Martin Wolf has penned an essay, Tough liberalism is the only response, that captures a part of my recent, rather muddled and therefore silent, musings on the Janus-faced nature of globalization. Wolf goes beyond the global threat of Islamic extremism to identify many strains pulling apart the fabric of our world of connections. I would add to his list several other troublesome global trends, such as the "politics of frustration" described by Pierre Hassner, that place large question marks against some of the fundamental assumptions that "democracy" in and of itself holds the answer. Hassner reminds us of the dangers to a liberal order that can emerge when frustration mixes with other unsavory elements in a potent populist brew.

Wolf's piece is neither a stirring clarion call nor an elegant bit of philosophising about the merits of classical liberalism. Rather, he argues simply that a "tough liberalism" (or shall we say, a reality-based liberalism?) is our last best hope, not simply to gain some of the promises of a dynamic, prosperous, interdependent world but to avoid its collapse. This is a liberalism that insists on tolerance, not as a virtue, but as a necessity for survival. Although commenting on the international system, his definition applies to liberalism more broadly:

We must agree, within reason, to differ. In essence, this means that we agree more on procedural norms than on substantive ones. Moreover, we enshrine those procedural norms within institutions.

Yet, as he underlines, liberalism requires some rudimentary degree of broadly shared trust. It cannot survive if it simply ignores festering conflicts, frustrations and injustices. It must be as inclusive as possible.

How we build trust at all levels of social and political interaction, from local communities to the international arena -- is our great challenge in a world where we rub against each other with a frequency and intensity hitherto unknown. And where, in a host of arenas, liberal principles and practices are being squeezed out of public space from all sides by ideological combatants with manichaean world-views. That's the "toughness" dilemma -- that liberalism itself cannot be tolerant of those who would destroy it. Yet how does liberalism fight its enemies other than by being itself, and how can it fight when its enemies choose their own battlefield?

Wolf points to many of the unique features of this stage of our world's history. But in some ways he is asking the same question we faced a century ago. Are we condemned again to another cycle of liberalism's triumphs containing the seeds of its own destruction?

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[update by nadezhda] Several months ago, MCMasterChef shared with us a paper he wrote during his final semester at Boston University. The paper, which is an overview of the history and challenges facing Europe and European Muslim communities, has unfortunately become all too relevant to debates in the wake of the London bombings.

It seemed to me a reprise of the Chef's paper is in order. First, it's a good review of recent writings by some of the more thoughtful scholars and commentators working on the topic of Islam in Europe. The paper is also a useful corrective for some of the more sweeping claims about "Europe" -- the Chef highlights important differences among European countries, especially Britain and France, in the distinctive histories and demographics of their Muslim populations, and consequently some major differences among countries in the issues each faces. He also distinguishes among a variety of strategies European countries have adopted over the years. Finally, and especially important in light of the London bombings, the Chef doesn't restrict himself to the heated debates on the politics of immigration. He stresses the problems being presented by failure to integrate a second and third generation and the attendant radicalization of many young Muslims who are European-born citizens.

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[originally posted May 16 2005]
Clash of Identities
Integration, Islamism, and the Question of Europe’s Muslims

Historian and Princeton scholar Bernard Lewis provoked an outcry recently when he suggested in a July 2004 interview with the German paper Die Welt that Europe will become a part of the Muslim world by the end of the 21st century. Citing demographic and immigration trends, Lewis claimed that Muslims would comprise a majority of Europe’s population by 2100, resulting in its becoming “part of the Arab West or the Maghreb” (Vinocur). Lewis is not the only one making such claims: Bat Ye’or, an Egyptian-born British writer living in Switzerland, has been embraced by conservatives on both sides of the Atlantic for her coinage of the term “Eurabia” to describe the Islamization of Old Europe. A menacing fusion of two civilizations deemed hostile towards the United States, Ye’or’s Eurabia is “fundamentally anti-Christian, anti-Western, anti-American, and antisemitic”, and its development ultimately entails the subordination of Europe to the status of “a cultural and political appendage of the Arab/Muslim world” (Ye’or). Many American conservatives have endorsed the idea, interpreting the tense cross-Atlantic relations of the past several years as the outgrowth of European impotence in the face of the “Islamic challenge”. Lewis echoes this analysis in his comments, suggesting that the European Union “could rename itself the community of envy”, and that European-Muslim sympathies can be explained by their mutual jealousy of American strength (Vinocur).

