context for humanity

Visiting friends this weekend in Northern California, I had the chance to see the play The Good German at a local theatre. I’m not sure what I expected, since the film was apparently mediocre, but this mise en scene was a tour de force of excellent acting and extraordinarily insightful writing that made me think long and hard about myself.

In a few words, it is the story of 4 people (3 Aryan Germans and 1 Jewish German) during World War II in Berlin. Two of the characters have hidden, with some reservation, this Jewish man they barely know in their home to avoid his deportation. The fourth character is their friend and frequent visitor, a young, ambitious administrative clerk in the Nazi army. I will say no more about the plot, except to mention that at no point did I suspect the next step in the play’s evolution.

Striking in playwright David Wiltse’s ruminations on history and human nature is his ability to see into the motivations, frailties, fears, emotions, and contradictions of each of his characters and to bring these sentiments to life in compelling and damning (if perhaps too transparent to be lifelike) ways. In each of these characters, we find feelings and weaknesses to love and empathize with, as well as behaviors and mentalities to passionately hate. We understand each of them, even as they fail to understand each other. No one is spared the hard and brutal exposure to our eyes, including we the audience; we see too much of ourselves in each one of them for our own comfort.

The perspective of time too often allows us (in the present) to say, ‘were I alive then, I would have known better or acted with more integrity.’ We judge these players in the past with the comfortable righteousness of those who were not involved and yet know with retrospect what was the ‘right’ or just decision to make. We tell ourselves we would have had the wisdom, the courage, the strength, to act differently. And then we avoid really examining the ways in which we unthinkingly act as bystanders in our own moment or history, or justify our own large and small “atrocities” in our present life. Wiltse shatters this certainty; it both hurts and awakens. As I watched Siemi, the young Nazi clerk, devolve in his acts of persecution, I was struck with the damning realization that were I in his shoes, I wouldn’t have had the courage not to pull the trigger either.

There was much discussion in the post show Q&A about the parallels with our present time; for the most part, they were ‘external’ (societal/political), such as Rwanda, the Bush Administration, the recent immigration raids on the local Latino illegals, etc. I was equally, if not more, disturbed by the ‘internal’ parallels: how their actions, despite their best efforts and intentions, were ultimately self-centered (protecting me, my comfort, my ambition, my view of myself and my dignity, etc); how their thinking justified their actions (a reminder of one of our brain’s most troublesome mechanisms: first we decide, then we find reasons to make ourselves right about our decisions/actions); how much more reassuring and powerful it feels, regardless of our professed values, when we are angry, righteous, better than others.

A frightening and memorable moment is Siemi’s empassioned explanation for why he has chosen hate: in a time of chaos, it is the one emotion you can count on. It isn’t fleeting, like happiness, nor does it dissipate, like lust once satiated. It is a constant, day in and day out. It gives energy and drive, a sense of purpose. It is his compass now that he has lost his bearings. In reflecting afterwards, I was all the more troubled by this monologue, and this was perhaps the most upsetting parallel to today: when we are hurt, or scared, or disoriented in our cultural/moral values, we feel vulnerable, weak, powerless. These feelings are too unbearable to live with for long, and so we target, we blame, we stoke our fire with anger. Left unattended, we learn to hate.

We are not naturally hateful, but it is in our nature to hate, if we are not vigilant. And if we do not make a different choice, it will only grow with time in its intensity and righteous justification.

I believe this parallel to be true in individuals, but also in peoples. The US fell into this trap after 9/11. with the Muslim world. Perhaps there is still time for us to make a different choice, but each passing month and reinforcing event brings us further down a path the end of which no man can foresee.

It is this message that makes The Good German an ultimately uplifting play (despite my focus in this review on some fairly ‘negative’ personality aspects). Wiltse gives us clues and insights for how to understand behaviors we don’t want to repeat, as well as an emotionally charged reminder of why we would want to do differently. It is up to us, however, to act upon the clarity.

Are we ready? Are you? Am I?

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Of course, no can predict for sure what future is like and how the past will be remembered and analyze. That’s probably why it’s fun to do it.

