Category Archives: Past as Prologue to Future

Past Wrongs; Present Choices

Few Americans under forty remember the seizure of the American embassy in Iran in 1979 by Iranian radicals, followed by the imprisonment of fifty-two American diplomats for 444 days. Many hostages, after their release, went on to productive lives. Others suffered severe emotional damage that they and their families carry to this day because of torture and inhumane conditions.

The Cuban revolution happened in the late fifties, many years before the Iranian crisis. It affected more people, however, and Cuban-Americans live among us who fled Castro’s dictatorship since then and who can tell us of wrongs committed by that government.

Both Iran and Cuba practice human rights violations. But some of our allies do also. Saudi Arabia and Egypt come to mind. That does not excuse their human rights abuses. It means that we find it in our interests to have diplomatic ties. Choosing not to have relations appears to do nothing to stop human rights violations.

We broke ties with Cuba half a century ago because it was a nation on our doorstep allied with the Soviet Union. The Cuban missile crisis was real, but the Soviet Union no longer exists. Neither Russia nor Venezuela (a supporter of Cuba) are able to offer the aid they once did.

Iran is more difficult. Iran wants to become a major power in the Middle East. If Iranians are not subject to nuclear inspections, they will most likely develop a nuclear weapon. If they are subject to inspections, they have less chance of doing so.

We tried military intervention in Iraq. It cost us dearly and multiplied our problems in the Middle East. Why do we suppose any military “solution” we might inflict on Iran would end differently? Get real.

While accepting that we have serious concerns with both countries, can we not forge a more intelligent relationship with Cuba and Iran? One that has more chance of success than failed policies of the past?

Why Such Hatred in the Middle East?

I don’t remember ever meeting anyone of the Muslim faith when I was growing up in Nashville, Tennessee. I certainly wasn’t aware of the chief division of Islam between Sunni and Shi’a. That division now splinters the Middle East, leading to acts of inhumanity not known since the days of Nazism.

The ancient conflict began over the succession to Islam’s leader, Mohammed, in the seventh century. At Mohammed’s death, some thought he chose his son-in-law Ali to succeed him as leader. They eventually became know as Shi’a. Others thought he chose his companion Abu Bakr as leader of the growing Muslim community. They became known as Sunni.

The majority of Muslims belong to the Sunni tradition, but Shi’a Muslims are a significant presence in several countries. Most Muslims in Iran are Shi’a. A majority of Muslims in Iraq are Shi’a. Yemen is home to large numbers of Shi’a.

A majority of Syria’s Muslims are Sunni, but the al-Assad family, belonging to a Shi’a related group, have reigned as dictators for decades over the Sunni. They have generally been allies of Shi’a Iran, and Iran has supported Bashar al-Assad in his attempt to retain power. The resulting factional struggle has devastated Syria.

The former leader of Iraq, Saddam Hussein, was Sunni. He was a brutal leader whose Sunni government held sway over the majority Iraqi Shi’a. When Saddam was overthrown by the American led coalition in the early 2000’s, Shi’a Iraqis took power away from Sunni Iraqis.

All of the above makes for a potent mix of warring factions.

Recently, conflict in Yemen between Sunni and Shi’a has drawn in Saudi Arabia. Some analysts fear that the Middle East will see a major war between the two groups, a Sunni group led by Saudi Arabia and a Shi’a group led by Iran.

As the United States tries to craft a foreign policy to take us through these minefields, this is not a time for slogans, sound bytes, or political posturing. Let our debates on possible directions be reasoned, respectful, and knowledgeable, not partisan. The Middle East has enough of that.

Maybe the Digital Age Began When Pens Became Obsolete

In the novel Gutenberg’s Apprentice, by Alix Christie, the protagonist, Peter Schoeffer, a scribe in the year 1450, is shown a few printed pages, heralding a new age of inexpensive books. His father, a businessman, is excited and is considering investing in this new business of printing books. Printing would mean the end of copying them with pen and ink. He asks how long it would take Peter to scribe a copy of these pages by hand.

Peter not only can scribe manuscripts quite rapidly, but he is proud of his profession as well. It would take him, he says, two days, at most.

