Category Archives: May You Live In Interesting Times

Winning the Peace

Tunis Street

Carthage

The small North African country of Tunisia recently held its first free election since leading the Arab world earlier this year in a revolution against regional dictators. My husband and I lived in this progressive Arab country from 1997 until 2000.Nahda, described as a mildly Islamist party, won over forty percent of the vote. Tunisia has a large, educated middle class, some of whom worry that a government controlled by Nahda might weaken the country’s laws dealing with women’s rights. The party’s leaders so far have indicated a willingness to work with the more secular parties and to safeguard Tunisian freedoms.

Nahda was banned during the corrupt, one-party rule of the now deposed Ben Ali. Members risked imprisonment and torture. No wonder they are reveling in the new freedom to compete in an election. They appear to have played by the rules and won their votes fairly. The results of this election will be scrutinized for indications of how the Arab world will shift as other nations take steps toward democracy, including participation by Islamist parties.

Winning the peace can be more difficult than winning the war. In American history, we glorify heroes of our Revolution, but the period after the United States gained its independence was a greater challenge, a time of debilitating partisan struggle. Nation building requires the difficult virtues of servanthood, of putting the country’s welfare above individual or party ambitions.

Perhaps we might reflect on these virtues for our own country in our coming election.

Freedom of Religion and the Religious

Sectarian violence flared this week in Egypt. Coptic Christians, who comprise about ten percent of the Egyptian population, wonder if the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak’s corrupt but secular regime will help or hurt minority religions like Christianity. Will a more religiously oriented state lead to less freedom of religion for non-Muslims?

The Muslim Brotherhood, with Islamist leanings, may win greater political power in Egyptian parliamentary elections scheduled later this year. Members of the Brotherhood suffered under Mubarak. Such suffering, some analysts say, has produced a more committed membership, organized to campaign more effectively than other groups, including secular ones.

Must one be secular to practice tolerance?

As Christians in this country become increasingly aware of hostility and the decline of their influence, the temptation grows to seek political power. I not only lived as a minority Christian in several countries, but I’m a descendant of Baptists who struggled for religious freedom.  I do hope we American Christians do not follow the path some are suggesting for the Muslim Brotherhood.

Two Images of Christianity in The Help

 

If you want to know one reason why Christianity has waned in this country and is even treated with scorn, watch the movie, The Help, based on Kathryn Stockett’s book of the same name. I read the book, then saw the movie. In both I was struck by how supposedly good Christians couldn’t see the harm in the racism they were exhibiting. (Chuck Colson has a good review of the movie in The Christian Post.)  The past record of many who call themselves Christians has created bad vibes.

Of course, some Christians did oppose racism before and during the civil rights movement. Indeed, church leaders practically birthed it, ministers like Martin Luther King, Jr, for example.

The Help actually shows Christianity in a favorable light—from the viewpoint of the black population in the movie. Biblical teachings give courage to one black maid to tell what she knows and feels to the white woman who interviews her.

Christianity which values the vulnerable has been with us since Jesus sat with the despised Samaritan prostitute at the well. We, whether Christian, atheist, or other, sometimes forget that.

Not Your Grandmother’s Oil Industry

 

The United States government soon will decide whether to authorize or reject an oil pipeline to bring oil from the oil sands of western Canada across the middle of the U.S. to Texas refineries.

Proponents say the pipeline will create jobs, so needed in a down economy, as well as mitigate prices at the gas pump. Opponents, some of whom live along the pipeline’s path, point to last year’s Gulf oil spill and voice concerns of possible danger to the pollution of the aquifer from which many draw their drinking and irrigation water. Als0, what about degradation caused by the process itself in Canada?

When I lived in the oil rich regions of Saudi Arabia around Dhahran, the original well that started oil production in that country in the 1930’s still pumped. In the section of the U.S. consulate where I worked, old pictures hung on the walls of the men who began developing that early oil industry. Oil production in Saudi Arabia was begun by American companies, but control long ago passed to the Saudi government.

Today analysts debate whether the world has reached peak oil, the time when the highest production of oil is reached, after which production gradually declines until the finite resource is gone. Regardless, oil use is growing because the middle class is growing in nations like India and China. Their citizens are buying more automobiles and more machines as they enter the consumer age.

These countries compete with North America and Europe for oil and have money from growing economies to influence nations from the Middle East to Africa and South America. The fact that some of the nations they deal with practice human rights abuses seems to be less of a problem for them than it (occasionally) has been with us.

Something for Christians to mull over as we make our individual choices of what we will buy and how we will live.

How Much Do We Believe In Democracy?