I believe Bush Jr’s election and choices in his governance will mark a turn in American’s history. That could be true in a lot of ways and I could develop this in many directions. I will focus on the US as a parent, a mentor, a force of stability.

The US has been seen by many as the hero of WWII, bringing an end to the tyranny of Nazi Germany, and helping the reconstruction of Europe with Marshall’s plan. Since then the image they conveyed in most of the developed world has been one of world police. Many citizens of these countries would at times make fun about the US, bad mouth the Americans, disagree with some of their choices, criticize some of their policy, French President De Gaulles even precipitated the end of the fixed changes based on gold and dollars but nonetheless the US was in the end always respected and looked up to, almost as if it was a parent of the world. The fact that the US was the biggest nuclear and military in the world was a source of security. In other words, the US was a moral authority.

Then came 9/11. The reaction of a huge part of the majority of the world was by and large supportive of the US, even in most Muslim countries. Demonstrations of support were happening all over the world. No one really knew what to do or how to react. We looked up at the US leadership for that inspired guidance. We were in a new area. After 50 years of cold war, there was no more big bad enemy. The world wasn’t divided in 2 camps anymore. So many new possibilities were opening.

Today we are back in a dual divided world. The US is plunging in to debt and very vulnerable for it, stuck in a military swamp in Iraq and the image of America is at the lowest in every country in the world including in Europe that is supposed to be its most precious ally. A big part of this situation is the result of Bush’s decisions, which he supported as a response to 9/11. Well if you respond to violence by violence, and especially if you do it while everyone thinks it’s unjustified, if you work around the Geneva Accords and authorize practices border line torturous, if you allow for people to be arrested without due process, naming them unlawful combatants, you are not a moral authority anymore. You are one of the participants in the problem who needs to be kept in check. I expect more from an adult who shows wise leadership and discernment than to qualify entire countries as being good or bad, part of an “axis of evil,” and qualify people freedom-haters, especially after revoking some of the basic rights of freedom like the Habeas Corpus.

So the US is not the revered as a moral authority anymore. If anything it’s perceived today as a bully, driven by self-interest and unable to make wise decisions. And that mainly because of the way that George W. Bush expresses himself in the media, and approaches (or doesn’t) diplomacy, cooperation and dialogue.

But the bigger point is that I believe America has lost its status “forever.” It may rebuild its image to one of a partner at the table but it will probably never benefit from the same trust that it once had. I am not saying it’s a bad thing, it might be healthier that way. Maybe one country shouldn’t have that much power and responsibility. Or maybe we have just reached the time where there is no one parent anymore but all countries must be considered a adults and equal in their participation in all negotiations. Or it might just be time to start considering a president of the world?! Today we have many important global decisions and the US is not the leader in that realm (take global warming and the Kyoto threaty as an example).

I just hope that the American people can become aware of the failure of the system and its disastrous consequences of the past years, and rethink its internal political structure. We can’t expect one man – the president – to have so much power, or (and?) we would need for that person to be extremely evolved, intelligent, skilled in discernment, wise, knowledgeable about history and its lessons, caring for all people on the planet and more; we would need to create some exam to verify these skills that every candidate need to pass before being eligible. The elections rely on the current mix of vague action plan (which no president has to be accountable for) and charisma. Because one of the lessons of GW Bush’s election is that there is actually too much at stake for the world to take the risk of electing a president that isn’t skilled enough.

In the end it might just be that we really need to find a better balance in leadership in the world. There is no empire that lasted for the ever from the ancient time to the current times, whether it was based on physical domination of population or more currently the colonial system. France and England were among the biggest players in the world at the turn of the 20th century controlling countries all over Africa and Asia, Spain was a huge force before that. Who today sees these countries today as setting world policy? One could easily look at the trend and evaluate that US hegemony is coming to an end.

In some ways this might be the time to think of a system where there is not one country that is in the parent role anymore.

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In perusing “Iran: An Inconvenient Truth” I was reminded again of my concerns that our current thinking on Iran will lead us nowhere useful.