Not surprisingly, these comments have been provocative in Europe, where right-wing politicians and parties across the Continent have seized upon the perceived threat to their identities, advocating stricter immigration controls and other measures in an effort to limit the influence of European Muslims. The 9/11 attacks and, to an even greater extent, the Madrid bombings of March 2004 and the murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh half a year later, have further polarized the debate. The presence of a cell of 9/11 operatives led by Egyptian engineering student Mohammed Atta in Hamburg, Germany, raised fears that radical jihadists were using Europe as a staging ground for their violent attacks abroad, but the Madrid bombings and the Van Gogh murder heightened those fears further by making it clear that Europe itself could be a target. Differentiating between the religion of Islam, political Islamism, and its violent jihadi offshoots is extremely difficult. The marginalized economic and social status of Europe’s Muslim population; colonial legacies of racism and communalist strategies for dealing with minority groups; and the outright resistance by many European Muslims to the process of cultural assimilation does not make dispassionate consideration of European-Muslim relations any easier.

This paper attempts to examine those relations and trace their development, from the arrival of large groups of Muslim immigrants following World War II to the spread of political Islamism through those communities in the 1970s to the current tensions born out of 9/11 and other recent attacks by terrorists proclaiming an Islamic jihad against the West. Contrary to — or perhaps partly in reaction to — Ye’or and Lewis’ assertions, political bifurcation and division, not convergence, appears to best summarize the relationship between European Muslim subcommunities and the larger societies they inhabit.

As Timothy Savage carefully admonishes, it is worth remembering that

To talk of a single Muslim community in Europe ... is misleading. Even within individual countries, ethnic diversity, sectarian differences, cleavages within communities arising from sociopolitical and generational splits, and the nonhierarchical nature of Islam itself mean that Europe’s Muslims will be more divided than united for decades to come. Like European Christians and Jews, European Muslims are not a monolithic group.

With this caveat in mind, some level of generalization must necessarily take place in order to study the experience of Muslims within the unique context of Europe. This paper focuses generally on Muslims in Western Europe (which skews the issue by omitting discussion of the historical Muslim presence in Southeastern Europe and the Balkans), and most particularly in the United Kingdom and France. Broadly speaking, their experience has been one of social marginalization. Full blame for this situation can be ascribed to neither group entirely. While the native European population’s reaction to the growing number of Muslims living next door can hardly be described as welcoming, influential theories of Islamist communalism that emphasize social and political isolation from the corrupting influence of the kuffr (infidels) have further set back the integration process. Attempts at reconciliation will require an understanding of the historical and political factors that have produced the current standoff, but the multiple layers of separation between native Europeans and their Muslim counterparts and the aggravating factor of jihadi terrorism make prospects of future rapprochement daunting.
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Ogged has come up with a term for the phenomenon Dave Schuler (The Glittering Eye) noted in an earlier comment on the response of Londoners to this week's bombings. Dave points out:

A critical difference between the Brits and the Americans is that the British have the stubbornness and tenacity to bear up under incredible adversity. Americans, on the other hand, are more inclined to remove the adversity than to bear up under it.

Ogged notes that the distinction has wider applicabiilty than just Brits vs Americans, and he's looking for a term to describe it.

Some way to group together what a nation expects, accepts, tries to change, control, destroy, create. I think this will be the "That's How It Is Index." The U.S., has a low THIS Index, and you can see it in annoying things like frivolous lawsuits, but also in fantastic things like the moon mission, or the remarkable record of air safety. Near the other extreme, you have a place like Iran, where planes crash regularly, the roads are deathtraps, and people basically shrug. And the Europeans are somewhere in the middle. I've heard them described as "knowing what's important," but I wonder if they're just less motivated to keep making things "better" and so are able to do the things that people generally enjoy, like eating, drinking, and talking with friends (that is to say, no special knowledge of what's important required).

The stubborness of the Brits that Dave highlights suggests that the THIS Index may reflect one of those hallmarks of cultural identity that each group is rather attached to and, at least in both the British and American cases, embraces with a certain pride.

Recent Google search that brought a visitor to this site: Cairo female escorts.

Maybe it was prak's Egypt photo gallery from last September that did it. Though as far as I recall, there's not a female in sight among all the magnificent architecture and scenery. Google sometimes moves in mysterious ways!

[update: Newsweek has posted an interview with Wolfensohn that covers some of the specific issues.]