Secretary of State Hilary Clinton recently traveled to Paris to discuss with allies how to boost democracy in newly-liberated Libya.

The United States successfully championed democracy in Europe following World War II and in eastern Europe following the Soviet collapse of the 1990’s. Less so in Iraq and Afghanistan.

How are Christians to view democracy? Do we encourage our fellow Christians in the Middle East to support democratic movements, perhaps at cost to themselves?

Democracy is a relatively new issue. Christianity was born in a theocracy within an imperial empire, both at times hostile to the new religion. It endured barbarian invasions, feudalism, the rise of a cultural Christianity within that feudalism, and the rise of the modern European states.

In the late 1700’s, a secular state arose without a state religion, the new United States. However, most of the people within that state were at least nominal Christians, and Christians exercised great influence.

Christians came to think of the United States as a “Christian” nation. Nevertheless, it was a republic, with freedom of religion and  democratic institutions. What happens if a clear majority of Americans no longer follow Christian teachings?

Does the Christian minority have a right to try to impose their beliefs by law? If so, how are Christians different from other groups who want to impose beliefs through the state? Some Shia Muslims or Indian Hindus, for example—or Islamists in Libya?

Our kingdom is not of this world. Else, Jesus said, his followers would fight as the world’s kingdoms fight. But the first followers didn’t. Christianity advanced in those first centuries through witness, preaching, and above all forming communities of love and purpose.

Living Serendipitously In Harm’s Way

Our ambassador at the U.S. embassy in Tunis, Tunisia, summoned the American staff on August 7, 1998, to tell us that terrorists had bombed two U.S. embassies in east Africa. Over 200 people were killed and thousands injured in attacks in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. As we sat, stunned, we had no way of knowing that these tragedies, carried out by an early al-Qaeda, were a prelude to the even more horrible attacks of 9/11 in New York City.

The daughter of U.S. diplomats serving in Kenya in 1998 recently wrote of her experience on that day. Only five, she was in the embassy with her mother when the attack occurred. She and her family escaped physical harm, but imprinted in her mind is the memory of a Kenyan man, crimson red on his ebony skin, “mouth wide open in agony . . . I understood then that I shared with that man an experience of terrible, hateful, unfair violence.”

She speaks of later interactions with scarred survivors, families now without spouses and parents, other men and women left handicapped, and of their amazing resilience. “Together, we built a memorial park; we prosecuted the guilty; we moved forward; we learned to dance again. . . . Together, we live serendipitously.”

Read her article in Foreign Service Journal.

 

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse Visit Somalia Again

I worked at the U.S. consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, in 1991, as the first Gulf conflict loomed. Iraq had invaded Kuwait, and we struggled with the extra tasks that came with the approaching war. Word came that the American embassy in Mogadishu, Somalia (not that far from Saudi Arabia) was under siege by insurgents. The U.S. military diverted equipment from wartime preparations to evacuate embassy staff, even as the insurgents threatened to literally come over the walls. As Somalia descended into chaos, the country faded into a footnote when the U.S. and other countries pushed Saddam Hussein’s forces out of Kuwait.

The next year, famine gripped Somalia. An international force including the United States attempted to bring order and avert mass starvation. Aid alleviated the famine, but at great cost in American lives, culminating in the Black Hawk Down incident in which eighteen American servicemen were killed.

Today famine again grips Somalia and nearby nations. Starvation threatens more than eleven million people, according to World Vision, a Christian aid organization. It is the worst dry spell in fifty years. This time tragedy is multiplied by the presence of al-Shabab, a terrorist group which refuses Western aid. Masses of men, women, and children attempt escape to refugee settlements in Kenya, risking death from the terrorists. Families, some carrying dead children, swell the already overcrowded camps.

In my novel, Singing in Babylon, which takes place in Saudi Arabia, Kate, the protagonist, helps an abused Ethiopian maid, a Christian, escape to her home country. This fictional episode has roots in the understanding that Christians are exiles and refugees in this world.

Sending in an army in this present Somalian tragedy is not an option, but we can support aid groups like World Vision who minister as they are able in the crowded camps. We might remember Jesus, a refugee baby carried by his parents as they fled to Egypt from Herod’s wrath.

 

Where’s Jeddah?

When the U.S. State Department assigned me to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, in the summer of 1990, my mother asked, “Where’s that?” About a month later, Saddam Hussein and the Iraqis invaded Kuwait to begin the first Gulf War. After that, all America knew where Saudi Arabia was, though many Americans have since forgotten that first war. Most of us do remember the second Gulf conflict, the one we fought in Iraq after the terrorist attacks of 9/11. I watched that one from a second posting in Saudi Arabia.

Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Libya? Many Americans couldn’t find these countries on a map. Yet the unrest earlier this year across North Africa (where these countries are located) and the Middle East led to an immediate rise in the prices we pay at the pump for gas.

How many Americans are aware that India and other emerging economies have fared better than the United States in the current economic recession?

If Western Christians hope for continued influence, we must develop awareness of the rest of the world. The phrase ‘the West and the rest’ was a phrase used by Samuel P. Huntington, a Harvard University professor, in his book The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. Today “the rest” is emerging from the shadows to demand their place at the table. Too many of us are ignorant of this coming force. (Them and Us.)

 

Chaos Or Comfort?

News stories about the horrible killings in Norway this past week now refer to the accused killer as a “right wing extremist” rather than the earlier “Christian extremist.” What a shame, that any designation related to Christ’s name would be associated, even briefly, with one guilty of such wanton taking of life.

Surely this man should never be connected with the Jesus who rebuked a disciple for taking up a sword in his defense. (Bible, book of Matthew, chapter 26.) The disciple, Peter, had the wrong idea, as certainly as did the killer in Norway or those who cause grief by protesting at funerals of dead soldiers.

We Christians continue to bear the burden of living lives of reconciliation so that all may see the difference between us and ones who, while calling themselves Christians, sow chaos and hatred.

News stories on the same day as this tragedy spoke of others: ten wounded at a Northwest car show in a shooting rampage; teenage girls sexually exploited by pimps; a British singer known for songs focusing on drugs, drinking, and infidelity found dead at the age of twenty-seven. We are a world in search of a reason for living.

Mourners in Norway gathered outside the Oslo Cathedral. Apparently, hope remains that the Christian faith brings comfort, forgiveness, and reconciliation. Let us not disappoint.

 

Desperate Scholars

A U.S. government program, Youth and Exchange Study, brought Afghan high school students to the United States for temporary study. Its purpose was to educate Afghan youth and awaken a desire to return with fresh ideas for their own country, but the program was terminated. More than half the students fled to Canada for asylum rather than return to Afghanistan when their schooling ended. (Canada has an asylum program for minor children.)

http://blog.sojo.net/2011/07/21/afghan-exchange-students-flee-to-canada/?continue

Surely the temptation for young people not to go back to trouble-haunted Afghanistan is tremendous. What if I were a young woman facing a return to a part of Afghanistan where I had to cover even my face before I went out? Where marriages are arranged and women risk death or disfigurement for the slightest whisper of misconduct?

For several years, I served as a visa officer with the U.S. government in countries with large numbers of citizens from poverty-stricken countries, often suffering from brutal conflicts. Citizens of those countries regularly applied for any kind of temporary visa, including student visas, as a chance to go to the U.S., hoping to stay, if they could find a way, or flee to Canada to apply for asylum. I hated turning down people I felt sorry for but who were obviously unsuited for those visas.

Even if such programs like the Youth and Exchange Study are not feasible at this time, we Christians can at least pray for the day when the situation is not so dire. In the meantime, we can use the tools of the Internet to learn about other countries and possibly connect with others who share our interests in growing our knowledge. The much-touted social media often centers around self, but it is available for deeper pursuits as well.

 

A Tablecloth, Syria, and the Arab Spring

While working in the Middle East, I purchased a tablecloth from Syria, famous for centuries for its lustrous damask fabric. After reading of current atrocities committed in that country, I pull it out and examine it. Cerulean and gold threads form geometric figures against the white background. What has happened to the weavers, I wonder.

Damascus, the capital of Syria, where damask was first produced, is one of the world’s oldest cities. The apostle Paul was on his way to Damascus when he experienced his dramatic conversion (Bible, book of Acts, ninth chapter). Christian tourists still visit the street called Straight, where Paul lodged afterward.

Under the dictatorship of the Assad family since 1970, the country lately has been affected by the Arab spring, the demands for change in other Arab countries. The Assad family’s responses to the uprisings in Syria are especially brutal. They include jailing merely for demonstrating and torture, even of children.

Different ethnic and religious groups inhabit Syria, making the outcome of the rebellion hard to predict. Christians have lived there since Paul’s time. Today they are estimated to make up about ten percent or less of the Syrian population. Despite the Assad family’s harsh rule, Christians have generally been protected from persecution. If the Assad family loses power, what will happen to them?

A hard decision for Christians to make: should they support an inhumane dictatorship in order to preserve their tenuous place in society? Or should they support change, hoping and working toward a more just society when that outcome is not guaranteed?

It is not the first time for Christians to choose between their own comfort and the risk of speaking out against injustice.