Let’s start with an exercise in empathy:
You live in America. During your parents’ generation, a more powerful country (let’s call it the USSR simply to facilitate identifying emotionally w/ the exercise) executes a coup d’etat and deposes your democratically elected president, replacing him with a pro-Communist Dictator. Under him, you suffer the loss of political and free speech rights, poverty ensues as he pursues policies that favor his sponsor’s economy and you feel strong humiliation at how you are really just a puppet of their whims. You feel exploited for their gain, and that your voice doesn’t count. You definitely don’t feel taken seriously.
After almost three decades (all of your living life), you finally overthrow the dictator and regain some modicum of autonomy. Your economy and culture have languished and you see the rest of the world leaving you behind. To add insult to injury, the USSR (still vastly superior in military and economic strength, not mention world respect) continues to have a negative view of you and your intentions. A decade later, you get into a war with your close neighbor (and bitter rival) Canada, and the USSR supplies them with immense amounts of arms and biological/chemical weapons. You lose millions of people. The certainty builds that these people are really out to get you. Yet another decade later, the USSR begins to threaten you publicly, claiming that you are dangerous to world stability (sense the injustice you feel!). Through a series of unpredictable events, this deeply feared enemy starts wars with both Canada and Mexico (despite the protests of the UN and international community), occupying both countries with hundreds of thousands of troops, not mentioning patrolling the nearby oceans with their aircraft carriers. They seem accountable to no one, and then they begin to intensify their bellicose rhetoric towards you. You know that if they invade your country, they will run you over in a matter of months. What protection do you have? Who will stop them…?

As I mentioned in my comment on Iraq , were I in Iran’s shoes, I’d be developing nuclear weapons just as fast as I could, primarily because I’d be terrified that the US is sure to attack me now or later. It’s already difficult to trust other people and other countries, but with the baggage we have with Iran, why would they ever think we have their good will in mind? We’re constantly making overtures about how they are evil, to be distrusted, potentially next on the Bush Doctrine hit list. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t say all these things, but then I don’t think we should be surprised if they take steps to protect themselves. Isn’t that normal human nature?

Some fairly intelligent people seem to be missing this perspective in the halls of power.

In summary, we have zero empathy and understanding for who they are or what motivates them. We would deny them a role as an important regional player when, were we in their shoes, we would be striving ambitiously for the same. By isolating them, we simply reinforce and empower the extremist elements in them. The common Iranian on the street doesn’t want that.

The Bush Doctrine is at best impractical (because we don’t have that many voluntary soldiers that we can afford to kill off in forays around the world) and is based, to our peril, on the premise that our world view is the right world view. We need to develop a doctrine of international engagement that takes into account all the gray zones in international relations, the intricate relationships that don’t involve us (yet signficantly impact us), as well as includes the equal validity of the very differing (from us) points of view of other countries and ethnicities. What if we gave equal weight to Iran’s concerns and goals as to our own? And then worked from there? Would that be weak? Would we really be in a worse off place than we are now? We’re about as close to a regional war as I’d care to get. Where would we be now if the leader of Britains’ 15 soldiers captured off the coast of Iran hadn’t had a cool head when the Iranian Navy surrounded them aggressively? (Remember, Tonkin Gulf never even happened).

Undoubtedly, this needs to be fleshed out in more depth, holes and obstacles found in its application. But today’s path is not working. I don’t think we have any other choice than to evolve from our ‘me first’ mentality or we are going to continue drag along behind us far too many people that want to destroy us than we can keep out for very long.

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What is so striking and moving in Ishmael Beah’s account of his life as a child soldier in war torn Sierra Leone is how deeply he pulls us as reader into his soul as an innocent child. Almost half of the book recounts his experiences during the war before taking up arms. The tension of what we know will come (but not how) is harrowing, and when at last he does enter into a world of violence, death and drugs, we are no longer able to separate his actions from the soul we have grown so close to. He has let us into his inner world, from which we are somehow able to understand his most inhumane actions. As a child soldier, he becomes completely severed emotionally and pscyhologically from his behavior. We, like him, watch it from the outside. We can never ultimately escape from our own actions, however, and with equal depth and honesty, he takes us through his reckoning with himself.