Jim Wolfensohn is now fully engaged in what will be one of the toughest jobs in the world in the coming few months -- helping the Israelis and Palestinians navigate the Gaza withdrawal and prepare for its aftermath. At Gleneagles, he received support from the G8 for something, but exactly what the G8 promised is somewhat unclear. The relevant text from the G8:

We support Mr Wolfensohn’s intention to stimulate a global financial contribution of up to $3bn per year over the coming three years. Domestic and international investors should be full partners to this process. We are mobilising practical support for Mr Wolfensohn’s efforts and look forward to further development of his plans and their presentation to the Quartet and the international community in September. We note the strong interest of Arab States and members of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, and encourage them to provide substantial additional support.

This is a somewhat different formulation from the headlines from Blair's press conference at the close of the meetings. The pres generally heralded a G8 "commitment" to provide (up to?) $3 billion over several years. The "commitment" (to support a plan) was echoed in the "news story" produced by the State Department:

Progress was also made on promoting peace in the Middle East, with the G8 leaders agreeing to support a plan to provide the Palestinian Authority up to $3 billion over three years to help spur economic development and governance necessary for the Palestinians to capably govern themselves and provide stability in Palestinian territories.

To tease out from all of this the probable reality. The official document refers to a Wolfensohn plan to mobilize around $9 billion over a three-year period, with funding to come from Arab and Muslim countries and the private sector, not just from the G8. And the only official agreement from the G8 members is to "mobilize practical support" and meet in September. So in effect, they've given JDW a green-light to put a package together, and they seem to have penciled in somewhere in the neighborhood of a third of the financing he's proposing to raise. But it's his plan to go raise all this money, not theirs.

Now a green light like that is all that a world class dealmaker needs to get going, and remember that Wolfensohn made his fortune as an investment banker. So taking full advantage of the headlines ($3 billion commitment, yahoo!), Wolfensohn has just begun a six-day trip to the region by meeting with Mohammed Dahlan, who is currently the Palestinians' civil affairs minister.

[...]Wolfensohn... described his meeting with Dahlan as "a very pragmatic and frank discussion" that dealt with all aspects of social and economic matters.

"I was asked by the G8 to come back (at the end of September) with a plan devised with the Palestinian Authority (PA) for this economic support," he said.

"We are looking very carefully at tangible evidence that will be shown to the Palestinian people a day after the withdrawal," he said. "We're talking about programmes which will be implemented immediately."

[...]Wolfensohn's visit will see him meeting with top Israeli and Palestinian officials in a bid to focus on six areas that require coordination, a statement from his office said.

They include: border crossings and trade corridors, connection of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, freedom of movement in the West Bank, the establishment of an airport and sea ports in Gaza, the houses which will be evacuated by the Gaza settlers, and the settlers' greenhouses.

He was also to work with the Palestinians on three key economic and developmental issues: resolution of the PA's fiscal crisis and establishment of a new social safety net programme; a package of "rapid impact" initiatives for dealing with unemployment immediately after the withdrawal, and a three-year plan for Palestinian development. [emph added ed.]

Lots of questions up in the air, such as where the funding is to come from for "immediate" projects, or whether Congress will continue to hamstring the Bush Administration by forbidding any monies to pass through the hands of the PA. Perhaps State is hoping that Congress will ease up once there's an overall international plan, with effective oversight mechanisms, through which the US contributions would flow.

That being said, Wolfensohn already knows his portfolio well -- a significant part of the assessments and planning that he will be drawing on has been produced by the organization he headed for ten years until just a month ago, the World Bank. A considerable number of studies and reports on the specific issues he listed have been produced over the last several years by the Bank's staff, working closely with both Israelis and Palestinians. And on security issues with others, especially the Egyptians.

Wolfensohn's intimate knowledge of the politics, the players, and the technical issues, his ability to use the media adeptly, and his dealmaking skills when it comes to raising money from both public and private sources -- plus the sheer force of his personality -- make him uniquely qualified for this almost impossible task. The main risk -- other than the general explosiveness of the whole situation -- is that JDW sure is fond of personal glory, as Sebastian Mallaby has amply detailed. But JDW has learned a lot of lessons over the past ten years, and in the final analysis, he's also a realist.

Here's hoping that being the Quartet's envoy won't be a totally thankless task.

cross-posted at Liberals Against Terrorism

One of my favorite personal diarist bloggers is a droll EMT with the London Ambulance Service. Funny about reading blogs -- the first thought that crossed my mind when I saw the emergency vehicles on BCC was, I wonder whether "Random Acts of Reality" is in one of those. Turns out he wasn't on duty, but he headed in to handle back-up for the "normal" work of the LAS while others were busy with handling the bombings. Among his end-of-the-day reactions:

Once the shock had settled, I started to feel immense pride that the LAS, the other emergency services, the hospitals, and all the other support groups and organisations were all doing such an excellent job. To my eyes it seemed that the Major Incident planning was going smoothly, turning chaos into order.