His father responds: a half dozen copies can be “printed,” a new word, in the time it takes Peter to scribe one with pen and ink. And in an instant, Peter sees the eventual end of his profession, the profession that created beautiful works of art.

In those few paragraphs is the pattern of a story stretching through today. Computers, the Internet, and countless digital inventions strike down the old, both good and bad. They create the new, both good and bad.

Old beauty was lost, but the ability of anyone who could read to buy books and exchange ideas was born. Though artists learned how to create beauty in printed form, too, something was lost. Something was gained. As it is today.

American Atrocities at Abu Ghraib and the Paris Murders

According to news reports, one of the terrorists involved in the January 7 attacks on journalists and a kosher market in France was angered years earlier by pictures of the Abu Ghraib prison atrocities.

Americans appear to have forgotten those images of U.S. soldiers humiliating Iraqi prisoners in 2003. Prisoners were stripped naked, forced into humiliating positions, and otherwise inhumanely treated. The resulting scandal tarnished the reputation of the United States as a defender of human rights. China noted the hypocrisy of our issuance of human rights reports, detailing abuses in virtually every country on the globe, when we, obviously, have our own problems.

Nothing excuses terrorist murders, but sins (and the atrocities at Abu Ghraib were certainly sins) tend to breed consequences spilling over into later suffering of innocents.

The talk of American exceptionalism signifies nothing if we don’t acknowledge that we have failings. Repentance for such failings is not a sign of weakness but a path toward a stronger nation.

The Flap Over Vladimir

The Russian currency has tumbled in the world money markets. A combination of circumstances contributed. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s actions in the Ukraine led to sanctions by Europe and the U.S. In addition, it’s not a happy time for oil producers like Russia, as oil prices have reached historic lows.

Due to what is called “crony capitalism,” Russia missed opportunities to evolve into a responsible actor on the world stage when the Soviet Union collapsed in the early 1990’s. Too much money has gone to Kremlin business favorites, and corruption has harmed ordinary Russians. At the same time, the West overplayed its triumph.

The desire for respect and security gave Putin the chance to play on the historic Russian fear of domination by outside powers. Unlike the United States, Russia historically has suffered from invasion, including Mongols in the thirteenth century, Napoleon in the nineteenth, and Germany in the twentieth.

Alexander J. Motyl, in a recent article in Foreign Affairs, says we should take a page from U.S. Cold War diplomat George Kennan. Contain Putin by sanctions and economic means so that he does not overpower the countries around him.

At the same time, recognize that Russia has legitimate fears due to its past history. Wait until the opportunity to establish friendlier relations. Never humiliate. Hubris does not make for partnership.

Heroes and the Rest of Us

I had never heard of a small group of resisters to Nazism called the White Rose until I read about them in an article in Plough Quarterly (Autumn, 2014). The White Rose passed out leaflets calling for subversive activities against Nazi war efforts in early 1940’s Germany. Eventually, the resisters were caught, tried, and executed.

The article was written by Maximilian Probst, grandson of one of the resisters. “Heroism,” he wrote, “will always start when people turn away from their own persons and place themselves in the service of a cause, a cause that may often only affect them indirectly, a cause in the service of others, of the disadvantaged, the persecuted, the oppressed, the tortured, the murdered.”

Not all of us, Probst said, are called to be heroes, but we can remember them by taking up “our mundane and daily task of living an upright life.”

To me, this means practicing quiet subversion against the dominant culture of the day, which reckons pleasure and the amassing of wealth as the chief ends of life. Christians in the West are, as theologian Walter Brueggemann expressed it, exiles, an inconvenience to “consumer oriented capitalism.” (Deep Memory, Exuberant Hope, Walter Brueggemann.)

December 7, 1941, and September 11, 2001

Pearl Harbor Attack December 7, my calendar notes, is Pearl Harbor Day. The day commemorates lives lost in the attack on the U.S. naval base in Hawaii by Japanese forces in 1941. It led immediately to our entry into World II.

I understand the clutch in the gut Americans felt when they turned on their radios early on that Sunday morning. I felt the same when I walked into a room at the U.S. consulate in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, on September 11, 2001, and saw the television tuned to CNN. In living color, we watched over and over the replays of the attacks on New York and other places “out of a clear blue sky.”