Equally disturbing in this memoir is the inescapability of his situation and that of his countrymen. One of our greatest weaknesses in America, it seems to me, is our ability to numb, to forget that something unpleasant is going on (whether in our life or in the world). We feel compassion or distress when we see the news, then we go back to our normal life. We are adept at both forgetting and hiding. It has been many generations since we as a people have experienced this horror of having no place to hide nor run to, and having the danger and violence be too pervasive to forget. [This is a general statement, which has certain exceptions such as inner city ghettos, but today the average American simply cannot understand what it feels like to live in Baghdad, and have no other choice.] When the war catches up w/ Ishmael in Freetown, after his rehabilitation, the prospect of being replunged into violence provokes a despair far greater than that of his first brushes with the war. He is conscious now, having made clear and hard choices about who he wants to be as a man, and yet his aspirations are being torn from him just as he begins to believe in hope again. There is nowhere to hide, no way to make it go away.

In the end, what is most inspiring to me in this book is the commitment of this young man to stop the cycle of violence and revenge, no matter how much his rageful reactions pushed him to do otherwise. This is a story about taking a stand, and the obstacles we as people can go through to be a positive force for humanity. We all have something to learn from Ishmael about who we are as citizens of the world irregardless of the circumstances life throws our way.

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We have found ourselves in a conundrum with regards to Iraq.

To summarize in simple terms:
1. Continue to fight as we have until now, gaining a little ground at great human and financial cost only to lose it right away to the insurgents; with every additional week of occupation and errant bomb, see the anti-Americanism in the Muslim world increase in its ire. Fight until we win, no matter how long it takes, because we must have victory.

This is primarily the Republican view, although there is lots of attrition in their ranks.

It is my opinion that this war is unwinnable and everything we do in our current strategy is for naught.

2. Withdraw (whether now or later doesn’t really matter) and see the country (and most likely the region) descend into chaos: civil war (and it will get far uglier before it is over), ever escalating Sunni-Shi’ite hatred, blame from the Muslim world and American allies towards the US for destroying the country and then leaving it to figure out the mess without us. We’ll claim that we gave them every chance for democracy, but it will only be blustering justification.

This is primarily the Democratic view, although the different presidential hopefuls are posturing some fairly minute differences.

So either way, we are screwed (pardon my English). There is no good way out of this ugly mistake without a tremendous amount of bloodshed and a generation of people that hate us. It’s an Al-Queda recruiting bonanza!

In addition, it is wonderful to see our political leadership argue, blame, spin, and yell about who is right in their opinion, when there is not a single viable plan to be seen anywhere. Once again, we’re in the wrong box.

So why is declaring defeat going to help us win this war?

First of all, the Democratic plan to pull out is going to leave a vacuum that is going to sicken all of us in the violence it begets. I understand the desire to leave instead of letting our soldiers die, especially when we think every additional death is senseless (which is my case). But let’s not fool ourselves that things will be ok over there. They will slaughter each other. I get ill to my stomach just thinking about it.

On the other hand, we (Americans in general, Republicans in particular) seem to have forgotten something very basic about human nature: humiliation is one of the most emotionally painful experiences a person can go through. It is a question of face. Our ego would rather die than suffer that, especially in a public way. An acquaintance of mine told me a story a few years ago about the Iraqi body guard of a journalist stationed in Baghdad leading up to and during the initial invasion. When the army fell so quickly, he was delighted that Saddam had fallen (apparently he hated him with a passion) but as an Iraqi he was ashamed of how their army had performed. This was someone that liked us. Apply that to a multitude of people who are predisposed to see us negatively, tired of being tread upon by a country that considers itself superior to everyone, have tremendous emotional pain due to lost loved ones and destroyed homes, see reinforcing images on TV, talk to their neighbors in ever escalating agreement on their hatred of the injustice, and … well, I guess I’ll stop there for now.

