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. 

Favoritism

No, it's not your imagination, but a central and age-old facet of human and organizational behavior in business, government, academia:

A group shares a task. and often one member of the group is the manager or coordinator. Sometimes, these managers hoard information, applying it to their specific assignments, withholding details and benefits from others. That manager also may cherry-pick assignments, avoiding challenges and judging assess in advance. The manager is calculating about when to help an in-group and when to work with an out-group. The manager's efforts to look smart and successful often undermine the organization as a whole. Some members of the out-group will try to join the in-group, but others will drop out of the charade, no longer offering necessary support and critical ideas as they set out on their own, while seeking alternative pay-offs.


"The Evolution of In-Group Favoritism" is a fascinating study of such calculating ways that analyzes such group dynamics with game theory:

Across a variety of scenarios, people tend to be more helpful to members of their own group rather than to those of other groups^{1, 2, 3, 4, 5}. In-group favoritism has been shown to occur based on real-world salient groupings, such as ethnicity⁶, religiosity⁷ and political affiliation^{4, 8}, and has also been artificially manufactured in the laboratory using trivial groupings¹ ....

In-group bias is common, yet the implementation of that bias is dynamic and flexible^{8, 25, 26}. Thus culture and cultural evolution²⁷ must play an important role in the evolution of bias. The dynamic nature of bias results from complex social network interactions which play a central role in human societies^{28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36}, with genetic as well as social components affecting network formation^{37, 38, 39}. Such network dynamics can turn yesterday's allies into today's competitors, and drive former enemies together in the face of a common threat.

Many endeavors allow only one set of winners.

But other endeavors might prevent an array of categories with the perception of "winning." The leader may focus keenly on one aspect for the in-group, say sales, while neglecting other categories, such as long-term reputation or acclaim. Focus on the in-group can inspire members of the out-group to tackle new categories of winning neglected by the calculating leader. And they may also appeal to outside arbiters.

Dynamics of groups can shift as in transforms to out and out transforms to in. In the end, all the favoritism, unfair processes and corruption can be dangerous, simply serving to motivate members of the out-group and strengthen their resolve.

So many scientific studies offer intriguing topics for mystery novels, and this is one of those studies. 

Image of Joseph from the Old Testament, being thrown into a pit by 12 brothers who resented their father's favoritism, by David Colyn in 1644, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Independence

An 1851 entry from the diary of Linka Preus of Norway, the night before her wedding: "A human being is a free and independent creature, and I would recommend that every woman consider this, and I insist that every maiden owes it to herself to do so . . . Rarely will it be to her disadvantage if she combines it with determination and self-confidence."

Another entry in the diary - about assisting a farmer girl who was alone, taking her on as a maid - inspired Preus's  great-great granddaughter, Margi Preus, to write West of the Moon, the story of Astri who runs away after being sold to a cruel goatman.  Preus describes her inspirations and ponders the influence of Norwegian folktales on children's character for Write All the Words! for International Women's Week.

The events that unfold from determination and self-confidence, escape and rescue, observation, assessment and transformation - are the building blocks to plots. Strength of character comes in many forms across cultures - and words like independence, agency, empowerment may not suit all women. We must test our assumptions, because "more often than not, it’s much easier to see and question the traps and obstacles awaiting women of another culture rather than our own," as suggested by another post in the same blog For some protagonists, the risk comes in testing accepted assumptions and new awareness, because as Honor McKitrick Wallace suggests: “Recognition and articulation of one’s desire can be a quest in and of itself."

And the discoveries that come from reading and writing are one of the ways to challenge our assumptions and routines.

By the way, the etymology of the word "assumption" is intriguing in relation to this topic. 

Image of the Assumption of Mary, oil on canvas, 1558, by Paolo Veronese, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Read all the posts for International Women's Week in E. Kristin Anderson's blog, Write All the Words!

Tough road

Afghanistan does not have many roadways but the few it has are treacherous -  a result of both roadside attacks and poor maintenance.

"Since 2012, the United States has refused to fund the Afghan government’s road maintenance projects because it has no faith in the country’s ability to perform even simple tasks, such as dispatching a contractor to fill in a pothole or repaving a stretch of highway," reports Kevin Seiff for The Washington Post. He adds that the US continues to build new roads to assist the economy. "The new, U.S.-built highways seemed to be a godsend for this impoverished nation. But the projects became notorious for their exorbitant costs and poorly implemented contracts."

Taliban fighters target the roads, knowing that they are security priority. Military vehicles patrol the road and regularly clear them of IEDs. Highway 1 is the "lifeline," suggests a member of the US Army’s 3rd Squadron, 2nd Cavalry in a report from Alexa Pena for Stars & Stripes. As US troops prepare to leave this year, responsibility for patrols and checkpoints is being handed over to Afghan troops.

More than two thirds of Afghans live within 30 miles of Highway 1. The highway, also known as A01 is 2,200 kilometers, circling the country, connecting major cities. In the sequel to Fear of Beauty, two characters travel Highway 1 from east of Lashkar Gah in Helmand to Kandahar, and only one returns to the small fictional village of Laashekoh.

Photo of Highway 1 reconstruction in 2003,  courtesy of USAID and Wikimedia Commons. Screenshot of the 137-kilometer stretch of Highway 1 between Lashkar Gah and Kandahar, courtesy of Google Maps.

Search results

Search engines are a tool, and the makers not only try to please users but earn revenue and gain market share.