Attack on the Twin Towers In an article in the Foreign Service Journal (January, 2012), Margaret Sullivan recounted her early years in China as the daughter of an American missionary teacher when Japanese forces took over China. Ms. Sullivan remembers a Japanese soldier smiling at her family as they went through a checkpoint.

Now, she said, she has trouble accepting the wartime evaluation of Japanese people.

We tend to demonize any who are related to those who harm our country. We have difficulty seeing “the enemy” as individuals, some choosing to do harm, others simply caught up in an evil they did not condone.

Ms. Sullivan wrote: “I still grapple with the critical distinction between abhorring evil acts and casually lumping together all of a particular group of people as embodying that evil. And I am profoundly troubled for my own country when some among us incite hatred against the spectrum of other individuals and their widely differing communities and beliefs, as a single ‘bad guy’ entity.”

The Wall Fell, and Then . . .

The Berlin Wall fell twenty-five years ago this month.

The Fall of the Wall 1989 Jubilant crowds from East and West Germany began crossing it and hammering off pieces in 1989, as the Communist East collapsed. From the beginning, the Wall symbolized failure. What successful nation must build a wall to force its citizens to remain?

A few years later, my husband and I visited the few chunks of the Wall still standing. Not many were left. A reunited Germany now is a democracy and one of the world’s economic powers.

The lesson of the Wall for me is that we waited out the Soviets. We chose not to waste our lives and national treasure in a major war with them. Instead, we built up our economy and a strong middle class and universities that became the envy of the world. The rest followed.

We might remember that lesson today. We drift toward a nation of the wealthy few and the rest, with a dwindling middle class. How can we expect to win against today’s ISIS and other regimes more brutal than the Soviet if all we can show them is a dysfunctional government too influenced by big money?

Digital Gutenberg

The world was never the same after Johannes Gutenberg rolled off the first printed books in Europe in the 1450’s.

Cheap books, pamphlets, and tracts spread ideas that torched whole societies. Religious reforms followed in their path but also wars and revolutions. Religious persecution reached new heights. Sometimes lunatics raised large followings.

The power brokers, the political and religious leaders, no longer controlled ideas. More people learned to read. Ordinary folks read the Bible in their own tongue, not in the Latin of the elite. Cherished beliefs crumbled. Power struggles ripped apart kingdoms across Europe, creating hordes of refugees.

Yet, when greater stability took hold by the 1700’s, religious tolerance had increased. Though established religions lost influence, many faith-based religious groups gained. They led movements to block the slave trade, set up educational programs for the less well off, and send missionaries to serve native peoples harmed by Europe’s desire for conquest and wealth.

Fast forward to the 1990’s and the 2000’s. The internet and the computer power of tablets and phones have unleashed as much chaos as Gutenberg’s typesets.

But the promise is there, too, as it was in the early modern age for those who accept the changes and work with rather than against them. The world waits for those with enough compassion and self-discipline and courage to lead the way. The potential is there, gleaming among the raw newness that obliterates old ways of doing things.

Why the Flood of Children Across Our Border?

The flood of Central American children across the border into the United States recalls the troubled history of that region and our involvement in it.

One Central American country, Nicaragua, was ruled by the Somoza family for decades. After the family was deposed in a coup in 1979, the country became a battleground between leftist and rightist groups for years. Some of the rightist groups were supported by the United States.

In El Salvador, a brutal civil war lasted from 1980 until 1992. The Cubans under Fidel Castro supported one side, and the United States the other. Regardless of its Cold War cast, the people suffered atrocities that no one should have to endure. Óscar Romero, a bishop of the Catholic Church, preached against poverty, injustice, and the assassinations and torture that were occurring. He himself was assassinated while offering Mass in 1980. Four American nuns serving in El Salvador were raped and murdered during that time.

In Honduras, forces backed by the United States fought against a leftist government in another Cold War conflict. Today Honduras has one of the highest murder rates in the world.

The violence in the region which many of the children are fleeing may be seen as one legacy from so many years of armed conflict.

The Loyal Opposition: Can We Allow Dissent? (No, This Isn’t About Congress.)

Memories of the Cold War fade. Few of us remember coups allegedly carried out by covert operators of the United States during that time.