And what you need to remember is that this wasn't a major incident, but instead four major incidents, all happening at once.

I think everyone involved, from the experts, to the members of public who helped each other, should feel pride that they performed so well in this crisis.

London won't be beaten, we spent 20 years under the shadow of the IRA, and are used to terrorists.

That seems to pretty much sum up the general sentiment of most British bloggers and their commenters.

I've long had a strange affection for underground transit, the London Tube in particular. This post was written a few months back as a distraction from depressing political debates and world events.

Today, to our collective horror, the Tube is anything but a distraction from reality. Today, the links in the post are to tragedy and mass murder, and "we are all Londoners now." But Londoners' famous resilience has already begun to kick in, and the Underground is gearing up to restart service. So perhaps it's not too early to celebrate the Tube's lively and somewhat endearing centrality to London's life, past and future.

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originallly posted 2-12-05

About those things you find on the web that you didn't know you needed/wanted until you find them... OK, it's the weekend. And I'm not sure I can get all the way up for "good news Saturdays" or other kinder, gentler fare. Maybe I should call it "funky Fridays" but that would require an adherence to punctuality I've already violated.

Nonetheless, couldn't we all stand a bit of change of pace with no political angle after all the surreality coming out of the WH gaggle this week. And I need to replenish my batteries before I face the sturm und drang eminating from the "muscular democracy" theologians of the right hemisphere of PlanetBlog.

So here's a blog devoted to all things London Tube.

Underground mass transit, especially its aesthetics and technology, is not a new subject of inquiry at chez Nadezhda. Back in late October, when praktike was feeling especailly burned out on politics, he took a look at New York City's subterranean celebrations. [There's probably some sort of subtext about heading below-ground when we've had it with the blogsphere's insanity levels.]

The Going Underground blog has a bit edgier, urban attitude that's not exactly what you'd think of as a "trainspotters" sort of site. It's the companion blog to the website goingunderground devoted exclusively since 1999 to, you guessed it...

Check out the section of the website devoted to the drivers including some favorites from public announcements. You can even hear the audio of one of my favorites, as described by the webmaster as:

a really, really, TOP London Underground driver who was clearly either on drugs, or delirously happy, or both. It's a classic, he talks about people singing along with buskers, getting someone who's come on the train with an ironing board to do the ironing, and how every man on the carriage should stand up for any Mum as it's Mother's Day tomorrow.

The site also records the driver's response, which was to assure the riding public he wasn't high on anything, that's just his natural ebullience.

Then there's the section on "Ghosts, ghouls and other wierdos on the Tube." Reading on the Tube is a highly developed skill in the art of self-defense in public spaces, but you can also find plenty of reading about the Tube at this page on Tube lit. Or this amazon.com.uk page for One Stop Short of Barking, with its additional Tube-related reading selections, especially some of the photo books. If you have a taste for combining your ghosts with architecture, Abandoned Stations on London's Underground may whet your appetite. And you can add to your history lesson with What's In a Name, which explains the origins of station names on the system.

You can get going-underground.net goodies from cafepress.com with T-shirts motto-ed, what else, "mind the gap". [I wonder how many national security-types who click on the portion of the chez Nadezhda sidebar blogroll under the category "minding the gap" recognize the Tube reference, not just the Thomas Barnett one.] Since we didn't win the Satin Pajamas award, I'm going to have to spring for my own sleepwear -- and the boxer shorts look just the thing!

Cafepress offers more than just merchandise -- it takes you to an article at Suite University (online learing site) that gives a brief history of the famous phrase. And for those of you who can't get enough of reading about "mind the gap," you can hear it as well -- Richard's sound effects recordings (apparently an "audio" trainspotter) has captured the "mind the gap" announcement, sandwiched within a nice assortment of train arrival, brakes, doors and other Tube-sounds from a stop on the Bakerloo line. He's also got a recording of a "Sonia" public announcment -- a digitized "posh" voice the staff declared so annoying "it getS ON YA nerves."

The Tube's not just an underground space. It offers its own "map of the world," a way of conceptualizing above-ground geography, a kind of virtual space that links the totally different topographies of the subterranean and surface. Look at the difference between this pocketmap of the Tube from 1927:


with the first diagrammatic map of the Underground from 1933.