 

Them and Us

President Obama gave a major speech on U.S. foreign policy this past week. He chose the U.S. State Department as the location for the address, because the State Department is headquarters for our country’s relationships with foreign countries. Our diplomats (Foreign Service officers) carry out our policies in well-known places like Baghdad, London, and Tokyo. They also serve the United States in cities and towns like Peshawar, Skopje, Ulan Bator, Djibouti, and Bridgetown.

Several protagonists in my stories work as Foreign Service officers. I have learned to introduce their jobs slowly, because few Americans, I have found, have any idea what diplomats do.

In my own fourteen-year stint as a Foreign Service officer, mostly in the Middle East, I issued passports to U.S. citizens living there, documented their children as American citizens, and interviewed foreigners who wanted to visit, study, work, or immigrate to the United States to determine their eligibility.

When an American citizen in my district died, usually in an accident but sometimes as a victim of a terrorist attack, I notified the family in the States and documented the death. If appropriate, we arranged for sending the body back to the U.S.

I visited American children living with a foreign parent from whom the absent American parent (usually the mother) was divorced. I reported on the child’s well being and development to the absent parent. We worked to secure visitation rights for the American parent to that child.

I visited U.S. citizens detained in foreign prisons, then updated the families in the States on their condition and passed messages back and forth.

Other colleagues carried out different functions: political, economic, administrative, development, commercial, agricultural, and related tasks to advance U.S. interests.

Even with our operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, Americans appear to have little interest in other cultures and our dealings with them. Unfortunately, such ignorance may lead to tragedies like September 11, 2001.

 

Pirates and Bundlers

Somali pirates recently killed four Americans in the Indian Ocean, whom they had seized as hostages for ransom. The Indian Ocean, a main shipping lane, has become dangerous as pirates have discovered a way to tap into wealth from other nations, though the murder of hostages is rare. Pirates extract ransom merely for releasing sailors and boat passengers.

When people obtain wealth without giving worth in exchange, we all pay the price. Shipping companies pay ransom so that they can continue transporting their goods, apparently considering the ransom another “cost” of doing business. The price of the ransoms, for no added value, are passed on to the buyers of the goods.

Companies operating in countries with corrupt governments, and citizens needing government services pay bribes, another “cost” of service. The bribes increase the cost of the goods or services for no added value. Moral corruption also results. Greed, not the common good, triumphs.

In more developed nations, some find other ways of making money without adding value to goods or services. “Bundling” home mortgages of unqualified buyers with those of qualified buyers brings money to the bundlers, but only increases the cost to others (i.e., social services, taxpayers) when buyers default who should not have been given mortgages in the first place.

 

Egypt: What About a Public Servant?

I read the news headline this morning: “Egypt: Explosion of anger decades in the making.”

Long-established dictatorships in the Arab world are threatened. Ben Ali, Tunisia’s leader since 1987, has fled to Saudi Arabia. Some take bets on how long before Egypt’s dictator, Hosni Mubarak, will follow Ben Ali. (Still in power as of this writing, but the situation changes hourly.) Others under the microscope include Algeria, Yemen, and even Saudi Arabia.

Does anyone remember 1989, the year countries of eastern Europe, beginning with Poland, threw off the yoke of Soviet Russia? Or a couple of years later when the Soviet Union itself ceased to exist? How about when Germans tore down the Berlin Wall, leading to eventual reunification of East and West Germany?

Is that ancient history now or is the Arab unrest a delayed extension of those movements? And what will it mean to U.S. interests in the Middle East, since Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Tunisia have been our allies in the fight against terrorism?

Why do leaders become so enamored with longevity, power, and wealth? Ben Ali’s party had been in power since 1956; Ben Ali is only the second leader to run the country. His relatives used the family connection to amass fortunes. Mubarak has been in power since 1981 and reportedly was grooming his son to take over after him. Others come to mind: Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, Kim Jong-il of North Korea.

Our own country has seen corruption and political scandals, but through the centuries since its birth, most Americans have professed belief that elected officials are chosen to serve us, not themselves. We often use the term “public servant.”

Perhaps a belief in servant-hood is the key to government that works for citizens instead of ignoring them. As long as most Americans believe this, our government may function reasonably well. And if those Arab demonstrations lead to servant leaders, those young Arabs who wave flags and shout slogans may be responsible for governments truly for the people. If not, the chances are great that the new leaders will be the old leaders with new names.

Of course, servant-hood may be more kin to spiritual grace than political savvy.