We were locked in a struggle with the Evil Empire, the Soviets. Who but historians and aging Cold War warriors remember the pawns in that struggle: Iran, the Congo, Pakistan, Chili?

In those countries in the long ago fifties and sixties, how much did United States covert action contribute to the unseating of democratically elected leaders? How much responsibility should we take for the results of their toppling and the often brutal dictators that replaced them? Or the corruption? Or the refugee flows that followed bloodletting?

The July/August 2014 issue of Foreign Affairs recounts those events by those who have studied them and sometimes were on the scene when they happened. In some instances, our reputation has exceeded what our agents on the ground actually did. Inept leaders contributed more than U.S. policy, stated or unstated. Nevertheless, the studies illustrate what happens when a nation beset by real enemies is carried away by hatred and paranoia.

As the studies show, the actions in question were usually opposed at each step by cooler, more rational actors. But they weren’t listened to. In some cases, they were steam rolled and even suffered loss of careers.

How much responsibility should we accept for the hostility to the United States that remains in those countries to this day?

Are Americans Exceptional?

Samuel P. Huntington, a Harvard professor, wrote an article, “The West Unique, Not Universal” for Foreign Affairs in 1996. The Western alliance of nations had won the Cold War. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, everything from Coca-Cola to democracy appeared unstoppable. Soon American exceptionalism would conquer the globe, we believed.

Perhaps not. Huntington listed several unique ancestors of Western civilization: the classical legacy, Western Christianity, European languages, separation of spiritual and temporal authority, rule of law, social pluralism with its civil society, representative bodies, and individualism. Huntington believed that when strong leaders (like Kemal Ataturk in Turkey) attempt to force Westernization on their non-Western citizens, they create “torn” societies.

Consider the upheaval in Iran that caused the repudiation of the Shah’s ties to the United States in 1979. Or the fallout from the more recent Arab spring revolutions and the brutal conflicts in Syria and Iraq.

The West developed unique characteristics, whose foundations Americans built on to create their own society. Our exceptionalism matters little, however, if we ignore the uniqueness of other civilizations. Some, more ancient than Western ones, perceive society in different ways.

We would do better to serve as example, not exporter or enforcer.

Are We Created Equal?

“We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal . . .” states the founding document of the United States, the Declaration of Independence.

Apparently some of our founders did not completely subscribe to this view. Thomas Jefferson, considered the primary author of the Declaration, owned slaves. So did others who signed the document.

America’s Civil War president, Abraham Lincoln, once responded to the question: Why did America’s founders not fulfill this principle of equality?

Lincoln is reported to have replied: “Ah, it’s like Jesus’ words. ‘Be ye perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect.’ It is not that Jesus thought we were perfect or are perfect but that this is really a road on which we are to progress toward perfection.”

We might advance beyond our current political paralysis if we swapped political sound bytes for reasoning together, since, indeed, none of us has yet reached perfection.

What Is This Place Named Tiananmen Square?

Tiananmen Square 1989 One million protesters You may see the term “Tiananmen Square” frequently in the news this next week. A quarter century ago, a movement in that square in Beijing, China, for more democracy, was crushed by authorities in June, 1989. Hundreds of students are estimated to have been killed, perhaps more.

The watershed year 1989, however, was not over. In the autumn, countries in eastern Europe, starting with Poland, erupted with “democracy fever,” leading to their departure from the Soviet Union. Before the year ended, tentative beginnings toward democratic governments in these countries stumbled forward.

Tiananmen Square 1989 Military assault Spring, 1989, had seen the movement in China smothered by the military. However, in November of that same year, the barrier between East and West Germany in Berlin—”the Wall”—fell.

More recently, Arab movements toward more inclusive governments appear to have birthed more failures than successes. And what about Ukraine?

The story continues to write itself—successes and failures—but it’s not over. We wait for more chapters. In the meantime, read a moving story from an American who was in Tiananmen Square at the time.

Who of the Religiously Uncommitted Will Build Our Hospitals?

Eboo Patel, an American Muslim, asks “What will happen to U.S. civil society as the pews empty out?” He refers to the many social service agencies built over time by Christians and members of other faith traditions. (“‘Nones’ and the Common Good,” Sojourners, March 2014.)