Conclusion: they will not less us win, even if they have to blow themselves up to the last man, woman, child.
And that is not because they don’t value life, but because they are human, they want to be respected, and being shamed by someone else makes them hate with a passion.
Were I, or you, over there, we would do the same. Perhaps we wouldn’t use suicide bombing as one of our main strategies, but we would rather die than accept defeat. History is covered with other cases.

So one of our key priorities needs to be to deflate this commitment to defeat us thru disengaging the mechanism I was describing above. We need to remove their humiliation from the equation.

Drastic times call for drastic measures:

The only way I can think of doing this is to declare defeat. We cannot possibly attain our goals in the region unless we calm down the emotional furor. A complicating factor is that there is as much, if not more, Shia-Sunni hatred as there is Muslim-US hatred, but if we can remove our part, it will let a tremendous amount of pressure out of the system.

It is a very basic, albeit counterintuitive, fact of human emotions and relations: when we are feeling really hurt by someone, and deeply angry inside, just about nothing can make that go away like a sincere acknowledgment and apology on their end. A new starting point becomes possible.

One of the reasons why we haven’t been able to consider such an option is that we have mixed up our goals in this war (stability, spreading democracy, cheap oil, …) with winning the war. If we look at JFK during the Cuban Missile Crisis, he was willing to let Khrushchev declare victory if JFK/the US obtained our goals (a nuclear free Cuba). Teddy Roosevelt did the same with Wilhelm II of Germany in the in the Venezuela Crisis of 1902.

– Are we willing to lose face to get what we really want in this situation (and save tens of thousand of lives in the process)?
– Said differently, are peace, stability, having our sons, daughters, fathers, etc come home safely important enough to us that we’re willing to let our reputation as an impregnable superpower be tainted a bit?

We haven’t been yet.

I think the angle is something like this:
“Look, we made a mistake (gulp). [If we elaborate here on what our mistake was and sincerely apologize for making it, it’ll help even more]. We got into it for the wrong reasons, because we were so sure we were right about the WMDs that we didn’t listen to anyone who disagreed w/ us. On top of it, we didn’t do our homework on the region and the culture; we had no idea what kind of pandora’s box we were opening (well, we didn’t want to listen to the people who suspected what might occur).
Now, it is a complete mess, and we don’t know what to do. We’re willing to publicly admit that we cannot win this war. If we just pull out now, your entire culture and region is going to destroy itself. Can you help us work this out?”

Who do we say this to? Let’s try:
Syria, Lebanon, Iran, to start with, as well as all the other Muslim countries out there that can influence the situation.
We can still make them our allies in this situation. They don’t want this to spiral out of control either.
We then work with the regional players in the area to stop the stream of arms, bombs and extremists flowing into Iraq. They work thru their networks and tribal connections to bring things under control. The only people at this point, I think, that can stem the flow of bloodshed are the suppliers and financial supporters of those fighting.

I admit that this plan has certain issues that I haven’t been able to think thru as of yet:

– What would be the long term implications of the US admitting defeat (ie, would it appear as another Somalia to the terrorist community, proving our weakness)? I’ll have to address this in another posting, as this one has become far too long.
– Are we willing to accept certain outcomes in whatever final solution is created that we don’t really like (something that is more to Iran or Syria’s liking, for instance)? This could be in terms of control of oil production, political system, influence of Islamic law, etc
– Are the Sunnis and Shi-ites capable, as an international community, of working out this situation without a full scale war?
– I believe that getting further into the details of such a plan would raise other issues we have with the regional players and that they have with each other that I am not informed enough to know of
– This strikes me as a totally untenable position to take politically if you are a presidential candidate in today’s politcal climate of non-dialogue

I can fully imagine that this is a strategy that opens itself to ridicule, especially from any hard-ass type (typically, but not exclusively Republican) who thinks that we need to be tough to maintain our superiority; that this is sniveling liberal weakness. But I am not interested in being nice nor tough, nor weak nor strong; nor do I think it important to protect our reputation abroad (primarily because I think that we have thoroughly trashed it). I am interested in achieving our goals in the region and stopping the pain and bloodshed.

I welcome comments and critiques, holes in the logic or missing elements that can forward the reflection.

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