture is illegal. Persecution is forbidden.  Freedom of expression is inviolable.  There is a right to privacy around correspondence.  Personal residences are immune from trespassing without official court orders. Forced labor is forbidden. "Education is the right of all citizens of Afghanistan, which shall be offered up to the B.A. level in the state educational institutes free of charge by the state," according to Article Forty-Three, and Forty-Four encourages programs to "foster balanced education for women, improve education of nomads as well as eliminate illiteracy in the country." 

Those who would over-ride any of these articles can point to Article Two, which enshrines Islam as the state religion and prohibits any law that may contradict those beliefs. Even though Islam might endorse all the other articles of the constitution, the extremists develop their own interpretations to defy the rule of law. Stability in Afghanistan will depend on imams with the courage to speak out against manipulative, partial use of the religion to defend criminal acts.

Yes, laws that go unenforced are no longer laws.

And the difficulty of obtaining an online photo of the Afghan capitol building is notable, apparently a security measure. 

Photo of Kabul's largest mosque, Abdul Rahman Mosque, from Joe Burger and Wikimedia Commons.