"On Tuesday, campaigners at FreeWeibo, a tool that allows uncensored search of Chinese blogs, revealed that Bing returns radically different results in the US for English and simplified Chinese language searches on a series of controversial terms,” reports Dominic Rushe for The Guardian.. Microsoft called it a system error.

Readers commented, one pointing out that searches for specific religions like "Catholic" or "Methodist" on Google produce maps showing the location of the nearest church. But a search for "Islam" or "Judaism" produced no similar map - even though an Islamic center is less than 2 miles south from the search location and the nearest synagogue is 1 mile north. A quick search on Bing and Google confirmed the commenter's observation. Christians and others also complain about negative search results. 

Alert users quickly detect the online discrepancies.  

Such exercises are a good reminder that search engine users should be vigilant - and that search results are only as good as the user. Search engine firms tweak algorithms, varying the results produced. Emphasis is placed on a users's own recent searchers. Discrepancies are to be expected. Vary search terms - for example, Rushe describes how Chinese users use "June 4" to get around blocks on "Tiananmen Square." Users should check multiple sources, and results should be double-checked and confirmed.

As Paul Gil notes, legitimate research requires more than a 10-second search on Google or Bing. Rushed results can lead to rush to judgment - both easy to avoid with a few more clicks.

Screenshots of Google searches for "Catholic" and "Islam."

Honored

Fear of Beauty has been nominated for the Mary Higgins Clark Award from Mystery Writers of America and a Lovey for Best Suspense Novel by the Love Is Murder Conference in Chicago.

Illiteracy is a natural topic for suspense. And what an honor that the judges from Mystery Writers of America determined Fear of Beauty's protagonist, a woman in rural Afghanistan who is desperate to learn how to read, meets the MHC Award qualifications: an independent young woman whose life is disrupted and she must solve her problems with independence and courage.

Mary Higgins Clark is the best-selling author of 42 books, a legend whose work and life story have inspired many readers to try their hands at writing. Stories like Where Are the Children? and A Stranger Is Watching terrify yet steadfastly resist violence. 

"Here are some things you'll never find in a Mary Higgins Clark novel: an unmarried couple living together, a curse word, a body hacked to pieces. By today's standards, Ms. Clark's thrillers are quaint throwbacks, more in the Agatha Christie mold than the blood-curdling, titillating fare." So goes the lead to a profile of Mary Higgins Clark, "The Case of the Best-Selling Author," by Alexandra Alter for the Wall Street Journal. "Yet Ms. Clark—who at 83 still churns out at least one book a year—remains as lucrative a brand as ever." 

To be mentioned on the same page with such a writer is a huge honor.

And much thanks to Diana Belchase for her interview "Afghanistan, Women, Illiteracy, and Murder." She writes: "Susan’s books are full of current issues and vibrant people whose struggles and passion for life and justice keep you turning pages.  Her background as a journalist mixes with her literary talent to bring factual stories that both break your heart and exemplify the ability of people to endure and succeed in the most dire circumstances."

Photo of Diana Belchase and Susan Froetschel, courtesy of Diana; photo of Mary Higgins Clark in 2012, courtesy of Alvintrusty and Wikimedia Commons.

Corruption

The future of Afghanistan is in jeopardy, because of poor governance and basic hunger.  UN data suggest that 55 percent of the country's children have stunted growth because of hunger. 

"The statistic is a damning one for western powers that have poured billions into Afghanistan to fund development and reconstruction. The US alone has spent $90bn (£54bn)," reports Emma Graham-Harrison for the Guardian. "Such funding aimed to modernise Afghanistan, but return on the spending seems to have been low."

Not so much damning, but frustrating and challenging. Such funding from afar will slow if the Afghan government can't reduce waste and corruption. The funding will vanish if Taliban extremists resume control.

Surveys suggest that Afghans view corruption along with insecurity and unemployment as an even more pressing challenge than poverty, suggests the United Nations. Yet corruption is embedded in the culture, suggests the UN Office on Drugs and Crime:

While corruption is seen by Afghans as one of the most urgent challenges facing their country, it seems to be increasingly embedded in social practices, with patronage and bribery being an acceptable part of day-to-day life. For example, 68 per cent of citizens interviewed in 2012 considered it acceptable for a civil servant to top up a low salary by accepting small
bribes from service users (as opposed to 42 per cent in 2009). Similarly, 67 per cent of citizens considered it sometimes acceptable for a civil servant to be recruited on the basis of family ties and friendship networks (up from 42 per cent in 2009).

Corruption erodes community trust, and yet tolerance for corruption remains high in Afghanistan and contributes to poverty and misdirection of resources. Hunger is the most basic problem, one that hampers student learning and worker productivity. The CIA World Factbook lists other statistics that point to a weak, yet dangerous place: The country's literacy rate hovers around 40 percent.  Unemployment stands at about 35 percent. Half the population is under the age of 18. The average number of children among women is five. The country produces 90 percent of the world's opium and more than 5 percent of the population may be addicted.

The harsh truth is that only a fraction of any funds directed at Afghanistan will achieve their intended purpose, and donors must decide how to proceed. Weak governance and high levels of corruption ensure uncertainty in future foreign aid for Afghanistan.

Photo of member of US Army medical unit treating a malnourished child, 18 months old, in Afghanistan, courtesy of Capt. John Severns and Wikimedia Commons.