Some atheists are attempting to offer communities for the uncommitted, as well as services to the vulnerable. But will their beliefs allow the dedication necessary, over centuries, to build hospitals and universities? Will they have the compassion and stamina to staff homeless shelters, addiction centers, and disaster relief efforts?

Some of the uncommitted exhibit more compassion, character, and intelligence than many of the religious. Some are indeed involved in what can only be called good works.

Nevertheless, they will have a lot of catching up to do. Patel cites Robert Putnam, Harvard social scientist, in noting that three-quarters of philanthropy goes to religiously affiliated groups. The religiously affiliated know a long tradition of healing and ministering to the poor.

Christians, in addition, are commissioned to “preach the Good News.” We had better make sure the news we preach is good, not hate-filled or power-driven. This may be what separates us from other do-gooders.

Remembrance of Pearl Harbor Day (December 7) and World War II: A Tale of Mercy

Visiting a relative’s grave site in a Nashville cemetery, my brother pointed out a nearby grave for a neighbor of our family. He told me a story pulled from our family’s history. Our relative, call him Odis, too old to fight, sold insurance during World War II.

As is common, friends and family depended on him for their insurance needs. The neighbor, call him Edward, had insured his house with Odis before he left to serve with U.S. forces, part of an air crew that made regular bombing runs over Europe. His wife lived in the house, hoping for her husband’s return, whenever that might be.

One day Odis noticed that Edward’s policy was due for another payment. “Don’t send out the notice to his wife,” he said. “We’ll wait as long as we can. Her husband’s plane was shot down over Europe, and he’s reported as missing in action.”

I waited for my brother to recite the rest of the story, for surely there was more. Yes, the plane had been hit by enemy fire. The crew bailed out. Edward, the last one, discovered that his parachute was defective. He jumped, resorting to his emergency chute. It deployed, almost knocking him out with its force. He revived to see a German fighter plane with his sights on him. For whatever reason, Edward never knew why, the German pilot did not fire on him but buzzed past. I like to think the pilot chose to show mercy.

Edward landed in a field, where resistance fighters picked him up before the Germans could find him. They got him out through enemy lines, his final rescue being by boat, and he returned to America.

A few weeks after the report that he was missing in action, Edward walked into Odis’ office and paid his insurance bill.

His grave and that of his wife, dates of death sometime in the 1980’s, rest within sight of the graves of Odis and his wife.

Middle East Quicksand

The Middle East has embroiled U.S. presidents since the end of World War II. Harry Truman’s administration recognized the establishment of the modern day state of Israel.

Under Dwight Eisenhower, the United States aided in the overthrow of a popular leader in the country of Iran, Mohammed Mossadegh. This action has influenced Iranian sentiment against the U.S. ever since.

John F. Kennedy attempted to mend ties with Arab leaders while maintaining strong relations with Israel.

Lyndon Johnson, though involved with the Vietnamese conflict, pushed Israel to a cease fire agreement following the 1967 war between Israel and Arab nations.

Henry Kissinger worked under Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford to effect agreements to end the Arab/Israeli war of 1973.

Jimmy Carter’s sponsorship of meetings between Israeli and Egyptian leaders led to the Camp David Accords and eventually to Egypt’s recognition of Israel, the first for an Arab state. In 1979, the takeover of the U.S. embassy in Tehran, Iran, resulted in the hostage taking of American diplomats. This event haunted the rest of Carter’s administration literally to the last day of his stay in office, when they were finally released.

In Ronald Reagan’s administration, a truck bomb killed sixty-three people at the U.S. embassy in Lebanon. Later, the bombing of U.S. Marine barracks in Lebanon killed 241 military personnel. Though promising not to negotiate with terrorists, the Iran-contra affair revealed that negotiations were nevertheless carried on between the Reagan administration and Hezbollah for the release of hostages taken by Hezbollah in Lebanon.

George H. W. Bush led a coalition which pushed Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi forces out of Kuwait.

Bill Clinton’s administration shepherded the Oslo Accords, an agreement between Israeli and Palestinian leaders that promised peace between the two sides. The agreement fell apart in 2000 during failed meetings at Camp David. A terrorist called Osama bin Laden formed groups that began attacking American interests around the world. The Clinton administration responded by raids on Afghan camps of the terrorists.