 

 

Community at Rest

Perhaps the current economic recession is an enforced rest, a kind of sabbatical that may strengthen community. Society now expects all Americans in their prime years to hold full-time, paying jobs. Indeed, our current standard of living requires it. Some single adults find it difficult to live on one income, much less a family. Leisure time for community, reflection, creativity, and caring has all but vanished.

The pain of the recession is real. Americans lose their homes, go without proper nourishment, and forgo medical care. Nevertheless, those of us in less dire straights might reflect on the change to a less consumer-oriented society, temporarily at least.

We might ponder the cost exacted by the frantic pace of the past few years. Or we might take a few hours to read about the rest of the world and what America’s place will be in it in the years to come. Or—who knows—we might muse about those shootings in Arizona and what we may learn from them.

Times of hardship and tragedy sometimes uncover our deep needs for family, friendships, and community.

 

A View from Saudi Arabia the Day the Twin Towers’ Fell

Like most Americans on September 11, 2001, I watched the television, horrified, as the twin towers toppled in New York City. Unlike most Americans, I watched the unfolding scene from one of our U.S. consulates in Saudi Arabia, where I worked for the U.S. government.

Though we did not know at the time that most of the hijackers were from that country, if asked why Americans were hated with such brutality, I could have told you that very day.

Part of my job was visiting Americans in jail. Most Americans I visited were jailed because they sold illegal liquor in that conservative Muslim country. Selling alcohol, X-rated movies, acting in ways considered offensive to the Saudi conservative interpretation of Islam were the reasons most Americans were arrested.

To some devout Muslims of that country, Americans were a decadent lot who brought in booze, drugs, and pornography. And, they believed, Americans not only were decadent but brought their decadence to Saudi Arabia and corrupted the country with their petrodollars. Then, to protect their oil, the Americans brought thousands of their soldiers to the Middle East to fight Muslims. So it appeared to many. They wanted us out.

There are no excuses for 9/ll. Nothing excuses the actions of the hijackers, who chose to act out their anger for the threats to their culture by committing an act of pure evil. We might, however, redeem that awful day of sorrow and hurt. We might reflect on the suffering caused when those threatened by changes to beloved cultures choose to fight with hatred.

In our own country, citizens of different viewpoints sometimes appear to want to vanquish the opposing side as the hijackers wanted to vanquish America, giving in to hatred as they react to perceived threats to their way of life. No one in a democracy gets everything they want. Our best memorial to those who died in New York City nine years ago this month might be to honor our differences. We might look for ways to fuse our differences into a bridge, an arched bridge, stronger than any part by itself.

If we do not learn to use and even celebrate our differences and to respect those who disagree with us, we may cause our own destruction, more tragic than what those hijackers did on 9/11.

 

Reaping from our Economic Sowing

Our semi-rural, island community of a few thousand has been hit hard by the recession. A few stores have shut their doors, and our drugstore, here for decades, consolidated with a branch in another town.

Only a couple of years ago, modest homes sold quickly for half a million dollars. Now, For Sale signs fade in the weather.

Some say the slowdown is not all bad. The development that threatened to pave over the remaining farms and forests of our island with second homes has all but halted. I enjoy knowing that the farm up the road probably won’t be sold anytime soon, and I can continue to walk by and watch the cows and lambs grazing.

I’m concerned, however, for construction workers and others laid off because of the downturn. What can we do to overcome the cycles of boom and bust?

We rejoice when the economy expands and good jobs are available. New housing appears as a sign of a healthy economy.

But arable land to build on is not infinite, and much of the new building erases valuable farm land. Are we expecting the economy to spiral upward forever? To always sell more goods and services?

Can’t someone come up with an economic model that sustains a comfortable economic level without constantly producing more and more and building more and bigger houses?

As I understand it, the last economic boom was fueled by a lot of us buying things we couldn’t afford. Most of that buying was on credit.

Tragedies and unforseen events can force any of us into debt. We’re all vulnerable to such possibilities.

But much of the past credit splurge was for things we could easily have done without, at least until we had saved money to buy them. Perhaps it’s part of the current mentality that infects us. A mistaken notion that because we want it, we should have it and have it right now.

We were blessed in the past few decades in this country to have wealth that had no precedent in human history, spread over a large percentage of the population.

We could have used the vast wealth that accrued to us since the Second World War to eliminate hunger, to build the best school system in the world, and to build liveable cities. We chose to spend our patrimony on three-car-garage houses, Hummers, big screen TV’s, the latest gadgets, and more super highways.

Now we’re paying the price. We bought on credit, and we’re paying huge interest, beyond the value of the initial purchases.

We could change, though. We could learn things like self-discipline, responsibility, and sharing. Perhaps. If we are willing to leave the days of glut behind us. Forever.