If it is Serious About Curbing Political Islam, The West Must Support Demonstrators in Tunisia Unequivocally

There was another modernizer in the Islamic world, overthrown a little over thirty years ago circa 1979, his name was Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi. On October 22 1979 The Shah stepped on a plane to the US, never to return to his beloved "Persia." My guess is that  President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali's sojourn to an as yet undisclosed locale will remain just as permanent, wherever he finds sanctuary.  There had been reports that France (Tunisia's former colonizer) was requested as a sanctuary state by the former Tunisian leader, but President Sarkozy denies these reports just as loudly as he allegedly denied sanctuary itself to the longtime dictator (for more on this, see the second article from The Guardian linked above).

Like the now ousted Ben-Ali, in addition to a Westernizing and Modernizing program, The Shah was infamous for his authoritarianism and human rights abuses. The effects of this conflagration of secularism and authoritarianism is known to many Muslims, and the effects these resentments entailed in Iran could easily be reproduced in North Africa over the course of the next few weeks. So long as the West continues to throw its economic, diplomatic, and rhetorical weight behind authoritarian "modernizers" many Muslims around the world will continue to associate feminism and secular values with Western puppet regimes, torture, and the primacy of oil extraction over the the voices and interests of poor people across Muslim majority nations.

....and, some of these conclusions wouldn't be wrong, unfortunately for those of us who do genuinely care n human rights here in the Roman City on the Hill....

The parallels between Iran and the unfolding situation in this small North African nation so often lionized a model of a "modern" Islamic country are chilling. Street demonstrations, police clashes, and today the  (in)famous moment of the "flee." Luckily for observers, the symbolism of the flee is one of the oldest facets of anything resembling "modern politics" in world history. Since Louis XVI fled the National Assembly in 1791 "the flee" been the universal sign of a regime's insolvency. Even if he returns, in Lacanian terms, after the flee the leader never really "back." Whatever the outcome of the ongoing political uncertainty remains to be see, Ben Ali already is what he "will have been."

Make no mistake, if Western democracies continues to throw military and economic clout behind Ben-Ali's regime, even while publicly calling for the "constitutional" option, the language of political Islam, whoever its bearers, will seize the day in Tunisia.  The US and France have taken some preliminary steps, but now we need more content and less form. Those who value democracy around the world should advocate a real choice for Tunisia and her people, not merely the "transition" to Ben Ali's prime minister with the possibility that Ben Ali might attempt to return to the country in order to disrupt elections.  With speculation rife as to how the recent protests will effect Mubarak's grip on Egypt, and the France comparison gaining traction with Saudi Arabia, a real choice faces Europe and America, who with China's energy consumption rising every day, are no longer the only game in town if you want to build a nice little oil plutocracy. Either we demand something more for human dignity, or kiss your Suburban goodbye, Homer. 

How I left My Heart In Arizona

The rhetorical aftermath of the shooting in Arizona this week, as it played out on television screens and I-Pads across the country,  left us with one more unlikely and less noticed reverberation. That is, the only analytical remark Sarah Palin has made publicly over the course of the year. 

"There are those who claim that political rhetoric is to blame for the despicable act of this deranged, apparently apolitical criminal. And they claim political debate has somehow got more heated just recently. But when was it less heated? Back in those calm days when political figures literally settled their difference with duelling pistols?

Sarah is, ironically, quite right here. What should be rejected without reservations is all the hemming and hawing on the part of the bein pensant MSNBC cartel to the effect that America has "lost" something. As anyone who remembers critical theory 101 will tell you, the trope of lost origins is always ideology at its purest. When exactly did we have what we’ve allegedly lost in the heat of the year of Health Care Reform? The 60s? When Kennedy was assassinated and black Americans were beaten for having the gusto to have a drink of water in the Mississippi sun. Or perhaps we had “it” in the  70s, when the "boomers" fought Vietnam, Condoms, and John Lennon as if for their very survival. In a way, they were right. They were fighting for something like survival. The conflict that is playing itself out in the rhetoric surrounding "vitriol" (a vocabulary word for Fox News and CNN no doubt!) is merely another stage in a very old conflict. "Vitriol" is not new...nor are guns...nor is mental illness..

Sarah is right too. What's new is precisely how non-violent today's "culture warriors" are, despite their "vitriol."

In a recent conversation, a friend told me she thought it seemed like liberals we're waiting for this moment gleefully--for some crazy to "leave the reservation"--with their anti-Tea Party barbs ready. This is probably true, of me even more than most, though I have no glee over the blood spilled in Tuson. But isn't the real question we should ask something more like: why shouldn't we have been prepared for a murder? It isn’t that we liberals were hoping that someone would turn to violence, but anyone with a modicum of history available to them couldn't help but think it was only a matter of time until an unstable person took Glen Beck at his word. Does this mean that liberals concerned with “vitriol” are saying that Beck, Palin, and company directly culpable for the murder? No. But why have so many on the right essentially suggested that public figures should assume all individuals they are speaking to are mentally stable and understand the difference between "second amendment remedies" rhetorically and literally without much explaining. Shouldn't we demand just the opposite of public figures? That, precisely, they stake their claims in a way weary of the misinterpretations the mentally ill are prone to make.

What should be resisted at all costs on the left is the tendency to "psychologize" the whole situation, so to spaek. A good portion of the 'fourth branch' has essentially been arguing that the President is a traitor for a year and a half. Its not even the content of the Tea Party's rhetoric, which is pretty run of the mill right-wingery, but its violent vocabulary. I'll say it again. Sarah Palin is right, her target practice political action add was merely the language of dueling, not a duel in itself.

But therein lies the really difficult part. In the mythology of America the traitor is killed by the just armed citizen, and the Tea Party draws from the well of that imagery over and over again. This ironically resulted in the only vaguely analytical thing Sarah Palin has said in her entire political career: in older times "the American people" used to settle these disputes by violence all the time. The only problem is of course that Palin, Beck, et. all have used the essential language of dueling for all of 2010. Loughner’s mistake was to mistake form for content.

President Obama was in true form yesterday, doing what he does best. That is, telling America’s story back to America. He asked us whether we’d be worthy of the hope’s in democracy expressed by the nine year old child slain by Loughner, .Christina-Taylor Green. Who is this "we"? Can "we" be worthy of her family's grief too? Sorry Mr. President. I'm not hoping to overcome my cynicism anymore. I'm hoping for some audacity. 

How I left My Heart In Arizona

Policraticus: of the Frivolities of Courtiers and the Footprints of Philosophers, a work of the 12th century English political philosopher John of Salisbury, warns of Kings and paltry advisers who do not heed the wrath of God. The heuristic of this blog is to conjure this spirit for a new and emboldened critique of advice.