The attacks of September 11, 2001, on U.S. targets by bin Laden led to U.S. military campaigns in both Afghanistan and Iraq under George W. Bush.

Barack Obama’s administration has struggled to extricate the U.S. from the military campaigns in these countries and has withdrawn troops completely from Iraq. However, the events in Libya and Egypt and especially the horrors in Syria bedevil his administration and promise no easy exit from Middle Eastern problems.

Enemy of My Enemy Is My Friend?

Those faded photos on the walls of my office at the U.S. consulate in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, hinted at beginning bonds between two disparate nations. American oil prospectors sit in sand-dusted offices, close to where the consulate is now, resting a few moments before continuing the search for the black gold that would transform both nations. In 1938, Dammam well No. 7, a few miles from where I later was to work, began producing.

At the time, most Americans lived in small towns or central cities. Suburbs were mostly for the elite, founded on train lines that connected them to the still important city. Then came World War II, with its need for energy to power war machines. Following victory by America and her allies, Americans fled to the car-centric suburbs. The U.S. formed alliances with Middle Eastern governments, none of which could be called democracies, in order to keep the oil flowing for our cars and machines.

Americans had oil in their veins from the beginning of oil exploration in the 1800’s. Thousands of them from Oklahoma, Texas, and other oil producing states found jobs at Saudi Aramco, the Saudi oil giant, in a city built for them, with housing, swimming pools, restaurants, a commissary, and medical care.

Thus, the United States became bound to the Middle East, with all its religious divides, power politics, and ethnic hatreds.

During the Soviet era, the alliances were clear. We were against communism and so were they, at least the countries that provided us with oil. The founding of Israel complicated the alliances, but until the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, our friends were the enemies of our enemies.

Since then, our major conflicts have risen from those early alliances. The terrorism that haunts us grew out of them.

Syria, our current nightmare, while not a friend in any traditional sense, is the enemy of our enemy, a secular state that opposed our terrorist foes. Now it, too, is home to a human tragedy that threatens to engulf the whole region and the world beyond. Our NATO allies are intricately bound to the region, affected by refugees from its wars. China’s dependence on oil to power its growing economy makes it a front row participant.

So those rough prospectors pictured in my office at the U.S. consulate began something that we never learned to deal with in any long term way. We wanted the oil, whatever the consequences.

The consequences have arrived.

Egypt and Syria: Worrying Prelude to the Future?

Are the Egyptian and Syrian conflicts typical of the near future for the Middle East? Good guys, bad guys, sometimes on the same side? Ethnic and religious attacks? Plenty of villains but no clear heroes? The Syrian conflict, especially, now involves nearby countries: masses of refugees, arms shipments, and occasional spillover of armed forays. Are these preludes to larger conflicts? What does past history tell us?

The Spanish Civil War of 1936-1939, a war forgotten by most of us, is called by some a prelude to World War II, which began a few months after the end of the Spanish conflict. The more traditional Spanish citizens, including many in the Catholic Church and landowning and business classes were called nationalists. Many urban workers, middle-class liberals, and some Communists were called republicans. The nationalists received support from Nazi Germany. The republicans received support from the Soviet Union.

Both sides committed atrocities. The town of Guernica was pounded to rubble by incendiary bombs. A third of its population was reported killed or wounded.

The United States was not directly involved, but some Americans joined the republicans, most in a youthful desire to liberate. Earnest Hemingway wrote about one such fictional character in For Whom the Bell Tolls. The story ends tragically for the hero just as the war did. For almost four decades afterward, Spain was ruled by the dictator Francisco Franco.

At the time, European countries had been in a state of tension caused by the horrible brutality of World War I and its unresolved ending. Hatred, pride, and humiliation all played a part in the inability of Europeans to come together to prevent World War II. This hatred was evident in the Spanish conflict. Unfortunately, a failure to understand hatred’s consequences prevented the compromises necessary to resolve the differences.

At this chaotic time, we follow the promise of talks between Israelis and Palestinians. All parties suggest that any progress will be difficult. Bitterness, grievances, and brutalities haunt the process. A look into history should convince us to try anyway, to understand, this time, that only forgiveness offers hope.

Ann Gaylia O'Barr

Culture and World Events from a Christian Perspective