I learned London as a "temporary audio typist" (don't ask!) for a summer in the early 70s. I spent the first week combing the near-in downmarket residential areas for a coldwater flat to rent, and each week I would get a new assignment that would take me to a company in another area of London. All of that was done by Tube, and all with a diagrammatic map based on the original classic. Needless to say, my mental picture of London is dominated by the Tube diagram, even though I know full well the actual surface streets and parks and landmarks don't in fact resemble the diagram closely at all.

Today, if you want to explore the London segment of the blogosphere, there's London Bloggers, the London weblog directory -- 1632 registered blogs and counting -- organized by, what else, the Tube map.

But back to the Tube itself. Not everything about the London Tube is sui generis -- it shares a number of features with other underground mass transit systems. For example, subway riders around the globe could benefit from some of the "etiquette rules" Although, certain techniques for addressing violations of etiquette might work better in some cultures than others.

I once heard a tube story of a woman who was being groped by a man in a crowded tube. She picked up his hand from her rear end, held it in the air and loudly said "Does this belong to anyone, as it seems to be attached to my bottom?" The man went purple with embarrassment and slunk off the tube at the next stop.

Apparently this comes in handy when someone takes a bit too enthusiastically a driver announcement encouraging a crowd on a northbound Victoria line train:

"Move right down inside please - it's a Friday afternoon, the weekend has just started, and we all would like to get home. Please move inside the carriages so everyone can board the train. I know it is a bit squashy, but you never know, you might make a new friend to spend the weekend with. Mind the closing doors, please".

And don't forget to mind the gap!
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Art posters -- Underground Art: London Transport Posters 1908 to the Present by Oliver Green

Maps from London's Transport Museum

Pocket Underground Map, 1927, designed by FH Stingemore

Henry Beck's first diagrammatic Underground map , 1933

London Underground map download for desktops

About a month ago, on the occasion of a lecture by Donald Rumsfeld at a confab of defense minister types in Singapore, I wondered idly how one says "chutzpah" in Chinese.

We've just received the answer courtesy of Justin Logan in, of all places, Astana, Kazakhstan where, at a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, we also learned how it's said in Russian and a few other languages of the region. As Justin notes, the participants included as honored guests nearby countries such as India, Pakistan and Iran.

Given the recent reemergence of security challenges in Afghanistan, and the apparent scrambling to beef up security -- shifting UK forces from Iraq, a few Aussie SAS to join special ops, etc. -- perhaps there's a bit of reassessment going on right now in Washington? Is there time still before the current Quadrennial Defense Review is due to rethink some of those lily pads ?

Via the blog of the UN Foundation, UN Dispatch, quoting an AP story:

Secretary-General Kofi Annan has announced the creation of a fund to promote democratic institutions and practices around the world - an idea first proposed by the United States.

President Bush suggested the creation of a fund in a speech to the U.N. General Assembly in September. He said it would help countries lay the foundations of democracy by instituting the rule of law, independent courts, a free press, political parties and trade unions.

Somewhat ironically, given the recent run of rather depressing news about the state of democracy in Africa, it was at the African Union summit earlier this week that Annan announced the initiative (pdf). It's also not entirely clear whether Africa is all that high a geopolitical priority for the Bush Administration in proposing the fund, given its strategic emphasis on promoting democracy in other regions. But Kofi, ever the diplomat, made the most of his announcement.

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Cross-posted at Liberals Against Terrorism

So argues the Armchair Generalist today, citing a straight-talking Marine, Lt. Gen. Wallace Gregson, commander of Marine Forces Pacific (MARFORPAC). The good General doesn't think much of the "war on terror" as a conceptual basis for determining what the US military should be doing -- and not doing.

The pernicious effects of talking about a "global war on terror" has been a long-standing personal hobby-horse -- both regarding military operations and the US' broader grand strategy for foreign policy. Until President Bush recently chose to reinvigorate the bogus GWOT-9/11-Iraq linkage for tactical political purposes, we'd seen a gradual and welcome shift in the Administration's global strategy via a steady but rather surrepticious substitution of "extremism" for "terrorism" in public remarks, combined with an increased emphasis on democracy promotion and "soft power" tools. I'm pleased to see some US military leaders address the matter explicitly and hope that the President's tactical reversion to GWOT-speak won't impinge on the improved thinking that Gregson's remarks suggest.

The AG links to Eric Umansky, who quotes from a recent Naval War College address by Gregson, as reported in Inside Defense. Gregson's argument fits nicely within the framework of a "marginalization" strategy I've previously advocated as a replacement for a GWOT strategy. Gregson is arguing that the our strategic objective shouldn't be to wipe out terrorists but rather to reduce their effectiveness -- to marginalize extremists from the "vast majority" of the local populations in the societies in which they operate.

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